Changes in groundwater or surface water level may cause observable deformation of the drainage basins in different ways. We describe an active slope deformation monitored with GPS and tiltmeter ...stations in a karstic limestone plateau in southeastern Alps (Cansiglio Plateau). The observed transient GPS deformation clearly correlates with the rainfall. Both GPS and tiltmeter equipments react instantly to heavy rains displaying abrupt offsets, but with different time constants, demonstrating the response to different catchment volumes. The GPS movement is mostly confined in the horizontal plane (SSW direction) showing a systematic tendency to rebound in the weeks following the rain. Four GPS stations concur to define a coherent deformation pattern of a wide area (), concerning the whole southeastern slope of the plateau. The plateau expands and rebounds radially after rain by an amount up to a few centimeters and causing only small vertical deformation. The effect is largest where karstic features are mostly developed, at the margin of the plateau where a thick succession of Cretaceous peritidal carbonates faces the Venetian lowland. A couple of tiltmeters installed in a cave at the top of the plateau, detect a much faster deformation, that has the tendency to rebound in less than 6 h. The correlation to rainfall is less straightforward, and shows a more complex behavior during rainy weather. The different responses demonstrate a fast hydrologic flow in the more permeable epikarst for the tiltmeters, drained by open fractures and fissures in the neighborhood of the cave, and a rapid tensile dislocation of the bedrock measured at the GPS stations that affect the whole slope of the mountain. In the days following the rain, both tiltmeter and GPS data show a tendency to retrieve the displacement which is consistent with the phreatic discharge curve. We propose that hydrologically active fractures recharged by rainfall are the most likely features capable to induce the observed strain variations.
Background and aims: Liver steatosis is frequent in chronic hepatitis C, particularly in patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 3. The aim of this study was to determine the ...relationship between steatosis and fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C as a function of viral genotype. Methods: A multivariable logistic regression analysis was carried out in 755 chronic hepatitis C patients (mean body mass index (BMI) 24.11 kg/m2; 178 with genotype 3), consecutively admitted to three referral hospitals. Liver histology showed steatosis in 315 and fibrosis in 605 patients, of whom 187 had cirrhosis (78 compensated and 109 decompensated). Results: Steatosis was independently associated with fibrosis (p<0.001), genotype 3 (p<0.001), BMI (p<0.001), ongoing alcohol abuse (p<0.001), and age (p = 0.001). Fibrosis was associated with the Metavir activity score (p<0.001), age (p<0.001), steatosis (p = 0.001), past alcohol abuse for >5 years (p = 0.015), and BMI (p = 0.034). When regression analysis was repeated on patients divided according to viral genotype (that is, 3 v non-3) to identify type specific risk factors, steatosis was associated with ongoing alcohol abuse (p<0.001) and age (p = 0.01) only in non-3 genotype infected patients and with Metavir activity (p = 0.044) only in genotype 3 infected patients. Similarly, fibrosis was associated with steatosis only in genotype 3 infected individuals (p = 0.018), and with past alcohol abuse (p = 0.003) and (marginally) diabetes (p = 0.078) only in non-3 genotype infected patients. Conclusions: Steatosis influences chronic hepatitis C progression in a genotype specific way. Patients infected with genotype 3 and histologically confirmed steatosis should not be deferred from effective antiviral therapy.
The design of critical facilities needs a targeted computation of the expected ground motion levels. The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is the pipeline that transports natural gas from the ...Greek-Turkish border, through Greece and Albania, to Italy. We present here the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) that we performed for this facility, and the deaggregation of the results, aiming to identify the dominant seismic sources for a selected site along the Albanian coast, where one of the two main compressor stations is located. PSHA is based on an articulated logic tree of twenty branches, consisting of two models for source, seismicity, estimation of the maximum magnitude, and ground motion. The area with the highest hazard occurs along the Adriatic coast of Albania (PGA between 0.8 and 0.9 g on rock for a return period of 2475 years), while strong ground motions are also expected to the north of Thessaloniki, Kavala, in the southern Alexandroupolis area, as well as at the border between Greece and Turkey. The earthquakes contributing most to the hazard of the test site at high and low frequencies (1 and 5 Hz) and the corresponding design events for the TAP infrastructure have been identified as local quakes with
M
W
6.6 and 6.0, respectively.
Background. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may influence the outcome and natural history of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection through an impact on acute HCV-specific T cell responses. Methods. ...Fifty-five HIV-positive males with acute HCV infection were identified; monoinfected individuals (n = 8) were used for peripheral blood mononuclear cell comparison. In 14 coinfected and 8 HCV-monoinfected patients, HCV-specific T cell responses against a range of HCV antigens were assessed using interferon (IFN)—γ enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISpot) and proliferation assays. E1/E2 region genetic diversity and the selection pressure on the virus were measured in 8 coinfected patients by use of cloned sequences over time. Results. HCV persisted in 52 (95%) coinfected individuals. HCV/HIV coinfection significantly reduced IFN-γ ELISpot responses versus those in HCV-monoinfected individuals, especially against nonstructural proteins (1/10 vs. 5/8; P = .008). In coinfected patients, increasedHCVgenetic diversity was observed between the first and subsequent time points, with no evidence for positive selection in the E1/E2 region sequenced. Conclusion. HIV coinfection is associated with increased rates ofHCVpersistence and a lack of criticalCD4T cell responses, with no evidence of immune selection pressure during early HCV infection. Loss of key cellular immune responses against HCV during acute disease may contribute to the failure of early host control of HCV in HCV/HIV-coinfected patients.
