Linguistic markers of processing the first months of the pandemic COVID-19: a psycholinguistic analysis of Italian university students' diaries.

A longitudinal psycholinguistic study was conducted with 107 students from different Italian universities that produced daily photo-diary entries for two weeks, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the first Italian lockdown period, imposed in view of the rapid dissemination of COVID -19. The task was to take a daily photo accompanied by a short description (text). The texts accompanying the photos were analysed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software to analyze linguistic markers representing psychological processes related to the experience of the pandemic and the lockdown, identifying potential changes in psycholinguistic variables useful for understanding the psychological impact of such harsh and extended restricted living conditions on Italian students. LIWC categories related to negation, anger, cognitive mechanisms, tentative discourse, past, and future increased statistically significantly between the two time points, while word count, prepositions, communication, leisure, and home decreased statistically significantly. While male participants used more articles at both time points, females used more words related to anxiety, social processes, past, and present at T1 and more related to insight at T2. Participants who lived with their partner showed higher scores on negative emotions, affect, positive feelings, anger, optimism, and certainty. Participants from southern Italy tended to describe their experiences from a collective and social perspective rather than an individual perspective. By identifying, discussing, and comparing these phenomena with the broader literature, a spotlight is shed for the first time on the psycholinguistic analysis of students at the national level who faced the first COVID -19 lockdown in Italy.

Congenital aneurysm of the left atrial appendage.

Congenital aneurysm of the left atrial appendage is quite infrequent. Most instances are asymptomatic. Patients can report a variety of symptoms, one of the most frequent being onset of auricular tachyarrhythmia. Various imaging techniques are useful in diagnosis and allow the differential diagnosis with other pathologies. We describe the case of a 24-year-old male with congenital aneurysm of the left atrial appendage. The patient presented with auricular fibrillation. Diagnosis was based on transthoracic and trans-esophageal echocardiography, and the patient was treated by surgical resection of the aneurysm under extracorporeal circulation.

[Study on feeding behavior in school children aged 11-13 years from Barcelona]. / Estudio del comportamiento alimentario en escolares de 11 a 13 años de Barcelona.

OBJECTIVE: To know the family environment, living habits and social characteristics in 11-13 years-old school children. METHODOLOGY: A descriptive transversal study performed in 65 schools of Barcelona during the second three-month, involving 2354 school children aged 11-13 interviewed by 73 pharmacists. The questionnaire has thirty-nine questions referring to family structure, eating and drinking habits, preferences, life style parameters such as physical activity and television viewing. RESULTS: The survey revealed a family unit of two children and their parents was the most common. Only a 12% of the children surveyed lived with their grandparents. Furthermore, the findings revealed a low family presence during the three main meals on the working days, which increased on weekends, 26% on breakfast, 44% on lunch and 11% on dinner. A 24% had breakfast alone and the 46% ate what they wanted. About the afternoon snack, the 25% alone and the 55% what they wanted. A 60% never or practically never participated in decision making, when buying food. A 70% reported they did other activities while eating. Concretely, a 40, 39 and 59% of the children reported they had breakfast, lunch and dinner while watching television. The consumption frequency of trinkets, soft drinks and television viewing were lower for the children from private compared to public schools. CONCLUSIONS: This study show that food choice at shopping was mainly done by the parents, however, children had an important role in making decisions of what food they eat and the activities they do while eating. Therefore, pharmacists could have a potential role to intervene in the nutritional education to parents and children.

Foam aptitude of trepat and monastrell red varieties in cava elaboration. 1. Base wine characteristics.

The foam properties of base wines made from red autochthonous varieties (Trepat and Monastrell) were studied. Four wines of each variety were elaborated (fermented off skins at industrial scale in two consecutive harvests) and blended at different proportions with the white traditional variety (Macabeo, Xarel.lo, and Parellada) wines to elaborate Cava (closed-bottle-fermented sparkling wine). When crescent amounts of Trepat were added to the traditional white blend, the foamability and the color intensity (CI) of the wine increased polinomically. The increase of the CI depended on the year of harvest. Thus, oenologists could decide the blend proportion most suitable to elaborate either a "blanc de noirs" sparkling wine or a new type of Cava.

