Modeling opinion polarization on social media: Application to Covid-19 vaccination hesitancy in Italy.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic reminded us how vaccination can be a divisive topic on which the public conversation is permeated by misleading claims, and thoughts tend to polarize, especially on online social networks. In this work, motivated by recent natural language processing techniques to systematically extract and quantify opinions from text messages, we present a differential framework for bivariate opinion formation dynamics that is coupled with a compartmental model for fake news dissemination. Thanks to a mean-field analysis we demonstrate that the resulting Fokker-Planck system permits to reproduce bimodal distributions of opinions as observed in polarization dynamics.

A physician and a man of science: patients, physicians, and diseases in Marcello Malpighi's medical practice.

Marcello Malpighi (1628-94), the celebrated Italian anatomist, was also a very successful physician and, as his correspondence indicates, medical consultant by post. This article focuses on the professional and social network that developed around Malpighi's medical activity. The network played a major role in promoting Malpighi's professional career and in disseminating his scientific ideas.

[Degree thesis in nursing: single center experience].

In literature, about Italy, there are only few studies regarding final thesis and the choices of the nursing student of first level degree. The scope of this study is to analyze the theses of the nursing students of University of Udine to the aim to characterize the fields and and the modalities used from the students in order to write this work. This work analysed 162 theses discussed in three years academics.

Animal electricity at the end of the eighteenth century: the many facets of a great scientific controversy.

In the 1790s, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta were the main protagonists of a lively debate on the role of electricity in animal organisms. Significant developments originated from this debate, leading to the foundation of two new disciplines, electrodynamics and electrophysiology, that were to play a crucial role in the scientific and technological progress of the last two centuries. The Galvani-Volta controversy has been repeatedly reconstructed, sometimes in an attempt to identify the merits and the errors of one or the other of the two protagonists, sometimes with the aim of demonstrating that the theories elaborated by the two Italian scholars were irreconcilable, reflecting completely different ways of looking at phenomena and conceiving of scientific research.

Drawing a spark from darkness: John Walsh and electric fish.

John Walsh's research on electric fish, carried out between 1772 and 1775, proved fundamental for demonstrating that electricity might be involved in animal physiology, and, moreover, in favouring a period of great progress in both the physiology and physics of electrical phenomena. However, Walsh is hardly known to modern neuroscientists and is largely neglected by science historians also. One of the reasons for this neglect is that he never published his 'crucial experiment', that is the production of a spark from a discharge of the electric eel.

Drawing a spark from darkness: John Walsh and electric fish.

John Walsh's research on electric fish, carried out between 1772 and 1775, proved fundamental for demonstrating that electricity might be involved in animal physiology, and, moreover, in favouring a period of great progress in both the physiology and physics of electrical phenomena. However, Walsh is hardly known to modern neuroscientists and is largely neglected by science historians also. One of the reasons for this neglect is that he never published his 'crucial experiment', that is the production of a spark from a discharge of the electric eel.

Medicine and science in the life of Luigi Galvani (1737-1798).

Together with its companion paper, dealing with the contribution of Luigi Galvani to the history of electrophysiology, this article provides a biographical sketch of the scientist of Bologna in the occasion of the bicentenary of his death. Studies on Galvani have focused mainly on his "discovery" of animal electricity, and on the controversy with Alessandro Volta. Much less is known about Galvani's life and activity as a teacher, physician, and researcher in the fields of comparative anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of life.

Prognostic value of biophysical profile score in post-date pregnancy.

Objectives: This study was undertaken to assess the ability of each individual biophysical profile score variable and combination of variables, to predict fetal distress or imminent labor in the post data pregnancy.

Materials And Methods: From June 1992 to August 1993, Biophysical Profile Scoring (BPS) was performed on 182 pregnant women. Thirty one patients delivered between 42 and 43 weeks of gestation, while the other 151 pregnant women delivered between 38 and 41+6 days.

Preterm labour and neonatal parameters.

Objectives: Our objective was to identify those neonatal factors associated with survival in preterm infants.

Material And Methods: We examined a population of 457 preterm newborns delivered between 1 January-31 December 1990, with birthweight between < 1000 gr and > 2000 gr, in respect to umbilical pH values, plasmatic glucose values, 5-minute Apgar score and gestational age. Data were abstracted from the maternal intrapartum records and the neonatal records, with specific attention to neonatal parameters.

Cell-mediated immunity imbalance in pregnancy-induced hypertension.

Pregnancy is associated with modifications in the maternal immune system that may be involved in the absence of rejection of the fetoplacental graft characterized by the presence of paternal antigens. This active and specific tolerance towards the fetoplacental unit seems to be compromised in pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH). To evaluate whether the immunological state in patients with PIH is altered with respect to normal pregnant women we studied 15 patients with PIH, 15 uncomplicated pregnant and 10 healthy nonpregnant women using monoclonal antibodies directed to specific lymphocyte antigen determinants, cytokines (TNF) and soluble molecules (sIL-2R, sCD8).

[Comparative clinical study of a new imidazole molecule (fluconazole) and ketaconazole in the treatment of Candida albicans vulvovaginitis].

A multicentre trial was carried out in Italy with the aim of comparing the efficacy, safety and tolerability of the oral administration of fluconazole with the oral administration of ketoconazole in the treatment of patients affected by Candida vulvovaginitis. A total of 174 patients with symptomatic Candida vulvovaginitis were identified both by objective examination and cell culture tests: of these 87 were treated using a single oral administration of fluconazole (150 mg) whereas the other 87 received 2 200 mg capsules of ketoconazole daily for 5 days. Tests to assess the efficacy, safety and tolerability of both treatments were carried out approximately 7 days and 5-6 weeks from the start of therapy.

[Therapy and iron supplements with ferritin iron during pregnancy. Randomized prospective study of 458 cases].

A randomized polycentric study was programmed to establish the effects of daily administration of ferritin iron from early pregnancy to puerperium. 254 women with normal iron balance at the beginning of their pregnancy were randomized receiving no supplements or 40 mg iron daily. At the end of pregnancy iron balance was still normal only in one third of the pregnant women of the first group versus two third of the second group.

Amniotic fluid insulin and glucagon in normal pregnancy and pregnancy complicated by rhesus isoimmunization.

Immunoreactive insulin (IRI) and immunoreactive glucagon (IRG) were determined in the amniotic fluid from 28 rhesus isoimmunized pregnancies with moderately affected fetuses and from 15 normal pregnancies; in umbilical arterial plasma from nine newborn infants with rhesus haemolytic disease of moderate degree and from 19 normal infants; in plasma from their respective mothers at delivery; and in the urine of 13 normal infants at birth. Levels of IRI and IRG in amniotic fluid from rhesus cases were not different from those of normal pregnancies. IRG was detected in the first voided neonatal urine.