Evaluation of microbiological air quality and of microclimate in university classrooms.

The proliferation of air-diffused microorganisms inside public buildings such as schools, hospitals, and universities, is often indicated as a possible health risk. In this research, we have illustrated the results of an investigation realized to determine the health of the air in some university classrooms, both from a microbiological and a microclimatic viewpoint, during the normal didactic activity of direct lessons. The results obtained have been expressed by means of contamination indices, already used in previous works.

Paternal age and preterm birth in Italy, 1990 to 1998.

Background: Advanced paternal age has been reported to impair pregnancy outcome. Here, we investigated the association of advanced paternal age with preterm birth by using a very large national data set.

Methods: We analyzed data from 1990 to 1998 on Italian firstborn singletons to mothers 20-24 and 25-29 years of age (n = 1,510,823).