A compact evolved antenna for 5G communications.

Flexible and bendable electronics are gaining a lot of interest in these last years. In this scenario, compact antennas on flexible substrates represent a strategical technological step to pave the way to a new class of wearable systems. A crucial issue to overcome is represented by the poor radiation properties of compact antennas, especially in the case of flexible and thin substrates. In this paper, we propose an innovative design of a miniaturized evolved patch antenna whose radiation properties have been enhanced with a Split Ring Resonator (SRR) placed between the top and the ground plane. The antenna has been realized on a flexible and biocompatible substrate polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) of 250 µm by means of a new fabrication protocol that involves a three-layer 3D-inkjet printing and an alignment step. The antenna has been characterized in terms of the scattering parameter S11 and the radiation pattern showing a good agreement between simulations and measurements.

Wearable piezoelectric mass sensor based on pH sensitive hydrogels for sweat pH monitoring.

Colorimetric and electrochemical (bio)sensors are commonly employed in wearable platforms for sweat monitoring; nevertheless, they suffer from low stability of the sensitive element. In contrast, mass-(bio)sensors are commonly used for analyte detection at laboratory level only, due to their rigidity. To overcome these limitations, a flexible mass-(bio)sensor for sweat pH sensing is proposed. The device exploits the flexibility of piezoelectric AlN membranes fabricated on a polyimide substrate combined to the sensitive properties of a pH responsive hydrogel based on PEG-DA/CEA molecules. A resonant frequency shift is recorded due to the hydrogel swelling/shrinking at several pH. Our device shows a responsivity of about 12 kHz/pH unit when measured in artificial sweat formulation in the pH range 3-8. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that hydrogel mass variations are sensed by a flexible resonator, fostering the development of a new class of compliant and wearable devices.

Soft and flexible piezoelectric smart patch for vascular graft monitoring based on Aluminum Nitride thin film.

Vascular grafts are artificial conduits properly designed to substitute a diseased blood vessel. However prosthetic fail can occur without premonitory symptoms. Continuous monitoring of the system can provide useful information not only to extend the graft's life but also to optimize the patient's therapy. In this respect, various techniques have been used, but all of them affect the mechanical properties of the artificial vessel. To overcome these drawbacks, an ultrathin and flexible smart patch based on piezoelectric Aluminum Nitride (AlN) integrated on the extraluminal surface of the prosthesis is presented. The sensor can be conformally wrapped around the external surface of the prosthesis. Its design, mechanical properties and dimensions are properly characterized and optimized in order to maximize performances and to avoid any interference with the graft structure during its activity. The sensorized graft is tested in vitro using a pulsatile recirculating flow system that mimics the physiological and pathological blood flow conditions. In this way, the ability of the device to measure real-time variations of the hemodynamics parameters has been tested. The obtained high sensitivity of 0.012 V Pa-1 m-2, joint to the inherent biocompatibility and non-toxicity of the used materials, demonstrates that the device can successfully monitor the prosthesis functioning under different conditions, opening new perspectives for real-time vascular graft surveillance.

The credibility of testimony from minors allegedly victims of abuse within the Italian legislative framework.

The authors aim to analyze the key aspects related to the testimony of children who might have been victims of sexual harassment and abuse. The issue of medico-legal psychiatric assessment of minors who claim to have been sexually abused is extremely contentious and widely-debated, not only due to the growing spread of such claims, but also on account of the technical challenges it raises. For these reasons, national as well as European lawmakers have intervened by enacting new legislation, and scientific communities have established new sets of guidelines aimed at improving the overall conditions under which a child is called to testify as well as the process through which depositions are collected and evaluated, so as to ensure that any assessment of the reliability of the testimony is scientifically grounded. The authors also highlight the importance of regulatory measures meant to minimize the risk that the questioning of a child might negatively affect his or her emotional balance by limiting and lessening stressful conditions and anxiety, which may traumatize and irretrievably scar the child. Moreover, they stress the importance of dealing with the social issue of child abuse by strengthening a preventive set of measures.

Can the onset of orbital cancer be the result of a prosthetic eye?

Orbital exenteration is a disfiguring procedure performed for unresponsive orbital infections and control of recurrent benign tumours and malignancies arising from the eyelids (basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, conjunctival malignant melanoma), lachrymal glands (adenoid cystic carcinoma) or surrounding sinuses. In extremely rare cases the use of a prosthetic eye after enucleation can lead to anophthalmic socket tumours. We report the case of a 54-year-old man who had left eye enucleation due to recurring events of retinal detachment and who developed an invasive fast growing epidermoid carcinoma 30 years later. We review the literature to evaluate the rarity of the occurrence, time of onset after enucleation, treatments and outcomes. Our case illustrates the management of the pathology and emphasises the necessity of careful examination of the anophthalmic socket and the ocular prosthesis to identify any irregularities or damage on its surface even after exenteration that is not performed for malignant disease. Long-term follow up is necessary because this tumour could occur at long time periods after enucleation.

Respecting nasal mucosa during turbinate surgery: end of the dogma?

