Magnetic resonance arthrography in patients with multidirectional instability: could inferior capsulsar width be considered the cornerstone in the diagnosis of non-traumatic shoulder instability?

Objectives To provide quantitative anatomical parameters in patients with and without non-traumatic multidirectional instability using MR arthrography (MR-a). Materials and methods One hundred and seventy-six MR-a performed from January 2020 to March 2021 were retrospectively evaluated. Patients were divided according to the presence of clinically diagnosed multidirectional shoulder instability (MDI). Each MR-a was performed immediately after intra-articular injection of 20 ml of gadolinium using the anterior approach. The width of the axillary recess, the width of the rotator interval, and the circumference of the glenoid were measured by three independent radiologists, choosing the average value of the measurements. The difference between the mean values of each of the three parameters between the two study groups was then assessed. Results Thirty-seven patients were included in the study (20 in the MDI group, 17 in the control group). The mean axillary recess width in the MDI group was significantly greater than in the control group (t(33) = 3.15, p = .003); rotator interval width and glenoid circumference measurements were not significantly different (t(35) = 1.75, p = .08 and t(30) = 0,51, p = .6, respectively). Conclusions Inferior capsular redundancy may be an important predisposing factor in MDI, while glenoid circumference is not related to MDI. The relationship between the width of the rotator interval and shoulder instability remains debated

Solvent-driven chirality for luminescent self- assembled structures: experiments and theory

We describe, for a single platinum complex bearing a dipeptide moiety, a solvent-driven interconversion from twisted to straight micrometric assembled structures with different chirality. The photophysical and morphological properties of the aggregates have been investigated as well as the role of the media and concentration. A real-time visualization of the solvent-driven interconversion processes has been achieved by confocal microscopy. Finally, atomistic and coarse-grained simulations, providing results consistent with the experimental observations, allow to obtain a molecular-level insight into the interesting solvent-responsive behavior of this system

3D vs. 2D MRI radiomics in skeletal Ewing sarcoma: Feature reproducibility and preliminary machine learning analysis on neoadjuvant chemotherapy response prediction

ObjectiveThe extent of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy predicts survival in Ewing sarcoma. This study focuses on MRI radiomics of skeletal Ewing sarcoma and aims to investigate feature reproducibility and machine learning prediction of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Materials and methodsThis retrospective study included thirty patients with biopsy-proven skeletal Ewing sarcoma, who were treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy before surgery at two tertiary sarcoma centres. 7 patients were poor responders and 23 were good responders based on pathological assessment of the surgical specimen. On pre-treatment T1-weighted and T2-weighted MRI, 2D and 3D tumour segmentations were manually performed. Features were extracted from original and wavelet-transformed images. Feature reproducibility was assessed through small geometrical transformations of the regions of interest mimicking multiple manual delineations, and intraclass correlation coefficient >0.75 defined feature reproducibility. Feature selection also consisted of collinearity and significance analysis. After class balancing in the training cohort, three machine learning classifiers were trained and tested on unseen data using hold-out cross-validation. Results1303 (77%) 3D and 620 (65%) 2D radiomic features were reproducible. 4 3D and 4 2D features passed feature selection. Logistic regression built upon 3D features achieved the best performance with 85% accuracy (AUC=0.9) in predicting response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. ConclusionCompared to 2D approach, 3D MRI radiomics of Ewing sarcoma had superior reproducibility and higher accuracy in predicting response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, particularly when using logistic regression classifier

EVALITA Evaluation of NLP and Speech Tools for Italian - December 17th, 2020

Welcome to EVALITA 2020! EVALITA is the evaluation campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian. EVALITA is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC, http://www.ai-lc.it) and it is endorsed by the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AIxIA, http://www.aixia.it) and the Italian Association for Speech Sciences (AISV, http://www.aisv.it)

Estimating CO2 emissions reduction from renewable energy use in Italy

Many Public Administrations are supporting the installation of Renewable Energy Systems (RE, namely wind and photovoltaic), which provide almost carbon free sources of electricity, aiming to curtail CO2 emissions of the power generation sector. However, the real effect in terms of carbon dioxide reductions is still unclear, since the uncertainty and variability characterizing RE must be balanced by conventional generators. The model presented here simulates the technical constraints Of power plants and the economic framework to be found in a national electricity market, and estimates carbon dioxide missions. The results show that the reduction of CO2 emissions is lower than expected considering the amount of energy produced from renewable sources, and is related to the level of RE penetration and the season of the year; in summer the reduction is slightly greater, because of the higher production by Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs) and the consequent decrease of that generated by the more pollutant coal power plants. The amount of reserve allocated by the Transmission System Operator (TSO) and the cycling on hourly basis have negligible effects on the carbon intensity of electricity generation. In the Italian system 1 kWh from RE displaces approximately 0.8 kWh from conventional power plants

Didattica duepuntozero

Il testo nasce dalla collaborazione tra una rete di scuole e un gruppo di esperti che, a vario titolo, hanno collaborato con esse in questi anni. Il rapido cambiamento della società e del mondo del lavoro costringono infatti la scuola a ripensarsi per mantenere la sua efficacia. In questo testo sono proposti interessanti contributi sull’innovazione didattica, sulle opportunità offerte dalle tecnologie, sulle opportunità di crescita legate alle reti di scuole e sulle potenzialità di sviluppo che si possono innescare attraverso processi di collaborazione e di condivisione. Gli autori, professionisti attivi da molti anni in questo campo, offrono una visione delle tematiche emergenti e delle criticità non solo da un punto vista teorico ma da quello più strettamente pratico e operativo

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves

Italy was the first European country to face the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. The country quickly implemented strategies to contain contagions and re-organize medical resources. We evaluated the COVID-19 effects on the activity of a tertiary-level orthopedic emergency department (ED) during the first and second pandemic waves. We retrospectively collected and compared clinical radiological data of ED admissions during four periods: period A, first pandemic wave; period B, second pandemic wave; period C, three months before the COVID-19 outbreak; period D, same timeframe of the first wave but in 2019. During period A, we found a reduction in ED admissions (−68.2% and −59.9% compared with periods D and C) and a decrease in white codes (non-urgent) (−7.5%) compared with pre-pandemic periods, with a slight increase for all other codes: +6.3% green (urgent, not critical), +0.8% yellow (moderately critical) and +0.3% red (highly urgent, risk of death). We observed an increased rate of fracture diagnosis in period A: +14.9% and +13.3% compared with periods D and C. Our study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a drastic change in the ED patient flow and clinical radiological activity, with a marked reduction in admissions and an increased rate of more severe triage codes and diagnosed fractures