Diagnostic follow-up of blood donors with indeterminate results to Western Blot for HIV infection in Palermo, Sicily

27,343 blood donors, were tested for HIV infection at the Poli- clinico of Palermo in the period 1999-2001 by using a com- mercial ELISA as screening test and a commercial Western Blot (WB) as confirmatory test. HIV infection was detected in two subjects, whereas five individuals reacted faintly at the screening and tested indeterminate at the confirmatory test showing the presence of only one band for gp41 (four cases) or p24 (one case). A one year follow-up was performed in these patients. All donors but one, spontaneously seroreverted during the follow-up; the only one who persisted as WB inde- terminate, tested also negative for HIV RNA by PCR assay at the end of follow-up. In conclusio…

Steatosi epatica (SE) e rischio cardiovascolare in una popolazione di pazienti HIV-positivi

Hegel’s Conceptual Group Action on Creative Dynamics in Music

The present paper presents a mechanism to catalyze that crucial step in a creative process, where the critical concept’s “walls” (referring to the common “box” metaphor) are identified and opened. We propose a concrete, but generic body of six concepts and the action of a group of transformations of this body, a toolbox that should offer a set of operational perspectives onto the critical concept’s walls. The conceptual body and the group action are deduced from the first paragraphs of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Wissenschaft der Logik. On this body, a group, called the “Hegel group”, acts and reflects some of the relations and operations that are hidden in Hegel’s text. We then identif…

Effects of Middle-Term Treatment with Nifedipine on Hemodynamic Parameters and on Left Ventricular Function in Hypertensive Patients