Diabetic plantar pressure analysis using image fusion

Plantar pressure images analysis is the key issue of designing comfortable shoe products through last customizing system, which has attracted the researchers’ curiosity toward image fusion as an application of medical and industrial imaging. In the current work, image fusion has been applied using wavelet transform and compared with Laplace Pyramid. Using image fusion rules of Mean-Max, we presented a plantar pressure image fusion method employing haar wavelet transform. It was compared in different composition layers with the Laplace pyramid transform. The experimental studies deployed the haar, db2, sym4, coif2, and bior5.5 wavelet basis functions for image fusion under decomposition layers of 3, 4, and 5. Evaluation metrics were measured in the case of the different layer number of wavelet decomposition to determine the best decomposition level and to evaluate the fused image quality using with different wavelet functions. The best wavelet basis function and decomposition layers were selected through the analysis and the evaluation measurements. This study established that haar wavelet transform with five decomposition levels on plantar pressure image achieved superior performance of 89.2817% mean, 89.4913% standard deviation, 5.4196 average gradient, 14.3364 spatial frequency, 5.9323 information entropy and 0.2206 cross entropy

Scientific opinion on the tolerable upper intake level for manganese

Following a request from the European Commission (EC), the EFSA Panel on Nutrition, Novel Foods and Food Allergens (NDA) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the tolerable upper intake level (UL) for manganese. Systematic reviews of the literature of human and animal data were conducted to assess evidence regarding excess manganese intake (including authorised manganese salts) and the priority adverse health effect, i.e. manganese-induced neurotoxicity. Available human and animal studies support neurotoxicity as a critical effect, however, data are not sufficient and suitable to characterise a dose–response relationship and identify a reference point for manganese-induced neurotoxicity. In the absence of adequate data to establish an UL, estimated background dietary intakes (i.e. manganese intakes from natural dietary sources only) observed among high consumers (95th percentile) were used to provide an indication of the highest level of intake where there is reasonable confidence on the absence of adverse effects. A safe level of intake of 8 mg/day was established for adults ≥ 18 years (including pregnant and lactating women) and ranged between 2 and 7 mg/day for other population groups. The application of the safe level of intake is more limited than an UL because the intake level at which the risk of adverse effects starts to increase is not defined

Scientific opinion on the tolerable upper intake level for manganese

Following a request from the European Commission (EC), the EFSA Panel onNutrition, Novel Foods and Food Allergens (NDA) was asked to deliver a scientificopinion on the tolerable upper intake level (UL) for manganese. Systematic reviewsof the literature of human and animal data were conducted to assess evidenceregarding excess manganese intake (including authorised manganese salts) andthe priority adverse health effect, i.e. manganese-induced neurotoxicity. Availablehuman and animal studies support neurotoxicity as a critical effect, however, dataare not sufficient and suitable to characterise a dose–response relationship andidentify a reference point for manganese-induced neurotoxicity. In the absenceof adequate data to establish an UL, estimated background dietary intakes (i.e.manganese intakes from natural dietary sources only) observed among high consumers (95th percentile) were used to provide an indication of the highest level of intake where there is reasonable confidence on the absence of adverse effects. A safe level of intake of 8 mg/day was established for adults ≥18years (including pregnant and lactating women) and ranged between 2 and 7 mg/day for other population groups. The application of the safe level of intake is more limited than an UL because the intake level at which the risk of adverse effects starts to increase is not defined

Myristic acid: in vivo evaluation of connection with cardiovascular risk factors and in vitro proteomic investigations of its biochemical effects