Foam aptitude of trepat and monastrell red varieties in cava elaboration. 2. Second fermentation and aging.

The foam properties of sparkling wines (Cava) made from two red autochthonous grape varieties, Trepat and Monastrell, and coupages, including different percentages of them, were studied during second fermentation and aging. The effect of second fermentation on foam gave the highest decreases when the base wines had the highest foam values, while gave the lowest decreases or even increases for the base wines with the lowest foam characteristics. However, the greater the HM and Sigma of the base wine, the greater the foam values of the sparkling wine. Base wine determinations for quality control in cellars could provide information about future sparkling wine foaming. Acidity parameters, ethanol, sulfur, and polysaccharides contents were correlated to foam characteristics in the sparkling wines. In terms of color and foaming, wines made from the red varieties Trepat and Monastrell blended with white variety wines could be appropriate for elaborating "blanc de noirs" sparkling wines.

Complications of carotid angioplasty and stenting.

The authors report the complications that occurred in their experience with performing recanalization procedures in the internal carotid artery and present their treatment strategies. The complications can be classified into those that were periprocedural and those that were postprocedural. The former include complications related to the vascular-approach access site of and those associated with the dilation and stenting procedure. Other complications observed included embolic events, dissection, vascular spasm, bradycardia, inappropriate dilation, occlusion of the external carotid artery, and rare, unusual complications such as the occurrence of iatrogenic cavernous carotid fistula. Postprocedure complications occurred in the hours and days following the procedure in the form of embolic and occlusive events, and hypotension and bradycardia were seen as late complications in the months following the procedure. The authors discuss how such complications occur and provide suggestions on how to avoid them. The role of stent placement and the potential use of protective devices are explored. Overall, adequate use of currently available systems allows for safe application of endovascular treatment techniques that avoid altogether or treat these potential complications. A reduced incidence of complications related to the initial individual learning curve may be obtained with preclinical training, in which use of invitro models should be considered. Surgical standby no longer seems required; however, early posttreatment surveillance in intensive care unit is mandatory to avoid the remaining primary complications.

[Colonoscopy and "hot" biopsy. Its value in vascular ectasias of the colon]. / Colonoscopía y biopsia "caliente". Su valor en las ectasias vasculares del colon.

According to Gerald Rogers et. al., we believe about the usefulness of colonoscopy and endoscopic biopsy using Williams' forcep (hot biopsy forcep) for the diagnosis and final treatment of colon vascular ectasias. This method should be used immediately after the hemorrhage has finished. Angiography is prescribed when: 1) endoscopy suggests or confirm the presence of vascular ectasias in order to establish the degree of lesions and the therapeutic management. 2) When the caecum cannot be reached by the colonoscope. 3) When endoscopy is negative and there is firm clinic assumption of ectasias but the colonoscopic study has been done to much later after the bleeding stopped. Selective angiography would be the first prescription in case of bleeding which doesn't stop quickly with the necessity of immediate therapeutic measures taking into account the difficulties of intrahemorrhagic colonoscopy. Five cases are presented to support this point of view concerning the diagnosis of vascular ectasias of the right colon and considerations are made about local treatment by mean of colonoscopy and hot biopsy forcep which, when it's possible, has less morbidity and mortality than surgery, specially in attention than this is an entity concerning elderly patients.

[Personal experience and considerations on duodenal erosions]. / Nuestra experiencia y consideraciones sobre las erosiones duodenales.

Twenty five hundred esophagogastroduodenoscopies were examined, separating all the duodenal erosions' cases. The most important conclusions refer to two facts in relations to the existence of duodenal erosions (DE) with respect to duodenal erosions when coexisting with gastric erosions (gastroduodenal erosions-GDE). In the duodenal erosions symptomatology dominated frankly, mainly ulcerous syndrome, typical or atypical (P less than 0,01). The GDE had a clear predominancy of bleeding referring to DE (P less than 0,01), suggesting that the DE are to be considered a nosologic entity different as the GDE. The ulcerogenious antecedents (drugs, stress, alcohol, etc.) were frankly positive in both cases when there was bleeding, but of low percentage in the cases without bleeding, suggesting that its presence is important in the causing of bleeding but not in the generating erosions in itself.

