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Purpose: The Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) is a common aggregate measure of disability for people with Low Back Pain (LBP). Scores on individual items and the relationship between items of the ODI may help understand the complexity of low back disorders and their response to treatment. In this study, we present a network analysis to explore how individualised physiotherapy or advice might influence individual items of the ODI, and the relationship between those items, at different time points for people with LBP. Methods: Data from a randomised controlled trial (n = 300) comparing individualised physiotherapy versus advice for low back pain were used. A network analysis was performed at baseline, 5, 10, 26 and 52 weeks, with the 10 items of the Oswestry Disability Index modelled as continuous variables and treatment group (Individualised Physiotherapy or Advice) modelled as a dichotomous variable. A Mixed Graphical Model was used to estimate associations between variables in the network, while centrality indices (Strength, Closeness and Betweenness) were calculated to determine the importance of each variable. Results: Individualised Physiotherapy was directly related to lower Sleep and Pain scores at all follow-up time points relative to advice, as well as a lower Standing score at 10-weeks, and higher Lifting and Travelling scores at 5-weeks. The strongest associations in the network were between Sitting and Travelling at weeks 5 and 26, between Walking and Standing at week 10, and between Sitting and Standing scores at week 52. ODI items with the highest centrality measures were consistently found to be Pain, Work and Social Life. Conclusion: This study represents the first to understand how individualised physiotherapy or advice differentially altered disability in people with LBP. Individualised Physiotherapy directly reduced Pain and Sleep more effectively than advice, which in turn may have facilitated improvements in other disability items. Through their high centrality measures, Pain may be considered as a candidate therapeutic target for optimising LBP management, while Work and Socialising may need to be addressed via intermediary improvements in lifting, standing, walking, travelling or sleep. Slower (5-week follow-up) improvements in Lifting and Travelling as an intended element of the Individualised Physiotherapy approach did not negatively impact any longer-term outcomes. Trials registration ACTRN12609000834257.

Several datasets of PM 2.5 concentrations over Europe during the 1990–2015 period, were used to calculate health impacts from chronic exposure to total particle matter below 2.5 ?m (i.e. PM 2.5 ). The datasets used in the analysis include the European Topic Centre on Air Pollution and Climate Change Mitigation (ETC/ACM), the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as the EURODELTA-Trends (EDT) multi-model reanalysis developed specifically for Europe. The exposure to ambient PM 2.5 concentrations was calculated as population weighted annual average PM 2.5 concentrations by country. The calculated exposure to PM 2.5 was later used as input in the health impact assessment (HIA) Alpha-RiskPoll (ARP) tool to retrieve the total number of premature deaths. Our results indicate a substantial reduction in the number of premature deaths from PM 2.5 exposure in Europe over the 1990–2010 period, between nearly 30 and 50%. Putting all the data-sets together, even if they do not cover the whole period, a decrease of even around 60% is observed between 1990 and 2015. For the countries included in this study, the estimated number of premature deaths from PM 2.5 in 1990 was found to be around 960 000 (median of all the available datasets), whereas in 2015 it was found to be around 445 000. However, the variability in the estimated premature deaths from the different PM 2.5 datasets was found to be large during the early 90s (around a factor of 2). For the latest years of the investigated period (2005 onwards), where a relatively flat trend in the PM 2.5 exposure was observed, the differences between the different datasets were smaller. Even though our results indicate a reduction in the number of premature deaths from chronic exposure to PM 2.5 , the numbers remain considerable in 2015, underlining the need to continue improving air quality in the future. © 2019 The Authors

