Rappresentare l’armatura culturale del territorio con QGIS: l’esperienza del PTRA della Franciacorta

Landscape features are the result of interrelated actions of man-and-nature and can provide ecosystem services that need to be protected. Since urban planning policies can impact negatively on the conservation of cultural ecosystem services, urban plans must map them and make provision for their protection. For the Plan of Franciacorta (22 municipalities in Lombardy), we chose QGIS to set up a geo-database and map cultural heritage information. QGIS can provide more flexibility than a typical map, thanks to its graphics tools. To plan the development of actions to protect the landscape and suggest a range of planning opportunities for municipalities, an integrated representation of the landscape and protected ecological elements can highlight some critical issues: municipal borders can prove an obstacle in the implementation of supra-municipal projects and protected areas can include enclaves potentially vulnerable to urban pressures. Such maps have proved useful in guiding the planning choices in the development of the landscape protection schemes. The geo-location of critical aspects has brought out a range of inter-municipal planning opportunities

A Neuro-Evolutionary Approach to Electrocardiographic Signal Classification

International audienceThis chapter presents an evolutionary Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) classifier system as a heartbeat classification algorithm designed according to the rules of the PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2011 (Moody, Comput Cardiol Challenge 38:273-276, 2011), whose aim is to develop an efficient algorithm able to run within a mobile phone that can provide useful feedback when acquiring a diagnostically useful 12-lead Electrocardiography (ECG) recording. The method used to solve this problem is a very powerful natural computing analysis tool, namely evolutionary neural networks, based on the joint evolution of the topology and the connection weights relying on a novel similarity-based crossover. The chapter focuses on discerning between usable and unusable electrocardiograms tele-medically acquired from mobile embedded devices. A preprocessing algorithm based on the Discrete Fourier Transform has been applied before the evolutionary approach in order to extract an ECG feature dataset in the frequency domain. Finally, a series of tests has been carried out in order to evaluate the performance and the accuracy of the classifier system for such a challenge

Predicting candidemia in internal medicine departments: are we chasing the Holy Grail?

Candidemia is a challenging clinical condition with high rates of morbidity and mortality.1 Key requirements for its prompt management include early identification and timely initiation of appropriate systemic antifungal therapy, consistently reported as a major determinant of survival. However, the diagnosis of candidemia can be challenging and is often delayed as there are no specific clinical signs, blood cultures have low sensitivity, and detection of fungal blood cultures takes a long time. In addition, there is evidence that a significant percentage of such infections occurs in patients admitted to internal medicine departments. This is not particularly surprising given the advanced age of many inpatients at internal medicine departments and multiple complex comorbidities. Moreover, related therapies and healthcare system contacts often involve the use of central venous catheters and other indwelling devices, potentially entailing high risk of candidemia.2 Therefore, optimization of the diagnostic and therapeutic approach is an important and still unfulfilled need for the management of candidemia in internal medicine department

Hybrid membrane distillation reverse electrodialysis configuration for water and energy recovery from human urine: an opportunity for off-grid decentralised sanitation

The integration of membrane distillation with reverse electrodialysis has been investigated as a sustainable sanitation solution to provide clean water and electrical power from urine and waste heat. Reverse electrodialysis was integrated to provide the partial remixing of the concentrate (urine) and diluate (permeate) produced from the membrane distillation of urine. Broadly comparable power densities to those of a model salt solution (sodium chloride) were determined during evaluation of the individual and combined contribution of the various monovalent and multivalent inorganic and organic salt constituents in urine. Power densities were improved through raising feed-side temperature and increasing concentration in the concentrate, without observation of limiting behaviour imposed by non-ideal salt and water transport. A further unique contribution of this application is the limited volume of salt concentrate available, which demanded brine recycling to maximise energy recovery analogous to a battery, operating in a ‘state of charge’. During recycle, around 47% of the Gibbs free energy was recoverable with up to 80% of the energy extractable before the concentration difference between the two solutions was halfway towards equilibrium which implies that energy recovery can be optimised with limited effect on permeate quality. This study has provided the first successful demonstration of an integrated MD-RED system for energy recovery from a limited resource, and evidences that the recovered power is sufficient to operate a range of low current fluid pumping technologies that could help deliver off-grid sanitation and clean water recovery at single household scale

