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A huge amount of waste oil is produced worldwide. Also substantial amount of virgin oils is available that are interesting candidates for upgrading into syngas. Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) can be considered as an aqueous phase reforming process to produce syngas from oils. In this work, a variety of waste and virgin oils were gasified in a continuous down-flow autoclave reactor at supercritical conditions. Experiments were carried out at 430 °C and 660 °C, 25 MPa, with a residence time in the range 103-170 s, in order to investigate gasification and carbon efficiency, hydrogen yield and composition of the produced gas. All the analysed feedstocks were suspended in water at various concentrations before gasification. Pyrolysis bio-oil showed a gasification efficiency of 74 % and 86 % for mixtures with 3 and 10 oil/water wt ratio, respectively. Waste motor oil, suspended in water at a concentration of 1 % wt thanks to the use of surfactants, was successfully gasified with a gasification efficiency of 73 %. Virgin motor oil gasification efficiency higher than 60% had been obtained for both analysed concentrations (5 % wt and 10 % wt of oil). Gasification of rapeseed oil at 5 % wt showed a gasification efficiency close to 88 %. On the contrary, the gasification of sunflower oil at 430 °C showed that this temperature is not high enough to obtain acceptable gasification efficiencies that varied from 20 % to 15 % for concentrations of oil from 2 % wt to 8 % wt, respectively. The analysis of the gas composition, in all the studied cases, showed that the obtained gas stream was rich in H2, CH4 and CO2, with variable quantities of light hydrocarbons (C2H4, C2H6 and C3H8).

Objective: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) recurrence is a major concern after a first symptomatic episode, potentially impacting survival and healthcare needs in community, hospital and rehabilitation settings. We evaluated the association of D-Dimer positivity after oral anticoagulant therapy (OAT) discontinuation with VTE recurrence. Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and EMBASE databases were systematically searched. Differences were expressed as Odds Ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). Pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive (PLR) and negative likelihood ratio (NLR), and summary ROC (sROC) curve were calculated. Results: Twenty-six articles on 10,725 VTE patients showed that the absolute risk of recurrence was 16.1% (95%CI: 13.2%-19.5%) among 4,049 patients with a positive D-Dimer and 7.4% (95%CI: 6.0%-9.0%) in 6,676 controls (OR: 2.1, 95%CI: 1.7-2.8, P

Background: Nasal nitric oxide (nNO) is considered a biomarker of nasal inflammation. Objective: To perform a systematic review with meta-analysis and meta-regressions on the association between nNO levels and allergic rhinitis (AR). Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and EMBASE databases were systematically searched. Differences between cases and controls were expressed as standardized mean differences (SMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: Overall, 39 articles were included: 30 containing data on nNO measured by nasal aspiration (1881 patients with AR and 1337 controls) and 12 assessing nNO by nasal exhalation (525 patients with AR and 350 controls). Compared with controls, AR presented significantly higher nNO values both during nasal aspiration (SMD, 1.309; 95% CI, 0.841-1.777; P < .001) and nasal exhalation (SMD, 0.708; 95% CI, 0.303-1.114; P = .001). Sensitivity and subgroup analyses confirmed that the results for the evaluated outcomes were not affected by the presence of clinical confounding factors (asthma, nasal polyps, inhaled corticosteroids, smoking history), this being valid for both perennial and seasonal diseases during exposure to allergens. For the aspiration method, meta-regressions indicated that older age and a better pulmonary function were associated with a lower difference in nNO levels between patients with AR and controls, whereas an increasing aspiration flow was associated with a high effect size. Conclusion: nNO levels are higher in AR, particularly when using high aspiration flows and in younger patients, who often perceive this condition as a source of disability. Further studies are needed to evaluate the usefulness of this biomarker for monitoring airway disorders and optimizing strategies in different settings (community, hospital, rehabilitation).

