Histological changes in intra-oral skin flaps

This review outlines the histological features of intra-oral skin flaps and their pathology as encountered in a routine head and neck diagnostic histopathology service. Problems in recognising and interpreting unfamiliar and complex appearances, and areas of diagnostic and prognostic uncertainty, are highlighted

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

Intentions on desired length of stay among immigrants in Italy

Abstract The decision to emigrate from the country of origin may not be a permanent one: migrants can decide to return home or to emigrate to a third country. This phenomenon, established for some time in certain other European countries, has become an important one for Italy only recently. This paper contributes to the knowledge of migrants’ intentions in two ways: on the one hand, it analyses the factors associated with indecision about future plans; on the other, it focuses on the desired length of stay and its relationship with attachments (family, economic, socio-cultural and psychological) to host and home country. We used two logistic regression models: one for migrants’ indecision and the other for migrants’ desired length of stay. The data were collected by survey, coordinated by the ISMU Foundation and conducted in 2008 and 2009 with more than 12,000 migrants living in Italy. According to our results, indecision seems to be associated with an intermediate phase of migration at the early stage of family development in the case of negative balance of the migration experience, while attachment to the host country is associated with longer stay, and no attachments or attachment to the country of origin are associated with shorter stay