The relationship between malignant mesothelioma and an asbestos cement plant environmental risk: a spatial case–control study in the city of Bari (Italy)

Objectives  To estimate the mesothelioma risk and environmental asbestos exposure (EAE) due to an asbestos-cement plant. Methods  A spatial case–control study including 48 malignant mesothelioma (MM) cases occurred in the period 1993–2003 selected from the regional mesothelioma register (RMR) and 273 controls. The disease risk was estimated by means of a logistic-regression model, in which the probability of disease-occurrence is expressed as a function of the classes of distances. A non-parametric method was applied to estimate the full relative risk surface. Results  Significant MM odds ratio of 5.29 (95 CI: 1.18–23.74) was found for people living within a range up to 500 m centered on the plant. The non-parametric estimation of relative risk surface unveiled a marked peak near the plant not paralleled by the spatial distribution of controls. Conclusion  Evidence of an association between mesothelioma risk and EAE is highlighted. The role played by the RMR in increasing the public health local authorities awareness is stressed.     

Intramuscular Neridronate in Postmenopausal Women with Low Bone Mineral Density

Compliance to osteoporosis treatment with oral bisphosphonates is very poor. Intermittent intravenous bisphosphonate is a useful alternative, but this route is not readily available. Neridronate, a nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate that can be given intramuscularly (IM), was tested in a phase 2 clinical trial in 188 postmenopausal osteoporotic women randomized to IM treatment with 25 mg neridronate every 2 weeks, neridronate 12.5 or 25 mg every 4 weeks, or placebo. All patients received calcium and vitamin D supplements. The patients were treated over 12 months with 2-year posttreatment follow-up. After 12-month treatment, all three doses were associated with significant bone mineral density (BMD) increases at both the total hip and spine. A significant dose–response relationship over the three doses was observed for the BMD changes at the total hip but not at the spine. Bone alkaline phosphatase decreased significantly by 40–55% in neridronate-treated patients, with an insignificant dose–response relationship. Serum type I collagen C-telopeptide decreased by 58–79%, with a significant dose–response relationship (P < 0.05). Two years after treatment discontinuation, BMD declined by 1–2% in each dose group, with values still significantly higher than baseline at both the spine and the total hip. Bone turnover markers progressively increased after treatment discontinuation, and on the second year of follow-up the values were significantly higher than pretreatment baseline. The results of this study indicate that IM neridronate might be of value for patients intolerant to oral bisphosphonates and unwilling or unable to undergo intravenous infusion of bisphosphonates.     

A feature extraction unsupervised neural network for an environmental data set.

Environmental data sets are characterized by a huge amount of heterogeneous data from external fields. As the number of measured points grows, a strategy is needed to select and efficiently analyze the useful information from the whole data set. One efficient way of obtaining the validation-compression of data sets is the adoption of a restricted set of features that describe, with an assigned accuracy a subset of the whole data set. One characteristic feature of the environmental data is time dependency: in the medium and long term they are not stationary data sets. The aim of this work is to propose a feature extraction technique based on a new model of an unsupervised neural network suitable to analyze this kind of data. The paper reports the results obtained utilizing the above extraction and analysis procedure on a real data set on chemical pollutants. It is shown that the proposed neural network is able to identify correctly human and/or meteorological effects in the environmental data set.     

The Rise of Creativity: From Primary to Tertiary Process*

This discussion praises Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory by Jay Greenberg and Stephen Mitchell for the clarity with which it compares various psychoanalytic theories and their pedagogical usefulness. However, it emphasizes that the book views comparative psychoanalysis based on choices and assumptions with which many might differ. “Object relations” is only one of several possible lenses through which psychoanalytic theories might have been compared. By selecting object relations as the organizing perspective the authors ignore some important theorists such as Arlow and Brenner or Erik Erikson. It also notes that Greenberg and Mitchell view the choice of theoretical position as simply a matter of personal preference. This ignores the possibility of scientifically evaluating which psychoanalytic approach is most likely to achieve the best results.     

