Catholic University of the Sacred Heart

About: Catholic University of the Sacred Heart is a education organization based out in Milan, Lombardia, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 13592 authors who have published 31048 publications receiving 853961 citations.

Spousal concordance for major coronary risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract: Spousal pairs permit assessment of determinants of diseases related to environment, because they share the same lifestyle and environment. The authors reviewed spouses' concordance for the major coronary risk factors. A search of the MEDLINE, PubMed, and EMBASE databases was performed. Seventy-one papers were selected for a total of 207 cohorts of pairs and 424,613 correlations in more than 100,000 couples. The most strongly correlated within-pairs factors were smoking and body mass index, with overall correlations of 0.23 (95% confidence interval: 0.12, 0.36) and 0.15 (95% confidence interval: 0.05, 0.25), respectively. Statistically significant positive correlations were also found for diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, total and low density lipoprotein cholesterol, weight, and the waist/hip ratio. The overall odds ratios for concordance in hypertension, smoking, diabetes, and obesity were all statistically significant, ranging from 1.16 to 3.25. Assortative mating influenced concordance for blood pressure, smoking, glucose, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, weight, body mass index, and waist circumference. This systematic review shows a statistically significant positive spousal concordance for the majority of main coronary risk factors. However, the strength of the concordance was markedly different among factors and appeared to be quite modest for all of them. Interventions to reduce cardiovascular risk factors should be addressed jointly to both members of a marital couple.

Dissociation between knowledge of living and nonliving things in dementia of the Alzheimer type

Abstract: Patients who survive herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) sometimes present a category-specific disorder for living things. Since HSE specifically involves the temporolimbic structures of both hemispheres, these structures could play a critical role in processing and storing information about living things. If this were the case, a category-specific disorder for the same items should also be observed in the early stages of dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) as the temporolimbic structures are often severely affected in this condition. To test this hypothesis, we administered to 15 DAT patients and to 10 normal controls a confrontation-naming task and a verbal associates recognition task, with both living and nonliving items as stimuli. The hypothesis was confirmed, since DAT patients performed worse with living than with nonliving items, and scored worse than normal controls on the living but not the nonliving items.

Risk of Occupational Accidents in Workers with Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Abstract: STUDY OBJECTIVES: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the single most important preventable medical cause of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and driving accidents. OSA may also adversely affect work performance through a decrease in productivity, and an increase in the injury rate. Nevertheless, no systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between OSA and work accidents has been performed thus far. METHODS: PubMed, PsycInfo, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library were searched. Out of an initial list of 1,099 papers, 10 studies (12,553 participants) were eligible for our review, and 7 of them were included in the meta-analysis. The overall effects were measured by odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). An assessment was made of the methodological quality of the studies. Moderator analysis and funnel plot analysis were used to explore the sources of between-study heterogeneity. RESULTS: Compared to controls, the odds of work accident was found to be nearly double in workers with OSA (OR = 2.18; 95% CI = 1.53-3.10). Occupational driving was associated with a higher effect size. CONCLUSIONS: OSA is an underdiagnosed nonoccupational disease that has a strong adverse effect on work accidents. The nearly twofold increased odds of work accidents in subjects with OSA calls for workplace screening in selected safety-sensitive occupations.Copyright © 2016 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC. All rights reserved. Language: en

Modulation of LTP at rat hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapses by direct current stimulation

Abstract: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can produce a lasting polarity-specific modulation of cortical excitability in the brain, and it is increasingly used in experimental and clinical set...

Partner geographic and organizational proximity and the innovative performance of knowledge-creating alliances

Abstract: We adopt a knowledge-based perspective to investigate the individual and interaction effects of partner geographic and organizational proximity on the innovative performance of knowledge-creating alliances. Our econometric analysis on a sample of 1,515 interfirm dyadic knowledge-creating R&D alliances shows that both geographic distance between allied firms and their affiliation with the same business group negatively affect the alliance innovative performance. However, when jointly considered, the two examined partner characteristics positively moderate each other’s effect on alliance innovative performance, so revealing a complementary effect on it. We argue that, while the existence of group ties between geographically distant organizations reduces the negative influence of geographic distance on the partners’ ability to integrate their knowledge within the alliance, collaborating with remote partners weakens the negative influence of the existence of group ties between partners on knowledge diversity in alliances. We conclude that geographic distance and organizational proximity are contingent upon one another in their effect on the innovative performance of knowledge-creating alliances and that distance (proximity) in one dimension can be bridged (overcome) by proximity (distance) in another dimension.