Role of perfusion machines in the setting of clinical liver transplantation. A qualitative systematic review

Growing enthusiasm around machine perfusion (MP) in clinical liver transplantation (LT) may be the preamble for standardized practice to expand the donors' pool. The present systematic review investigated all the liver transplantations performed using grafts treated with MP. A systematic review of 309 papers was performed. Eventually, 27 articles were enrolled for the study. A total number of 173 cases was reported. Only 12 cohort studies were identified: the remaining ones were case reports or case series. Hypothermic machine perfusion was performed in 102 (59.0%), normothermic machine perfusion in 65 (37.6%), and controlled oxygenated rewarming in the remaining 6 (3.4%) cases. Donor characteristics, evaluation of graft quality and end-points were not homogeneous among the studies. Overall, post-LT results were excellent, with 1.2 and 4.0% of patients experienced primary non-function and ischemic-type biliary lesions, respectively

La capacità repressiva di compost nei confronti della tracheofusariosi del basilico

Alcuni compost, addizionati al suolo o impiegati come componenti di substrati per colture in vaso, possono svolgere un’attività repressiva nei confronti dei patogeni terricoli. Nel biennio 2005-2006 sono stati saggiati, a Grugliasco (TO), in serre in ferro/vetro, compost provenienti da aziende di compostaggio presenti sul territorio piemontese al fine di valutarne la loro capacità repressiva. Dai risultati è emerso l’efficace contenimento nei confronti di F. oxysporum f.sp. basilici, da parte di compost prodotto a partire da rifiuti solidi urbani e fanghi, con una diminuzione fino al 50% di piante morte e un incremento fino al 25% di biomassa prodotta a fine ciclo rispetto a quanto rilevato impiegando un ammendante torboso scelto come riferimento

Concentrated Phosphorus Recovery from Food Grade Animal Bones

Disrupted nutrient recycling is a significant problem for Europe, while phosphorus and nitrogen are wasted instead of being used for plant nutrition. Mineral phosphate is a critical raw material, which may contain environmentally hazardous elements such as cadmium and uranium. Therefore, phosphorus recovery from agricultural and food industrial by-product streams is a critically important key priority. Phosphorus recovery from food grade animal bone by-products have been researched since 2002 and a specific zero emission autothermal carbonization system, called 3R, has been developed in economical industrial scale, providing the animal bone char product (ABC) as output. Different animal bone by-products were tested under different conditions at 400 kg/h throughput capacity in the continuously operated 3R system. Different material core treatment temperatures (between >300 °C and <850 °C) were combined with different residence times under industrial productive processing conditions. It was demonstrated that material core treatment temperature <850 °C with 20 min residence time is necessary to achieve high quality ABC with useful agronomic value. The output ABC product has concentrated >30% phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5), making it a high quality innovative fertilizer

Biochar characterization and EU27 law harmonization: REFERTIL results

The FP7 REFERRIL biochar applied research and economical industrialization project (EU contract no 289785, 2011-2015) developed a strong policy support for the European Commission Fertilizer Regulation revision biochar case. Wide range of different biochar types characterized, including relationships among feedstock, production technology in viable industrial scale and characteristics, which results, summarized in this presentation, reflected to economical industrial scenarios under market competitive conditions, for the interests and benefits of the SME farmers. Environmental and ecological impacts and risks considered. Please click on the file below for full content of the abstract

The use of x-ray CT and MRI in the study of sacroiliac joints in patients with Behcet disease and acute anterior uveitis

Objective: It's controversial if Behcet Disease (BD) must be included in the group of seronegative spondyloarthropathy (SpA). Our aim was to establish the prevalence of sacroiliitis (SI) in patients with BD using X-Ray, CT and MRI, in comparison with patients with Acute Anterior Uveitis (AAU), that is known to belong to the subgroups of SpA. Methods: We considered, in the period from 04/2006 to 04/2009, 21 consecutive patients with BD, positive for HLA B51 and 28 consecutive patients with AAU, positive for HLA B27. These patients were previously selected by our Rheumatological Ward. Altogether we evaluated 98 sacroiliac joints (SIJ); each side of any patient was graded separately. Results: X-ray of the pelvis showed advanced SI (grade 4) in 14% of the cases in patients with AAU; in BD group only 7% CT showed advanced SI in 14% within AAU patients versus 6-12% of advanced SI (right to left) within BD patients. MR showed 14% of advanced SI (bilateral) within AAU versus 6-11% of advanced SI (right to left) in BD patients. Conclusions: This study supports the trend to not consider BD within the SpA, being the prevalence of SI in BD patients not very different from general population and anyway lower than that observed in patients with AAU. On the other side the prevalence of SI in AAU patients is higher than in BD patients and very similar to the one observed in patients with seronegative arthritis, and anyway high enough to consider joint involvement as an important feature of the disease

Real-Time Sleep Prediction Algorithm Using Commercial off the Shelf Wearable Devices

As reported by the American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), sleep while driving is one of the most influential factors in fatal vehicle crashes, along with excessive vehicle speed and alcohol consumption. Physiologically speaking, driving for more than two hours in a nocturnal environment produces a driving impairment like a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%. In this work, we present an innovative and patented sleep prediction method based on the analysis of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) (and its subsystems) that monitors the actions happening during the transition from awake to sleep onset. The prediction method processes the Heart Rate (HR) and the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) as collected by a wearable device on the subject wrist. Using a sliding window approach that operates on 20 seconds of samples (acquired at 1 Hz), the trend of the variance of HR and HRV is used to classify the subject condition according to a reduced Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (rKSS) that comprises five stages: Calibration, Awake, Low Drowsiness level, Medium Drowsiness level, High Drowsiness level. The prediction method has been validated experimentally using a set of recordings acquired in a realistic environment (AVL dynamic car simulator, in Graz (AT)). During the experiments, 15 subjects performed several rounds of the Maintenance Wakefulness Test (MWT). Each subject was equipped with a wearable device and apolysomnography medical equipment to gather both the data processed by the proposed approach, and the data set that constituted the ground truth under the supervision of a sleep expert medical doctor. A further experimental section has been conducted, involving the Italian truck company Chrono Express. 15 different drivers have utilized the built-up system for more than 13000 km. The proposed method is sensor agnostic, as it has been proven through preliminary activities with contactless Radio Frequency (RF) sensors. The output produced by the proposed method and the sleep scoring performed by the sleep expert medical doctor during the first experimental section were compared. The first sleep onset event showed an accuracy of 93.3%, a sensibility of 95% and a sensitivity of 100%. Instead, regarding the following sleep onset events an accuracy of 86.66%, a specificity of 66.67%, and a sensitivity of 95.24% were calculated