New Views on the Psychology and Psychopathology of Wit and of the Comic

The article reviews the current state and future of psychodynamic psychotherapies. In the past few decades psychodynamic psychotherapies have fallen into disrepute due to the fractious and dogmatic nature of different psychodynamic schools of thought and the lack of interest in validating some of its major premises or its effectiveness in comparison with other psychotherapy modalities. Despite these self-inflicted wounds, psychodynamic theory and treatment is staging a comeback. Many of the major premises that comprise the complex, layered model of the mind that are the basis of psychodynamic treatments have again begun to be validated. A list of basic psychodynamic concepts is described. The evidence for each of these concepts varies, but as a whole the evidence is broad and deep for the model of the mind posited by psychoanalysis. This evidence is coming from many fields of knowledge that are not necessarily influenced by psychoanalysis. There have also been significant advances in developing methods and tools that can probe systematically into the complex nature of psychodynamic treatment processes. Finally, statistical tools–such as meta-analytic studies–that can aggregate and compare many different studies at once are beginning to show the effectiveness of dynamic psychotherapies in comparison with other modalities of treatment.     

Evaluation of 2 indicators for the presence of toxic substances in land used as unauthorized dumpsites

The aim of this study was to experiment with simple, low cost tests which are able to detect the presence of compounds and/or toxic substances in soil. Their genotoxic potential was evaluated using the Ames and Tradescantia Micronuclei tests. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were also performed to assess the presence of edaphic micro and macro fauna in soil samples collected from both the contaminated and adjacent areas. Our results show that these tests are a useful screening method to check for the presence of harmful, toxic substances affecting the quality of soil and the surrounding ecosystem.     

T cell clones expressing the natural killer cell-related p58 receptor molecule display heterogeneity in phenotypic properties and p58 function

A new anti-p58 monoclonal antibody (mAb), termed CH-L, has been used to characterize a minor subset of T lymphocytes co-expressing p58 and CD3 molecules. In two-color immunofluorescence analysis, CH-L⁺CD3⁺ cells represented 0.5 to 6% of the peripheral blood lymphocytes (in 20 healthy donors). Clonal analysis showed that most CD3⁺CH-L⁺ T cell clones expressed the CD8⁺4^? T cell receptor (TcR) α/β⁺ phenotype, while only a few were CD8^?4⁺ TcR α/β⁺, CD8^?4^? TcR α/β⁺ or CD8^?4^? TcR γ/δ⁺. Western blot analysis indicated that the CH-L mAb identifies the same 56-58-kDa diffuse band in both T and natural killer cell (NK) clones. A minority of T cell clones also expressed other NK-related markers such as CD16, CD56 and CD94 and two clones also reacted with the anti-p58 mAb EB6. Interestingly, most clones displayed cytolytic activity in an anti-CD3 mAb-triggered redirected killing assay against the Fcδ receptor⁺ P815 target cells and NK-like activity against K562 and Raji cells. In contrast, the IGROV-1 ovarian carcinoma cell line was resistant to cytolysis by all of these clones. Since p58 molecules have previously been shown to exert regulatory functions on NK-mediated lysis, we investigated whether anti-p58 mAb could also influence cytotoxicity mediated by CD3⁺p58⁺ T lymphocytes. Lysis of P815 target cells, triggered by anti-CD3 mAb, could be inhibited by anti-p58 mAb in 8 out of 12 cytolytic clones tested, while 4 clones were not inhibited. In addition, anti-p58 mAb enhanced the cytolytic activity of 3 clones against IGROV-1 and of 4 other clones against Raji target cells. Taken together, these data indicate that p58⁺ T cells express heterogeneous phenotypes and different forms of TcR and, in most instances, display cytolytic functions. Perhaps more importantly, the p58 molecule appears to modulate the cytolytic activity triggered via the CD3/TcR complex.