Chemistry of Street Art: Neural Network for the Spectral Analysis of Berlin Wall Colors.

This research starts with the analysis of some fragments of the Berlin Wall street art for the characterization of the painting materials. The spectroscopic results provide a general description of the paint executive technique but more importantly open the way to a new advantage of Raman application to the analytic analysis of acrylic colors. The study highlights the correlation between peak intensity and compound percentage and explores the powerful application of deep learning for the quantification of a pigment mixture in the acrylic commercial products from Raman spectra acquired with hand-held equipment (BRAVO by Bruker).

Mortality in Italian veterans deployed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.

Background And Aims: The possible increase of cancer risk in military personnel deployed in Balkans during and after the 1992-1999 wars, mainly related to the depleted uranium, was addressed by several studies on European veterans of those war theatres. This article reports on the results of the mortality study on the Italian cohort of Bosnia and Kosovo veterans (Balkan cohort).

Methods: Mortality rates for the Balkan cohort (71 144 persons) were compared with those of the Italian general population as well as to those of a comparable and unselected control cohort of not deployed military personnel (114 269 persons).

A method to estimate mortality trends when death certificates are imprecisely coded: an application to cervical cancer in Italy.

Systematic analysis of mortality trends of cervix and corpus uteri cancers is difficult in Italy, as in many other countries, because of the poor specification of uterine cancer subsites in official death statistics. The aim of this article is to propose a method for the analysis of uterine cancers mortality based on high quality incidence and prevalence data from population-based cancer registries. The method assumes that the excess mortality of cancer patients, compared to death rates expected in the general population, is attributable to the specific cancer.

[Review of epidemiological studies of cancer risk among Gulf War and Balkans veterans].

Objective: Analysis of the available epidemiological evidence on cancer risk among Gulf war and Balkans veterans.

Design And Setting: Eligible for the review were all studies published in peer-reviewed journals indexed in MedLine by the end of 2007. The review includes twelve studies published between 1996 and 2006 All of them are retrospective cohort studies focused on different outcomes: mortality, hospitalizations or cancer incidence.

[Neonatal mortality in campania region: analysis of causes of death by current data].

Objective: to analyze neonatal mortality by cause using the P-Perinatal classification system of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT).

Design: comparisons by birth cohort (1991-2001 vs 1981-1990). Estimates of the rate ratio (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Cluster analysis of mortality and malformations in the Provinces of Naples and Caserta (Campania Region).

The possible adverse health effects associated with the residence in the neighbourhood of toxic dump sites have been the object of many epidemiological studies in the last two decades;some of these reported increases of various health outcomes. The present study reports the cluster analysis of mortality and malformations at municipality level, standardized by socioeconomic deprivation index, in an area of the Campania Region characterized by a widespread illegal practice of dumping toxic and urban waste. Clusters have been observed with significant excess of mortality by lung, liver, gastric, kidney and bladder cancers and of prevalence of total malformations and malformations of limb, cardiovascular and urogenital system.

Congenital heart disease in live-born children: incidence, distribution, and yearly changes in the Campania Region.

Objectives: Congenital heart disease (CHD), the most common cardiac malformation in the fetal and neonatal period, represents a heterogeneous group of defects with little known cause. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence rate (IR) of CHD without spontaneous resolution in the first year of life, the age at diagnosis, the most common type of CHD, and the IR changes in severe and nonsevere CHD during the study period.

Methods: From January 1997 to December 2002, 4559 live births with CHD (diagnosed until December 2004) were enrolled in the Campania Region.

Cancer mortality in an area of Campania (Italy) characterized by multiple toxic dumping sites.

Several recent studies have documented that a widespread practice of dumping toxic wastes has taken place for many years in the Provinces of Naples and Caserta. Extensive programs of environmental monitoring are currently ongoing in the area. In this frame, the Department of Civil Defence of the Italian Government has appointed an ad hoc study group in order to assess the health status of the population resident in the area of interest.

Familial recurrence of congenital heart disease in patients with ostium secundum atrial septal defect.

Aims: Ostium secundum atrial septal defect (osASD) is one of the most common cardiac malformations. Few data are available on the familial recurrence of congenital heart disease (CHD), in particular, in a large group of patients with isolated osASD. The aim is to investigate the familial recurrence of CHD in up to third-degree relatives from a large sample of consecutively enrolled patients with osASD, taking into account the influence of degree of relatedness (as number of relatives).