Search

The spatial concentration of human populations is a dynamic attribute of demographic systems and a multifaceted research dimension intrinsically dependent on settlement patterns and diverging (individual) geographies. An extensive literature dealing with the quantitative assessment of this demographic aspect has proposed several methodologies and approaches, conceptualizing and operationalizing the notions of “place” and “scale” in a different way. In this perspective, the present study investigates the spatial distribution of foreign and national populations residing in Italy for three years (2002, 2010, and 2018) adopting a mixed approach that integrates exploratory and confirmative statistical analyses of demographic indicators. The empirical results of this approach demonstrate that diverging interpretations of settlement patterns may result from the use of different methodologies, indicators, and observational scales. The study finally argues how future research on this topic should advocate for a better understanding of foreigners’ settlement pattern as a place-specific process and insists on the importance of measures based on integrated (spatial and statistical) approaches.

The spatial concentration of population is a key dimension for demography and population studies. Often it is not easy to properly measure this dimension because of its double nature (statistical and geographical process). The article proposes a new way of measuring the spatial concentration of the population based on the graphical representation of the Gini index. A spatial version of the classic Gini index of concentration (G) is therefore proposed according to the Lorenz curve notion. This version, called the Spatial Gini Index (SGI), essentially compiles in one index the two dimensions of territorial concentration: the statistical one, based on the concept of variability, and the geographical one, based on the concept of polarization (i.e., spatial autocorrelation). The proposed index is then applied to the spatial distribution of Italian and foreign residents in Italy in 2002, 2010, and 2018. The analysis is carried out at the provincial level. Results are compared to the classic Gini index, revealing important differences, especially referring to the foreign population that in this period intensively grew and presented a strong spatial bias in its territorial distribution. This underlines the importance of grasping the spatial dimension of the territorial concentration of human population. Future challenges for deploying this index are described.

PurposeThe purpose is to analyze the spatially varying impacts of corruption and public debt as % of GDP (proxies of government failures) on non-performing loans (NPLs) in European countries; comparing two periods: one prior to the crisis of 2007 and another one after that. The authors first modeled the NPLs with an ordinary lest square (OLS) regression and found clear evidence of spatial instability in the distribution of the residuals. As a second step, the authors utilized the geographically weighted regression (GWR) to explore regional variations in the relationship between NPLs and the proxies of “Government failures”.Design/methodology/approachThe authors first modeled the NPL with an OLS regression and found clear evidence of spatial instability in the distribution of the residuals. As a second step, the author utilized the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) (Fotheringham et al., 2002) to explore regional variations in the relationship between NPLs and proxies of “Government failures” (corruption and public debt as % of GDP).FindingsThe results confirm that corruption and public debt as % of GDP, after the crisis of 2007, have affected significantly on NPLs of the EU countries and the following countries neighboring the EU: Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Montenegro, and Turkey.Originality/valueIn a spatial prospective, unprecedented in the literature, this research focused on the impact of corruption and public debt as % of GDP on NPLs in European countries. The positive correlation, as expected, between public debt and NPLs highlights that fiscal problems in Eurozone countries have led to an important rise of problem loans. The impact of institutional corruption on NPLs reports that the higher the corruption, the higher is the level of NPLs.

International audience

In this paper we propose a logistic regression model to evaluate how different components of language contribute to its acquisition over time. Theempirical basis consists of a corpus which can be considered as a series of statistically representative samples taken at regular time intervals. Aim is to show how quantitative methods can contribute to solve linguistic puzzles., Dans cet article, nous proposons un modèle de régression logistique pour évaluer comment différentes composantes du langage contribuent à son acquisition au fil du temps. La base empirique consiste en un corpus qui peut être considéré comme une série d'échantillons statistiquement représentatifs prélevés à intervalles de temps réguliers.Le but est de montrer comment les méthodes quantitatives peuvent contribuer à résoudre des problèmes récurrents en linguistique.

Following the rapid and intense decrease after the “babyboom”, today Italy is one of the nations with the lowest fertility rate, In recent time the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was equal to 1.35, very close to the so-called “lowest low fertility” threshold. These low values of fertility not only impact on the population’s age structure, but also on social welfare systems since the increasing share of elderly needs more financial aid while the support from the working age population decreases. But is this decline at the national level? Do some determinants of the TFR act more in a specific territory?

