Application of Vertical Brackets in Orthodontial Treatments: A Laser Speckle Study

This paper reports the application of a laser speckle technique for orthodontial studies. The purpose of these studies is to certify the validity of a proposal related with a new type of apparatus, and the methodology to be used in orthodontial treatments. (P&aacute;rrafo extra&iacute;do a modo de resumen)</em

Application of Vertical Brackets in Orthodontic Treatments: A Laser Speckle Study

This paper reports the application of a laser speckle technique to orthodontic studies. The purpose of these studies is to certify the validity of a proposal related with a new type of apparatus, and the methodology to be used in orthodontic treatments.Trabajo publicado en Guimaraes, W. O. N.; Lin, Chhui-Tsu; Mooradian, A. (eds.). Lasers and Applications. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1981. Springer Series in Optical Sciences (SSOS), vol. 26.Facultad de OdontologíaCentro de Investigaciones Óptica

Solar wind analyzer - The solar orbiter milestone towards on-board intelligent decision making systems

The most important challenge underpinning the transition to next generation of space missions design is the discrepancy between the dramatic increases in observation rate and the marginal increase in downlink capacity, enforcing the shift from the traditional “acquire-compress-transmit” paradigm to highly efficient intelligent on-board processing of observations, minimizing downlink requirements while respecting the limitations in power and bandwidth resources. Solar Orbiter (SO), an ESA/NASA mission, is a milestone both in the purely technological and scientific sphere. SO is designed to study the connection between the Sun and the heliosphere, with particular interest to open issues such as the sources of solar wind streams and turbulence, the heliospheric variability, the origin of energetic particles and the solar dynamo. The selected science payload is required to support making the link between in-situ and remote sensing observations, and is composed of ten instruments or suites of instruments including spectrometers, imagers, wave and particle instruments – many the result of large international consortia. In particular, the plasma suite Solar Wind Analyzer (SWA) comprises: Proton-Alpha Sensor (PAS), Electron Analyzer System (EAS), Heavy Ion Sensor (HIS) together with the Data Processing Unit (DPU), and will provide high-resolution 3D velocity distribution function of ions and electrons, together with ion composition, necessary to infer the thermal state of solar wind and its source regions, identify structures such as shocks, CME's and other transients, and determine the link between particle dynamics and waves. SO will explore new distance and latitude regions that remain unexplored, even accounting for existing Helios and upcoming Parker Solar Probe observations. The technical challenges include heavy constraints such as the limited bandwidth available to SWA for downlink, so that the whole set of raw particle data collected cannot be transmitted back to ground. Data processing is thus used to evaluate concise scientific properties of the solar wind, particularly the moments of the particle velocity distribution functions (VDF), such that it is then acceptable to transmit the full VDF data only at low frequencies. Then processing is re-adopted on these distributions to meet the required (lossless) compression rates (2-8). Another step towards the aforementioned paradigm shift is represented by the SWA Book-Keeping Algorithm (BKA), which has been designed to ensure that the individual sensors remain within the allocated telemetry rate on an orbit-averaged basis. The philosophy of the SWA book-keeping scheme has since been applied to all instruments with ESOC’s Operations Team introducing the concept of Operations Telemetry Corridors (OTC) to finely tune the rate of telemetry generation by the instruments

Platelet to Lymphocyte Ratio and Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio as Risk Factors for Venous Thrombosis

High platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) are associated with an increased risk of arterial thrombosis, but their role in venous thromboembolism (VTE) has not been fully investigated. A case\ue2\u80\u93control study, of 486 patients with VTE, 100 with cerebral vein thrombosis (CVT), and 299 healthy individuals, was carried out to investigate whether high PLR or NLR values are associated with an increased risk of VTE. Patients with high PLR or NLR did not have an increased risk of VTE (odds ratio [OR] 0.89, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.46-1.76; OR: 0.69, 95% CI: 0.34-1.39, respectively) or CVT (OR: 1.65, 95% CI: 0.68-4.00; OR: 0.39, 95% CI: 0.09-1.72, respectively). Subgroups analysis showed that high PLR values were associated with the risk of provoked CVT (OR: 2.65, 95% CI: 1.02-6.92), and there was an interaction with thrombophilia abnormalities (OR: 7.67, 95% CI: 1.67-35.27) in patients with CVT. In conclusion, high PLR and NLR values are not associated with an overall increased risk of VTE or CVT. High PLR values increase the risk of provoked CVT and interact with thrombophilia abnormalities in patients with CVT

Towards quantum 3d imaging devices

We review the advancement of the research toward the design and implementation of quantum plenoptic cameras, radically novel 3D imaging devices that exploit both momentum–position entanglement and photon–number correlations to provide the typical refocusing and ultra-fast, scanning-free, 3D imaging capability of plenoptic devices, along with dramatically enhanced performances, unattainable in standard plenoptic cameras: diffraction-limited resolution, large depth of focus, and ultra-low noise. To further increase the volumetric resolution beyond the Rayleigh diffraction limit, and achieve the quantum limit, we are also developing dedicated protocols based on quantum Fisher information. However, for the quantum advantages of the proposed devices to be effective and appealing to end-users, two main challenges need to be tackled. First, due to the large number of frames required for correlation measurements to provide an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio, quantum plenoptic imaging (QPI) would require, if implemented with commercially available high-resolution cameras, acquisition times ranging from tens of seconds to a few minutes. Second, the elaboration of this large amount of data, in order to retrieve 3D images or refocusing 2D images, requires high-performance and time-consuming computation. To address these challenges, we are developing high-resolution single-photon avalanche photodiode (SPAD) arrays and high-performance low-level programming of ultra-fast electronics, combined with compressive sensing and quantum tomography algorithms, with the aim to reduce both the acquisition and the elaboration time by two orders of magnitude. Routes toward exploitation of the QPI devices will also be discussed

Treatment decision-making of secondary prevention after venous thromboembolism. data from the real-life START2-POST-VTE register

Patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) should receive a decision on the duration of anticoagulant treatment (AT) that is often not easy to make. Sixteen Italian clinical centers included patients with recent VTE in the START2-POST-VTE register and reported the decisions taken on duration of AT in each patient and the reasons for them. At the moment of this report, 472 (66.9%) of the 705 patients included in the registry were told to stop AT in 59.3% and to extend it in 40.7% of patients. Anticoagulant treatment lasted ≥3 months in &gt;90% of patients and was extended in patients with proximal deep vein thrombosis because considered at high risk of recurrence or had thrombophilic abnormalities. d-dimer testing, assessment of residual thrombus, and patient preference were also indicated among the criteria influencing the decision. In conclusion, Italian doctors stuck to the minimum 3 months AT after VTE, while the secondary or unprovoked nature of the event was not seen as the prevalent factor influencing AT duration which instead was the result of a complex and multifactorial evaluation of each patient

Ionospheric anomalies detected by ionosonde and possibly related to crustal earthquakes in Greece

Ionosonde data and crustal earthquakes with magnitude M > 6:0 observed in Greece during the 2003–2015 period were examined to check if the relationships obtained earlier between precursory ionospheric anomalies and earthquakes in Japan and central Italy are also valid for Greek earthquakes. The ionospheric anomalies are identified on the observed variations of the sporadic E-layer parameters (h0Es, foEs) and foF2 at the ionospheric station of Athens. The corresponding empirical relationships between the seismoionospheric disturbances and the earthquake magnitude and the epicentral distance are obtained and found to be similar to those previously published for other case studies. The large lead times found for the ionospheric anomalies occurrence may confirm a rather long earthquake preparation period. The possibility of using the relationships obtained for earthquake prediction is finally discussed.Published361–3712A. Fisica dell'alta atmosferaJCR Journa