Self-Organising Networks for Classification: developing Applications to Science Analysis for Astroparticle Physics

Physics analysis in astroparticle experiments requires the capability of recognizing new phenomena; in order to establish what is new, it is important to develop tools for automatic classification, able to compare the final result with data from different detectors. A typical example is the problem of Gamma Ray Burst detection, classification, and possible association to known sources: for this task physicists will need in the next years tools to associate data from optical databases, from satellite experiments (EGRET, GLAST), and from Cherenkov telescopes (MAGIC, HESS, CANGAROO, VERITAS)

Thermal effects on the hydraulic conductivity of a granular geomaterial

Geotechnical challenges arising from thermal loading are associated with many engineering applications such as ground source energy systems (5℃-40℃) and nuclear waste disposal (in excess of 100℃). The effects of temperature on soils have been the subject of limited research, particularly in terms of the fundamental characterisation of the non-isothermal behaviour of granular geomaterials. This study describes challenges associated with determining the hydraulic conductivity (k_ℎ) of such materials at different temperatures using a bespoke temperature-controlled triaxial apparatus. A methodology is proposed for interpreting thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) tests on isotropically consolidated specimens and is applied to data obtained for a uniform sand. It is shown that the intrinsic head losses of the system need to be minimised in order to obtain reliable measurements; this requires a detailed calibration procedure. The developed approach is used to determine the hydraulic conductivity at ambient temperature and at 40℃, showing that the increase in k_ℎ with temperature is mostly due to the reduction in the viscosity of water. A detailed analysis of the volumetric response of the sample during heating is also carried out

Case Report: All That Glisters Is Not* Cancer

Properly performed staging in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is necessary to avoid wrong therapeutic decisions. Here we present a case which manifested as advanced NSCLC but ultimately was composed of two different and rare pathologies. The first is a TTF-1 positive axillary lymph node that could be defined either as an unusual isolated differentiated cancer of unknown primary or as an even rarer case of ectopic lung epithelium which underwent malignant transformation. The second is sarcoidosis, a sarcoid-like alteration, in remission after oral steroids. The main implication of a correct diagnosis regards patient outcome and the avoidance of toxic inappropriate systemic chemotherapy

Distress classification measures in the banking sector

This paper investigates distress classification measures in the banking sector. The power of ten different accounting measures is tested using media coverage as the benchmark for a sample of 1,175 banks which participated in merger and acquisitions or divestiture deals over the past 22 calendar years. According to the results of the study, a bank should be defined as distressed if the ratio of its non-performing loans to total loans is in the two highest deciles of the industry, using a three-year moving average. This measure is typically favored by practitioners, who maintain that other common measures, e.g., those involving provisions for loan losses, are not as accurate as they express only a managerial forecast. Interestingly, measures that capture capital adequacy too often depict the bank as healthy even if it is de facto distressed, while measures of asset quality, though highly correlated with each other, tend to overestimate the number of distressed banks

Distress resolution strategies in the banking sector: Implications for global financial crises

This chapter investigates the effectiveness and the motivation behind the choice of different types of distress resolution strategies in the banking sector. This is a global study that analyzes key financial characteristics of distressed banks that were either acquired by other banks, divested assets, or were subject to government intervention, as well as the change in the financial profile of those distressed institutions from one year pre-deal to three years post-deal. The results show that governments intervene in the (relatively) best performers that only underperform in liquidity ratios, an indication of critical short-term flow problems. Distressed sellers, the underperformers of the three groups, enjoy much improved performance, in particular in cross-border deals. There is some evidence of foreign acquirers ‘cherry picking’ the least distressed banks, though no significant differences in target performance remain post-deal between cross-border and domestic deals. These findings provide some useful guidance for policy makers globally and for future financial crises that impact the banking sector

Salmeterol, a \u3b22 Adrenergic Agonist, Promotes Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis in a Region-Specific Manner.

