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In order to achieve the ambitious goal of "carbon neutrality", countries around the world are striving to develop clean energy. Against this background, this paper takes China and Italy as representatives of developing and developed countries to summarize the energy structure composition and development overview of the two countries. The paper analyzes the serious challenges facing the future energy development of both countries and investigates the possibilities of energy cooperation between the two countries, taking into account their respective advantages in energy development. By comparing the policies issued by the two governments to encourage clean energy development, this paper analyzes the severe challenges faced by the two countries' energy development in the future and combines their respective energy development advantages to look forward to the possibility of energy cooperation between the two countries in the future. This lays the foundation for China and Italy to build an "Energy Road" after the "Silk Road". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the sustainability of the environment is a very much concerning issue for developed countries, the drive of the paper is to reveal the effects of nuclear, environment-friendly, and non-friendly energy, population, and GDP on CO2 emission for Italy, a developed country. Using the extended Stochastic Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) framework, the yearly data from 1972 to 2021 are analyzed in this paper through an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework. The reliability of the study is also examined by employing Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS), Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS), and Canonical Cointegration Regression (CCR) estimators and also the Granger causality method which is used to see the directional relationship among the indicators. The investigation confirms the findings of previous studies by showing that in the longer period, rising Italian GDP and non-green energy by 1% can lead to higher CO2 emissions by 8.08% and 1.505%, respectively, while rising alternative and nuclear energy by 1% can lead to falling in CO2 emission by 0.624%. Although population and green energy adversely influence the upsurge of CO2, they seem insignificant. Robustness tests confirm these longer-period impacts. This analysis may be helpful in planning and developing strategies for future financial funding in the energy sector in Italy, which is essential if the country is to achieve its goals of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the Transformation of Democracy (1921; engl. 1984), one of the last works by Pareto, this paper aims to highlight firstly the key aspects of the Pareto’s idea of politics and democracy, particularly concerning their functioning mechanism. Secondly, it helps to analyse the crisis of democracy and the populism wave experienced today by the advanced countries as well as the political situation in Italy. The paper is structured as follows. The first section is devoted to a Pareto’s profile as sociologist, trying to understand his historical, social and cultural framework. The second section is focused on his theoretical sociological activity and particularly on the distinction between logical and non-logical action. In the third section we are going to scrutinize the topic of the Transformation of Democracy. According to Pareto, the crisis of the sovereignty is due to the weakening of the State. It’s caused by the access to the power by those not qualified to be member of the ruling class. Consequently, the practice of democracy turns into spurious majorities, called by Pareto “demagogic plutocracy”. This kind of majorities manage power for their own benefit and not in favour of the whole community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the evolution of wages and wage inequality in four European countries during the economic crisis in light of important shifts in the occupational structure. Through recentered influence function regression for quantiles of European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions data, this analysis links research on the primary forces of both wage and wage inequality to the decomposition of their changes between 2005 and 2013 into the composition effect and the wage structure. France and Germany show decreasing wage inequality despite having opposite changes in wages, whereas the United Kingdom and Italy show increasing wage inequality while maintaining opposite changes in wages. The wage structure has a greater influence on generating variation in the real salary, and the composition effect mostly explains the change in wage inequality with varying intensity throughout the distribution. Italy is the only country whose wage structure significantly contributes to wage inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents cross-national research on news readership diversification. We compare written news (print and free newspapers, online and mobile news services) audiences in the 5 most populous and industrialized European countries (Italy, France, Spain, the UK and Germany). Outlining a sociodemographic portrait of these different news users is important in order to understand the changes undergone inside the world of written news. We draw on a telephone survey carried out in 2009, using a representative population sample (N=7,255). The survey considers sociodemographic variables, including a range of social activities and attitudinal variables, television, computer, and mobile phone ownership, and Internet access and use. Findings show a rich, but volatile relationship between written news, audience behaviors, and community participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic, due to its exceptional