The EURODELTA III (ED-III) exercise aimed to perform a comprehensive chemistry transport model inter-comparison study exploiting the data from four intensive measurement campaigns carried out by EMEP. The campaigns were held in different seasons (1–30 June 2006; 8 January–4 February 2007; 17 September–15 October 2008; 25 February–26 March 2009) thus allowing to test the influence of different meteorological conditions on models’ results. Seven models simulated the air quality over the whole Europe: CHIM (CHIMERE; version chim2013), EMEP (rv 4.1.3), LOTO (LOTOSEUROS, V1.8), CAMX (CAMx, v5.41 VBS), MINNI (version 4.7), CMAQ (V5.0.1) and RCG (v.2.1). Except CMAQ, all the models performed simulations over the same domain with the same horizontal spatial resolution. They also used the same input data (emissions, meteorology and boundary conditions) as much as possible. This work presents and discusses the behaviour of the models with regard to the criteria defined in the EU Directive on Air Quality 2008/50/EC for the air concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, O3, NO2 and SO2 and to the meteorological conditions. The wet deposition of sulphate (S) (WSOx), of oxidized and reduced nitrogen (N) (WNOx and WNHx, respectively) and the air concentrations of the deposited species were also investigated. Furthermore, a comparison of the capacities of air quality models to simulate carbonaceous aerosols (elemental (EC) and organic carbon (OC)) in Europe was conducted, given the diversity in modelling natural precursor emissions and formation and evolution of organic species, both natural and anthropogenic. In addition to EMEP data, the evaluation of models’ output included AirBase data and meteorological data from more than 2000 synoptic stations. The simulated concentrations of organic aerosol (OA) were compared to measurements available from two intensive measurement field campaigns carried out in a joint framework of EMEP and EUCAARI (the European Integrated Project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality Interactions) project in 2008 and 2009. © 2018 Hungarian Meteorological Service. All Rights Reserved.

The model trend analysis for PM10 and PM2.5, performed within the Eurodelta-Trends experiment, covers 21 year, from 1990 through 2010, with particular focus on the period 2001-2010 for which appropriate amount of PM observations is available. Eight chemical transport models (CTM) participated in the multi-modal trend analysis: EMEP/MSC-W, CHIMERE, LOTOS-EUROS, MINNI, MATCH, WRF-Chem, CMAQ and Polyphemus (out of which six models performed trend runs for the 21-year period). The average modelled trends are somewhat smaller than the observed, though the models identify significant PM trends at more sites in the period 2001-2010. There are considerable difference in the PM trends between the regions/countries and in different seasons. Investigation of the changes in PM chemical composition during the investigated period shows that the models differ in terms of relative contribution of the individual PM components to the PM trends. For the 2001-2010 period, the effcct of inter-annual meteorological variability appears more important relative to emission changes. Finally, we look at PM trends/changes during the 1990-2010 period. © 2018 Hungarian Meteorological Service. All Rights Reserved.

This report follows up on earlier ETC work on observed air pollution trends in Europe. It builds upon the Eurodelta-Trends modelling exercise (EMEP/TFMM) to attribute air quality evolution in Europe to anthropogenic emission trends, meteorological variability, and intercontinental air pollution.Modelled ozone and particulate matter (PM) trends are compared to observations. Average maps of the evolution between 1990 and 2010 are presented. The attribution analysis demonstrates that emission reductions are the primary driver of both ozone and PM changes. Boundary conditions are mainly important for ozone trends. Depending on the region and pollutant, it can sometimes have a smaller impact than interannual meteorological variability.

Reliable estimates of atmospheric deposition of nitrogen and sulphur are essential for assessing the risks of eutrophication and acidification to sensitive ecosystems. Atmospheric chemistry and transport models are frequently used to provide these estimates. Several models could be used to estimate deposition rates and, therefore, it is desirable that the models’ abilities to estimate atmospheric deposition are evaluated and compared. Since these models are used to study future scenarios (e.g. emission abatement), it is also desirable that the model estimates respond realistically to changing conditions (e.g. emissions, boundary conditions, meteorology, etc.), something that can only be tested by evaluating the models’ abilities to estimate past changes in deposition. As part of the EURODELTA/TFMM trend modelling exercise, wet deposition of sulphur and nitrogen in Europe was simulated by seven models for the period 1990-2010. The model estimates of annual deposition rates and their temporal trends were compared and evaluated for two ten year periods (1990-2000 and 2000-2010) using data from EMEP background measurement stations. Model estimates of wet deposition differ greatly for all species and all models tended to underestimate the observed values, apart from one model that tended to overestimate sulphur deposition. Most of the observed and modelled trends of reduced nitrogen are not significant, reflecting the smaller emission changes for ammonia compared with those of nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide. Observed and modelled trends of wet deposition of oxidised nitrogen were more significant, with decreasing trends at most of the measurement stations. The most significant observed and modelled trends were found for sulphur wet deposition, the majority of which were decreasing trends, reflecting the reported European sulphur dioxide emission reductions of approximately 70% for the modelling period. Most of the models underestimated the trends in wet deposition of sulphur and oxidised nitrogen over the two ten year periods, although model performance differed greatly. Model performance was better and less variable for the relative trends (trends with respect to the values at the beginning of the period) than for the absolute trends. This suggests that relative trends could be used to produce more reliable deposition estimates for future scenarios.

