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Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a significant public health problem affecting 58 million people worldwide, including 3.9 million in Europe. Many of these infections go undiagnosed because chronic infection is often asymptomatic. This observational cohort study presents a detailed examination of hepatitis C virus epidemiology in Lombardia (Italy) and was conducted within the ASST “Melegnano e della Martesana”. The study involved comprehensive HCV screening of 3290 patients accessing the collection points and/or hospitalized in the facilities of the ASST from 20 May 2022 to 13 April 2023. Screening was conducted using serological assays. The prevalence of anti-HCV-positive patients (HCV-Ab) and then HCV-positive patients (RNA) was calculated. Chi-square tests examined the associations between continuous and categorical variables. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the influence of demographic and geographic variables as predictors of HCV positivity. The study revealed an overall HCV-Ab prevalence of 0.912% (CI (0.59–1.24%)) in the examined cohort, of whom 15.15% (two females and three males) were positive for HCV RNA. The prevalence of HCV RNA positivity was 0.152% (CI (0.05–0.35%)). Sex disparity was evident, with male patients exhibiting a higher prevalence compared to females, confirmed by logistic regression (0.0147 vs. 0.0061–OR = 2.44; CI (0.0059–0.0124)). Age stratification indicated an ascending trend in prevalence with age, peaking at 1.35% in individuals aged over 50. These findings underscore the critical need for targeted HCV screening, contributing valuable insights to the global epidemiology of HCV in the era of DAAs.

Abstract Dental trauma is a frequent occurrence in children and adolescent and a correct diagnosis and treatment are essential for a favourable long-term prognosis. The present Guidelines aim to formulate evidence-based recommendations to assist dentists, paediatricians, surgeons, teachers, school and sport staff, parents in the prevention and first aid of dental trauma in children and to provide a careful assessment of the medico-legal implications, reviewing the first draft of the guidelines published in 2012. A multidisciplinary panel on the behalf of the Italian Ministry of Health and in collaboration with the WHO Collaborating Centre for Epidemiology and Community Dentistry of Milan, developed this document. The following four queries were postulated: 1) Which kind of precautions the health personnel, parents, sports and educational personnel must activate in order to prevent the dental trauma damage? 2) How an orofacial trauma in paediatric patients should be managed either in the Emergency Care Unit and/or in private dental office? 3) What criteria should be adopted by a dentist private practitioner to fill in a certificate in cases of dental and/or tempomandibular joint trauma occurring in children and adolescents? 4) What are the elements that should lead clinicians to suspect a non-accidental dental trauma? A systematic review and analysis of the scientific literature published in English, Italian and French from 2007 to 2017 regarding dental trauma in children and adolescents aged 0–18 years was performed, and about 100 papers were analysed and included. The following four domains were analysed and discussed: Dental Trauma Prevention Strategies and Health Education, First aid in orofacial and dental trauma, Certificate of the dental trauma, Oral and dental signs of child abuse and neglect. Twenty-eight recommendations were draw up and codified by the panel according to the Methodological handbook, produced by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, in order to guide physicians in the prevention and first aid of dental trauma in children and adolescents. In addition, a careful assessment of the medico-legal implications is reported in this document.

We explore the structure of two ionic liquids based on the choline cation and the monoanion of the maleic acid. We consider two isomers of the anion (H-maleate, the cis-isomer and H-fumarate, the trans-isomer) having different physical chemical properties. H-maleate assumes a closed structure and forms a strong intramolecular hydrogen bond whereas H-fumarate has an open structure. X-ray diffraction, infrared and Raman spectroscopy and molecular dynamics have been used to provide a reliable picture of the interactions which characterize the structure of the fluids. All calculations indicate that the choline cation prefers to connect mainly to the carboxylate group through OH⋯O interactions in both the compounds and orient the charged head N(CH3)3+ toward the negative portion of the anion. However, the different structure of the two anions affects the distribution of the ionic components in the fluid. The trans conformation of H-fumarate allows further interactions between anions through COOH and CO2− groups whereas intramolecular hydrogen bonding in H-maleate prevents this association. Our theoretical findings have been validated by comparing them with experimental X-ray data and infrared and Raman spectra.

