Validity and reliability of the Italian version of the Oral Assessment Guide

Mucositis is a frequent side-effect of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Assessment of oral cavity is important to detect alterations in the mouth and plan appropriate interventions. A reliable tool can help to have a better assessment of mucositis and a major knowledge about this phenomenon. Since no valid and reliable tool for the assessment of mucositis is still available in Italy, the aim of this study was to establish the validity and reliability of the Italian version of the Oral Assessment Guide (OAG). A panel of health care experts established the content validity of the tool both for the items and the descriptors. To establish the reliability of the tool, a sample of 14 inpatients with haematological diseases were recruited. Couples of dental hygienists separately performed 60 pairs of assessments (for a total of 120 assessments) on the sample. The Italian version of OAG was found to have an acceptable Content Validity Index (CVI) for items and related descriptors ranging between 0.67 and 1. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.84, agreement of assessment ranged between 0.87 and 0.65 with Cohen’s Kappa coefficient ranging from good to very good. This study showed that the Italian version of the OAG has good psychometric properties of validity and reliability to assess mucositis in patients undergoing chemotherapy. This tool will have a great importance to carry out future research in Italy aimed to improve the patient's outcomes particularly in terms of functional ability and quality of life

Non-vascular interventional procedures: effective dose to patient and equivalent dose to abdominal organs by means of dicom images and Monte Carlo simulation

This study evaluates X-ray exposure in patient undergoing abdominal extra-vascular interventional procedures by means of Digital Imaging and COmmunications in Medicine (DICOM) image headers and Monte Carlo simulation. The main aim was to assess the effective and equivalent doses, under the hypothesis of their correlation with the dose area product (DAP) measured during each examination. This allows to collect dosimetric information about each patient and to evaluate associated risks without resorting to in vivo dosimetry. The dose calculation was performed in 79 procedures through the Monte Carlo simulator PCXMC (A PC-based Monte Carlo program for calculating patient doses in medical X-ray examinations), by using the real geometrical and dosimetric irradiation conditions, automatically extracted from DICOM headers. The DAP measurements were also validated by using thermoluminescent dosimeters on an anthropomorphic phantom. The expected linear correlation between effective doses and DAP was confirmed with an R(2) of 0.974. Moreover, in order to easily calculate patient doses, conversion coefficients that relate equivalent doses to measurable quantities, such as DAP, were obtained

Phenomenology of symmetry breaking from extra dimensions

Motivated by the electroweak hierarchy problem, we consider theories with two extra dimensions in which the four-dimensional scalar fields are components of gauge boson in full space. We explore the Nielsen-Olesen instability for SU(N) on a torus, in the presence of a magnetic background. A field theory approach is developed, computing explicitly the minimum of the complete effective potential, including tri-linear and quartic couplings and determining the symmetries of the stable vacua. We also develop appropriate gauge-fixing terms when both Kaluza-Klein and Landau levels are present and interacting, discussing the interplay between the possible six and four dimensional choices. The equivalence between coordinate dependent and constant Scherk-Schwarz boundary conditions -associated to either continuous or discrete Wilson lines- is analyzed.Comment: 39 pages and 8 eps figures. Few changes in section

Pisa in the Middle Age: the Dream and the Reality of an Empire

Tra XI e XIII secolo Pisa allargò enormemente i confini del suo dominio, esercitando una forte influenza poltitica, culturale ed economica molto al di là del circuito delle mura o del contado. Creò (come anche Venezia e Genova) basi, empori e colonie in tutto il Mediterraneo, organizzò imprese belliche contro realtà politiche ostili, strappò a re e imperatori privilegi di ampia portata, stipulò trattati diplomatici e accordi commerciali con le città, gli emirati e le signorie che punteggiavano le coste del Mare Nostrum. Costruì quindi, in un certo senso, un “impero” e di questa sua particolare potenza fu consapevole al punto di assumere – nei comportamenti, nelle produzioni artistiche e architettoniche – modelli che si richiamavano all’antichità, a Roma e al Sacro Romano Impero.Between the eleventh and thirteenth-century Pisa greatly expanded the boundaries of its domain, exerting a strong poltitical, cultural and economic influence well beyond the the circuit of its walls or its county. The city created (as well as Venice and Genoa) bases, emporiums and colonies throughout the Mediterranean, organized war efforts against hostile political realities, had from kings and emperors extensive privileges, stipulated diplomatic treaties and trade agreements with the cities, the lordships that dotted the shores of the Mediterranean sea. Then it built, in a sense, an "empire" and its particular power was conscious to the point of hiring - in behavior, in artistic productions and architectural - models that recalled roman antiquity

Phase Transitions on Nonamenable Graphs

We survey known results about phase transitions in various models of statistical physics when the underlying space is a nonamenable graph. Most attention is devoted to transitive graphs and trees

Data Integration in Cardiac Surgery Health Care Institution: Experience at G. Pasquinucci Heart Hospital

During the last ten years the Hospital Information System (HIS) was developed at the Institute of Clinical Physiology of National Research Council (IFC-CNR), recently reorganized on clinical side into the "Gabriele Monasterio Foundation" (FGM) by joint efforts of CNR, Tuscany Region and Universities. At G.Pasquinucci Heart Hospital (GPH), currently FGM\u27s section in Massa, the HIS was adapted and extended to Cardiac Surgery and Pediatric Cardiology. Data archiving and middleware integration through HIS network, connecting GPH with head institution in Pisa, allowed to achieve full secure access to patient information from any workstation within hospital or outside. PACS was developed using Open Source DICOM utilities. Electronic Medical Record is daily used since 2005 on both inpatients and outpatients. Recently telediagnosis was set up between Balkan countries and GPH in Massa

Attendance to Massive Open On-line Courses: Towards a Solution to Track on-line Recorded Lectures Viewing

Massive open on-line courses (MOOC) suchas those by edX.org are digital courses where thousands students are dispersed across the Internet. This new variant for distance learning opens many new challenges including the need to verify the real vision of recorded lectures same as we control the physical presence of scholars in a traditional classroom. We review here a precursor study on the effectiveness of the new Pinvox system (i.e., “Personal Identification Number by Voice”), that aims to ensure“on-line attendance”by confirming that a particular student has actually listened to and watched a complete video lecture

Società e istituzioni nelle città dell'Occitania tra XII e XIII : status quaestionis e prospettive di ricerca

From a socio-institutional point of view some towns in the south of France, between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, had an evolution similar to the cities of the central-north Italy. The article aims to give an overview of the studies on the topic and to propose future lines of research that take into account, in a comparative way, the autonomous cities of the Midi in order to consider, if possible, a common model of evlution. Dal punto di vista socio-istituzionale alcune realtà cittadine del sud della Francia ebbero tra XI e XIII secolo una evoluzione simile a quella delle città dell'Italia centro-settentrionale. L'articolo intende fare una panoramica degli studi dedicati all'argomento e prospettare linee future di ricerca che prendano in considerazione in forma comparata le autonomie urbane del Midi al fine di prospettare, se possibile, un modello evolutivo comune

Malaspina, Moroello

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