AUTOMATIC POINT CLOUD SEGMENTATION FOR THE DETECTION OF ALTERATIONS ON HISTORICAL BUILDINGS THROUGH AN UNSUPERVISED AND CLUSTERING-BASED MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH

Abstract. The article describes an innovative procedure for the three-dimensional analysis of decay morphologies of ancient buildings, through the application of machine learning methods for the automatic segmentation of point clouds. In the field of Cultural Heritage conservation, photogrammetric data can be exploited, for diagnostic and monitoring support, to recognize different typologies of alterations visible on the masonry surface, starting from colour information. Actually, certain stone and plaster surface pathologies (biological patina, biological colonization, chromatic alterations, spots,…) are typically characterized by chromatic variations. To this purpose, colour-based segmentation with hierarchical clustering has been implemented on colour data of point clouds, considered in the HSV colour-space. In addition, geometry-based segmentation of 3D reconstructions has been performed, in order to identify the main architectural elements (walls, vaults), and to associate them to the detected defects. The proposed workflow has been applied to some ancient buildings' environments, chosen because of their irregularity both in geometrical and colorimetric characteristics

Decay detection in historic buildings through image-based deep learning

Nowadays, built heritage condition assessment is realized through on-site or photo-aided visual inspections, reporting pathologies manually on drawings, photographs, notes. The knowledge of the state of conservation goes through subjective and time or cost consuming procedures. This is even relevant for a historic building characterized by geometrical and morphological complexity and huge extension, or at risk of collapse. In this context, advancements in the field of Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence provide an opportunity to address these criticalities. The proposed methodology is based on a Mask R-CNN model, for the detection of decay morphologies on built heritages, and, particularly on historic buildings. The experimentation has been carried out and validated on a highly heterogeneous dataset of images of historic buildings, representative of the regional Architectural Heritage, such as: castles, monasteries, noble buildings, rural buildings. The outcomes highlighted the significance of this remote, non-invasive inspection technique, in support of the technicians in the preliminary knowledge of the building state of conservation, and, most of all, in the decay mapping of some particular classes of alterations (moist area, biological colonization)

Computer-aided identification of anticonvulsant effect of natural nonnutritive sweeteners stevioside and rebaudioside A

Steviol glycosides are natural constituents of Stevia rebaudiana (Bert.) Bert. (Asteraceae) that have recently gained worldwide approval as nonnutritive sweeteners by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives. Cheminformatic tools suggested that the aglycone steviol and several of its phase I metabolites were predicted as potential anticonvulsant agents effective in the seizure animal model maximal electroshock seizure (MES) test. Thus, aqueous infusion from S. rebaudiana was tested in the MES test (mice, intraperitoneal administration), confirming dose-dependent anticonvulsant effect. Afterward, isolated stevioside and rebaudioside A were tested in the MES test, with positive results. Though drug repositioning most often focuses on known therapeutics, this article illustrates the possibilities of this strategy to find new functionalities and therapeutic indications for food constituents and natural products.Fil: Di Ianni, Mauricio Emiliano. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: del Valle, Maria Eugenia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Enrique, Andrea Verónica. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rosella, Maria Adelaida. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas; ArgentinaFil: Bruno, Fiorella. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas; ArgentinaFil: Bruno Blanch, Luis Enrique. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Talevi, Alan. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Computer-Aided Identification of Anticonvulsant Effect of Natural Nonnutritive Sweeteners Stevioside and Rebaudioside A

Steviol glycosides are natural constituents of Stevia rebaudiana (Bert.) Bert. (Asteraceae) that have recently gained worldwide approval as nonnutritive sweeteners by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives. Cheminformatic tools suggested that the aglycone steviol and several of its phase I metabolites were predicted as potential anticonvulsant agents effective in the seizure animal model maximal electroshock seizure (MES) test. Thus, aqueous infusion from S. rebaudiana was tested in the MES test (mice, intraperitoneal administration), confirming dose-dependent anticonvulsant effect. Afterward, isolated stevioside and rebaudioside A were tested in the MES test, with positive results. Though drug repositioning most often focuses on known therapeutics, this article illustrates the possibilities of this strategy to find new functionalities and therapeutic indications for food constituents and natural products.Facultad de Ciencias Exacta

Prevention of perinatal group B streptococcal disease: screening during a pregnancy

The prevention of perinatal group B streptococcal (GBS) disease is based on the screening of all pregnant women at 35-37 weeks’ gestation for vaginal and rectal GBS colonization. The colonized women receive intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis. Our study reports the different rates of maternal GBS colonization between April 2008 and March 2011. We have collected 3430 samples by swabbing both the lower vagina and rectum and we have employed two different laboratory methods: direct agar plating and selective enrichment broth. The rates of maternal GBS colonization increased from 10.5% during 2008-2009, to 12.2% during 2009-2010 and to 14.4% during 2010-2011, when we have introduced the Todd Hewitt broth. Our results show that the use of an enrichment broth improves detection of GBS carriers women

Comparison of reversed-phase enantioselective HPLC methods for determining the enantiomeric purity of (S)-omeprazole in the presence of its related substances

A simple analytical high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was applied for the enantiomeric excess determination of esomeprazole ((S)-OME), the enantiopure active ingredient contained in drug products, in the presence of its potential organic impurities A-E. The enantioselective separation was accomplished on the immobilized-type Chiralpak ID-3 chiral stationary phase (CSP) under reversed-phase conditions. The results were evaluated and compared with those obtained by the official enantioselective method of European Pharmacopoeia used as the reference for checking the enantiomeric excess of (S)-OME. It has been established that the use of the Chiralpak ID-3 CSP allows the determination of the enantiomeric purity of (S)-OME without any interference coming from its chiral and achiral related substances. The analytical procedure of the drug regulatory agencies based on the AGP CSP suffered instead from poor specificity due to overlap of the peaks pertinent to the achiral impurity A and the chiral impurity (R)-OME (impurity F)

INNOVAZIONE TECNOLOGICA E DISEGUAGLIANZE DI ACCESSO AI SERVIZI SANITARI: ESISTONO POLICY EQUE E SOSTENIBILI?

Innovazione e ricerca, nuovi dispositivi e vaccini, definizione di terapie sempre più mirate ed efficaci hanno contribuito al generale miglioramento della qualità della vita e al crescente innalzamento delle aspettative di vita. Parallelamente, però, si registrano sempre maggiori costi che potrebbero minare la sostenibilità economica del nostro sistema sanitario, ispirato a principi di universalità e uguaglianza sanciti dalla Costitu- zione (art. 32). Anche i bisogni cambiano: l’età media della popolazione e le aspettative di vita crescono così come la prevalenza di pa- tologie cronico-degenerative (i pazienti cronici sono stimati nella misura dell’85% tra la popolazione over 65). Come rispondere a questi bisogni, per evitare che vengano a crearsi profonde differenze regionali e sociali