BACKGROUND: Chronic rhinitis with inferior turbinate hypertrophy is the most common cause of chronic nasal obstruction. Pharmacological treatment, mainly consisting of corticosteroids, is largely inadequate and, therefore, in the last few years several surgical techniques have been proposed (emptying, radiofrequency, cryotherapy, etc...). The aim of our work is to demonstrate that surgical removal of the inferior turbinate mucosa with the microdebrider, along with the submucosal chorion, results in a full restoration of mucosal physiological structure and function. METHODOLOGY: Thirteen symptomatic adult patients were subjected to bilateral inferior partial turbinoplasty with the microdebrider. All patients underwent endoscopic examination, functional nasal tests and nasal mucosa biopsy before and after surgery. RESULTS: The sensitivity in open airspaces improved after nasal surgery, and the results of functional tests returned to within a normal range. SEM examination confirmed that complete mucosal regeneration was within 4 months. CONCLUSION: Total removal of the inferior turbinate mucosa with the microdebrider in patients suffering from hypertrophic chronic rhinitis allows the perfect regeneration of physiological respiratory tissue and doesn`t have a negative impact on healing time and offsets any adverse postoperative event.

White-line: a new finding in laryngopharyngeal reflux objective evaluation.

Laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) indicates the reflux-induced extra-esophageal disorders. LPR and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) occur by the same mechanism: the escape of gastric contents into the esophagus and beyond. However, the classic GERD symptoms are not typical in LPR disease, which can cause a lot of symptoms none of which is specific, making the diagnosis often elusive. The protective mechanisms present in the esophagus are entirely lacking in the larynx, and more generally in upper aerodigestive tract, making them particularly vulnerable to injury from acidic gastric contents. Since gastric acid backflow can affect supraesophageal structures, even in the absence of heartburn or regurgitation symptoms, an early diagnosis is important to prevent the onset of histological modifications in the supraesophageal mucosa. For this scope clinicians need to use different methods to get a diagnosis. We adopted two validated scoring systems: the reflux symptom index (RSI) for symptom assessing and the reflux finding score (RFS) for sign evaluation. In our experience we detect a new objective endoscopic rhinopharyngeal marker, called "white-line" characterized by mucosal metaplasia, that in a significant proportion of patients lines up to these validated indexes as a further element in the LPR diagnosis.

Use of patch testing for the diagnosis of abacavir-related hypersensitivity reaction in HIV patients.

BACKGROUND: The use of antiretroviral drug abacavir (ABC) has been often associated with cutaneous hypersensitivity reactions, the majority being severe. OBJECTIVE: The present study discusses the issues of patch testing associated with pharmacogenetic screening in light of the development of abacavir hypersensitivity reactions (HSRs). METHODS: The present authors classified 100 patients into three groups: 20 patients (group A) had experienced a hypersensitivity reaction when treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) including ABC; 60 HIV-positive patients (group B) were receiving HAART scheme including ABC; 20 HIV-negative patients acted as control group (group C). Patients of group A and B were patch tested with ABC as such, then with an ABC extract diluted to 1 and 10% in petrolatum. Group C patients underwent patches with petrolatum only. A biopsy of the lesion was performed in those patients who showed a positive skin reaction. All patients had been tested for HLA-B5701. RESULTS: A correlation between positive ABC-patch testing and HLA-B5701 was found in 50% of patients enrolled in group A, while in group B and C, all patients tested negative for both genetic marker and ABC-patch testing. Histopathology findings confirmed a vigorous CD4+ and CD8+ cellular response that is compatible with HSR. CONCLUSIONS: Patch testing is a safe and sensitive method that can be used for to confirm or exclude any correlation between abacavir and hypersensitivity skin reactions in patients who have been previously treated with abacavir during HAART. Correlation between patch test, immunohistochimical, and genetic tests results shows that genetic testing increases the possibility to identify patients with a true reaction.

[Breaking the drinking habits of alcoholics with hypnosis. Psychological and technical dynamisms]. / Disassuefazione dell'etilista con l'ipnosi. Dinamismi psichici e tecniche.

Hypnosis therapy, with its ego support and strengthening techniques, with its cathartic or hypoanalytic method (automatic writing, drawing, hypnodrama but, above all, age regression), by means of will strengthening technique, post-hypnotic comands, etc., represents an all-round system whose aims are not simply to reach a speedy analysis of the patient's inner recesses, but to decondition by negative stimuli and recondition by positive stimuli. Hypnotherapy is based essentially on the dynamism of visualisation. The role of perception as a moment of input or penetration of the pathogenic idea in different growth stages, is the same that is exploited when, in that moment of enhanced receptivity which is hypnosis, in that moment of "burning boats with respect to the subjective perception of reality", haemotigenous visualisations are inculcated which remain dynamically active and operative after long-standing distorted perceptions have been destructured.

[Hypnosis within the framework of psychotherapy]. / L'ipnosi nel quadro della psicoterapia

Apart from special cases, hypnosis cannot be used to combat symptoms, nor to give the patient something he does not yet have. That it cannot be employed, as in the preanalytic period, as a means of interpretation and psychological exploration is clear from what is said by Anna Freud. After discussion in deep analysis during wakefulness, and in the light of the psychodynamic concepts of psychoanalysis, of the what interpretat to be given to the dynamic process of the symptom, we can exactly repeat this interpretation in a hypnotic trance. It is vulnerable, like hypnoid states (emotion, fear, anxiety, anger, fatigue, surmenage, transition from wakefulness to sleep) in which a psychic pathological process may easily start due to "difference of level, blank in the consiousness" and absent "abreaction". This vulnerability and increased tendency to accept has been encountered in hypnoid states as in artificially induced trances, and gives a much more rapid entrée to the patient's integration process. The interpretation of the dynamics of his symptom, once accepted, becomes an active force, and produces effects that would, in any event, have been produced if the integration process had occurred normally, without the acceleration provided by hypnotism, leading to resolution of the symptom. What is involved, therefore, is acceleration of the psychoanalytic process.