In-Situ Mechanical Characterization for Compacted Aggregates

The evaluation of compacted unbound aggregate layers is perhaps the most common undertaking in transportation-related projects. The assessment of compaction compliance in engineered fills, subgrades, subbases, and bases in roadways and railways is central to ensure longevity of ground transportation infrastructure. In many cases, premature failures in roadways that originate in the unbound aggregate layers can be traced back to inadequate compaction. These failures are preventable, provided the problem areas can be identified by a suitable field test during construction. The most widely used method for compaction assessment during construction is the nuclear density gauge (NDG) test. While the device itself is easy to use, the complexity associated with the transportation and servicing of the radioactive device makes the test logistically and economically expensive. Furthermore, NDGs were designed to extract density and moisture content only, which are not sufficient to describe the mechanical performance of compacted unbound aggregates. This project was set out to identify available non-nuclear alternatives to the NDG test and evaluate if their failure to replace NDGs was traced to shortcomings that could be overcome through automation. It was found that the successful implementation of a non-nuclear, in-situ, mechanical performance evaluation test device requires satisfying the current information needs of practice in a system-wide context. Unavoidably, the device must be able to provide reliable density and moisture content measurements to fit within the established construction control regulatory framework, provide measurements of strength and stiffness to advance the state-of-the-practice, and be useful for the state department of transportation (DOT) in the transition from empirical to mechanistic analysis and design. Unfortunately, none of the available devices can provide on its own direct measurements of all of these parameters. In conclusion, automation may play a role in the design of a replacement for the NDG, but the real need lies in the development of a new transitional device that can measure density, moisture content, strength, and stiffness

Compresibilidad de arenas cementadas en ambiente semiárido

En este artículo se describen las características físicas y los resultados de pruebas de consolidación de una arena silícea cementada con carbonato de calcio, típica de los horizontes petrocálcicos propios de los ambientes áridos y semiáridos del Suroeste de los Estados Unidos. Para preservar la estructura y cementación del suelo se tomaron bloques de la arena cementada y se labraron especímenes inalterados para realizar pruebas de consolidación. Se encontró que la matriz de la arena cementada en su estado natural tiene densidad muy baja y es muy porosa. Cuando este material tiene contenidos de agua muy bajos, similares a las condiciones secas naturales del sitio, la estructura del suelo es estable y relativamente resistente a la carga normal. Sin embargo, los resultados de las pruebas de consolidación indican que la saturación pudiese causar el colapso de la matriz arenosa cementada y el asentamiento de este suelo

Le relazioni adulto-bambino negli album fotografici di famiglia: un’esperienza di Public History per formare alle professioni educative

The paper illustrates a training experience – and its reasons – aimed at implementing professional skills of Early Childhood Education and Care pedagogical coordinators. The paper is based on the belief that historical knowledge can be a valid tool for understanding family relationships, and for effectively facing current educational challenges. In the general context of the history of the family, the reconstruction of the intergenerational passages of one’s family allows to reflect on the short and long-term dynamics that are still present today. Moreover, it promote the awareness of the variety of ethnic, religious, and identity components, which are part of daily work with children and their families. The training activity have been carried out promoting the use of family pictures, their digitalisation, and commentary, according to Public History

Specific Learning Disorders and Eating Disorders: an Italian retrospective study

Background: Although Anorexia Nervosa (AN) patients show dysfunctional behaviour in information processing, visual and verbal memory performance, and different cognitive fields, regardless of their BMI, the literature on the correlations between Eating Disorders (ED) and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD) does not provide conclusive data. Rather than a consequence of the mental disorder, cognitive dysfunctions may be a risk factor for AN. Methods: Our retrospective study investigates the prevalence of Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) among patients with ED. We considered 262 patients being treated at the Emilia Romagna Feeding and Eating Disorders Outpatient Service in Bologna, Italy. We compared the results with the Italian reference values, according to the most recent data provided by the Italian Ministry of Education. Results: We found that 25 patients out of 262 (9.54%) presented a comorbid diagnosis of SLD. This SLD prevalence is higher than the Italian reference values (4.9% in the school year 2018/19, p < 0.001). Comorbidity with SLD was significantly more frequent in males. A diagnosis of SLD was not associated with a higher frequency of any specific ED diagnosis or with psychiatric comorbidity in general. Positive family history for SLD was not significantly associated with either a positive family history for ED or a diagnosis of SLD. Conclusions: This is the first Italian study to investigate the prevalence of SLD in ED patients during childhood and adolescence. Our data support previous research documenting that neuropsychological deficit could lead to the development of ED