(1) Introduction: The novel respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), also called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is rapidly spreading in many countries and represents a public health emergency of international concern. The SARS-CoV-2 transmission mainly occurs from person-to-person via respiratory droplets (direct transmission route), leading to the onset of mild or severe symptoms or even causing death. Since COVID-19 is able to survive also on inanimate surfaces for extended periods, constituting an indirect transmission route, healthcare settings contaminated surfaces should be submitted to specific disinfection protocols. Our review aimed to investigate the existing disinfection measures of healthcare settings surfaces, preventing the nosocomial transmission of SARS-CoV-2. (2) Materials and Methods: We conducted electronic research on PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Cochrane Library, and 120 items were screened for eligibility. Only 11 articles were included in the review and selected for data extraction. (3) Results: All the included studies proposed the use of ethanol at different concentrations (70% or 75%) as a biocidal agent against SARS-CoV-2, which has the capacity to reduce the viral activity by 3 log10 or more after 1 min of exposure. Other disinfection protocols involved the use of chlorine-containing disinfectant, 0.1% and 0.5% sodium hypochlorite, quaternary ammonium in combination with 75% ethanol, isopropyl alcohol 70%, glutardialdehyde 2%, ultraviolet light (UV-C) technology, and many others. Two studies suggested to use the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered disinfectants, while one article chooses to follow the WST-512-2016 Guidance of Environmental and Surfaces Cleaning, Disinfection and Infection Control in Hospitals. (4) Conclusion: Different surface disinfection methods proved to reduce the viral activity of SARS-CoV-2, preventing its indirect nosocomial transmission. However, more specific cleaning measures, ad hoc for the different settings of the healthcare sector, need to be formulated.

Metal-insulator-semiconductor-insulator-metal (MISIM) heterostructures, with rectifying current-voltage characteristics and photosensitivity in the visible and near-infrared spectra, are fabricated and studied. It is shown that the photocurrent can be enhanced by adding a multi-walled carbon nanotube film in the contact region to achieve a responsivity higher than 100 mA W − 1 under incandescent light of 0.1 mW cm − 2 . The optoelectrical characteristics of the MISIM heterostructures are investigated at lower and higher biases and are explained by a band model based on two asymmetric back-to-back Schottky barriers. The forward current of the heterojunctions is due to majority-carrier injection over the lower barrier, while the reverse current exhibits two different conduction regimes corresponding to the diffusion of thermal/photo generated carriers and majority-carrier tunneling through the higher Schottky barrier. The two conduction regimes in reverse bias generate two plateaus, over which the photocurrent increases linearly with the light intensity that endows the detector with bias-controlled photocurrent.

WS2 exfoliated by a combined ball milling and sonication technique to produce few-layer WS2 is characterized and assembled as chemo-resistive NO2, H2 and humidity sensors. Microstructural analyses reveal flakes with average dimensions of 110 nm, “aspect ratio” of lateral dimension to the thickness of 27. Due to spontaneous oxidation of exfoliated WS2 to amorphous WO3, films have been pre-annealed at 180 °C to stabilize WO3 content at ≈58%, as determined by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Raman and grazing incidence X-ray Diffraction (XRD) techniques. Microstructural analysis repeated after one-year conditioning highlighted that amorphous WO3 concentration is stable, attesting the validity of the pre-annealing procedure. WS2 films were NO2, H2 and humidity tested at 150 °C operating Temperature (OT), exhibiting experimental detection limits of 200 ppb and 5 ppm to NO2 and H2 in dry air, respectively. Long-term stability of the electrical response recorded over one year of sustained conditions at 150 °C OT and different gases demonstrated good reproducibility of the electrical signal. The role played by WO3 and WS2 upon gas response has been addressed and a likely reaction gas-mechanism presented. Controlling the microstructure and surface oxidation of exfoliated Transition Metal Dichalcogenides (TMDs) represents a stepping-stone to assess the reproducibility and long-term response of TMDs monolayers in gas sensing applications.