The use of concept maps as an assessment tool in students' risk education about occupational safety and health.

Given the relevance of students' risk education about occupational safety and health (OSH), the need for reliable assessment tools for learning evaluation is widely advocated. However, multiple-choice tests or inventories show several limitations, including the emphasis on basic definitions instead of organized conceptual systems and passive information transfer. Instead, concept maps may represent a non-traditional evaluation tool to inspect how students actively organize and represent the acquired knowledge in line with the theory of meaningful learning. A concept map specifically developed in the field of risk education and its quantitative scoring protocol are here proposed. Then, a case study with a pre- post-test design is presented, including 611 upper school students who undertook an OSH-related risk educational course. The findings are briefly discussed and help identify the possible information we can get from concept maps in terms of problem-based learning.

Information specialists and researchers working together for health promotion: Benefits from school-work educational programmes at the National Institute of Health in Italy.

In 2015, the Italian Ministry of Education in Italy launched innovative upper school educational programmes envisaging school-work initiatives. In this framework, the National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS) was among the first scientific institutions to develop educational programmes with school. Involving school students in health research activities allowed health literacy improvement, acquisition of scientific communication skills and fostered student interest in science careers. This article focuses on how health literacy and health promotion can be taught to school students through taking part in this programme. It is a multi-disciplinary collaboration among different stakeholders-ISS tutors (researchers, information and communication experts), teachers and students. This collaborative initiative is a good example of 'teaching and learning' in action since all stakeholders could benefit from cross-fertilisation in an informal educational context.

[The attention of Istituto Superiore di Sanità to the sex/gender differences in workers health prevention and promotion.] / L'attenzione dell'Istituto Superiore di Sanità alle differenze di sesso/genere nella prevenzione e promozione della salute dei lavoratori.

OBJECTIVES: Gender medicine is a multi-faceted field of investigation integrating various aspects of psycho-social and biological sciences but it mainly deals with the impact of the gender on human physiology, pathophysiology, and clinical features of diseases. In Italy, the Decree Law 81/2008 recently introduced the gender issue in the risk assessment at the workplaces. METHODS: This review briefly describes our current knowledge on gender medicine and on the Italian legislation in risk management. Public or private scientific institutions should be the first to pay attention to the safety of their workers, who are simultaneously subjected to biological, chemical and physical agents. The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) is beginning a project funded by INAIL, to monitor the hepatitis B, measles, rubella, mumps, pertussis, chickenpox, tetanus vaccines immune coverage in health care workers in Italy. RESULTS: The analysis of the collected data will be disaggregated for men and women and statistically analyzed with respect to the time intervals from vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: The results could provide useful elements to implement prevention and health surveillance programs in occupational medicine.

Gender issues on occupational safety and health.

The increasing proportion of women in the workforce raises a range of gender-related questions about the different effects of work-related risks on men and women. Few studies have characterized gender differences across occupations and industries, although at this time, the gender sensitive approach is starting to acquire relevance in the field of human preventive medicine. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has encouraged a policy of gender equality in all European member states. Italy has adopted European provisions with new specific legislation that integrates the previous laws and introduces the gender differences into the workplace. Despite the fact that gender equal legislation opportunities have been enacted in Italy, their application is delayed by some difficulties. This review examines some of these critical aspects.

Integrating gender medicine into the workplace health and safety policy in the scientific research institutions: a mandatory task.

BACKGROUND: Gender medicine is a multi-faceted field of investigation integrating various aspects of psycho-social and biological sciences but it mainly deals with the impact of the gender on human physiology, pathophysiology, and clinical features of diseases. In Italy, the Decree Law 81/2008 recently introduced the gender issue in the risk assessment at the workplaces. AIMS: This review briefly describes our current knowledge on gender medicine and on the Italian legislation in risk management. CONCLUSIONS: Public or private scientific institutions should be the first to pay attention to the safety of their workers, who are simultaneously subjected to biological, chemical and physical agents. Main tasks of risk management in scientific research institutions are here analyzed and discussed in a gender perspective.

An alpha-particle irradiator for radiobiological research and its implementation for bystander effect studies.

An experimental system based on an improved version of an existing alpha-particle irradiator has been developed for radiobiological studies, in particular those investigating bystander effects. It consists of a 20-mm-diameter stainless steel chamber that can be equipped alternatively with 244Cm or 241Am sources of different activities. Mylar-based petri dishes 56 mm in diameter were specially designed to house adaptors for permeable membrane inserts that reproduce the geometry of commercial cell culture insert companion plates. Characterization of the radiation field at the cell level was performed by experimental measurements and calculations. The average incident LET was about 122 keV/microm for 244Cm and about 125 keV/microm for 241Am. Dose rates at the chosen source-sample distance were 2.8 and 88.6 mGy/min, respectively. These low dose rates are suitable for our planned experiments on low-dose effects. For both sources, the uniformity of the alpha-particle dose was better than +/-7%, and the photon dose calculated at the cell entrance was negligible compared to the alpha-particle dose. The irradiator is small enough to be inserted into a cell incubator for irradiation under physiological conditions or into a refrigerator to prevent metabolic processes during irradiation. Benchmark experiments using the 241Am source to examine DNA double-strand breaks in directly hit and bystander primary human fibroblasts have shown that the irradiator can be used successfully for bystander effect studies.