level of impact on the populations of the richest and most technologically advanced nations—which are experiencing unprecedented widespread mortality, fear, and social isolation—and due to the considerable difficulties faced by health services in coping with the emergency and the uncertainty regarding the evolution of the pandemic and its foreseeable heavy economic repercussions on a global scale, requires a change in the approach to the prevention and treatment of the infection based on the integration of biomedical and psychological sciences and professions. A survey of the Italian pandemic population, the results of which we report here, shows a widespread state of psychological distress, which, based on decades of scientific and clinical evidence on the relationship between mental states and immune system efficiency that we summarize in this paper, plausibly weakens the resistance of individuals and the population to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Italy can deploy a great force, represented by tens of thousands of psychologists and psychotherapists, who, as health workers, could be employed, alongside local and hospital medicine, in primary care and in promoting the resilience of citizens and health workers themselves, who are subject to a deadly work stress that also includes a widespread threat to their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many factors have contributed to rendering frailty an emerging, relevant, and very popular concept. First, many pandemics that have affected humanity in history, including COVID-19, most recently, have had more severe effects on frail people compared to non-frail ones. Second, the increase in human life expectancy observed in many developed countries, including Italy has led to a rise in the percentage of the older population that is more likely to be frail, which is why frailty is much a more common concern among geriatricians compared to other the various health-care professionals. Third, the stratification of people according to the occurrence and the degree of frailty allows healthcare decision makers to adequately plan for the allocation of available human professional and economic resources. Since frailty is considered to be fully preventable, there are relevant consequences in terms of potential benefits both in terms of the clinical outcome and healthcare costs. Frailty is becoming a popular, pervasive, and almost omnipresent concept in many different contexts, including clinical medicine, physical health, lifestyle behavior, mental health, health policy, and socio-economic planning sciences. The emergence of the new "science of frailty" has been recently acknowledged. However, there is still debate on the exact definition of frailty, the pathogenic mechanisms involved, the most appropriate method to assess frailty, and consequently, who should be considered frail. This narrative review aims to analyze frailty from many different aspects and points of view, with a special focus on the proposed pathogenic mechanisms, the various factors that have been considered in the assessment of frailty, and the emerging role of biomarkers in the early recognition of frailty, particularly on the role of mitochondria. According to the extensive literature on this topic, it is clear that frailty is a very complex syndrome, involving many different domains and affecting multiple physiological systems. Therefore, its management should be directed towards a comprehensive and multifaceted holistic approach and a personalized intervention strategy to slow down its progression or even to completely reverse the course of this condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing environmental legislation and mounting popular concern for the need to pursuing a sustainable growth, there has been an increasing recognition in developed nations of the importance of waste reduction, recycling and reuse maximization. This empirical study investigates both ecological and economic performances of urban waste systems in 78 major Italian towns for the years 2015 and 2016. To this purpose the study employs the non-parametric approach to efficiency measurement, represented by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique. More specifically, in the context of environmental performance we implement two output-oriented DEA models in order to consider both constant and variable returns to scale. In addition, we include an undesirable output – the total amount of waste collected – in the two models considered. The results show that there is variability among the municipalities analysed: Northern and Central major towns show higher efficiency scores than Southern and Islands ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis of this paper is that a detailed history of a specific location and period is more effective for isolating the important characteristics of institutions than studies which span multiple millennia across the globe. To illustrate this hypothesis, I examine three Italian city-states in the period between eleventh and sixteenth centuries. This was a time when the "commercial revolution" was underway in these city-states. As a result, there were institutional innovations in settlement patterns, work organization, and self-governing institutions to help provide for mutual defense and for the internalization of gains from long-distance trade. I contrast this case study with the methodology and findings employed by Douglass C. North, John J. Wallis, and Barry R. Weingast (2009) in Violence and Social Orders. Rather than analyze the importance of beliefs and the protection of property rights as in prior work of theirs, the authors here focus on the "Schumpeterian competition" between impersonal organizations as an effective institutional form to control violence. Moreover, the timeframe of their book extends to "all