Neurogenesis persists in the subgranular zone of the hippocampal formation in the adult mammalian brain. In this area, neural progenitor cells (NPCs) receive both permissive and instructive signals, including neurotransmitters, that allow them to generate adult-born neurons which can be functionally integrated in the preexisting circuit. Deregulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis (ahNG) occurs in several neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, including major depression, and represents a potential therapeutic target. Of interest, several studies suggested that, both in rodents and in humans, ahNG is increased by chronic administration of classical monoaminergic antidepressant drugs, suggesting that modulation of this process may participate to their therapeutic effects. Since the established observation that noradrenergic innervations from locus coeruleus make contact with NPC in the dentate gyrus, we investigated the role of beta adrenergic receptor (\u3b2-AR) on ahNG both in vitro and in vivo. Here we report that, in vitro, activation of \u3b22-AR by norepinephrine and \u3b22-AR agonists promotes the formation of NPC-derived mature neurons, without affecting NPC survival or differentiation toward glial lineages. Additionally, we show that a selective \u3b22-AR agonist able to cross the blood-brain barrier, salmeterol, positively modulates hippocampal neuroplasticity when chronically administered in adult na\uefve mice. Indeed, salmeterol significantly increased number, maturation, and dendritic complexity of DCX+ neuroblasts. The increased number of DCX+ cells was not accompanied by a parallel increase in the percentage of BrdU+/DCX+ cells suggesting a potential prosurvival effect of the drug on neuroblasts. More importantly, compared to vehicle, salmeterol promoted ahNG, as demonstrated by an increase in the actual number of BrdU+/NeuN+ cells and in the percentage of BrdU+/NeuN+ cells over the total number of newly generated cells. Interestingly, salmeterol proneurogenic effects were restricted to the ventral hippocampus, an area related to emotional behavior and mood regulation. Since salmeterol is commonly used for asthma therapy in the clinical setting, its novel pharmacological property deserves to be further exploited with a particular focus on drug potential to counteract stress-induced deregulation of ahNG and depressive-like behavior

Birth control knowledge among freshmen of four Italian universities

Since sexual health education (SHE) is not mandatory in Italian schools, we conducted a survey on freshmen of four Italian university campuses in 2012 to investigate the respective level of sexual health knowledge (SHK) in relation to birth control, with the aim to inform public health policy makers. A convenience strategy was employed to sample 4,552 freshmen registered with various undergraduate courses at four Italian universities: Padua university (Veneto Region); university of Milan (Lombardy Region); university of Bergamo (Lombardy Region); university of Palermo (Sicily Region). We investigated the level of SHK on birth control using 6 proxy indicators: (1) the average length of a woman\u2019s period [outcome with 3 levels: wrong (base) vs. acceptable vs. correct]; (2) the most fertile interval within a woman\u2019s period (binary outcome: correct vs. wrong answer); (3) the event between the end of a period and the beginning of the next cycle (binary outcome: correct vs. wrong answer); (4) the average survival of spermatozoa in the womb (binary outcome: correct vs. wrong answer); (5) the concept of contraception (binary outcome: correct vs. wrong answer); (6) the efcacy of various contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancies (linear score: 0\u201317). We ftted 6 separate models of multiple regression: multinomial for outcome 1; logistic for outcomes 2, 3, 4, 6; linear for outcome 6. Statistical estimates were adjusted for a number of socio-demographic factors. Results were expressed as odds ratios (OR) for the 4 multiple logistic regression models, linear coefcients (RC) for the linear regression model and relative risk ratio (RRR) for the multinomial logistic regression model. The level of signifcance of each risk estimate was set at 0.05. The level of SHK of freshmen sampled was rather low, as 60% interviewees did not know the average length of a woman\u2019s period, the average survival of spermatozoa in the womb and the concept of contraception, whilst the most fertile interval within a woman\u2019s period was known only to 55% of interviewees. The mean score of SHK on the efcacy of various contraceptive methods was only 5 (scale 0\u201317). Some categories of students were consistently and signifcantly less knowledgeable on birth control at multivariable analysis: males; students from the university of Palermo; those with vocational secondary school education and those not in a romantic relationship at the time the survey was conducted. The results of this survey clearly call for the introduction of SHE programs in Italian schools, as already done in several European countries. School SHE should start as early as possible, ideally even before secondary school. SHE should be holistic and delivered with a multiple agency coordinated approach involving the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, University and Scientifc Research (MIUR), families, schools, public health departments, primary health care providers, pharmacists, media, other

Determinants of Length of Stay After Vaginal Deliveries in the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region (NorthEastern Italy), 2005\u20132015