How do coil configuration and packing density influence intra-aneurysmal hemodynamics?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Endovascular coiling is a well-established therapy for treating intracranial aneurysms. Nonetheless, postoperative hemodynamic changes induced by this therapy remain not fully understood. The purpose of this work is to assess the influence of coil configuration and packing density on intra-aneurysmal hemodynamics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three 3D rotational angiography images of 3 intracranial aneurysms before and after endovascular coiling were used. For each aneurysm, a 3D representation of the vasculature was obtained after the segmentation of the images. Afterward, a virtual coiling technique was used to treat the aneurysm geometries with coil models. The aneurysms were coiled with 5 packing densities, and each was generated by using 3 coil configurations. Computational fluid dynamics analyses were carried out in both untreated and treated aneurysm geometries. Statistical tests were performed to evaluate the relative effect of coil configuration on local hemodynamics. RESULTS: The intra-aneurysmal blood flow velocity and wall shear stress were diminished as packing density increased. Aneurysmal flow velocity was reduced >50% due to the first inserted coils (packing density <12%) but with a high dependency on coil configuration. Nonsignificant differences (P > .01) were found in the hemodynamics due to coil configuration for high packing densities (near 30%). A damping effect was observed on the intra-aneurysmal blood flow waveform after coiling. CONCLUSIONS: Intra-aneurysmal hemodynamics are altered by coils. Coil configuration might reduce its influence on intra-aneurysmal hemodynamics as the packing density increases until an insignificant influence could be achieved for high packing densities.

Percutaneous treatment of cervical disk hernias using gelified ethanol.

This study investigates the efficacy of chemonucleolysis using RGE in the treatment of cervical disk hernias in a small sample of patients who had cervical diskogenic or radicular pain secondary to disk herniations. Results were satisfactory in 89.5% patients, with no adverse events recorded during the procedure or after. The use of RGE shows promising results and might be a feasible and safe alternative in the treatment of cervical disk hernias.

Temporary balloon occlusion test of the left vertebral artery using parenchymography as tolerance predictor. A case report.

Temporary balloon occlusion is used as tolerance predictor in patients undergoing vascular occlusion with the aid of clinical assessment during a 30-40 minute temporary occlusion. Several other techniques have been used to help predict each patient's tolerance. Digital cerebral parenchymography (DCP) was originally described to improve our analysis of brain perfusion during ischemic events. We report a case using DCP as tolerance predictor in a patient undergoing sacrifice of the left vertebral artery.

Clinical and radiological features of posterior communicating artery aneurysms.

SUMMARY: Treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms based on critical size and predictive risk factors is generally accepted, but several factors contribute to the clinical outcome in a patient with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) secondary to a ruptured aneurysm. We decided to evaluate other parameters that might contribute to the clinical outcome of patients with a ruptured posterior communicating artery aneurysm. A retrospective review of the medical records of patients diagnosed and/or treated of cerebral aneurysms at our institution was carried out. We selected patients with Pcom aneurysms that presented with SAH and reviewed conventional and tridimensional angiographic images to determine its anatomical orientation and correlated the data with amount of SAH and clinical presentation and outcome. A total of 112 Pcom aneurysms presented with SAH and were included in this study. 92 patients were women and 20 were men, with a mean age of 57 years (range 25-81). According to anatomical orientation, 43 were inferolateral, 30 lateral, 13 superolateral, three inferomedial, two in medial location, two superomedial, 11 inferoposterior, five posterior and three superoposterior. Aneurysms in superolateral location are to be watched carefully, it is likely that this location joins several conditions for these aneurysms to grow faster or have a higher hemodynamic stress which makes them more at risk of rupture and contribute to a worse clinical outcome.

Lumbosacral liposuction. A new tool for the treatment of low back pain.

SUMMARY: To obtain a better active contention of the lumbosacral spine, a new technique of liposuction of the fat surrounding the atrophied paraspinal muscles is described. A preliminary series of 40 patients presenting low back pain symptoms is presented. The technique, performed on an out patient basis is well tolerated.The MR follow-up controls regularly showed an expansion of the paraspinal muscles. The overall results obtained on this preliminary non uniform series showed encouraging results with 77.5% of very good or good results.