Markerless Analysis of Articulatory Movements in Patients With Parkinson's Disease

Objectives: A large percentage of patients with Parkinson's disease have hypokinetic dysarthria, exhibiting reduced peak velocities of jaw and lips during speech. This limitation implies a reduction of speech intelligibility for such patients. This work aims at testing a cost-effective markerless approach for assessing kinematic parameters of hypokinetic dysarthria. Study design: Kinematic parameters of the lips are calculated during a syllable repetition task from 14 Parkinsonian patients and 14 age-matched control subjects. Methods: Combining color and depth frames provided by a depth sensor (Microsoft Kinect), we computed the three-dimensional coordinates of main facial points. The peak velocities and accelerations of the lower lip during a syllable repetition task are considered to compare the two groups. Results: Results show that Parkinsonian patients exhibit reduced peak velocities of the lower lip, both during the opening and the closing phase of the mouth. In addition, peak values of acceleration are reduced in Parkinsonian patients, although with significant differences only in the opening phase with respect to healthy control subjects. Conclusions: The novel contribution of this work is the implementation of an entirely markerless technique capable to detect signs of hypokinetic dysarthria for the analysis of articulatory movements during speech. Although a large number of Parkinsonian patients have hypokinetic dysarthria, only a small percentage of them undergoes speech therapy to increase their articulatory movements. The system proposed here could be easily implemented in a home environment, thus, increasing the percentage of patients who can perform speech rehabilitation at home

The still under-investigated role of cognitive deficits in PML diagnosis

Background: Despite cognitive deficits frequently represent the first clinical manifestations of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (PML) in Natalizumab-treated MS patients, the importance of cognitive deficits in PML diagnosis is still under-investigated. The aim of the current study is to investigate the cognitive deficits at PML diagnosis in a group of Italian patients with PML. Methods: Thirty-four PML patients were included in the study. The demographic and clinical data, the lesion load and localization, and the longitudinal clinical course was compared between patients with (n = 13) and without (n = 15) cognitive deficit upon PML suspicion (the remaining six patients were asymptomatic). Clinical presentation of cognitive symptoms was described in detail. Result: After symptoms detection, the time to diagnosis resulted to be shorter for patients presenting with cognitive than for patients with non cognitive onset (p = 0.03). Within patients with cognitive onset, six patients were presenting with language and/or reading difficulties (46.15%); five patients with memory difficulties (38.4%); three patients with apraxia (23.1%); two patients with disorientation (15.3%); two patients with neglect (15.3%); one patients with object agnosia (7.7%), one patient with perseveration (7.7%) and one patient with dementia (7.7%). Frontal lesions were less frequent (p = 0.03), whereas temporal lesions were slightly more frequent (p = 0.06) in patients with cognitive deficits. The longitudinal PML course seemed to be more severe in cognitive than in non cognitive patients (F = 2.73, p = 0.03), but differences disappeared (F = 1.24, p = 0.29) when balancing for the incidence of immune reconstitution syndrome and for other treatments for PML (steroids, plasma exchange (PLEX) and other therapies (Mefloquine, Mirtazapine, Maraviroc). Conclusion: Cognitive deficits at PML onset manifest with symptoms which are absolutely rare in MS. Their appearance in MS patients should strongly suggest PML. Clinicians should be sensitive to the importance of formal neuropsychological evaluation, with particular focus on executive function, which are not easily detected without a formal assessment

Nailfold Capillaroscopy Analysis Can Add a New Perspective to Biomarker Research in Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody-Associated Vasculitis