To ensure environmental and public safety, critical facilities require rigorous seismic hazard analysis to define seismic input for their design. We consider the case of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline ...(TAP), which is a pipeline that transports natural gas from the Caspian Sea to southern Italy, crossing active faults and areas characterized by high seismicity levels. For this pipeline, we develop a Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) for the broader area, and, for the selected critical sites, we perform deterministic seismic hazard assessment (DSHA), by calculating shaking scenarios that account for the physics of the source, propagation, and site effects. This paper presents a DSHA for a compressor station located at Fier, along the Albanian coastal region. Considering the location of the most hazardous faults in the study site, revealed by the PSHA disaggregation, we model the ground motion for two different scenarios to simulate the worst-case scenario for this compressor station. We compute broadband waveforms for receivers on soft soils by applying specific transfer functions estimated from the available geotechnical data for the Fier area. The simulations reproduce the variability observed in the ground motion recorded in the near-earthquake source. The vertical ground motion is strong for receivers placed above the rupture areas and should not be ignored in seismic designs; furthermore, our vertical simulations reproduce the displacement and the static offset of the ground motion highlighted in recent studies. This observation confirms the importance of the DSHA analysis in defining the expected pipeline damage functions and permanent soil deformations.
Background. The epidemiology of acute hepatitis C has changed during the past decade in Western countries. Acute HCV infection has a high rate of chronicity, but it is unclear when patients with ...acute infection should be treated. Methods. To evaluate current sources of hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission in Italy and to assess the rate of and factors associated with chronic infection, we enrolled 214 consecutive patients with newly acquired hepatitis C during 1999–2004. The patients were from 12 health care centers throughout the country, and they were followed up for a mean (± SD) period of 14 ± 15.8 months. Biochemical liver tests were performed, and HCV RNA levels were monitored. Results. A total of 146 patients (68%) had symptomatic disease. The most common risk factors for acquiring hepatitis C that were reported were intravenous drug use and medical procedures. The proportion of subjects with spontaneous resolution of infection was 36%. The average timespan from disease onset to HCV RNA clearance was 71 days (range, 27–173 days). In fact, 58 (80%) of 73 patients with self-limiting hepatitis experienced HCV RNA clearance within 3 months of disease onset. Multiple logistic regression analyses showed that none of the variables considered (including asymptomatic disease) were associated with increased risk of developing chronic hepatitis C. Conclusions. These findings underscore the importance of medical procedures as risk factors in the current spread of HCV infection in Italy. Because nearly all patients with acute, self-limiting hepatitis C—both symptomatic and asymptomatic—have spontaneous viral clearance within 3 months of disease onset, it seems reasonable to start treatment after this time period ends to avoid costly and useless treatment.
Acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is often a clinically silent infection, and is therefore rarely detected. A high index of clinical suspicion in addition to careful serological and virological ...assessment is required to identify the disease, and to determine the eventual clinical outcome after primary infection; the minority of acutely infected individuals spontaneously control viremia in long term whilst the majority become persistently infected. Here, we describe the clinical presentation of acute HCV infection and the patterns of viremia and liver alanine transaminase levels (ALT) observed. We discuss the serological and virological assessment and potential pitfalls in accurately diagnosing acute HCV. Good prospective studies that identify host and virological factors that determine clinical symptoms and disease outcome are difficult to perform due to the asymptomatic nature of infection, but some progress has been made in this field. Host factors including gender, age at time of infection, prior resolution of infection, symptomatic infection and host immune responses, and viral factors such as the nature of the infecting quasispecies and more speculatively viral genotype, are some features that have been correlated with disease outcome. In spite of this, on an individual patient level, it is currently not possible to predict those that will resolve infection. Identifying, in detail therefore, those factors that are responsible for viral control remains an important research goal not only to aid clinical management but also to develop effective treatment and vaccination strategies.
Since 2002 OGS (Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale) in Udine (Italy), the Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG) in Vienna (Austria), and the Agencija ...Republike Slovenije za Okolje (ARSO) in Ljubljana (Slovenia) are using the Antelope software suite as the main tool for collecting, analyzing, archiving and exchanging seismic data in real time, initially in the framework of the EU Interreg IIIA project "Trans-national seismological networks in the South-Eastern Alps" (Bragato et al., 2004, 2010). The data exchange has proved to be effective and very useful in case of seismic events near the borders between Italy, Austria and Slovenia, where the poor single national seismic networks coverage precluded a correct localization, while the usage of common data from the integrated networks improves considerably the overall reliability of real time seismic monitoring of the area (Fig. 1). At the moment the data exchange between the seismic data centers relies on their internet connections: this however is not an ideal condition for civil protection purposes, since the reliability of standard internet connections is poor. For this reason in 2012 the Protezione Civile della Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano in Bolzano (PCBZ, Italy), OGS, ZAMG subsidiary in Tirol (ZAMG Tirol) and ARSO joined in the Interreg IV Italia-Austria Project "SeismoSAT" (Progetto SeismoSAT, 2012) aimed in connecting the seismic data centers in real time via satellite. ARSO does not belong to the Interreg Italia-Austria region: for this reason ARSO joined the SeismoSAT project as an "associated partner", which, according to Interreg rules can not be funded. ARSO participation in the project is therefore at the beginning limited in benefiting only indirectly from improvement in the robustness of the data exchange between the other data centers, while eventually fully taking part in the project if other sources of funding will be available. The project is in a preliminary phase: the general schema of the project, including first data bandwidth estimates and a possible architecture are here illustrated.
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