In this paper we propose a robust fuzzy clustering model, the STAR-based Fuzzy C-Medoids Clustering model with Noise Cluster, to define territorial partitions of the European regions (NUTS2) according to the workplaces mobility trends for places of work provided by Google with reference to the whole COVID-19 pandemic period. The clustering model takes into account both temporal and spatial information by means of the autoregressive temporal and spatial coefficients of the STAR model. The proposed clustering model through the noise cluster is capable of neutralizing the negative effects of noisy data. The main empirical results regard the expected direct relationship between the Community mobility trend and the lockdown periods, and a clear spatial interaction effect among neighboring regions.

International audience

Cet article analyse deux suivis longitudinaux de deux enfants du projet CoLaJE: une annotation automatique des parties du discours a été appliquée à chaque énoncé (15'000 en total) en adoptant le standard des « Universal Dependencies » comme référence et « stanza », un librairie Python, comme outil d’analyse. L’âge et le taux d’erreur ont servi comme base pour la création de neuf strata: réduire la dimension du corpus nous permet de rendre intérpretables les groupements crées avec une méthode non-supervisée, EM clustering. Regrouper en clusters les énoncés des enfants annotés en parties du discours aide à mieux cibler le développement des catégories grammaticales au cours du temps: deux exemples concernants le développement de la cohérence morphosintaxique sont proposés, ainsi que deux exemples concernants l’évolution de la relation entre l’usage de pronoms et des noms. Une discussion finale des résultats et des limites de cette recherche est ensuite proposée..

The STAR model is widely used to represent the dynamics of a certain variable recorded at several locations at the same time. Its advantages are often discussed in terms of parsimony with respect to space-time VAR structures because it considers a single coefficient for each time and spatial lag. This hypothesis can be very strong; we add a certain degree of flexibility to the STAR model, providing the possibility for coefficients to vary in groups of locations. The new class of models (called Flexible STAR–FSTAR) is compared to the classical STAR and the space-time VAR by simulations and an application.

In this paper we show that a recently developed method for the study of “cultural” differences, called DBS-EM, or Distance Between Strata estimated with the EM (Expectation Maximization) algorithm, can also be used to circumvent the difficulties posed by APC (or Age, Period, Cohort) models. The DBS-EM method produces an original measure of the distance (dependent variable) between any two subsets of observations (strata) within a sample, where the stratification variables can be interpreted as regressors. When these stratification variables are age, period, and cohort, what results is an APC model which, however, proves immune to the “intrinsic collinearity problem” (C = P−A). With a few limitations, to be sure, which are discussed in the article. In our application to Italian data over the years 1993–2013, age and cohort strongly shape cultural consumption, while cohort and period impact, but only up to a point, on political participation.

ent farmed fish, the gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata Linnaeus, 1758) and the European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax, Linnaeus, 1758), blood samples were collected from a total of 60 specimens of each species, reared in Sicily, in the cold (February, mean temperature 13.40 °C) and warm seasons (October, mean temperature 23.20 °C). Biochemical (glucose, lactate, cholesterol, triglycerides and total protein) and hematological (red blood cell RBC, hemoglobin concentration Hgb, hematoctit Hct, mean corpuscular volume MCV, mean corpuscular hemoglobin MCH and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration MCHC) parameters were evaluated. Significant differences (P, Cilj istraživanja bio je procijeniti utjecaj temperature vode na biokemijske i hematološke pokazatelje kod dvije različite vrste farmski uzgajanih riba: lubina (Dicentrarchus labrax Linnaeus, 1758.) i komarče (Sparus aurata Linnaeus, 1758.). Ukupno 60 uzoraka krvi prikupljeno je od svake vrste, uzgajane na Siciliji, tijekom hladne (veljača, srednja temperatura 13,40 °C) i tople (listopad, srednja temperatura 23,20 °C) sezone. Analizirani su biokemijski pokazatelji (glukoza, laktat, kolesterol, trigliceridi i ukupne bjelančevine) i hematološki pokazatelji (broj eritrocita, koncentracija hemoglobina, hematokrit, prosječni volumen eritrocita MCV, prosječni hemoglobin u eritrocitu MCH i prosječna koncentracija hemoglobina u eritrocitu MCHC). Značajne razlike (P