Background The query “are there animals at home?” is usually administered for collecting information on anamnesis. This modality to consider exposure to pet allergens constitutes a potential bias in epidemiological studies and in clinical practice. The aim of our study was to evaluate/quantify different modalities of exposure to cat/dog in inducing allergic sensitization. Methods Thirty Italian Allergy units participated in this study. Each centre was required to collect the data of at least 20 consecutive outpatients sensitized to cat/dog allergens. A standardized form reported all demographic data and a particular attention was paid in relieving possible modalities of exposure to cat/dog. Results A total 723 patients sensitized to cat/dog were recorded, 359 (49.65%) reported direct pet contact, 213 patients (29.46%) were pet owners, and 146 subjects (20.19%) were exposed to pets in other settings. Other patients were sensitized by previous pet ownership (150–20.75%) or indirect contact (103–14.25%), in 111 subjects (15.35%) any contact was reported. Conclusions Only 213 patients (29.46%) would be classified as “exposed to animals” and 510 (70.54%) as “not exposed” according to usual query. Our classification has shown that many “not-exposed” subjects (399–55.19%) were “really exposed”. The magnitude of exposure to pet allergens at home is not related exclusively to pet ownership. These considerations should be taken into account during the planning of epidemiological studies and in clinical practice for the management of pet allergic individuals.

Introduction: Pidotimod, a synthetic dipeptide molecule with biological and immunological activities, is used to reduce the number of exacerbations or pneumonitis in patients with inflammatory diseases. In the present study, we investigated whether Pidotimod modifies the metabolomic pathways measured in the exhaled breath condensate (EBC) of non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectatic patients (NCFB). Materials and Methods: We analyzed 40 adult patients affected by NCFB. They were randomly selected to receive Pidotimod 800 mg b/d for 21 consecutive days (3 weeks) per month for 6 months (20 patients, V group) or no drug (20 patients, V group), with a 1:1 criterion and then followed as outpatients. Results: EBC samples were collected from all patients at baseline and after 6 months. They were investigated by combined nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and multivariate statistical analysis to uncover metabolic differences between EBC from NCFB patients before and after therapy with Pidotimod. Pulmonary function test and pulmonary exacerbations were analyzed at baseline and at the end of Pidotimod therapy. The EBC metabolites were all identified, and through statistical evaluation, we were able to discriminate the two samples' classes, with acetate, acetoin, lactate, and citrate as statistically significant discriminatory metabolites. The model vas validated by using a blind set of 20 NCFB samples, not included in the primary analysis. No differences were observed in PFT after 6 months. At the end of the study, there was a significant decrease of exacerbation rate in V group as compared with V group, with a substantial reduction of the number of mild or severe exacerbations (p < 0.001). Discussion: Pidotimod modifies the respiratory metabolic phenotype (''metabotype'') of NCFB patients and reduces the number of exacerbations.

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) causes elevated outlays for the National Health Systems due to high institutionalization rate and patients' reduced quality of life and high mortality. Furthermore, DLB is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's disease. These data motivate harmonized multicenter longitudinal cohort studies to improve clinical management and therapy monitoring. The Italian DLB study group of the Italian Neurological Society for dementia (SINdem) developed and emailed a semi-structured questionnaire to 572 national dementia centers (from primary to tertiary) to prepare an Italian large longitudinal cohort. The questionnaire surveyed: (1) prevalence and incidence of DLB; (2) clinical assessment; (3) relevance and availability of diagnostic tools; (4) pharmacological management of cognitive, motor, and behavioural disturbances; (5) causes of hospitalization, with specific focus on delirium and its treatment. Overall, 135 centers (23.6 %) contributed to the survey. Overall, 5624 patients with DLB are currently followed by the 135 centers in a year (2042 of them are new patients). The percentage of DLB patients was lower (27 ± 8 %) than that of Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia (56 ± 27 %) patients. The majority of the centers (91 %) considered the clinical and neuropsychological assessments as the most relevant procedure for a DLB diagnosis. Nonetheless, most of the centers has availability of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; 95 %), electroencephalography (EEG; 93 %), and FP-CIT single photon emission-computerized tomography (SPECT; 75 %) scan for clinical applications. It will be, therefore, possible to recruit a large harmonized Italian cohort of DLB patients for future cross-sectional and longitudinal multicenter studies.

An active tilt mirror mechanism, meant for correction of the constellation breathing of the evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, has been designed and realized. Its open-loop performance has been characterized in both time and frequency domain. Based on this, a feedback controller has been designed and the resulting closed-loop performance has been assessed. Up to what is measurable in a normal lab environment, these experiments demonstrate compliance with the extreme pointing jitter requirement, even when using the internal encoder as feedback sensor.