Although length of stay (LoS) after childbirth has been diminishing in several high-income countries in recent decades, the evidence on the impact of early discharge (ED) on healthy mothers and term newborns after vaginal deliveries (VD) is still inconclusive and little is known on the characteristics of those discharged early. We conducted a population-based study in Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) during 2005\u20132015, to investigate the mean LoS and the percentage of LoS longer than our proposed ED benchmarks following VD: 2 days after spontaneous vaginal deliveries (SVD) and 3 days post instrumental vaginal deliveries (IVD). We employed a multivariable logistic as well as a linear regression model, adjusting for a considerable number of factors pertaining to health-care setting and timeframe, maternal health factors, newborn clinical factors, obstetric history factors, socio-demographic background and present obstetric conditions. Results were expressed as odds ratios (OR) and regression coefcients (RC) with 95% confdence interval (95%CI). The adjusted mean LoS was calculated by level of pregnancy risk (high vs. low). Due to a very high number of multiple tests performed we employed the procedure proposed by Benjamini-Hochberg (BH) as a further selection criterion to calculate the BH p-value for the respective estimates. During 2005\u20132015, the average LoS in FVG was 2.9 and 3.3 days after SVD and IVD respectively, and the pooled regional proportion of LoS>ED was 64.4% for SVD and 32.0% for IVD. The variation of LoS across calendar years was marginal for both vaginal delivery modes (VDM). The adjusted mean LoS was higher in IVD than SVD, and although a decline of LoS>\u2009ED and mean LoS over time was observed for both VDM, there was little variation of the adjusted mean LoS by nationality of the woman and by level of pregnancy risk (high vs. low). By contrast, the adjusted fgures for hospitals with shortest (centres A and G) and longest (centre B) mean LoS were 2.3 and 3.4 days respectively, among \u201clow risk\u201d pregnancies. The corresponding fgures for \u201chigh risk\u201d pregnancies were 2.5 days for centre A/G and 3.6 days for centre B. Therefore, the shift from \u201clow\u201d to \u201chigh\u201d risk pregnancies in all three latter centres (A, B and G) increased the mean adjusted LoS just by 0.2 days. By contrast, the discrepancy between maternity centres with highest and lowest adjusted mean LoS post SVD (hospital B vs. A/G) was 1.1 days both among \u201clow risk\u201d (1.1 = 3.4\u20132.3 days) and \u201chigh risk\u201d (1.1 = 3.6\u20132.5) pregnanices. Similar patterns were obseved also for IVD. Our adjusted regression models confrmed that maternity centres were the main explanatory factor for LoS after childbirth in both VDM. Therefore, health and clinical factors were less infuential than practice patterns in determining LoS after VD. Hospitalization and discharge policies following childbirth in FVG should follow standardized guidelines, to be enforced at hospital level. Any prolonged LoS post VD (LoS>\u2009ED) should be reviewed and audited if need be. Primary care services within the catchment areas of the maternity centres of FVG should be improved to implement the follow up of puerperae undergoing ED after VD. At the beginning of the 20th century home births were the norm and hospital deliveries very rare. Women started to deliver in hospital during World War 2 (WW2), in facilities near the military areas where their respective partners were training. Tis trend continued in the decades following WW2, with standard length of stay afer childbirth (LoS) increasing up to 10 days. In the 70 ies some USA hospitals started to assess the health of mothers and newborn for eligibility to returnhome within 12\u201324 hours afer childbirth, with a midwife on call for domiciliary care up to 3 days for 2 weekspost discharge. In 1992 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) formalized the most frequently shared defnition of early discharge (ED) afer childbirth worldwide as a LoS less than 48 h post spontaneous vaginal deliveries (SVD) and less than 96 h post cesarean section (CS). Tereafer the reduction of LoS expanded to other high-income countries, with increasing applications of ED. LoS afer childbirth remained however a controversial aspect of obstetric care, creating an open debate not only on its impact on the health of mothers and babies but also on health policies, state legislations and functioning of the respective health care systems. Nevertheless, ED of mothers and newborn has in fact increased dramatically in several high-income countries over the past 10\u201315 years. However, the evidence on the impact of ED on healthy mothers and term newborns ( 6537 weeks) afer a vaginal delivery (VD) is still inconclusive and little is known of the characteristics of those discharged early. Since LoS has become a critical indicator of efciency of health care delivery, understanding its associated factors could provide information helpful in the reduction of health care costs, improvement in the delivery of obstetric care, containment of untoward events associated with comorbidities and complications requiring readmission. For instance, in Canada (excluding Quebec) from 2003 to 2010, neonatal readmission rates were lowest for LoS of 1\u20132 days following VD and 2\u20134 days afer CS. Several factors are reportedly associated with LoS in the open literature, including readiness for discharge (clinical and perceived) of the mother8,17\u201319. However, information on the impact of medical/obstetrical conditions associated with pregnancies is scarce or totally lacking. Using a comprehensive database with information on a considerable number of factors, we previously reviewed the case mix of hospital performance by LoS post SVD as well as instrumental vaginal deliveries (IVD) during 2005\u20132015 in Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG), a region of North-Eastern Italy. In this study we present the impact of the outstanding determinants on LoS following SVD and IVD, with the aim of inforing health care policy makers