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A cross-sectional study based on an online questionnaire.The aim was to investigate the prevalence and intensity of low back pain (LBP) in people with lower limb amputation (LLA) and to analyze the association factors that can influence the genesis of LBP.It is still unclear whether LBP is more prevalent in the amputated population than in its nonamputated counterpart. Given the multifactorial nature of LBP, it is necessary to explore possible factors that can influence its presence and intensity, to build a solid background to define a better rehabilitation pathway for the management of these people.The online questionnaire included six sections: informed consent of the study, demographic information, comorbid conditions, history of LLA, history of LBP, and acceptance of the amputation.Between March and June 2021, 239 participants [mean age (SD): 49.2 (11.5); female 11%] completed the survey (response rate: 32%). From the results of this study, LBP in LLA showed a prevalence of 82% postamputation and 70% in the last year. A logistic regression with a backward method showed that participants who had problems in the not affected leg presented 1.58 (95% confidence interval: 0.70; 2.45) times higher odds to have LBP after the amputation.This study shows that the prevalence of LBP in lower limb amputees appears to be higher than in the general population, with similar levels of pain intensity and frequency. The highest percentage of people with a sedentary lifestyle not practicing any kind of sports emphasizes the importance of educating this population on the importance of physical activity. New strategies to invest in the education of this population in terms of physical activity are needed.Level 4.

Over the past 5 years, with the growth of fish production and the improvement of distribution channels, the global fish food demand has also grown; in such a context, natural stocks of Echinoderms have suffered a marked reduction in production. This scenario was exacerbated for Pararacentrotus lividus by the fact that this species was recognized worldwide among the most reliable as a bioindicator, and its gametes have been used for biological assays for monitoring marine pollution. In this study, we focused on the maintenance of mature stage in adults of P. lividus using artificial diets. Two diets were tested: the first consisted of a mixture of maize and fresh seaweed, whereas the second diet was composed of maize and spinach leaves. The diets employed in this study, in combination with a 10H L: 14H D light regime and a water temperature of 14 °C, ensured the maintenance of animals into a mature stage for a 4-month period. This breeding period permitted them to overcome the summer months during which it is not possible to obtain gametes from organisms belonging to wild population at our latitude. Meanwhile, diets guaranteed a considerable gonadal growth when compared with the natural population.

Few-optical-cycle light pulses, produced by the hollow-fiber compression technique, are used to generate high-order harmonics with excellent spatial characteristics at wavelengths as short as 10 nm. We show that the spatial features of the harmonic radiation are strongly affected by the spatial profile of the excitation beam. The role of the fundamental beam shape has been carefully investigated by means of numerical simulations. The use of a fundamental beam with truncated Bessel radial intensity profile, produced upon propagation along a hollow fiber, allows us to obtain low-divergence, high-brightness harmonic radiation.

The hitherto unexplored two-photon doubly excited states [Ne^{*}(2p^{-1}3s)]_{2} were experimentally identified using the seeded, fully coherent, intense extreme ultraviolet free-electron laser FERMI. These states undergo ultrafast interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD), which predominantly produces singly ionized dimers. In order to obtain the rate of ICD, the resulting yield of Ne_{2}^{+} ions was recorded as a function of delay between the extreme ultraviolet pump and UV probe laser pulses. The extracted lifetimes of the long-lived doubly excited states, 390(-130/+450) fs, and of the short-lived ones, less than 150 fs, are in good agreement with ab initio quantum mechanical calculations.

Host-associated differentiation (HAD) is the occurrence of genetically distinct, host-associated lineages. Most of the cases of HAD in phytophagous insects have been documented in specialist insects inhabiting feral ecosystems or in generalist parthenogens in agroecosystems. Herein we report HAD in the cotton fleahopper, Pseudatomoscelis seriatus (Reuter) (Hemiptera: Miridae), a native, generalist, non-parthenogenetic insect feeding on native wild hosts [horsemint, Monarda punctata L. (Lamiaceae) and woolly croton, Croton capitatus Michx. (Euphorbiaceae)] and on cotton [Gossypium hirsutum L. (Malvaceae)] in the USA. Examination of genome-wide genetic variation with AFLP markers and Bayesian analyses of P. seriatus associated with three different host plant species at five locations in Texas revealed a geographic pattern of HAD. The geographic pattern of HAD corresponded with differences in precipitation among the locations studied. In three locations, two distinct lineages of P. seriatus were found in association with horsemint and cotton/woolly croton, whereas in two other locations, populations associated with the different host plants studied were panmictic. We suggest that precipitation differences among locations translate into heterogeneity in vegetation distribution, composition, and phenology, which altogether may contribute to the observed geographic pattern of HAD.

The relationships between large and frequent transfusions and erythropoiesis have been studied with special regard to thalassemia major in 8 children (some of them splenectomized).With large t

The dependence of the high-order harmonic cutoff spectrum from the absolute phase of the laser pulse is here experimentally investigated. Noticeable shifts are observed. Their interpretation is proposed with a model based on the absolute-phase dependence of the trajectories of the photoelectrons that contribute to a given harmonic order.

