COVID-19 mortality in Lombardy: the vulnerability of the oldest old and the resilience of male centenarians.

Italy was the first European nation to be affected by COVID-19. The biggest cluster of cases occurred in Lombardy, the most populous Italian region, and elderly men were the population hit in the hardest way. Besides its high infectivity, COVID-19 causes a severe cytokine storm and old people, especially those with comorbidities, appear to be the most vulnerable, presumably in connection to inflammaging. In centenarians inflammaging is much lower than predicted by their chronological age and females, presenting survival advantage in almost all centenarian populations, outnumber males, a phenomenon particularly evident in Northern Italy. Within this scenario, we wondered if: a) the COVID-19 mortality in centenarians was lower than that in people aged between 50 and 80 and b) the mortality from COVID-19 in nonagenarians and centenarians highlighted gender differences.We checked COVID-19-related vulnerability/mortality at the peak of infection (March 2020), using data on total deaths (i.e. not only confirmed COVID-19 cases). Our conclusion is that excess mortality increases steadily up to very old ages and at the same time men older than 90 years become relatively more resilient than age-matched females.

Measuring the impact of a social programme on healthcare: a 10-year retrospective cohort study in Trieste, Italy.

OBJECTIVES: Poor social conditions are strong determinants of poor health but positive health and healthcare changes caused by social interventions are difficult to demonstrate. In 2006, in Trieste (Italy), a social intervention known as 'Habitat Microaree' (HM) project was implemented in eight deprived neighbourhoods. In 2016, an observational study was launched to assess the impact of the HM project on healthcare. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: The eight geographically defined neighbourhoods of Trieste involved in the 2006 HM project, accounting for a total of 11 380 residents. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were all residents in the intervention areas. By means of a propensity score based on deprivation index, age, sex, Charlson index and drug utilisation, a non-participating, comparison group was defined. INTERVENTION: The community-based intervention consisted of facilitating access to social services and outpatient healthcare facilities, coordinating intersectoral public services and specifically planning hospital discharge. These services were not provided in other areas of the city. OUTCOME MEASURES: Hospital admissions and emergency department access. RESULTS: We followed 16 256 subjects between 2008 and 2015. Living in microareas was associated with an HR for first hospital admission, for all causes, of 0.95 (95% CI 0.91 to 0.99); while the HR for urgent admissions in females was 0.92 (95% CI 0.85 to 1.00). The HR for psychiatric disorders, in females, was 0.39 (95%CI 0.18 to 0.82); in particular, the HR for psychosis was 0.15 (95% CI 0.05 to 0.51). The HR for acute respiratory diseases in females was 0.44 (95% CI 0.21 to 0.95). In males, the HR for genitourinary diseases and heart diseases were 0.65 (95% CI 0.42 to 1.01) and 0.72 (95% CI 0.54 to 0.97), respectively. Concerning urgent multiple admissions, the OR for fractures in females was 0.75 (95% CI 0.58 to 0.97). CONCLUSION: In the study period, the effects on healthcare appear evident, especially in females.

Moving across the static magnetic field of a 1.5 T MRI scanner: Analysing compliance with Directive 2013/35/EU.

Does the exposure of magnetic resonance imaging personnel to static magnetic fields fully comply with Directive 2013/35/EU? Despite the obligation to satisfy this question, a general answer cannot be provided, nor are final satisfying good practices methods for exposure assessment currently available. In order to contribute to fix this problem, three different 1.5 T scanners are analysed and - by a new theoretical insight - a positive answer is provided.

Inverted and mirror repeats in model nucleotide sequences.

We analytically and numerically study the probabilistic properties of inverted and mirror repeats in model sequences of nucleic acids. We consider both perfect and nonperfect repeats, i.e., repeats with mismatches and gaps. The considered sequence models are independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) sequences, Markov processes and long-range sequences. We show that the number of repeats in correlated sequences is significantly larger than in i.i.d. sequences and that this discrepancy increases exponentially with the repeat length for long-range sequences.