In this paper we extend and improve a recently proposed method for the measurement of the cultural distance between strata. In the original version, strata meant countries: respondents from different countries were clustered on the basis of their answers to a set of questions and their resulting distribution among the K clusters thus formed was used to calculate the “position” of each country as a point in a K-dimensional space. The proposed improvements are as follows. First, the notion of “strata” is enlarged: not only geographic units, but also gender, age, education, religious attitudes and rural/urban residence. Second, clustering is now based on EM, or Expectation Maximization, which automatically determines the optimal number of clusters, thus overcoming one of the major limitations of the previous version of the method. Third, since this optimal number of clusters turns out to be small, a principal component analysis is used to capture most of the variability and draw a very telling, two-dimensional representation of how (culturally) distant strata are from one another. Fourth, since two types of distances between strata can be computed, a cultural and an “objective” one (e.g., kilometers between regions or years between age groups), their correlation can be calculated. On our Istat (Indagine multiscopo, Aspetti della vita quotidiana, Rome, 2013) data, expectations are confirmed: the farther strata are, the greater their cultural distance. The same happens for the (rural/urban) type of commune of residence. Religion, instead, is rarely, and gender is never, associated to any measurable cultural difference.

Resumen Objetivo Evaluar la calidad de vida (QoL) y supervivencia global tras cistectomia radical con ureterostomias cutaneas por cancer localmente avanzado de vejiga en pacientes ancianos con alto riesgo quirurgico. Metodos Cincuenta y ocho pacientes, mayores de 74 anos (edad media 80,6 ± 4,3) con cancer de vejiga localmente avanzado (grupo A), fueron sometidos a una cistectomia radical y derivacion ureterocutanea. Los pacientes completaron el cuestionario EORTC QLQC30 antes y 6 meses despues de la cirugia para valoracion de resultados funcionales, clinicos y de QoL. La misma evaluacion fue realizada en un grupo control (grupo B) de 29 pacientes (edad media 82,3 ± 3,8 anos), que habian rechazado la cistectomia. Los cuestionarios tambien fueron remitidos a pacientes de ambos grupos que sobrevivieron a los 20 meses y a los 5 anos. Resultados Todos los pacientes presentaron un ASA ≥ 3. La estancia hospitalaria media fue de 15,1 dias (± 4,8) en el grupo A y de 23,5 dias (± 4,1) en el grupo B. No hubo complicaciones intraoperatorias en el grupo A. La supervivencia global postoperatoria evaluada a los 6 meses en el grupo A fue del 97 vs 79% en el grupo B (p La relacion de calidad de vida e items de funcion y sintomas entre los 2 grupos a los 6 meses mostro una mejoria significativa de todos los parametros en el grupo A (p La supervivencia a corto plazo y a los 20 meses fue significativamente mayor en el grupo A (p Conclusion La cistectomia radical con ureterostomia cutanea representa una alternativa valida en pacientes ancianos con cancer de vejiga invasivo y alto riesgo quirurgico. La comparacion entre los grupos mostro una diferencia significativa en casi todos los parametros relacionados con la QoL y con respecto a la supervivencia a corto y medio plazo.

The paper collects the results of a survey performe d in 2010 aimed at analysing how high school studen ts in the province of Messina in Sicily (Italy) spend their t ime. Principally, is analyzed the interaction betwe en use of time, scholastic performance and time dedicated to study. So, we propose an estimation model for the d aily study-time of students. From a methodological point of view, using a two stage regression procedure to estimate self-rate performance (S rpe ) and time devoted to study (T stu ) allows to correct the estimates by simultaneity e f- fects between these variables. In the first stage, the self-rate performance at school is estimated in a reduced form and is used as a proxy of scholastic performance in the second step. Next, we run an ordinal regressio n in order to estimate the hours dedicated to study declared b y the student. The results obtained show that stude nts with a high expected value of study-time come from lyceum, they are mostly females, and tend to read more. Fu rther- more, they have satisfactory scholastic performance , are helped by their mothers when they do their ho mework, have a lower-than-average age difference with their mothers, but a higher-than-average age difference with their fathers. JEL-Codes: C13; C30; C36

Research in the field of emotions has highlighted that men and women differ as regards the perception and reaction to disgust. The aim of our study was to analyse, by means of a questionnaire on disgust, any gender differences regarding this feeling in its various dimensions, viewed both individually and globally. For this purpose a synthetic indicator was developed to evaluate the expression of disgust and identify any individual differences. The sample of 1587 subjects were given a questionnaire on disgust that contained items to elicit disgust. Statistical analysis was performed on the items and on the scores via a synthetic indicator, the Synthetic Disgust Index (SDI).The analysis revealed a different trend in different types of disgust for age and sex. In males. The oral disgust and contamination showed a reduction of SDI in the age group between 18 and 39 years (p