recorded human history." In contrast to North, Wallis, and Weingast's approach, I concentrate on Genoa, Florence, and Venice in an effort to explain more effectively the emergence of the public/private divide and the relationship between politics and economics in modern industrial society. Experimentation in medieval Italy in mediating conflict between newly emerging classes, innovating in public finance to support the military, and focusing on broad civic participation in the political process had a lasting impact on the development of the state as an institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Malnutrition is a clinical condition due to the imbalance among needs, intake and use of nutrients, leading to the increase of morbidity and mortality, and to the impairment of quality of life. Even in industrialized countries undernutrition is becoming an alarming phenomenon, especially involving elderly institutionalized subjects. A multicentric study called PIMAI (Project Iatrogenic MAlnutrition in Italy), was carried out in Italy over 2005. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of malnutrition in hospitals and in nursing care homes (NH), to assess the level of nutritional attention and to measure the perceived quality in food and nutritional care. This paper represents a preliminary analysis of data collected in a NH included in the PIMAI project. Materials and methods: A total of 100 subjects (29 males and 71 females, aged 80.2±10 years), were recruited from January to June 2005 at the Clinical Rehabilitation Institute “Villa delle Querce” in Nemi (Rome), among patients in the NH facility. All the participants underwent a multidimensional geriatric evaluation (considering nutritional, clinical, functional and cognitive parameters), and a survey on “perceived quality” of nutritional care. Results and discussion: According to nutritional status defined by the Mini Nutritional Assessment®, data analysis showed a high prevalence of malnutrition (36%) especially related to advanced age, chewing, cognitive and functional impairments. Patients seemed to consider nutrition to be important for their health; on the other hand, they were not thoroughly satisfied with the quality of food. Particularly, it was observed scarce attention to nutritional status from medical and nursing staff. Conclusions: Our study confirms the need to pay greater attention to nutritional status in elderly institutionalized subjects. Medical and nursing teams need to be aware of the importance to perform an evaluation of nutritional status in these subset of subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The impact of hepatitis E in developed countries, like Italy, still requires a clear definition. In the present study, we evaluated HEV infection in patients with acute non-A-C hepatitis by an approach comparing data from Real-time PCR and serological assays. Methods: In a first analysis, sera from 52 patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of acute viral non-A-C hepatitis in Italy were tested by in-house Real-Time PCR assay for identification of Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) RNA and by anti-HEV IgM and IgG assays. In a subsequent analysis, selected samples were evaluated by additional IgM tests to confirm diagnosis. Results: Among the 52 samples, 21 showed positive results for all three markers (IgM, IgG and HEV RNA). One patient showed HEV RNA as single marker. Uncertain results were found in 8 samples while the remaining 22 were negative for all markers. Further analysis of the 8 undefined samples by additional IgM tests confirmed HEV infection in 1 patient. Overall, acute HEV infections were reliably identified in 23 (44.2%) out of 52 patients. Conclusions: In the present paper, we performed a study evaluating HEV infection in 52 sporadic non-A-C acute hepatitis cases. All samples were collected from 2004 to 2010 in Italy. By a diagnostic strategy based on genomic and serological assays we identified HEV infections in 23 out of 52 patients (44.2%), a percentage higher than previous estimates. Thus, the actual impact of HEV infections in Italy needs to be further evaluated on a national scale by a diagnostic strategy based on multiple and last generation assays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italian products of the textile and apparel industry are known worldwide. This sector has attracted a great deal of attention because it is rare for a wealthy and developed country to specialise heavily in fashion-oriented as well as semi-customised industrial products and base its production system on small and very small companies. The aim of this paper is to present the current situation and future challenges of the Italian textile and apparel sector. The paper is divided into three parts: The first one describes the international and domestic position of the T&A sector, the second -- the key characteristics of the T&A sector in Italy, and the third outlines consumer-supplier relations in this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivations: It has recently been argued [1] that the effectiveness of a cure depends on the doctor-patient shared understanding of an illness and its treatment. Although a better communication between doctor and patient can be pursued through dedicated training programs, or by collecting patients' experiences and symptoms by means of questionnaires, the impact of these actions is limited by time and resources. In this paper we suggest that a patient-centered view of a disease - as well as potential misalignment between patient and doctor focuses - can be inferred at a larger scale through automated textual analysis of health-related forums. People are generating an enormous amount of social data to describe their health care experiences, and continuously search information about diseases, symptoms, diagnoses, doctors, treatment