Management of spinal dural arteriovenous fistulae with emphasis on an endovascular approach.

Spinal arteriovenous shunts are rare and present at a rate of approximately 1:10 with cerebral arteriovenous shunts. Spinal dural arteriovenous fistulas (SDAVF) are the most common type of spinal vascular malformation in the adult and account for about 60% of all, with a marked male predominance (5:1). Endovascular treatment has gained force as the treatment of choice in recent years. We reviewed the patients sent to our service at Clinica del Rosario in Madrid and Hospital General de Cataluña in Barcelona between January 1991 and December 2005 with a diagnosis of SDAVF made clinically or by imaging for possible endovascular treatment. Location, presenting symptoms, and clinical outcome according to treatment were analyzed. A total of 104 patients were diagnosed and treated for a SDAVF, 85 were men and 19 women aged between 23 and 79 years (average 58). Seventy-six were treated with embolization alone (73%), 21 with a combination of endovascular therapy and surgery (20.1%) and seven patients had surgery alone (6.7%). Of the embolization group, 62 patients were cured (81.5%), 11 improved (14.4%) and three (3.9%) worsened. Of the group with combined therapy, 13 (61.9%) were cured, five (23.8%) improved and three (14.2%) worsened. Among the surgery group, four (57.2%) were cured and three (42.8%) worsened. Endovascular approach with liquid adhesive is gaining more acceptance as the treatment of choice for SDAVF if the conditions allow a super selective catheterization of the shunt. These patients benefit most when diagnosis is made early in the course of the pathology and have a better chance of a complete remission of symptoms.

Radial approach in the treatment of supraaortic arterial lesions.

SUMMARY: Radial approach (mainly right) has been used in the treatment of 67 supraaortic lesions including 56 carotid, nine vertebral and two subclavian artery stenoses. This approach offers new possibilities and solves most of the remaining technical difficulties or impossibilities encountered in the endovascular treatment of supraaortic lesions. The current technique is described. The results of this first series have been very satisfactory without complication. MR angiography allows selection of patients suitable for radial approach.

Cirugia de la esofagitis grave y de la estenosis peptica del esofago tecnica de Pearson. / Surgery of severe esophagitis and peptic esophageal stenosis - Pearson's technic

Se presenta una experiencia con la operacion descripta por Pearson para el tratamiento de la esofagitis ulcerosa y de la estenosis peptica, segun fuera utilizada en 9 pacientes. Se describe la tecnica, se discuten los diversos procedimientos existentes, sus indicaciones y resultados

Nuestra experiencia y consideraciones sobre las erosiones duodenales. / Duodenal erosions

Se analizaron 2.500 esofagogastroduodenoscopias de nuestra Institucion separando todos los casos de erosiones duodenales.Las conclusiones mas importantes se refieren a dos hechos en relacion a la existencia de EDP con respecto a las EGD.En las EDP predomino francamente la sintomatologia, fundamentalmente sindrome ulceroso (dolor epigastrico), tipico o atipico (P < 0,01). A su vez las EGD tuvieron una clara predominancia de sangrado sobre las EDP (P < 0,01), sugiriendo que las EDP deben considerarse una entidad nosologica distinta a las EGD. Los antecedentes ulcerogenos (drogas, stress, alcohol, etc), fueron francamente positivos en ambos grupos cuando hubo sangrado, mientras que existieron en muy bajo porcentaje en los casos sin hemorragia, sugiriendo que su presencia es importante en la produccion del sangrado, pero no en la formacion de las erosiones en si

Complicaciones urológicas de la irradiación pelviana / Urologic complications in pelvic irradiation

La radioterapia es un tratamiento útil en algunas neoplasias de los órganos pelvianos, sin embargo, su uso no está exento de riesgos. Analizamos las diversas alternativas terapéuticas en las lesiones ureterales, en la cistitis actínica hemorrágica y en las fístulas urinarias secundarias a tratamientos radiantes. Discutimos nuestros resultados, destacándose como principal dificultad la presencia de actividad tumoral. Finalmente enunciamos algunos principios básicos de la radioterapia y hacemos énfasis en las modernas técnicas de irradiación, las cuales son más efectivas, con menos lesiones secundarias