Compared with healthy subjects, patients with AD showed a significant reduction in choroidal thickness. Choroidal thinning may represent an adjunctive biomarker for the diagnosis and follow-up of this disease.

[1] Wind forcing plays a key role in controlling the water column structure and circulation in the northern Adriatic Sea. Through shipboard observations and numerical modeling, we have documented the changing of oceanographic features before, during, and after a sequence of cold northeasterly bora wind pulses that occurred during stratified conditions in late September 2002. High-resolution meteorological, hydrodynamic, and wave model outputs were related to in situ observations of hydrologic parameters, dissolved nutrients and oxygen, suspended matter biogeochemical properties, and phytoplankton. The bora intensified the southward flowing coastal current along the Italian coast, establishing a frontal system that typically exists in winter. The bora also caused complete vertical mixing to 20-25 m in the water column, an influx of warm salty water from the south along the Croatian coast, and increased resuspension and southward transport of bottom sediments for the combined effects of currents and waves. The effects on the bottom were limited to the western coastal belt, as in the deeper central part of the basin hypoxic conditions were present during the whole observing period. During the bora, the concentration of inorganic dissolved nutrients in the bottom water increased consistently with the release of nutrients from the sediments and with the mineralization processes. Resuspension of bottom layer sediment represents an important source of nutrients for the water column in this period. The higher level of nutrients was observed together with an increase in phytoplankton biomass, suggesting a potential trigger for the autumnal phytoplankton bloom in the northern Adriatic. Finally, bora events seem to be able to generate a relevant increase of nutrient export from the northern Adriatic through the intensified Adriatic western coastal current, so they could play a relevant role in the nutrient balance of the basin.

[1] The influence of the Po plume on the northern Adriatic Sea was observed during two seasons in 2003 under distinct physical forcing regimes. During the winter, the plume was cool, low in both salinity and chlorophyll, but with higher chlorophyll concentrations occurring along the plume boundary. The plume mixed deeply in the water column in response to the strong wind forcing. The northern Adriatic and the Po plume cooled significantly during the observational period, and therefore salinity alone was the best discriminator of water mass variability. In contrast to the strong forcing of the winter period, the late spring was characterized by weak wind forcing, and below-average Po River discharge ($600 m 3 /s) which was about one third of the typical discharge for this period. As in winter, salinity was again the best discriminator of water mass variability. The Po plume advected southward along the Italian coast and in some locations portions of the coastal plume were transferred offshore in filament-like features. However, the one observed filament was quite low in chlorophyll and was quite thin vertically, extending downward less than 5 m from the surface. The spring observations provide a distinct contrast in the effects of the physical forcings of river flow and wind stress from two different seasons. The strong winter forcing resulted in deep mixing of the plume despite its low salinity and buoyancy, whereas the weak summer flow under weak winds resulted in a very shallow plume (<5 m) that was high in chlorophyll.

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