[Management of workers with psychic disorder in the Salerno Medical Unit]. / La gestione del lavoratore con disagio psichico nell'ASL Salerno.

Within our Medical Unit of Competent Doctor, in the last years we have registered growing number of workers with psychic disorders, which affect, to various degrees, their normal working activity. This fact has required from us a thorough re-consideration of the psycho-social risks related to employment in general, but also of other issues such as the topic of third parties' healthcare assistance as well as the type of role that interested operators are supposed to play in managing people affected by this type of risks. The current work shows the outcome of the survey which was conducted, highlighting the main critical aspects which have emerged in managing workers with psychic disorders.

[Injuries with biological risk within Salerno ASL hospitals: descriptive epidemiologic analyses in the period 2006-2008]. / Infortuni a rischio biologico negli ospedali dell'ASL Salerno: analisi epidemiologica descrittiva nel triennio 2006-2008.

The performed study assesses the exposure to biological liquids among health operators of Hospitals belonging to the ASL Salerno/1 in the period 2006/2008. In the following case all work injuries announced in the mentioned period were considered. Overall, 633 injuries have been analysed. Of these, 323 had significant biological risk. Collected data highlighted that professional categories mostly affected are hospital nurses and doctors, and that most injuries happened during injecting therapy and also that the most frequent injury has been caused by the noodle injection.

Size, flexibility, and scattering functions of semiflexible polyelectrolytes with excluded volume effects: monte carlo simulations and neutron scattering experiments

We present a systematic Monte Carlo study of the scattering function S(q) of semiflexible polyelectrolytes at infinite dilution, in solutions with different concentrations of added salt. In the spirit of a theoretical description of polyelectrolytes in terms of the equivalent parameters, namely, persistence length and excluded volume interactions, we used a modified wormlike chain model, in which the monomers are represented by charged hard spheres placed at distance a. The electrostatic interactions are approximated by a Debye-Huckel potential. We show that the scattering function is quantitatively described by that of uncharged wormlike chains with excluded volume effects provided that an electrostatic contribution is added to the persistence length. In addition we have studied the expansion of the radius of gyration and of the end-to-end distance. The results are in agreement with the picture outlined in the Odijk-Skolnick-Fixman theory, in which the behavior of charged polymers is described only in terms of increasing local rigidity and excluded volume effects. Moreover, the Monte Carlo data are found to be in very good agreement with experimental scattering measurements with equilibrium polyelectrolytes, i.e., giant wormlike micelles formed in mixtures of nonionic and ionic surfactants in dilute aqueous solution, with added salt.

Relative stability of intracellular proteins in bacterial cells.

The relative stabilities of soluble and membrane proteins were examined in growing Escherichia coli cells. In contrast to mammalian cells, we found no correlations between the isoelectric points or molecular weights of E. coli proteins and their degradative rates. The soluble proteins with short half-lives tended to be degraded preferentially in vitro by trypsin or chymotrypsin. The stability of membrane proteins in vivo was correlated with in vitro sensitivity to chymotrypsin but not to trypsin. In the total membrane fraction, endogenous proteolytic activity varied with growth conditions. This activity was inhibited by o-phenanthroline, EDTA and dithiothreitol suggesting that one or more metallo-proteinases were present. Membrane proteinase activity was also inhibited by phenethyl alcohol, a membrane perturbant. The abundance of the membrane proteins that were most labile in vivo was dependent on growth conditions. The most labile protein accumulated in the outer membrane with an inverse relationship to growth rate.