This study shows the spatial distribution of As, Cd, Ni and Pb concentrations simulated with atmospheric modelling system of the MINNI project (AMS-MINNI). The simulations have been performed for the year 2005 with spatial resolutions of 20 km over Italy and 4 km over Northern Italy. Both anthropogenic and natural emissions have been taken into account. The simulated concentrations generally agree with available observations. The influence on heavy metal concentrations of boundary conditions, emissions from surrounding countries and horizontal resolution have been evaluated, evidencing a significant relevance of both boundary conditions and horizontal resolution.. © Crown Copyright 2014 Dstl.

Particulate organic matter represents an important fraction of PM2.5 mass in Europe (20 to 60%). The Chemistry Transport Models (CTM) tend to under-estimate secondary organic aerosol (SOA) concentrations and the causes are still poorly understood, due to the complexity of the formation process and the large number of species involved, originating from anthropogenic and biogenic sources. The formation of SOA is one of the topics addressed in the context of the Eurodelta-Trends exercise. For this exercise a common set of input data (meteorology, emissions, and boundary conditions) covering Europe for a twenty years period (1990-2010) has been developed. Seven regional models are used within this exercise (Chimere, CMAQ, MINNI, LOTOS-EUROS, EMEP-MSCW, Polyphemus, and WRF-Chem) to perform simulations at 25km resolution. In this work the SOA simulated by each participating model are compared for the three reference years (1990, 2000, and 2010). For the three years the models show similar features: similar anthropogenic SOA (ASOA) spatial distributions, but with large variability between models in terms of concentration levels. The same tendency is observed for the anthropogenic VOC, from which ASOA are formed. Concerning the biogenic fraction of SOA (BSOA), the results show a large variability in the spatial distributions while the distributions of the biogenic VOC emissions are similar. These differences can be attributed to the various oxidation processes included in the models, leading to different patterns of SOA precursors, formed from the oxidation of the emitted VOC. Furthermore, the gas phase chemical mechanisms and organic aerosol models are different for each regional model, leading to differences in the SOA precursor concentrations and in the gas/particles partitioning. Finally, the SOA analysis is extended to the whole Eurodelta-Trends period (1990-2010), in order to study the impact of these differences on the simulated trends over Europe during the last twenty years.

The EURODELTA-Trends exercise is a multi-model experiment in which seven regional models performed an air quality hindcast over Europe for the 1990-2010 period at regional-scale resolution (25km). This twenty-year lookback was designed to complement an investigation of observed European air quality trends over the same time period, undertaken by the European Monitoring and Evaluation Program Task Force on Measurements and Modeling (EMEP-TFMM). Observations at rural ground-based monitoring stations indicate that peak episodic ozone, represented by, e.g., 98th percentile of maximum daily 8-hour average ozone (MDA8), have decreased in Europe over the 1990-2010 period. Annual average ozone, on the other hand, was increasing during the 1990-2000 period, but showed a decreasing trend over the 2000-2010 period. Here, the first results of the Eurodelta-Trends exercise for ozone will be presented, with a focus on (1) the capability of the participating models to reproduce the observed trends in European ozone between 1990 and 2010 and (2) the assessment of trends causes, such as changes in precursor emissions and/or meteorology. Seven regional models, including six regional Chemistry-Transport Models (EMEP-MSCW, Chimere, CMAQ, LOTOS-EUROS, MINNI, and Polyphemus) and the online coupled model WRF-Chem, participated in the EURODELTA-Trends exercise, which builds upon previous iterations of the CITYDELTA and EURODELTA projects (Thunis et al., 2007; Bessagnet et al., 2014; Cuvelier et al., 2007). Model simulations for EURODELTATrends included a number of time-slice sensitivity experiments for the years 1990, 2000, and 2010, designed to isolate the contribution of European emission changes, boundary conditions (i.e. extra-European influence), and meteorology on surface ozone concentrations. Four of the participating models performed a full 21-year hindcast for 1990-2010. A second 21-year simulation was performed using 2010 emissions for the whole time period, in order to investigate the role of meteorological variability in the modeled trends. Based on these model results, our understanding of tropospheric ozone drivers in Europe will be discussed.

