High spatial resolution measurements of passive-sampler derived air concentrations of persistent organic pollutants in the Campania region, Italy: Implications for source identification and risk analysis.

Because most relevant studies have used small sample sizes, to date, representative atmospheric monitoring of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) on a regional scale has been very limited, which makes it difficult to precisely identify "hotspots" and possible pollution sources. In this study, an ultrahigh resolution monitoring technique was used to measure the atmospheric spatial variations in POP concentrations on a regional scale, throughout Campania, Italy. The occurrence of specific POPs-including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and phthalate esters (PAEs)-were investigated using polyurethane foam-based passive air samplers (PUF-PAS), which were deployed at 129 sites across the Campania Territory between April and July 2016.

Distribution of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic and Its Monthly Forecast Based on Seasonal Climate Patterns.

This paper investigates whether the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic could have been favored by specific weather conditions and other factors. It is found that the 2020 winter weather in the region of Wuhan (Hubei, Central China)-where the virus first broke out in December and spread widely from January to February 2020-was strikingly similar to that of the Northern Italian provinces of Milan, Brescia and Bergamo, where the pandemic broke out from February to March. The statistical analysis was extended to cover the United States of America, which overtook Italy and China as the country with the highest number of confirmed COronaVIrus Disease 19 (COVID-19) cases, and then to the entire world.

Understanding the complexity of the Lévy-walk nature of human mobility with a multi-scale cost∕benefit model.

Probability distributions of human displacements have been fit with exponentially truncated Lévy flights or fat tailed Pareto inverse power law probability distributions. Thus, people usually stay within a given location (for example, the city of residence), but with a non-vanishing frequency they visit nearby or far locations too. Herein, we show that an important empirical distribution of human displacements (range: from 1 to 1000 km) can be well fit by three consecutive Pareto distributions with simple integer exponents equal to 1, 2, and (>) 3.

Understanding the complexity of human gait dynamics.

Time series of human gait stride intervals exhibit fractal and multifractal properties under several conditions. Records from subjects walking at normal, slow, and fast pace speed are analyzed to determine changes in the fractal scalings as a function of the stress condition of the system. Records from subjects with different age from children to elderly and patients suffering from neurodegenerative disease are analyzed to determine changes in the fractal scalings as a function of the physical maturation or degeneration of the system.

Physiological noise versus white noise to drive a variable ventilator in a porcine model of lung injury.

Purpose: Variable ventilation is superior to control mode ventilation in a number of circumstances. The nature of the breathing file used to deliver the variable rate and tidal volume has not been formally examined.

Methods: We compared two different noise files in a randomized prospective trial of variable ventilation.

Seasonality of birth and conception to teenagers in Texas.

We study the births to teenagers during the years 1964-2000 and analyze separately the three main racial/ethnic groups in Texas (White, Hispanic, and African American), as well as married and unmarried teens during the years 1994-2000. By using traditional statistical methods of analysis and a filter based on the multiresolution wavelet analysis, we draw inferences about the times of the year when adolescent females of different racial/ethnic and marital groups have the highest probability for pregnancy ending in live birth. Multiple factors influencing teen pregnancy are identified and associated with temporal features of social, cultural, educational, and familial processes.

Influence of progressive central hypovolemia on Hölder exponent distributions of cardiac interbeat intervals.

The purpose of the study was to determine the dependency of the statistical properties of the R to R interval (RRI) time series on progressive central hypovolemia with lower body negative pressure. Two data-processing techniques based on wavelet transforms were used to determine the change in the nonstationary nature of the RRI time series with changing negative pressure. The results suggest that autonomic neural mechanism driving cardiac interbeat intervals during central hypovolemia go through various levels of multifractality, as determined by Hölder exponent distributions.

Multiscaling comparative analysis of time series and a discussion on "earthquake conversations" in California.

Time series are characterized by complex memory and/or distribution patterns. In this Letter we show that stochastic models characterized by different statistics may equally well reproduce some pattern of a time series. In particular, we discuss the difference between Lévy-walk and fractal Gaussian intermittent signals and show that the adoption of complementary scaling analysis techniques may be useful to distinguish the two cases.

Solar turbulence in earth's global and regional temperature anomalies.