options and medicines. By automatically collecting, analyzing and exploiting this information, it is possible to obtain a more detailed and nuanced vision of patients' experience, that we call the "social phenotype" of diseases.Materials and Methods: As a use-case for our analysis, we consider diabetes, a widespread disease in most industrialized countries. We create a high quality data sample of diabetic patients' messages in Italy, extracted from popular medical forums during more than 10 years. Next, we use a state-of-the-art topic extraction technique based on generative statistical models improved with word embeddings, to identify the main complications, the frequently reported symptoms and the common concerns of these patients. Finally, in order to detect differences in focus, we compare the results of our analysis with available quality of life (QoL) assessments obtained with standard methodologies, such as questionnaires and survey studies.Results: We show that patients with diabetes, when accessing on-line forums, express a perception of their disease in a way that might be noticeably different from what is inferred from published QoL assessments on diabetes. In our study, we found that issues reported to have a daily impact on these patients are diet, glycemic control, drugs and clinical tests. These problems are not commonly considered in QoL assessments, since they are not perceived by doctors as representing severe limitations. Although limited to the case of Italian diabetic patients, we suggest that the methodology described in this paper, which is language and disease agnostic, could be applied to other diseases and countries, since misalignment between doctor and patients, and the importance of collecting unbiased patient perceptions, has been emphasized in many studies ([2,3]inter alia). Extracting the social phenotype of a disease might help acquiring patient-centered information on health care experiences on a much wider scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Municipal waste management, especially in developed countries, has a significant impact on the environment and humans that need to be quantified and mitigated. This study aims to investigate and compare the environmental impact and occupational risks of the following three municipal waste collection methods in Italy: street bins, door-to-door collection, and a smart bins system. Six waste categories (paper, plastics, glass, metal, organic materials, and residual waste) are analysed. Environmental performances are calculated by the life cycle assessment (LCA) and material and flow analysis (MFA) methodologies. The ergonomic analysis is based on direct observation of municipal waste collectors and the application of standard assessment methods as RULA, NIOSH, and Snook Ciriello. show that the smart bins collection method is environmentally more effective in all the impact categories considered, thanks to the better quality of collected waste. The residual waste flow directed to landfills has a lower value in the case of smart bins (36.63%) in comparison with door-to-door (52.90%) and street bins (89.56%). The use of smart bins allows higher environmental benefits, passing for the Climate Change impact category from −2.80E+01 kg of CO2eq. of the door-to-door system and −2.74E+01 kg of CO2eq. of street bins to −7.13E+01 kg of CO2eq. of smart bins. Regarding the transport phase, the smart bins system determines a reduction of the impact of about 60% if compared with the door-to-door system for all the impact categories considered. On the other hand, acceptable occupational risks result in street and smart waste collection methods, while poor ergonomics conditions are observed during the door-to-door collection. Containers lifting and emptying are the most critical tasks. [Display omitted] • Smart technologies in urban waste management determines benefits in environmental terms. • Smart technologies in urban waste management preserves the operators' health condition. • Analysis of environmental impact and occupational risk of municipal waste systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The oral health conditions of migrants coming from middle- and low-income countries to developed countries have been shown to be poorer than those of the host population. Since the phenomenon of migration has continued to grow over the past five decades, the oral health status of migrant populations should be an issue of great concern. Objectives. The objective of our observational study was to analyse the periodontal health status and the prevalence of dental caries and lesions of the oral mucosa in a migrant cohort resident in Italy, assessing the association between the oral health status and the educational level of the included patients. Materials and Methods. Our research was conducted at the dental department of Policlinico Tor Vergata (Rome, Italy). A sample of 200 migrants coming from middle- and low-income countries, aged between 3 and 37, was included in our study. Each patient underwent a physical examination of the oral cavity, recording the DMFT/dmft index, Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPI), and lesions of the oral mucosa. The one-way ANOVA test was used to establish the correlation between the oral health status and the educational level of the participants. Results. Many participants (62.5%) showed a DMFT/dmft Index ≥ 4; only 27% of the migrants had a DMFT/dmft Index lower than 4, and only 21 of them (10.5%) were recorded at 0. A CPI equal to 0 or 1 was observed in 131 patients (65.5%), while only 30 participants presented a CPI equal to or higher than 4 (15%), and 19.5% (39 patients) were assigned to code 2 and 3. Significant statistical differences were found in the CPI after adjusting data for the educational level of the included participants (p-value < 0.01). Conclusions. The data obtained in our research highlighted poor oral conditions among the analysed migrant population, recording a high prevalence of dental caries and inadequate oral hygiene habits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The proportion of reported causes of death (CoDs) that are not underlying causes can be relevant even in high-income countries and seriously affect health planning. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study identifies these 'garbage codes' (GCs) and redistributes them to underlying causes using evidence-based algorithms. Planners relying on vital registration data will find discrepancies with GBD estimates. We analyse these discrepancies, through the analysis of GCs and their redistribution. Methods We explored the case of Italy, at national and regional level, and compared it to nine other Western European countries with similar population sizes. We analysed differences between official data and GBD 2019 estimates, for the period 1990–2017 for which we had vital registration data for most select countries. Results In Italy, in 2017, 33 000 deaths were attributed to unspecified type of stroke and 15 000 to unspecified type of diabetes, these making a fourth of the overall garbage. Significant heterogeneity exists on the overall proportion of GCs, type (unspecified or impossible underlying causes), and size of specific GCs among regions in Italy, and among the select countries. We found no pattern between level of garbage and relevance of specific GCs. Even locations performing below average show interesting lower levels for certain GCs if compared to better performing countries. Conclusions This systematic analysis suggests the heterogeneity in GC levels and causes, paired with a more detailed analysis of local practices, strengths and weaknesses, could be a positive element in a strategy for the reduction of GCs in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a common causative agent of acute hepatitis in the world, with a serious public health burden in both developing and industrialized countries. Cervids, along with wild boars and lagomorphs, are the main wild hosts of HEV in Europe and constitute a documented source of infection for humans. The aim of this study was to evaluate the presence of HEV in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and fallow deer (Dama dama) living in Tuscany, Central Italy. Liver samples from 48 roe deer and 60 fallow deer were collected from carcasses during the hunting seasons. Following the results obtained from molecular and histopathologic studies, 5/48 (10.4%) roe deer and 1/60 (1.7%) fallow deer liver samples were positive for the presence of HEV RNA. All PCR-positive livers were also IHC-positive for viral antigen presence, associated with degenerative and inflammatory lesions with predominantly CD3+ cellular infiltrates. This study represents the first identification in Italy of HEV RNA in roe and fallow deer and the first study in literature describing liver alterations associated with HEV infection in cervids. These results demonstrate that HEV is present in wild cervid populations in Italy and confirm the potential zoonotic role of these species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Insomnia is the most commonly reported sleep problem in industrialized countries worldwide being present in about 36.8% of the general population. In Italy, such a percentage seems to be even higher. Although insomnia can be an independent disorder, it is most frequently observed as a comorbid condition and may precipitate, exacerbate, or prolong a broad range of comorbid conditions including physical and mental illnesses. Evaluating and targeting insomnia in the Italian clinical practice should be a priority. Methods: The present expert options and recommendations development process was based on the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method for conceptualizing, designing, and carrying out the appropriateness of procedures for the diagnosis and treatment. Only available options in Italy were taken into considerations. Results: We evaluated 12 international guidelines and 12 most recent systematic reviews for insomnia evaluation and treatment produced in the last 10 years. Conclusions: Our findings suggested that symptoms of insomnia must always be assessed in the Italian clinical practice by evaluating nocturnal and daytime symptoms, comorbid conditions and lifestyle. In a patient with chronic insomnia with and without comorbidity, insomnia treatment should be always initiated. CBT-Insomnia therapy should be the first option accordingly to availability. The choice of the drug should be based on different factors such as type of insomnia, age, comorbidities, and potential side effects. Melatonin 2 mg prolonged release should be the first choice in subjects >55 years. If the choice would be a Z-drug or a short-acting benzodiazepine (in subjects <65 years old) or a sedating antidepressant, the use should be in the short term (≤4 weeks) and then proceeds to tapering under clinical monitoring [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This viewpoint provides an explanation from the epidemiologist's point of view for the events up to date in Italy and some other European countries with regard to COVID-19 pandemic. A combination of an early relaxation over this epidemic, systematic lack of expertise in the field of epidemic infectious diseases in Europe, likely inexperience in containing the epidemic spread in this generation of health workers, relaxed immigration regulations for workers in certain industries, a Champions League football event and a series of further misfortunes and omissions have all been implied so far in the media as contributors to the late withdrawal of Lombardy into quarantine. This allowed, through exponential growth, for a large number