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High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) is an uncommon type of non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema. Few data are available regarding ECG abnormalities in patients with HAPE. They are usually slight and related to acute pulmonary hypertension. This paper describes a case of prolonged ECG abnormalities in a subject with HAPE, with no proven cardiac diseases. The Authors discuss the pathopysiological aspects of this kind of hypoxic-induced right ventricular overload with extensive T-wave negativity in precordial leads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmland biodiversity is an important characteristic when assessing sustainability of agricultural practices and is of major international concern. Scientific data indicate that agricultural intensification and pesticide use are among the main drivers of biodiversity loss. The analysed data and experiences do not support statements that herbicide-resistant crops provide consistently better yields than conventional crops or reduce herbicide amounts. They rather show that the adoption of herbicide-resistant crops impacts agronomy, agricultural practice, and weed management and contributes to biodiversity loss in several ways: (i) many studies show that glyphosate-based herbicides, which were commonly regarded as less harmful, are toxic to a range of aquatic organisms and adversely affect the soil and intestinal microflora and plant disease resistance; the increased use of 2,4-D or dicamba, linked to new herbicide-resistant crops, causes special concerns. (ii) The adoption of herbicide-resistant crops has reduced crop rotation and favoured weed management that is solely based on the use of herbicides. (iii) Continuous herbicide resistance cropping and the intensive use of glyphosate over the last 20 years have led to the appearance of at least 34 glyphosate-resistant weed species worldwide. Although recommended for many years, farmers did not counter resistance development in weeds by integrated weed management, but continued to rely on herbicides as sole measure. Despite occurrence of widespread resistance in weeds to other herbicides, industry rather develops transgenic crops with additional herbicide resistance genes. (iv) Agricultural management based on broad-spectrum herbicides as in herbicide-resistant crops further decreases diversity and abundance of wild plants and impacts arthropod fauna and other farmland animals. Taken together, adverse impacts of herbicide-resistant crops on biodiversity, when widely adopted, should be expected and are indeed very hard to avoid. For that reason, and in order to comply with international agreements to protect and enhance biodiversity, agriculture needs to focus on practices that are more environmentally friendly, including an overall reduction in pesticide use. (Pesticides are used for agricultural as well non-agricultural purposes. Most commonly they are used as plant protection products and regarded as a synonym for it and so also in this text.).

Interaction with objects in the environment typically requires integrating information concerning the object location with the position and size of body parts. The former information is coded in a multisensory representation of the space around the body, a representation of peripersonal space (PPS), whereas the latter is enabled by an online, constantly updated, action-orientated multisensory representation of the body (BR). Using a tool to act upon relatively distant objects extends PPS representation. This effect has been interpreted as indicating that tools can be incorporated into BR. However, empirical data showing that tool-use simultaneously affects PPS representation and BR are lacking. To study this issue, we assessed the extent of PPS representation by means of an audio-tactile interaction task and BR by means of a tactile distance perception task and a body-landmarks localisation task, before and after using a 1-m-long tool to reach far objects. Tool-use extended the representation of PPS along the tool axis and concurrently shaped BR; after tool-use, subjects perceived their forearm narrower and longer compared to before tool-use, a shape more similar to the one of the tool. Tool-use was necessary to induce these effects, since a pointing task did not affect PPS and BR. These results show that a brief training with a tool induces plastic changes both to the perceived dimensions of the body part acting upon the tool and to the space around it, suggesting a strong overlap between peripersonal space and body representation.

Tobacco smoke (TS) is the single most important cause of preventable death in industrialized countries. Health staff have great responsibility in its control, but the smoking habits of health staff may influence their attitude toward patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate: 1) the prevalence of smoking among health staff at different professional levels; 2) the knowledge of smoking-related damage; and 3) how personal smoking habits influence behaviour in the workplace. A questionnaire was sent to all health staff of the Morelli Hospital (Sondalo, Italy) asking information about age, activity, smoking habits and attitude toward smoking: the Fagerstrom test was also administered to smokers. A total of 959 valid questionnaires were collected (57% of the whole sample). Results were analyzed by means of Chi-squared and Student t-tests, where appropriate. The prevalence of smokers was 44% former smokers 24% and lifetime nonsmokers 32%. The highest prevalence of TS was found in nursing students and auxiliaries (47%) and the lowest among doctors (39%). A clear cohort-effect due to age was evidenced: the youngest age-group (< 30 yrs old) presents the highest prevalence of lifetime nonsmokers and of light smokers, and the lowest of heavy smokers; the oldest age-group (> 40 yrs old) presents the highest prevalence of quitters and of heavy smokers, and the lowest of smokers and lifetime nonsmokers; the intermediate age-group (31-40 yrs old) presents the highest prevalence of smokers. The knowledge of smoking-related damage was poor, with significant differences between smokers and nonsmokers and the different professional categories. Tobacco smoking proved to be common behaviour (even when on duty) among health staff. A minority of health staff seem fully aware of personal and social smoking related aspects. Smoking habits influence the attitude of health staff toward patient counselling about tobacco smoking.