Ten men and one woman aged 27 to 52 years and presenting chronic evolution of their psychotic disorders benefited from a treatment which associated lithium sulfate at a plasmatic level of 0.5 to 0.8 meq/L with clozapine (mean posology: 300 mg/day). Five patients presented chronic disorganized schizophrenia (295.14), five a schizoaffective disorder (295.70) and one patient chronic undifferentiated schizophrenia (295.94) according to DSM III-R. Nine of the eleven patients showed mood disorders in addition to their psychotic and dissociative symptomatology. The remaining two presented chronic disorganised schizophrenia with aggressive behaviour. The clozapine-lithium association led to stabilization and improvement in the condition of all patients. Nine patients are still undergoing treatment with satisfactory results. The mean duration of the clozapine-lithium treatment, which has proved to be well tolerated with regard to side-effects, is about five years.

The current study focuses on the dissipation pattern of imazamox (2-[(RS)-4-isopropyl-4-methyl-5-oxo-2-imidazolin-2-yl]-5-methoxymethylnicotinic acid) in a soil–water environment under the two most adopted rice management systems in Europe, conventional water seeding and dry-seeding. Changes in imazamox concentrations were studied over time in topsoil, field water, irrigation water, outlet water and ground water. The study was performed from 2010 to 2011 in one of the most important rice growing areas of Europe (Vercelli, Northwest Italy). Imazamox dissipated rapidly in both the water and soil environments. In soil, imazamox half-life ranged from 2·2 to 3·3 days in 2010 and from 2·2 to 3·1 days in 2011. In paddy water, imazamox dissipated rapidly and no important differences among the management systems were found. In addition, the study showed that despite the short half-life of imazamox, the herbicide might be transported from treated fields in outlet waters by means of floodgates. The highest concentrations in outlet waters were found in the conventional water-seeded system, at the sampling site close to herbicide spraying. Imazamox residues were even found in inlet waters, suggesting discharge of the herbicide from paddies located upstream or drift during spraying. Imazamox residues in ground waters were always below the quantification limit. Overall, the low imazamox persistence observed during the 2-year study did not allow important differences between the two systems to be revealed. To reduce imazamox discharge from treated fields in the first days after spraying, a useful practice might be to keep water inside the fields for at least a week after spraying.

In this paper, we study the influence of the radius of a cylindrical supporting structure on radiation properties of a conformal millimeter-wave antenna array. Bent antenna array structures on cylindrical surfaces may have important applications in future mobile devices. Small radii may be needed if the antenna is printed on the edges of mobile devices and in items which human beings are wearing, such as wrist watches, bracelets, and rings. The antenna under study consists of four linear series-fed arrays of four patch elements and is operating at 58.8 GHz with linear polarization. The antenna array is fabricated on polytetrafluoroethylene substrate with thickness of 127 µm due to its good plasticity properties, and low losses. Results for both planar and conformal antenna arrays show rather good agreement between simulation and measurements. The results show that conformal antenna structures allow achieving large angular coverage and may allow beam-steering implementations if switches are used to select between different arrays around a cylindrical supporting structure.

We resolve spatially the star formation history of 300 nearby galaxies from the CALIFA integral field survey to investigate: a) the radial structure and gradients of the present stellar populations properties as a function of the Hubble type; and b) the role that plays the galaxy stellar mass and stellar mass surface density in governing the star formation history and metallicity enrichment of spheroids and the disks of galaxies. We apply the fossil record method based on spectral synthesis techniques to recover spatially and temporally resolved maps of stellar population properties of spheroids and spirals with galaxy mass from 109 to 7×1011 M⊙. The individual radial profiles of the stellar mass surface density (μ⋆), stellar extinction (AV), luminosity weighted ages (〈logage〉L), and mass weighted metallicity (〈log Z/Z⊙〉M) are stacked in seven bins of galaxy morphology (E, S0, Sa, Sb, Sbc, Sc and Sd). All these properties show negative gradients as a sight of the inside-out growth of massive galaxies. However, the gradients depend on the Hubble type in different ways. For the same galaxy mass, E and S0 galaxies show the largest inner gradients in μ⋆; and Andromeda-like galaxies (Sb with log M⋆ (M⊙) ∼ 11) show the largest inner age and metallicity gradients. In average, spiral galaxies have a stellar metallicity gradient ∼ −0.1 dex per half-light radius, in agreement with the value estimated for the ionized gas oxygen abundance gradient by CALIFA. A global (M⋆-driven) and local (μ⋆-driven) stellar metallicity relation are derived. We find that in disks, the stellar mass surface density regulates the stellar metallicity; in spheroids, the galaxy stellar mass dominates the physics of star formation and chemical enrichment.