Fatty acids (FAs) are fundamental constituents of cell structure, but they can also influence cellular functions and molecular mechanisms with different effects according to their chain length and degree of saturation. Different pathological conditions have been linked to FAs profile, including dyslipidemia and hypertriglyceridemia. However, data concerning the effects of FAs on lipid metabolism and cardiovascular disease are still scarce and controversial. Therefore, the aim of the first part of the present PhD thesis (Section 1) has been to investigate the presence of possible significant correlations between plasma FAs profile and lipid parameters (including levels of the major apolipoproteins) in a population of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) patients and controls. The analysis, performed on plasma of 1,370 subjects, revealed that Myristic acid (C14:0) positively predicted both Triglycerides (TG) and Apolipoprotein C-III (ApoC-III) plasma levels, confirming the preliminary data obtained in my master\u2019s degree thesis on 57 CAD patients. ApoC-III being an important regulator of plasma TG levels, the influence of C14:0 on the expression of this protein has been investigated in a HepG2 cell model. Mass spectrometry results, together with Real Time PCR findings, suggest a slight but significant increase in ApoC-III protein and mRNA levels in C14:0 treated cells. Therefore, the in vitro investigations supported the positive connection observed in-vivo between C14:0, TG and ApoC-III plasma levels, suggesting a possible important role of this saturated FA in the onset of cardiovascular disease. The effects of FAs on liver metabolism have been studied during the last few years for the influence they have on lipid metabolism, the onset of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cardiovascular disease. However, proteomics investigations in this direction are still scarce and the influence of C14:0 on liver metabolism still needs to be elucidated. Therefore, in the second part of the present PhD thesis (Section 2) the effects of different concentrations of C14:0 on HepG2 cells proteome and secretome have been investigated by means of high\u2013resolution mass spectrometry. The results obtained highlighted the influence of this FA on proteins involved in lipid droplets formation, cytoskeleton organization, endoplasmic reticulum stress, exosome release and cell-cell stress communication. To highlight the proteome changes specifically related to C14:0, a comparative study of the proteomic modulations induced by C14:0, palmitic (C16:0) and oleic acid (C18:1) has been performed. Interestingly, the overlapping of modulated proteins induced by the three FAs treatments was limited to just one protein, highlighting their different mechanisms of action. 40 proteins were found to be deregulated specifically by C14:0. These results suggested a unique influence of this saturated FA on specific proteins involved in different biological processes, mainly protein homeostasis counteracting ER stress (e.g. ENTPD5, VAPB and SGTA) and lipid metabolism (e.g. ApoE). In conclusion, the present PhD thesis highlights for the first time a possible in-vivo fundamental role of C14:0 on lipid metabolism, particularly on ApoC-III and TG plasma levels and represents the first investigation shedding light on the in-vitro C14:0 effects on a human hepatocyte-derived cell line

XXII International Conference on Mechanics in Medicine and Biology - Abstracts Book

This book contain the abstracts presented the XXII ICMMB, held in Bologna in September 2022. The abstracts are divided following the sessions scheduled during the conference

An intelligent clinical information management support system for the critical care medical environment

Significant advances have been achieved in the fields of medical informatics and artificial intelligence in medicine in the past three decades and, having demonstrated an ability to support clinical decisions, knowledge-based systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in various clinical settings. Nonetheless, few systems have so far been successful in entering routine use. On the one hand, primarily due to methodological difficulties and with very few exceptions, developers have failed to show that pertinent systems are effective in improving patient care. On the other hand, support systems have not been sufficiently well integrated into the routine information processing activity of the clinical users. As a consequence, their clinical utility is disputed and constructive assessmenist further hindered. This thesis describes the development of an intelligent clinical information management support system designed to overcome these obstacles through the adoption of an integrated approach, geared toward the solution of the problems encountered in the acquisition, organisation, review and interpretation of the clinical decision supporting information utilised in the process of monitoring intensive care unit patients with acid-base balance disorders. The system was developed to support this activity incrementally, using the methods of object-oriented analysis, design and implementation, with the active participation of a clinical advisor who assessed the functional and ergonomic compatibility of the system with the supported activity and the integration of a previously validated prototype knowledge-based data interpretation system, which could not evaluated in the clinical setting for the reasons described above

Evidence-based Positron Emission Tomography

This open access book summarizes the findings of recent evidence-based articles (meta-analyses) on the use of positron emission tomography (PET) for various clinical indications. It is divided into five main sections, starting with an introduction to PET and meta-analysis. In turn, the second part addresses evidence-based PET in oncology, providing a broad overview of its use for different types of tumours. The remaining sections are focused on the use of PET in cardiology, in infectious and inflammatory diseases, and in neurology, respectively. Given its scope and the wealth of information it provides, the book will be an invaluable tool for clinicians with various specialties, as well as international scientific societies interested to the recent evidence-based data about PET