Background Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) are vascular anomalies of the nervous system mostly located in the brain presenting sporadically or familial. Causes of familial forms are mutations in CCM1 (Krit1), CCM2 (MGC4607) and CCM3 (PDCD10) genes. Sporadic forms with no affected relative most often have only one lesion and no germ line mutations. However, a number of sporadic cases with multiple lesions have been reported and are indeed genetic cases with a de novo mutation or a mutation inherited from an asymptomatic parent. Methods Here, we performed an analysis of regulatory region of CCM genes in 60 sporadic patients, negative for mutations in coding region and intron-exon boundaries and large deletion/duplications in CCM genes by direct sequencing and MLPA. Among 5 variants identified in 851-bp region shared by CCM3 and SERPINI1 genes and acting as asymmetric bidirectional promoter, two polymorphisms c.-639 T > C/rs9853967 and c.-591 T > C/rs11714980 were selected. A case-control study was performed to analyze their possible relationships with sporadic CCMs. Promoter haplotypes activities on CCM3/SERPINI1 genes expression were tested by dual-luciferase assay. Results No variants were identified in CCM1 and CCM2 regulatory regions. In CCM3/SERPINI1 asymmetric bidirectional promoter 5 variants, 2 of them unknown and 3 corresponding to polymorphisms c.-639 T > C/rs9853967, c.-591 T > C/rs11714980 and c.-359G > A/rs9834676 were detected. While rs9853967 and rs11714980 polymorphisms fall in a critical regulatory fragment outside the minimal promoter in intergenic region, other variants had no effects on transcription factor binding according to RegRNA tool. Case-control study performed on 60 patients and 350 healthy controls showed frequencies of the mutated alleles significantly higher in the control group than in patients. Furthermore, the functional assay showed a significant reduction of CCM3 expression for C-C haplotype even more than for T-C and C-T haplotypes. In SERPINI1 direction, the reduction was not statistically significant. Conclusions Our data indicated that rs9853967 and rs11714980 polymorphisms could be associated with a protective role in CCM disease.

The recent literature on time series has developed a lot of models for the analysis of the dynamic conditional correlation, involving the same variable observed in different locations; very often, in this framework, the consideration of the spatial interactions is omitted. We propose to extend a time-varying conditional correlation model (following an autoregressive moving average dynamics) to include the spatial effects, with a specification depending on the local spatial interactions. The spatial part is based on a fixed symmetric weight matrix, called Gaussian kernel matrix, but its effect will vary along the time depending on the degree of time correlation in a certain period. We show the theoretical aspects, with the support of simulation experiments, and apply this methodology to two space–time data sets, in a demographic and a financial framework, respectively.

Objective To evaluate quality of life (QoL) and overall survival after radical cystectomy with cutaneous ureterostomies for locally advanced bladder cancer in elderly patients with high surgical risk. Methods Fifty eight patients older than 74 years (mean age 80.6 ± 4.3) with locally advanced bladder cancer (group A), underwent radical cystectomy and ureterocutaneous diversion. Patients completed the EORTC QLQC30 before and six months after surgery to assess functional, clinical, and QoL outcomes. The same evaluation was carried out in a control group (group B) of 29 patients (mean age 82.3 ± 3.8 years), who had refused cystectomy. Questionnaires were also administered to patients of both groups who survived at least 20 months and 5 years. Results All patients presented with an ASA score ≥3. Mean hospital stay was 15.1 days (±4.8) in group A and 23.5 days (±4.1) in group B. No intraoperative complications occurred in group A. Postoperative overall survival evaluated within 6 months in group A was 97% versus 79% in group B ( P Relation between two groups at 6 months for Qol, functional and symptomatic items investigated showed in group A a statistically significant improvement for all parameters ( P Short-term and 20 months overall survival resulted statistically significant in favour of group A ( P Conclusion Radical cystectomy with cutaneous ureterostomy represents a valid alternative in elderly patients with invasive bladder cancer and high operative risk. Comparison between two groups showed a statistically significant difference for almost all the Qol related parameters and for short and medium term overall survival.