Methods to recover the fossil record of galaxy evolution encoded in their optical spectra have been instrumental in processing the avalanche of data from mega-surveys along the last decade, effectively transforming observed spectra onto a long and rich list of physical properties: from stellar masses and mean ages to full star formation histories. This promoted progress in our understanding of galaxies as a whole. Yet, the lack of spatial resolution introduces undesirable aperture effects, and hampers advances on the internal physics of galaxies. This is now changing with 3D surveys. The mapping of stellar populations in data-cubes allows us to figure what comes from where, unscrambling information previously available only in integrated form. This contribution uses our starlight-based analysis of 300 CALIFA galaxies to illustrate the power of spectral synthesis applied to data-cubes. The selected results highlighted here include: (a) The evolution of the mass-metallicity and mass-density-metallicity relations, as traced by the mean stellar metallicity. (b) A comparison of star formation rates obtained from Hα to those derived from full spectral fits. (c) The relation between star formation rate and dust optical depth within galaxies, which turns out to mimic the Schmidt-Kennicutt law. (d) PCA tomography experiments.

We report on follow-up observations of 20 short-duration gamma-ray bursts(T90 < 2s) performed ing′r′i′z′JHKswith the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) between mid-2007 and theend of 2010. This is the most homogeneous and comprehensive data set on GRB afterglowobservations of short bursts. In three cases, GROND was on target within less than 10 minafter the trigger, leading to the discovery of the afterglow of GRB 081226A and its faintunderlying host galaxy. In addition, GROND was able to image the optical afterglow andfollow the light curve evolution in five further cases: GRBs 090305, 090426, 090510,090927, and 100117A. Three of the aforementioned six bursts with optical light curves showa break: GRBs 090426 and 090510 as well as GRB 090305. For GRB 090927, no break is seen inthe optical/X-ray light curve until about 150 ks/600 ks after the burst. A decay slope ofthe optical afterglow of GRB 100117A could be measured. Using these data supplemented byabout ten events taken from the literature, we compare the jet half-opening angles of longand short bursts. We find a tentative evidence that short bursts have wider opening anglesthan long bursts. However, the statistics are still very poor and follow-up observationsof these events are therefore very important to gain as much observational data aspossible.

We describe two cases of delayed delivery in dichorionic, diamniotic pregnancies, where we used an Endoloop ligature to clamp the umbilical cord with excellent maternal and fetal long-term outcome.

A survey of the gastrointestinal helminth communities of a population of Chalcides sexlineatus Steindachner, a small skink endemic to Gran Canaria island (Canary Archipelago, Spain), was conducted to determine the prevalence, abundance and species diversity of intestinal parasites in these reptiles. Only three parasite species were found, one cestode, Oochoristica agamae Baylis, 1919 and two nematodes, Parapharyngodon micipsae (Seurat, 1917) and Pharyngodonidae gen. sp. Helminth infracommunities of C. sexlineatus showed low values of abundance and species richness and diversity, being more similar to the helminth community of Tarentola boettgeri boettgeri (Steindachner) rather than those of Gallotia stehlini (Schenkel), both syntopic with the sampled host.