Background: Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV) includes granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA), microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), and eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA), all of which are characterised by inflammation of small-medium-sized vessels. Progressive understanding of these diseases has allowed researchers and clinicians to start discussing nailfold video capillaroscopy (NVC) as a future tool for many applications in daily practice. Today, NVC plays a well-established and validated role in differentiating primary from secondary Raynaud's phenomenon correlated with scleroderma. Nevertheless, there has not been sufficient attention paid to its real potential in the ANCA-associated vasculitis. In fact, the role of NVC in vasculitis has never been defined and studied in a multicentre and multinational study. In this review, we carried out a literature analysis to identify and synthesise the possible role of capillaroscopy for patients with ANCA-associated vasculitis. Methods: Critical research was performed in the electronic archive (PUBMED, UpToDate, Google Scholar, ResearchGate), supplemented with manual research. We searched in these databases for articles published until November 2023. The following search words were searched in the databases in all possible combinations: capillaroscopy, video capillaroscopy, nailfold-video capillaroscopy, ANCA-associated vasculitis, vasculitis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, EGPA, and microscopic polyangiitis. Results: The search identified 102 unique search results. After the evaluation, eight articles were selected for further study. The literature reported that capillaroscopy investigations documented non-specific abnormalities in 70-80% of AAV patients. Several patients showed neoangiogenesis, capillary loss, microhaemorrhages, and bushy and enlarged capillaries as the most frequent findings. Furthermore, the difference between active phase and non-active phase in AAV patients was clearly discernible. The non-active phase showed similar rates of capillaroscopy alterations compared to the healthy subjects, but the active phase had higher rates in almost all common abnormalities instead. Conclusions: Microvascular nailfold changes, observed in patients affected by vasculitis, may correlate with the outcome of these patients. However, these non-specific abnormalities may help in the diagnosis of vasculitis. As such, new analysis analyses are necessary to confirm our results

Molecular Signature of Biological Aggressiveness in Clear Cell Sarcoma of the Kidney (CCSK)

: Clear cell sarcoma of the kidney (CCSK) is a rare pediatric renal tumor with a worse prognosis than Wilms' tumor. Although recently, BCOR internal tandem duplication (ITD) has been found as a driver mutation in more than 80% of cases, a deep molecular characterization of this tumor is still lacking, as well as its correlation with the clinical course. The aim of this study was to investigate the differential molecular signature between metastatic and localized BCOR-ITD-positive CCSK at diagnosis. Whole-exome sequencing (WES) and whole-transcriptome sequencing (WTS) were performed on six localized and three metastatic BCOR-ITD-positive CCSKs, confirming that this tumor carries a low mutational burden. No significant recurrences of somatic or germline mutations other than BCOR-ITD were identified among the evaluated samples. Supervised analysis of gene expression data showed enrichment of hundreds of genes, with a significant overrepresentation of the MAPK signaling pathway in metastatic cases (p < 0.0001). Within the molecular signature of metastatic CCSK, five genes were highly and significantly over-expressed: FGF3, VEGFA, SPP1, ADM, and JUND. The role of FGF3 in the acquisition of a more aggressive phenotype was investigated in a cell model system obtained by introducing the ITD into the last exon of BCOR by Crispr/Cas9 gene editing of the HEK-293 cell line. Treatment with FGF3 of BCOR-ITD HEK-293 cell line induced a significant increase in cell migration versus both untreated and scramble cell clone. The identification of over-expressed genes in metastatic CCSKs, with a particular focus on FGF3, could offer new prognostic and therapeutic targets in more aggressive cases

Role of SIRT-3, p-mTOR and HIF-1\u3b1 in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients Affected by Metabolic Dysfunctions and in Chronic Treatment with Metformin

The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma deriving from metabolic dysfunctions has increased in the last years. Sirtuin- (SIRT-3), phospho-mammalian target of rapamycin (p-mTOR) and hypoxia-inducible factor- (HIF-1\u3b1) are involved in metabolism and cancer. However, their role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) metabolism, drug resistance and progression remains unclear. This study aimed to better clarify the biological and clinical function of these markers in HCC patients, in relation to the presence of metabolic alterations, metformin therapy and clinical outcome. A total of 70 HCC patients were enrolled: 48 and 22 of whom were in early stage and advanced stage, respectively. The expression levels of the three markers were assessed by immunohistochemistry and summarized using descriptive statistics. SIRT-3 expression was higher in diabetic than non-diabetic patients, and in metformin-treated than insulin-treated patients. Interestingly, p-mTOR was higher in patients with metabolic syndrome than those with different etiology, and, similar to SIRT-3, in metformin-treated than insulin-treated patients. Moreover, our results describe a slight, albeit not significant, benefit of high SIRT-3 and a significant benefit of high nuclear HIF-1\u3b1 expression in early-stage patients, whereas high levels of p-mTOR correlated with worse prognosis in advanced-stage patients. Our study highlighted the involvement of SIRT-3 and p-mTOR in metabolic dysfunctions that occur in HCC patients, and suggested SIRT-3 and HIF-1\u3b1 as predictors of prognosis in early-stage HCC patients, and p-mTOR as target for the treatment of advanced-stage HCC