La presente invenzione si riferisce ad un sistema di supporto per vela alare, in particolare per una vela alare semi-rigida a geometria variabile per uso nautico.

Modelling air quality requires the description of a large number of processes interacting each other. In order to properly model concentrations of atmospheric pollutants it is crucial to have a realistic reproduction of meteorological parameters, which can be critical in areas presenting a complex orography like the Italian peninsula. This work shows an analysis of the results obtained with the national model MINNI at two different horizontal resolutions (20 and 4 km), for a whole year over Italy. Comparisons between modelled and observed temperature and pollutants concentrations are carried out. The prediction of temperature is improved with the increase of model spatial resolution, as it is for pollutants like NO2 and CO, while the improvement is not always evident for O3 concentrations. Results are discussed providing an interpretation of the observed features. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.

Sensitivity of MINNI's Atmospheric Modeling System has been tested over year 2005 using two different emission datasets, the National Emission Inventory (top-down approach) and the GAINS-Italy emission estimates (bottom-up approach). Detailed analysis has been carried over the Po Valley region for NOx and PM10 concentrations, since their EU limit values are often exceeded. NOx and PM10 results have been compared to available measurements showing that emission input variation has a detectable influence on simulated concentrations. The variations in model performance in relation to the variation of emission inventory have been analyzed at background Urban, subUrban and rural monitoring stations.

A spherical micelle of C12E6 is simulated at different pressures, from 0.001 to 3 kbar, by molecular dynamics. On increasing the pressure the alkyl tails of the surfactants pack tightly and stretch. At 3 kbar we observe dynamical slowing down of the oil core of the micelle. At that pressure the core is characterized by a high oil density, p(oil) approximate to 0.85 g/cm(3), regular density oscillation, and low chain entropy. Pressure affects the interfacial region as well. Dehydration, induced by the collapse of the hydrophilic head groups, is observed in the inner part of the interface. Such dehydration resembles temperature dehydration but differs in details. Our results support the interpretation of recent experiments on micellar solutions at high pressure.

We present an extensive set of radio wave dielectric relaxation spectroscopy measurements of aqueous suspensions of different size unilamellar L-alpha-dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) vesicles, in a temperature range between 15 and 55 degrees C, where the lipidic bilayer experiences structural transitions from the gel to the rippled phase (at the pretransition temperature) and from the rippled to the liquid phase (at the main transition temperature). The dielectric spectra have been analyzed in the light of the Cole-Cole relaxation function, and the main dielectric parametersthe dielectric increment Delta epsilon and the mean relaxation frequency omega(0)have been evaluated as a function of temperature. These parameters display a very complex phenomenology, depending on the structural arrangement of the lipid-water interface. The structural parameters that govern the dielectric behavior of these systems associated with the lipid bilayer have been recognized within a recent dynamic mean-field model we have proposed, aimed to predict the dipolar relaxation of an array of strongly interacting dipoles anchored to a flat or corrugated surface. They are the prefactor A(T) of the distance-dependent part of the effective dipolar interaction energy, the term Gamma(vis), that takes into account the damping of the dipolar motion, the average dipolar distance related to the area a(0) per polar head, and the bilayer thickness. The present analysis furnishes, from a phenomenological point of view, the dependence of these parameters on the temperature and on the vesicle size.

Lo studio riporta una valutazione delle prestazioni di una metodologia basata sull'accoppiamento del modello pro gnostico RAMS e del diagnostico CALMET in un sito ad elevata complessità orografica (Garfagnana -Lucca). Tale metodologia consente la ricostruzione del campo di vento tridimensionale nelle aree con carenza di osservazioni meteorologiche ed è quindi utile per numerose applicazioni, come ad es. lo sfruttamento energetico del potenziale eolico, la pianificazione di interventi in caso di incendi e le valutazioni di impatto ambientale che richiedano la stima della dispersione di inquinanti (specialmente in aree con complesse circolazioni di vento).