of people to be infected in a very short time - far too large for health systems of Italy and other EU countries to cope with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Oral cancer is a growing problem worldwide, with high incidence rates in South Asian countries. With increasing numbers of South Asian immigrants in developed countries, a possible rise in oral cancer cases is expected given the high prevalence in their source countries and the continued oral cancer risk behaviours of immigrants. The aim of this review is to synthesise existing evidence regarding knowledge, attitudes and practices of South Asian immigrants in developed countries regarding oral cancer.Methods: Five electronic databases were systematically searched to identify original, English language articles focussing on oral cancer risk knowledge, attitudes and practices of South Asian immigrants in developed countries. All studies that met the following inclusion criteria were included: conducted among South Asian immigrants in developed countries; explored at least one study outcome (knowledge or attitudes or practices); used either qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. No restrictions were placed on the publication date, quality and setting of the study.Results: A total of 16 studies involving 4772 participants were reviewed. These studies were mainly conducted in the USA, UK, Italy and New Zealand between 1994 and 2018. Findings were categorised into themes of oral cancer knowledge, attitudes and practices. General lack of oral cancer risk knowledge (43-76%) among participants was reported. More than 50% people were found engaging in one or more oral cancer risk practices like smoking, betel quid/pan/gutka chewing. Some of the participants perceived betel quid/pan/gutka chewing habit good for their health (12-43.6%).Conclusion: This review has shown that oral cancer risk practices are prevalent among South Asian immigrants who possess limited knowledge and unfavourable attitude in this area. Culturally appropriate targeted interventions and strategies are needed to raise oral cancer awareness among South Asian communities in developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. In the last decades, Italy as well as other developed countries have registered a decrease in the population size of many local horse breeds. The continuous crossbreeding has determined the dilution of genetic heritage of several native breeds. The Italian Heavy Draught Horse (IHD) is the only autochthonous Italian coldblooded horse among these breeds; therefore, it represents a resource to be preserved. In 1927, the first generation of this breed was officially created by crossing different Heavy Draught horses with local mares and recorded in a Studbook. Methodolog. To provide the first comprehensive overview of the genetic diversity of Italian Heavy Draught horses from Central Italy, we produced and phylogenetically analysed 52 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control-region sequences. Furthermore, we evaluated data available from GenBank (N = 568) to have a more complete scenario and to understand the relationships with other European Heavy Draught horse breeds. Results. Among the IHD samples that were analysed, we identified ten of the 17 haplogroups described in modern horses. Most of these sequences fell into L, G, and M lineages, thus showing the overall mtDNA legacy of the ancestral mares that were probably used at the initial stages of breeding selections a long time ago. The high mitochondrial haplotype diversity (Hd = 0.969) found in our samples reflected the multiple maternal origins of the horses. Our results highlighted a considerable percentage of haplotypes shared especially with Bardigiano and Hungarian Heavy Draught breeds. Furthermore, both the presence of four unique haplotypes detected in our samples and their absence among all equine mitochondrial published data demonstrate a mitochondrial peculiarity that needs to be further investigated and preserved with careful breeding practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Higher levels of hospital admissions among people with lower socioeconomic level, including immigrants, have been observed in developed countries. In Europe, immigrants present a more frequent use of emergency services compared to the native population. The aim of our study was to evaluate the socioeconomic and citizenship differences in the hospitalisation of the adult population in Italy. Methods: The study was conducted using the database created by the record linkage between the National Health Interview Survey (2005) with the National Hospital Discharge Database (2005–2014). 79,341 individuals aged 18–64 years were included. The outcomes were acute hospital admissions, urgent admissions and length of stay (1–7 days, > = 8 days). Education level, occupational status, self-perceived economic resources and migratory status were considered as socioeconomic determinants. A multivariate proportional hazards model for recurrent events was used to estimate the risk of total hospital admissions. Logistic models were used to estimate the risk of urgent hospitalisation as well as of length of stay. Results: Low education level, the lack of employment and negative self-perceived economic resources were conditions associated with the risk of hospitalisation, a longer hospital stay and greater recourse to urgent hospitalisation. Foreigners had a lower risk of hospitalisation (HR = 0.75; 95% CI:0.68–0.83) but a higher risk of urgent hospitalisation (OR = 1.36; 95% CI:1.18–1.55) and more frequent hospitalisations with a length of stay of at least eight days (OR = 1.19; 95% CI:1.02–1.40). Conclusions: To improve equity in access, effective primary, secondary and tertiary prevention strategies must be strengthened, as should access to appropriate levels