Summary form only given. We report on a technique which allows one to generate an ultrabroadband continuum by cascading two gas-filled hollow fibers. 25-fs pulses are coupled into an argon-filled (gas pressure 0.2 bar) hollow fiber; the slightly spectrally broadened pulses are then compressed to /spl sim/10 fs by chirped mirrors. Such pulses are then injected into a second argon-filled (gas pressure 1000 nm (the cutoff in the infrared region is due to the spectrometer used in the measurement). The output beam presents excellent spatial characteristics (single-mode operation), and is diffraction limited. Output pulse energy is 90 pJ. It is worth pointing out that by using a single gas-filled hollow fiber it turns out to be impossible to achieve the same spectral broadening.

The cotton fleahopper, Pseudatomoscelis seriatus (Reuter) (Hemiptera: Miridae) is an economically important insect pest of cotton in the United States. However, reports of cotton fleahopper infestation and its management in cotton fields are restricted primarily to Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The objective of this study was to understand the genetic diversity of cotton fleahopper populations infesting cotton in the cotton-growing areas of the United States. Amplified fragment length polymorphism markers were used to detect genetic diversity and to characterize geographic genotypes across the distribution of the cotton fleahopper in the United States. We used 172 individuals and 559 amplified fragment length polymorphism loci in this study and found significant, but low, level of genetic differentiation among geographic populations (F(ST) = 0.02; P0.0001). Molecular fingerprints of cotton fleahopper populations were partitioned into three broad regional genetic populations with a western, central, and eastern distribution. The western (Arizona) and eastern (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina) populations are genetically distinct, whereas the central (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama) population represents an admixed population, which include both western and eastern populations. These results suggest considerable gene flow among the populations within regions but restricted gene flow among populations from eastern and western region.

We used velocity-map-imaging to measure electronic and nuclear dynamics in N2 molecules excited by a train of attosecond pulses. A time-to-space mapping of autoionization channel is demonstrated. It is found that the autoionization becomes energetically allowed when the two nuclei are still very close (~ 3 A) and that it can be coherently manipulated by a strong femtosecond infrared pulse.

Several phytophagous insects exhibit distinct preference for their host plants. In widely distributed generalist insects, host preference can be influenced by geographic variation in host plant distribution and abundance as well as by prior experience. We have studied host preference of the cotton fleahopper, Pseudatomoscelis seriatus (Reuter), a pest of cotton in Texas and other neighboring states, by measuring olfactory orientation to horsemint (Monarda punctata L.) and cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). Horsemint is one of the primary, native, wild hosts of cotton fleahopper during late-spring and early summer in Texas, and it is commonly believed to be the main source of this pest in cotton. Although the abundance of horsemint, and therefore the fleahopper exposure to it, varies geographically, cotton fleahopper's preference for this native host-plant is maintained across two ecoregions in Texas, TX High Plains (Lubbock area) and Brazos Valley (College Station area). Similarly, preference for horsemint was retained regardless of prior experience with cotton throughout all the life stages of the insect. This fixed preference of cotton fleahopper to horsemint could be because of their ancestral insect-plant interaction, better fitness of cotton fleahopper on horsemint, and relatively low abundance of horsemint compared with cotton. Information gained from this study could be used to implement cultural control practices such as trap cropping, to develop attractants to monitor this pest, or both.

Functional versus structural changes in the pathophysiology of acute ischemic renal failure in aging rats. The aim of the study was to gain further insight into the greater susceptibility to acute ischemic renal failure (ARF, 30min of renal arteries clamping) of old rats (O, 18 months) as against young rats (Y, 3 months). All the rats ate a hypoproteic diet (14% of casein) to avoid age-related glomerulosclerosis in O. Basal renal dynamics was similar in O and Y (Groups CON). One day after ARF, the decrease in GFR was more severe in O than in Y (-82% and -57% vs. respective CON, P

We construct a pseudoclassical particle model associated to the twisted N = 2 SUSY algebra in four dimensions. The particle model has four kappa symmetries. Three of them can be used to reduce the model to the vector supersymmetry particle case. The quantization of the model gives rise to two copies of the 4d Dirac equation. The kappa symmetries result to be associated to 4 TSUSY invariant bilinear odd operators who are null operators when a particular condition is satisfied. These operators are in correspondence one to one with analogous operators existing in the case of the N = 2 SUSY algebra, making both cases 1/2 BPS.

We investigated the generation of XUV high order harmonics in gases by two‐color driving pulses, exploiting an infrared parametric source with self‐stabilization of the carrier‐envelope phase. Continuous XUV spectra were generated, showing a spectral extension beyond 100 eV. These results represent a step forward in the extension of attosecond science towards the soft‐X rays region.

We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically a gating technique based on the electron wavepacket diffusion for the generation of a broadband XUV continuum exploiting the combination of infrared and visible driving pulses in a two-color scheme.

In this work we discuss our recent advances in attosecond technology. Isolated attosecond pulses with pulse duration down to 130 as are now routinely generated by using the polarization gating technique, in combination with few-optical-cycle driving pulses with controlled electric field, generated by the hollow-fiber compression method. By using a high-energy infrared parametric source with self-stabilization of the carrier-envelope phase, in combination with a two-color excitation scheme, continuous XUV spectra were generated, showing a spectral extension beyond 200 eV. These results represent a step forward in the extension of attosecond science towards the soft-X rays region.