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine Response in People Living with HIV According to CD4 Count and CD4/CD8 Ratio

Background: Our aim was to estimate the rates of not achieving a robust/above-average humoral response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in people living with HIV (PLWH) who received ≥2 doses and to investigate the role of the CD4 and CD4/CD8 ratio in predicting the humoral response. Methods: We evaluated the humoral anti-SARS-CoV-2 response 1-month after the second and third doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine as a proportion of not achieving a robust/above-average response using two criteria: (i) a humoral threshold identified as a correlate of protection against SARS-CoV-2 ( 200 cells/mm3 and a ratio > 0.6. Conclusions: A robust humoral response after a booster dose has not been reached by 50% of PLWH with CD4 < 200 cells mm3. In the absence of a validated correlate of protections in the Omicron era, the CD4 count remains the most solid marker to guide vaccination campaigns in PLWH

The Role of Multidimensional Prognostic Index to Identify Hospitalized Older Adults with COVID-19 Who Can Benefit from Remdesivir Treatment: An Observational, Prospective, Multicenter Study

Background: Data regarding the importance of multidimensional frailty to guide clinical decision making for remdesivir use in older patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are largely unexplored. Objective: The aim of this research was to evaluate if the Multidimensional Prognostic Index (MPI), a multidimensional frailty tool based on the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA), may help physicians in identifying older hospitalized patients affected by COVID-19 who might benefit from the use of remdesivir. Methods: This was a multicenter, prospective study of older adults hospitalized for COVID-19 in 10 European hospitals, followed-up for 90 days after hospital discharge. A standardized CGA was performed at hospital admission and the MPI was calculated, with a final score ranging between 0 (lowest mortality risk) and 1 (highest mortality risk). We assessed survival with Cox regression, and the impact of remdesivir on mortality (overall and in hospital) with propensity score analysis, stratified by MPI = 0.50. Results: Among 496 older adults hospitalized for COVID-19 (mean age 80 years, female 59.9%), 140 (28.2% of patients) were treated with remdesivir. During the 90 days of follow-up, 175 deaths were reported, 115 in hospital. Remdesivir treatment significantly reduced the risk of overall mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 0.54, 95% confidence interval CI 0.35–0.83 in the propensity score analysis) in the sample as whole. Stratifying the population, based on MPI score, the effect was observed only in less frail participants (HR 0.47, 95% CI 0.22–0.96 in propensity score analysis), but not in frailer subjects. In-hospital mortality was not influenced by remdesivir use. Conclusions: MPI could help to identify less frail older adults hospitalized for COVID-19 who could benefit more from remdesivir treatment in terms of long-term survival

Comparison of the Electronic Structures and Energetics of Ferroelectric LiNbO3 and LiTaO3

This paper explains the origin of the ferroelectric instability in LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 and compares the electronic structures and energetics of the two materials.Comment: 31 pages, 11 Postscript figure

On-chip quantum interference between silicon photon-pair sources

Large-scale integrated quantum photonic technologies will require the on-chip integration of identical photon sources with reconfigurable waveguide circuits. Relatively complex quantum circuits have already been demonstrated, but few studies acknowledge the pressing need to integrate photon sources and waveguide circuits together on-chip. A key step towards such large-scale quantum technologies is the integration of just two individual photon sources within a waveguide circuit, and the demonstration of high-visibility quantum interference between them. Here, we report a silicon-on-insulator device combining two four-wave mixing sources, in an interferometer with a reconfigurable phase shifter. We configure the device to create and manipulate two-colour (non-degenerate) or same-colour (degenerate), path-entangled or path-unentangled photon pairs. We observe up to 100.0+/-0.4% visibility quantum interference on-chip, and up to 95+/-4% off-chip. Our device removes the need for external photon sources, provides a path to increasing the complexity of quantum photonic circuits, and is a first step towards fully-integrated quantum technologies