The authors report a case of myiasis of the middle ear caused by Wohlfartia magnifica Schiner (Diptera: Sarcophagidae). The entomological aspects, the clinical epidemiological characteristics and the therapeutic solutions of this disease are evaluated. In particular, they underline the rarity of myiasis both because of the aetiologic agent and the anatomical site. The therapeutic aspects are also reported and discussed.

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Although still little used in practice, the non-linear time-history (NlTH) analysis is the most powerful method to design new earthquake-resistant buildings. This kind of analysis may even help the designer to assess the seismic performance of existing buildings and suitably plan their retrofit. With reference to a pre-seismic-code r/c building and to a suite of Italian spectrum-consistent earthquakes, the paper highlights the advantages of adopting NlTH analyses to evidence critical features in the seismic response of existing buildings and to assess in advance the effectiveness of their retrofit strategy. To this purpose, the behaviour of the retrofitted building should be suitably modelled. This paper shows how this can be done when carbon fibre reinforced polymer is used to strengthen the critical sections. Two advanced finite element programmes are adopted in parallel to carry out the numerical analyses: SAP2000 and SeismoStruct. The differences involved in the numerical model are discussed and the main advantages of a three-step procedure based on the NlTH approach are evidenced.

Objective: Age related hearing loss (ARHL) or presbyacusis is a complex condition caused by an interaction between environmental and genetic factors and is the most prevalent sensory impairment in the elderly. To date, only few environmental/lifestyle risk factors have been found. Research into risk factors underlying ARHL is increasingly urgent as populations grow older. Here, we investigate the relationship between ARHL and educational/occupational factors in a large cohort of people from isolated villages in Italy, Crimea region, Caucasus and Central Asia. Methods: Two thousand and sixty-eight people (aged 40–95 years) were recruited and analysed. Education was classified at five levels: no education, elementary, secondary, high school and university. Cases and controls were defined after a detailed evaluation of the hearing phenotype. Data were analysed using a mixed-effects logistic regression. Results: A statistically significant association between ARHL and education was detected. People with no education showed a higher association with the condition than people with a higher education (p < 0.001). Explanations could be many, including individual jobs. A strong correlation (ϕ > 0.45) between occupation and level of education was also found. Conclusion: Present findings provide a better knowledge of environment/lifestyle factors related to ARHL and might help in defining new preventive strategies for aging people.

Background: Sound perception has a fundamental role of the auditory system and its absence causes hearing loss. It is well known that normal hearing function as well as the non-Mendelian forms of hearing impairment (i.e. age-related and noise-induced hearing loss) are considered to be due to both genetic and lifestyle/environmental factors. To date, few factors have been hypothesized as being related to normal hearing function and to age-related and noise-induced hearing loss. Method: We describe a broad study carried out on 4401 subjects from isolated populations (located from Italy to Central Asia) aimed at the identification of lifestyle/environmental factors (focused mainly on diet) that are potentially associated with normal hearing function (i.e. quantitative trait). Results: Our results show, for the first time, that among eight analysed variables (smoking, chocolate, coffee, tea, wine, beer, dairy products, spirits), only coffee consumption and coffee intake showed a significant association with better hearing function in four out of the 11 countries investigated. In particular, coffee consumption was associated over an audiometric profile from low (250, 500, 1000 Hz) to high (4000, 8000 Hz) frequencies: p-value = 0.006 in southern Italy, p-value = 0.017 in Azerbaijan, p-value = 0.016 in Tajikistan at low frequencies and p-value = 0.038 in Sardinia at high frequencies. With regard to intake, we detected an association only at high frequencies (2 cups/day, p-value = 0.01; 3 cups/day, p-value = 0.003). Conclusion: A possible explanation might be the antioxidant content of coffee, the concentration of which is higher than red wine or herbal teas. A possible additional reason could be a specific protective effect of active coffee compounds such as trigonelline. The findings provide a better knowledge of environment/lifestyle factors related to the hearing system and might help in defining new preventive strategies for hearing loss.