The aim of this study is to investigate the variables shown to be linked to serious suicide attempts. Cases requiring emergency admission to intensive care were collected from medical records of the University Hospital in Messina (Italy) for the years 2006-2010. 107 cases of serious attempted suicide were examined, 39 of which ended in the death of the patient. The results showed the following variables to be linked highly significantly (P 0.01) and have good nominal association (V 0.30) with a fatal suicidal attempt: the year of the attempt, deceased father, history of physical illness prior to hospitalization and method used to carry out the suicide attempt. These results confirm the severity and the multidisciplinary importance of this phenomenon.

Introduction: Shortening of telomere is associated with cellular senescence and cancer. This study aims to investigate the relationship between tumor grade and recurrence in relation to telomere length (TL), telomerase activity (TA) and telomere-binding proteins expression (TBPs) in patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). Materials and Methods: Tumor/healthy tissues were collected from 58 patients (35 with and 23 without NMIBC). Cystoscopy was performed at 3, 6 and 12 months to determine recurrence. Tumor grades and recurrence were correlated with TL, TA and TBPs using the Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test. Results were considered significant at P < 0.05. Results: Histological evaluation indicated 15 patients (42.9%) with high-grade (HG) and 20 patients (57.1%) with low-grade (LG) NMIBC. TL, TA and TBPs were found to be significantly different in tumors as compared with controls. A significant (p < 0.05) difference in the expression of TBPs was observed in the disease-free mucosa of cancer patients as compared with HG and LG tumors. In the follow-up, a total of 11 tumor recurrences were observed; among these eight recurrences were observed in patients with HG tumors and three in patients with LG tumors. TL, Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) (that represents TA) and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP-1) in tumor samples and telomeric repeat binding factors TRF1, TRF2 and tankyrase (TANK) in normal mucosa obtained from the tumor group were respectively found to exhibit a positive and negative association with the risk of recurrence. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that TL, TA and TBPs are altered in tumors and non-cancerous mucosa in patients with papillary urothelial NMIBC. Further studies are warranted to identify their suitability as a potential biomarker.

To evaluate the association between preoperative detrusor underactivity (DU) and symptomatic bladder neck contracture (BNC) in patients undergoing radical retropubic prostatectomy (RRP), in order to identify a possible new risk factor in the etiopathogenic mechanisms of BNC after RRP. A total of 100 prostate cancer patients underwent RRP after preoperative complete urodynamic examination. Detrusor contractility was evaluated by bladder contractility index (BCI), power at maximum flow (WF-Qmax), and maximum velocity of detrusorial contraction (MVDC). Follow-up included uroflowmetry with bladder post-voiding volume evaluation at 3 and 6 months after surgery and repeated urodynamic examination at 12 months. Statistical evaluation was performed using the Student’s t test (P

Standard regression model parameters are assumed to apply globally over the entire territory where measured data have been taken, under the assumption of spatial stationarity in the relationship between the variables under study. In most cases this assumption is invalid. Instead, geographically weighted regression (GWR) explicitly deals with the spatial non-stationarity of empirical relationships. Considering a georeferenced dataset on provincial total fertility rate (TFR) in Italy, GWR technique shows a significant improvement in model performance over ordinary least squares (OLS). We also discuss about the test for spatial non-stationarity.

Making use of the local Moran index and taking as a case study the value added per capita in 103 Italian provinces in 2005, this work investigates how local measures of spatial association are affected by the use of different algorithms to calculate the weights of spatial matrices. We find that three methods we applied (adjacency, K-nn and MaxMin) provide very similar results at the global spatial level. Instead, considering the local spatial analysis, we note some differences in spatial outliers identification.

Background The analysis of risk for the population residing and/or working in contaminated areas raises the topic of commuting. In fact, especially in contaminated areas, commuting groups are likely to be subject to lower exposure than residents. Only very recently environmental epidemiology has started considering the role of commuting as a differential source of exposure in contaminated areas. In order to improve the categorization of groups, this paper applies a gravitational model to the analysis of residential risk for workers in the Gela petrochemical complex, which began life in the early 60s in the municipality of Gela (Sicily, Italy) and is the main source of industrial pollution in the local area. Results A logistic regression model is implemented to measure the capacity of Gela "central location" to attract commuting flows from other sites. Drawing from gravity models, the proposed methodology: a) defines the probability of finding commuters from municipalities outside Gela as a function of the origin's "economic mass" and of its distance from each destination; b) establishes "commuting thresholds" relative to the origin's mass. The analysis includes 367 out of the 390 Sicilian municipalities. Results are applied to define "commuters" and "residents" within the cohort of petrochemical workers. The study population is composed of 5,627 workers. Different categories of residence in Gela are compared calculating Mortality Rate Ratios for lung cancer through a Poisson regression model, controlling for age and calendar period. The mobility model correctly classifies almost 90% of observations. Its application to the mortality analysis confirms a major risk for lung cancer associated with residence in Gela. Conclusions Commuting is a critical aspect of the health-environment relationship in contaminated areas. The proposed methodology can be replicated to different contexts when residential information is lacking or unreliable; however, a careful consideration of the territorial characteristics ("insularity" and its impact on transportation time and costs, in our case) is suggested when specifying the area of application for the mobility analysis.