of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging public health issue in industrialized countries. In the last decade the number of autochthonous human infections has increased in Europe. Genotype 3 (HEV-3) is typically zoonotic, being foodborne the main route of transmission to humans, and is the most frequently detected in Europe in both humans and animals (mainly pigs and wild boars). In Italy, the first autochthonous human case was reported in 1999; since then, HEV-3 has been widely detected in both humans and animals. Despite the zoonotic characteristic of HEV-3 is well established, the correlation between animal and human strains has been poorly investigated in Italy. In the present study, we compared the subtype distribution of HEV-3 in humans and animals (swine and wild boar) in the period 2000–2018 from Italy. The dataset for this analysis included a total of 96 Italian ORF2 sequences (300 nt long), including both NCBI database-derived (n = 64) and recent sequences (2016–2018, n = 32) obtained in this study. The results show that subtype 3f is the most frequent in humans and pigs, followed by the HEV-3e, HEV-3c and other unassignable HEV-3 strains. Diversely, in wild boar a wider group of HEV-3 subtypes have been detected, including HEV-3a, which has also been detected for the first time in a human patient in Central Italy in 2017, and a wide group of unassignable HEV-3 strains. The phylogenetic analysis including, besides Italian strains, also sequences from other countries retrieved from the NCBI database, indicated that human Italian sequences, in particular those of HEV-3f and HEV-3e, form significant clusters mainly with sequences of animal origin from the same country. Nevertheless, for HEV-3c, rarely detected in Italian pigs, human sequences from Italy are more correlated to human sequences from other European countries. Furthermore, clusters of near-identical human strains identified in a short time interval in Lazio Region (Central Italy) can be recognized in the phylogenetic tree, suggesting that multiple infections originating from a common source have occurred, and confirming the importance of sequencing support to HEV surveillance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interest and demand for nutraceuticals are rapidly increasing in many industrialized countries due to the emergence of health risks associated with the increased consumption of processed foods. Several wild Mediterranean plants used as traditional foods are an extraordinary source of nutraceutical substances with antioxidant properties. This study has two main aims: (1) to quantify the antioxidant properties of traditional wild food plants and (2) to determine if their use in soups (i.e., the cooking process) can alter their beneficial properties. We have evaluated the antioxidant capacity (ABTS, DPPH) and the Total Phenolic Content (Folin-Ciocalteu) of five herbaceous plants traditionally consumed in several areas of Central Italy: (A) Reichardia picroides (L.) Roth, (B) Hypochaeris radicata L., (C) Cichorium intybus L., (D) Tordylium apulum L., and (E) Helminthotheca echioides (L.) Holub. Our analyses show good levels of antioxidant capacity for all plants, with Reichardia picroides and Helminthotheca echioides having the highest levels. There is a high correlation between the antioxidant activity and the Total Phenolic Content especially in Reichardia picroides (R2=0.92) and Hypochaeris radicata (R2=0.93). Boiling the species caused a general decrease in the antioxidant activity and polyphenols. Our study confirms the health benefits of consuming wild plants, especially raw ones in salads. It also supports the use of ethnobotanical information to study and then promote the consumption of wild food plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the balance of payments adjustment process. The author notes that policy problems generated by unsatisfactory developments in world economic activity have increased due to a number of countries which are in considerable external disequilibrium. The account balance of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is looked at, having stabilized at approximately $35 billion. Imbalances within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), however, are considerable in spite of the progress made towards better balance achieved by Great Britain and Italy. A table is presented which demonstrates the changes in account balance, liabilities to foreign official agencies, and balances financed by transactions in reserve assets of several industrial countries from 1973 to 1977.

Background: The epidemic of Alzheimer's disease (AD) represents a significant challenge for the health care and social service systems of many developed countries. AD affects both patients and family caregivers, on whom the main burden of care falls, putting them at higher risk of stress, anxiety, mortality and lower quality of life. Evidence remains controversial concerning the effectiveness of providing support to caregivers of AD patients, through case management, counseling, training, technological devices and the integration of existing care services. The main objectives of the UP-TECH project are: 1) to reduce the care burden of family caregivers of AD patients; and 2) to maintain AD patients at home. Methods/design: A total of 450 dyads comprising AD patients and their caregivers in five health districts of the Marche region, Italy, will be randomized into three study arms. Participants in the first study arm will receive comprehensive care and support from a case manager (an ad hoc trained social worker) (UP group). Subjects in the second study arm will be similarly supported by a case manager, but in addition will receive a technological toolkit (UP-TECH group). Participants in the control arm will only receive brochures regarding available services. All