This paper presents a study of the influence of solar activity on the earth's temperature. In particular, we focus on the repercussion of the fluctuations of the solar irradiance on the temperature of the Northern and Southern hemispheres as well as on land and ocean regions. While solar irradiance data are not directly analyzed, we make use of a published solar irradiance reconstruction for long-time-scale fluctuations, and for short-time-scale fluctuations we hypothesize that solar irradiance and solar flare intermittency are coupled in such a way that the solar flare frequency fluctuations are stochastically equivalent to those of the solar irradiance.

Pyrrolo[1,3]benzothiazepine-based serotonin and dopamine receptor antagonists. Molecular modeling, further structure-activity relationship studies, and identification of novel atypical antipsychotic agents.

Recently we reported the pharmacological characterization of the 9,10-dihydropyrrolo[1,3]benzothiazepine derivative (S)-(+)-8 as a novel atypical antipsychotic agent. This compound had an optimum pK(i) 5-HT(2A)/D(2) ratio of 1.21 (pK(i) 5-HT(2A) = 8.

Solar flare intermittency and the earth's temperature anomalies.

We argue that Earth's short-term temperature anomalies and the solar flare intermittency are linked. The analysis is based upon the study of the scaling of both the spreading and the entropy of the diffusion generated by the fluctuations of the temperature time series. The joint use of these two methods evidences the presence of a Lévy component in the temporal persistence of the temperature data sets that corresponds to the one that would be induced by the solar flare intermittency.

Nonlinear dynamical model of human gait.

We present a nonlinear dynamical model of the human gait control system in a variety of gait regimes. The stride-interval time series in normal human gait is characterized by slightly multifractal fluctuations. The fractal nature of the fluctuations becomes more pronounced under both an increase and decrease in the average gait.

Scaling detection in time series: diffusion entropy analysis.

The methods currently used to determine the scaling exponent of a complex dynamic process described by a time series are based on the numerical evaluation of variance. This means that all of them can be safely applied only to the case where ordinary statistical properties hold true even if strange kinetics are involved. We illustrate a method of statistical analysis based on the Shannon entropy of the diffusion process generated by the time series, called diffusion entropy analysis (DEA).

Lévy scaling: the diffusion entropy analysis applied to DNA sequences.

We address the problem of the statistical analysis of a time series generated by complex dynamics with the diffusion entropy analysis (DEA) [N. Scafetta, P. Hamilton, and P.

Diffusion entropy and waiting time statistics of hard-x-ray solar flares.

We show at work a technique of scaling detection based on evaluating the Shannon entropy of the diffusion process obtained by converting the time series under study into trajectories. This method, called diffusion entropy, affords information that cannot be derived from the direct evaluation of waiting times. We apply this method to the analysis of the distribution of time distance tau between two nearest-neighbor solar flares.

Pyrrolo[1,3]benzothiazepine-based atypical antipsychotic agents. Synthesis, structure-activity relationship, molecular modeling, and biological studies.

The prototypical dopamine and serotonin antagonist (+/-)-7-chloro-9-(4-methylpiperazin-1-yl)-9,10-dihydropyrrolo[2,1-b][1,3]benzothiazepine (5) was resolved into its R and S enantiomers via crystallization of the diastereomeric tartaric acid salts. Binding studies confirmed that the (R)-(-)-enantiomer is a more potent D(2) receptor antagonist than the (S)-(+)-enantiomer, with almost identical affinity at the 5-HT(2) receptor ((S)-(+)-5, log Y = 4.7; (R)-(-)-5, log Y = 7.

L-carnitine esters as "soft", broad-spectrum antimicrobial amphiphiles.

A new class of antimicrobial, "soft", quaternary ammonium l-carnitine esters, of the type (CH3)3N+-CH2-CHOCO(R1)-CH2-COO(R2) Cl-, has been designed, with R1 and R2 being in general long-chain alkyl substituents. The series shows good activity against a wide range of bacteria, yeasts, and fungi. Lipophilicity has been measured by RP-HPLC method to give the logarithm of the experimental capacity factor (log k'), and a quantitative relationship has been determined between log k' and the theoretical partition coefficient (CLOGP); also, bond-dipole descriptors have been introduced into calculations by accounting for polar moieties present within the apolar cores of the molecules, giving a more refined calculated capacity factor (log k'calcd).