Sapienza University of Rome

About: Sapienza University of Rome is a education organization based out in Rome, Lazio, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Medicine. The organization has 62002 authors who have published 155468 publications receiving 4397244 citations. The organization is also known as: La Sapienza & Università La Sapienza di Roma.

Carpal tunnel syndrome: clinical features, diagnosis, and management

Abstract: Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most common peripheral nerve entrapment syndrome worldwide. The clinical symptoms and physical examination findings in patients with this syndrome are recognised widely and various treatments exist, including non-surgical and surgical options. Despite these advantages, there is a paucity of evidence about the best approaches for assessment of carpal tunnel syndrome and to guide treatment decisions. More objective methods for assessment, including electrodiagnostic testing and nerve imaging, provide additional information about the extent of axonal involvement and structural change, but their exact benefit to patients is unknown. Although the best means of integrating clinical, functional, and anatomical information for selecting treatment choices has not yet been identified, patients can be diagnosed quickly and respond well to treatment. The high prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome, its effects on quality of life, and the cost that disease burden generates to health systems make it important to identify the research priorities that will be resolved in clinical trials.

Global constraints on absolute neutrino masses and their ordering

Abstract: Within the standard three-neutrino framework, the absolute neutrino masses and their ordering (either normal, NO, or inverted, IO) are currently unknown. However, the combination of current data coming from oscillation experiments, neutrinoless double beta ($0\ensuremath{ u}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\beta}$) decay searches, and cosmological surveys, can provide interesting constraints for such unknowns in the sub-eV mass range, down to $O({10}^{\ensuremath{-}1})\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}$ in some cases. We discuss current limits on absolute neutrino mass observables by performing a global data analysis that includes the latest results from oscillation experiments, $0\ensuremath{ u}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\beta}$ decay bounds from the KamLAND-Zen experiment, and constraints from representative combinations of Planck measurements and other cosmological data sets. In general, NO appears to be somewhat favored with respect to IO at the level of $\ensuremath{\sim}2\ensuremath{\sigma}$, mainly by neutrino oscillation data (especially atmospheric), corroborated by cosmological data in some cases. Detailed constraints are obtained via the ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{2}$ method, by expanding the parameter space either around separate minima in NO and IO or around the absolute minimum in any ordering. Implications for upcoming oscillation and nonoscillation neutrino experiments, including $\ensuremath{\beta}$-decay searches, are also discussed.

Plant Phenotypic Plasticity in Response to Environmental Factors

Abstract: Plants are exposed to heterogeneity in the environment where new stress factors (i.e., climate change, land use change, and invasiveness) are introduced, and where inter- and intraspecies differences may reflect resource limitation and/or environmental stress factors. Phenotypic plasticity is considered one of the major means by which plants can cope with environmental factor variability. Nevertheless, the extent to which phenotypic plasticity may facilitate survival under environmental condition changes still remains largely unknown because results are sometimes controversial. Thus, it is important to identify plant functional traits in which plasticity may play a determinant role in plant response to global change as well as on the ecological consequences at an ecosystem level for the competition between wild and invasive species, considering that species with a greater adaptive plasticity may be more likely to survive in novel environmental conditions. In the near future, it will be important to increase long-term studies on natural populations in order to understand plant response to environmental factor fluctuations including climate change. There is the necessity to analyze variations at phenotypic and genetic levels for the same species and, in particular, for endemic and rare species because these could have drastic effects at an ecosystem level.