subjects will be visited at home by a trained nurse who will assess them using a standardized questionnaire at enrollment (M0), 6 months (M6) and 12 months (M12). Follow-up telephone interviews are scheduled at 24 months (M24). The primary outcomes are: 1) caregiver burden, measured using the Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI); and 2) the actual number of days spent at home during the study period, defined as the number of days free from institutionalizations, hospitalizations and stays in an observation unit of an emergency room. Discussion: The UP-TECH project protocol integrates previous evidence on the effectiveness of strategies in dementia care, that is, the use of case management, new technologies, nurse home visits and efforts toward the integration of existing services in an ambitious holistic design. The analysis of different interventions is expected to provide sound evidence of the effectiveness and cost of programs supporting AD patients in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies the relationship between family decline and child well-being in four industrialized countries: Sweden, the United States, the former West Germany, and Italy. The results taken as a whole, indicate that family decline is not necessarily associated with the kind of across-the-hoard deleterious outcomes for child well-being. Although children are better off when they live in a society in which traditional family patterns are strong, but when they do not, there are some things that societies can do to mitigate the negative consequences that nontraditionalism has for them. Social democratic countries have the most egalitarian policies, and generous income transfers are available to everyone regardless of family status. Corporatist countries also have generous income transfer systems, but the transfers are designed to benefit the family as a unit instead of the individual. The welfare state is seen as a last resort, offering help only after the market and private institutions have failed.

Background: There have been claims that health research is not satisfactorily addressing healthcare challenges. A specific area of concern is the adequacy of the mechanisms used to plan investments in health research. However, the way organisations within countries devise research agendas has not been systematically reviewed. This study seeks to understand the legal basis, the actors and the processes involved in setting research agendas in major public health research funding organisations.Methods: We reviewed information relating to the formulation of strategic plans by 11 public funders in nine high-income countries worldwide. Information was collected from official websites and strategic plan documents in English, French, Italian and Spanish between January 2019 and December 2019, by means of a conceptual framework and information abstraction form.Results: We found that the formulation of a strategic plan is a common and well-established practice in shaping research agendas across international settings. Most of the organisations studied are legally required to present a multi-year strategic plan. In some cases, legal provisions may set rules for actors and processes and may establish areas of research and/or types of research to be funded. Commonly, the decision-making process involves both internal and external stakeholders, with the latter being generally government officials and experts, and few examples of the participation of civil society. The process also varies across organisations depending on whether there is a formal requirement to align to strategic priorities developed by an overarching entity at national level. We also found that, while actors and their interactions were traceable, information, sources of information, criteria and the mechanisms/tools used to shape decisions were made less explicit.Conclusions: A complex picture emerges in which multiple interactive entities appear to shape research plans. Given the complexity of the influences of different parties and factors, the governance of the health research sector would benefit from a traceable and standardised knowledge-based process of health research strategic planning. This would provide an opportunity to demonstrate responsible budget stewardship and, more importantly, to make efforts to remain responsive to healthcare challenges, research gaps and opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toxoplasma gondii (TG) is one of the most widespread intracellular parasites in the world, despite the slight declining trend in industrialized countries. Whilst the infection is often asymptomatic in immunocompetent hosts, in immunocompromised patients such as organ transplant recipients it can have important clinical sequels with even fatal consequences. We retrospectively reviewed 568 primary liver transplants (LT) from deceased donors from 2012 to 2017. Data were analyzed adjusting for year, gender, and age. The study objective was to assess the incidence of post-transplant TG infection and adherence to international guidelines for primary chemoprophylaxis. Prior to transplantation, 42.4% of recipients tested seronegative and 56.5% seropositive, while 36.6% of donors were seropositive and 40.4% showed undetermined serology. Anti-TG antibody titer was higher in patients born abroad (71.4%) versus Italy (54.8%). Among recipients at high risk of post-transplant TG infection, 82.7% of them received chemoprophylaxis, while in 17.3% of cases no prophylaxis was administered. At a mean (SD) follow-up of 21.2 (12.4) months no case of TG infection has been observed. Despite the low rate of adherence to recommendations, prophylaxis of high-risk LT recipients provides control of post-transplant TG infection risk. Review of current guidelines is warranted for low-risk populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]