Effectiveness of monoenergetic and spread-out bragg peak carbon-ions for inactivation of various normal and tumour human cell lines.

This work aimed at measuring cell-killing effectiveness of monoenergetic and Spread-Out Bragg Peak (SOBP) carbon-ion beams in normal and tumour cells with different radiation sensitivity. Clonogenic survival was assayed in normal and tumour human cell lines exhibiting different radiosensitivity to X- or gamma-rays following exposure to monoenergetic carbon-ion beams (incident LET 13-303 keV/microm) and at various positions along the ionization curve of a therapeutic carbon-ion beam, corresponding to three dose-averaged LET (LET(d)) values (40, 50 and 75 keV/microm). Chinese hamster V79 cells were also used. Carbon-ion effectiveness for cell inactivation generally increased with LET for monoenergetic beams, with the largest gain in cell-killing obtained in the cells most radioresistant to X- or gamma-rays. Such an increased effectiveness in cells less responsive to low LET radiation was found also for SOBP irradiation, but the latter was less effective compared with monoenergetic ion beams of the same LET. Our data show the superior effectiveness for cell-killing exhibited by carbon-ion beams compared to lower LET radiation, particularly in tumour cells radioresistant to X- or gamma-rays, hence the advantage of using such beams in radiotherapy. The observed lower effectiveness of SOBP irradiation compared to monoenergetic carbon beam irradiation argues against the radiobiological equivalence between dose-averaged LET in a point in the SOBP and the corresponding monoenergetic beams.

DNA fragmentation induced in human fibroblasts by accelerated (56)fe ions of differing energies.

DNA fragmentation was studied in the fragment size range 0.023-5.7 Mbp after irradiation of human fibroblasts with iron-ion beams of four different energies, i.e., 200 MeV/nucleon, 500 MeV/nucleon, 1 GeV/nucleon and 5 GeV/nucleon, with gamma rays used as the reference radiation. The double-strand break (DSB) yield (and thus the RBE for DNA DSB induction) of the four iron-ion beams, which have LETs ranging from 135 to 442 keV/mum, does not vary greatly as a function of LET. As a consequence, the variation of the cross section for DSB induction mainly reflects the variation in LET. However, when the fragmentation spectra were analyzed with a simple theoretical tool that we recently introduced, the results showed that spatially correlated DSBs, which are absent after gamma irradiation, increased markedly with LET for the iron-ion beams. This occurred because iron ions produce DNA fragments smaller than 0.75 Mbp with a higher probability than gamma rays (a probability that increases with LET). These sizes include those expected from fragmentation of the chromatin loops with Mbp dimensions. This result does not exclude a correlation at distances smaller than the lower size analyzed here, i.e. 23 kbp. Moreover, the DSB correlation is dependent on dose, decreasing when dose increases; this can be explained with the argument that at increasing dose there is an increasing fraction of fragments produced by DSBs caused by separate, uncorrelated tracks.

Induction and repair of DNA double-strand breaks in human cells: dephosphorylation of histone H2AX and its inhibition by calyculin A.

Phosphorylation of histone H2AX at serine 139 (gamma-H2AX) represents one of the earliest steps in DNA DSB signaling and repair, but the mechanisms of coupling this histone modification to DSB processing remain to be established. In this work, H2AX phosphorylation-dephosphorylation kinetics induced by low doses of gamma rays in MRC-5 human fibroblasts was studied. The number of gamma-H2AX foci increased rapidly, with the maximum reached 20 min after irradiation. Using calyculin A, a protein phosphatase inhibitor, no significant dephosphorylation was found in this time. At longer times, no further induction of gamma-H2AX foci occurred. This indicates that the number of gamma-H2AX foci scored at 20 min can be used as representative of the initial number of DSBs. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was also used to determine whether calyculin A-mediated inhibition of gamma-H2AX dephosphorylation and DSB rejoining are independent phenomena. We found that the maintenance of the phosphate group at Ser 139 in gamma-H2AX does not represent an obstacle for DSB rejoining. Preliminary experiments performed with 62 MeV/nucleon carbon ions have shown a longer persistence of gamma-H2AX foci with respect to gamma rays, consistent with the induction of damage that is more severe and difficult to repair.

Influence of PMMA shielding on DNA fragmentation induced in human fibroblasts by iron and titanium ions.

In the framework of a collaborative project on the influence of the shielding on the biological effectiveness of space radiation, we studied DNA fragmentation induced by 1 GeV/nucleon iron ions and titanium ions with and without a 197-mm-thick polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) shield in AG1522 human fibroblasts. Pulsed- and constant-field gel electrophoresis were used to analyze DNA fragmentation in the size range 1-5700 kbp. The results show that, mainly owing to a higher production of small fragments (1-23 kbp), titanium ions are more effective than iron ions at inducing DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), their RBE being 2.4 and 1.5, respectively. The insertion of a PMMA shield decreases DNA breakage, with shielding protection factors (ratio of the unshielded/shielded cross sections for DSB production) of about 1.6 for iron ions and 2.1 for titanium ions. However, the DSB yield (no. of DSBs per unit mass per unit dose) is almost unaffected by the presence of the shield, and the relative contributions of the fragments in the different size ranges are almost the same with or without shielding. This indicates that, under our conditions, the effect of shielding is mainly to reduce the dose per unit incident fluence, leaving radiation quality practically unaffected.