Most of local indices of spatial autocorrelation utilize a classical adjacency matrix as interconnection system. In this paper we attempt to use generalized matrix of spatial weights for measuring local autocorrelation. The work concludes with a comparison of local autocorrelation indices according to different hypotheses of neighborhood.

The aim of this work is to quantify the effect of temperature and precipitation on Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The relations between variables are analysed at the local level by estimating three GWR models. In an innovative way we apply some multivariate kernels to GWR models to better understand and examine the effect of spatial dimensions on spatial weights. Estimated models show a strong spatial variability of the parameters which highlights the importance of local models for this kind of studies.

Background Radio-frequency-assisted liver resection has been shown to allow virtually bloodless procedures without the need for vascular exclusion manoeuvres. Our primary end-point was to evaluate safety and feasibility of RF-assisted liver resection in cirrhotic patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Our second end-point was to assess whether the RF-assisted procedure influence the outcome in terms of morbidity and mortality. Methods A retrospective study was done of 55 cirrhotic patients who underwent RF-assisted liver resection for HCC at our Departments between September 2001 and October 2007. Results In the period of study 29 monosegmentectomies, 20 bisegmentectomies, 4 trisegmentectomies and 2 right hepatectomies were carried out. Vascular exclusion manoeuvres were never performed. One patient died post-operatively because of untreatable hepatorenal syndrome. Twelve patients out of 55 experienced 21 complications including complicated pleural effusion, intra-abdominal collection, hepatorenal syndrome, ascites, hematoma and biliary fistula. Post-operative liver failure occurred in one case (1.8%). In patients without post-operative morbidity (n = 43) the 4-year survival rate was 62% versus 24% in patients who experienced post-operative morbidity (n = 12) (P = 0.02). Conclusions RF-assisted liver resection is a safe and feasible procedure associated with lower morbidity and hospital mortality rates even in case of liver cirrhosis. J. Surg. Oncol. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The aim of this paper is to determine the opportunity cost of children for Italian women as the present value of the difference between theoretical and actual earnings, the former estimated as counterfactuals (what if the woman had had no children?). Using the Bank of Italy data set of Italian households, we estimate work earnings and the probability of labour force participation. Differential analysis carried out relating to various professional categories shows that the opportunity cost of children increases with the level of education and decreases with age and experience.

Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the association between psychiatric disease, climatic and seasonal factors in patients recorded to the Emergency Unit, in Messina Hospital (Italy). Method: A total of 6565 psychiatric patients were recorded to the Emergency Unit in Messina from January 2005 and December 2010. Each psychiatric visit in emergency, was categorized by date of appearance and admitting diagnosis according to diagnostic categories: Anxiety, Mood Disorders and Psychosis. Local weather data were obtained from the Metereological Instituted “Aereonautica Militare” station in Messina, Sicily, In addition, to gathering data on the state of the sky, temperature, atmosphericpressure with the normalized value at sea level, relative humidity, rainfall, wind direction and speed, the station is connected to a buoy located on the eastern sector of Tyrrhenian Sea. Results: In anxiety disorders we have found relevant results comparison between winter and spring (p=.007) and spring and fall (p=.001). In affective disorders the differences occur in relation to winter and fall (p=.002), spring and fall (p=001), spring and summer (p=002). The psychotic disorder presents significant differences between summer and fall (p=.001) and spring and fall (p=.002). Conclusions: We can observe a similarity of affective disorders, i.e. anxiety and mood disorders compared to psychosis, which have different influences and probably according to dissimilar etiopathogenetic ways. In our research, the distribution of anxiety disorders is higher than depressive disorders in terms of delivering emergency room visits. The major differences occur comparing spring and fall, the seasons when all pathological classes have significant differences. It follows that the most abrupt climate change, typical of these seasons, as a whole, cause psychopathological emergencies. The study is important for planning a more effective assistance for patients needing psychiatric support.

International audience