The EcoThermo project: key and innovative aspects

In this paper we present the most innovative aspects of the EC-FP7 EcoThermo project. The main aim of the project consists on innovating the technique of heat cost allocation in buildings with a centralized heating system, overcoming the heat cost allocator drawbacks for reliability, measurement reproducibility and traceability and contexts of applications. Given the complexity of the project, we will focus on its main aspects, such as the use of a virtual sensor to estimate the radiators heating power, the design of electronic valves fitted out with an energy harvesting system and the original wireless communication protocol

Scientific maps should reach everyone: The cblindplot R package to let colour blind people visualise spatial patterns

Maps represent powerful tools to show the spatial variation of a variable in a straightforward manner. A crucial aspect in map rendering for its interpretation by users is the gamut of colours used for displaying data. One part of this problem is linked to the proportion of the human population that is colour blind and, therefore, highly sensitive to colour palette selection. The aim of this paper is to present the cblindplot R package and its founding function - cblind.plot() - which enables colour blind people to just enter an image in a coding workflow, simply set their colour blind deficiency type, and immediately get as output a colour blind friendly plot. We will first describe in detail colour blind problems, and then show a step by step example of the function being proposed. While examples exist to provide colour blind people with proper colour palettes, in such cases (i) the workflow include a separate import of the image and the application of a set of colour ramp palettes and (ii) albeit being well documented, there are many steps to be done before plotting an image with a colour blind friendly ramp palette. The function described in this paper, on the contrary, allows to (i) automatically call the image inside the function without any initial import step and (ii) explicitly refer to the colour blind deficiency type being experienced, to further automatically apply the proper colour ramp palette

From zero to infinity: Minimum to maximum diversity of the planet by spatio-parametric Rao's quadratic entropy

Aim: The majority of work done to gather information on the Earth's biodiversity has been carried out using in-situ data, with known issues related to epistemology (e.g., species determination and taxonomy), spatial uncertainty, logistics (time and costs), among others. An alternative way to gather information about spatial ecosystem variability is the use of satellite remote sensing. It works as a powerful tool for attaining rapid and standardized information. Several metrics used to calculate remotely sensed diversity of ecosystems are based on Shannon’s information theory, namely on the differences in relative abundance of pixel reflectances in a certain area. Additional metrics like the Rao’s quadratic entropy allow the use of spectral distance beside abundance, but they are point descriptors of diversity, that is they can account only for a part of the whole diversity continuum. The aim of this paper is thus to generalize the Rao’s quadratic entropy by proposing its parameterization for the first time.
 Innovation: The parametric Rao’s quadratic entropy, coded in R, (a) allows the representation of the whole continuum of potential diversity indices in one formula, and (b) starting from the Rao’s quadratic entropy, allows the explicit use of distances among pixel reflectance values, together with relative abundances.
 Main conclusions: The proposed unifying measure is an integration between abundance- and distance-based algorithms to map the continuum of diversity given a satellite image at any spatial scale. Being part of the rasterdiv R package, the proposed method is expected to ensure high robustness and reproducibility

How future surgery will benefit from SARS-COV-2-related measures: a SPIGC survey conveying the perspective of Italian surgeons

COVID-19 negatively affected surgical activity, but the potential benefits resulting from adopted measures remain unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the change in surgical activity and potential benefit from COVID-19 measures in perspective of Italian surgeons on behalf of SPIGC. A nationwide online survey on surgical practice before, during, and after COVID-19 pandemic was conducted in March-April 2022 (NCT:05323851). Effects of COVID-19 hospital-related measures on surgical patients' management and personal professional development across surgical specialties were explored. Data on demographics, pre-operative/peri-operative/post-operative management, and professional development were collected. Outcomes were matched with the corresponding volume. Four hundred and seventy-three respondents were included in final analysis across 14 surgical specialties. Since SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, application of telematic consultations (4.1% vs. 21.6%; p < 0.0001) and diagnostic evaluations (16.4% vs. 42.2%; p < 0.0001) increased. Elective surgical activities significantly reduced and surgeons opted more frequently for conservative management with a possible indication for elective (26.3% vs. 35.7%; p < 0.0001) or urgent (20.4% vs. 38.5%; p < 0.0001) surgery. All new COVID-related measures are perceived to be maintained in the future. Surgeons' personal education online increased from 12.6% (pre-COVID) to 86.6% (post-COVID; p < 0.0001). Online educational activities are considered a beneficial effect from COVID pandemic (56.4%). COVID-19 had a great impact on surgical specialties, with significant reduction of operation volume. However, some forced changes turned out to be benefits. Isolation measures pushed the use of telemedicine and telemetric devices for outpatient practice and favored communication for educational purposes and surgeon-patient/family communication. From the Italian surgeons' perspective, COVID-related measures will continue to influence future surgical clinical practice

Association of kidney disease measures with risk of renal function worsening in patients with type 1 diabetes

Background: Albuminuria has been classically considered a marker of kidney damage progression in diabetic patients and it is routinely assessed to monitor kidney function. However, the role of a mild GFR reduction on the development of stage 653 CKD has been less explored in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic role of kidney disease measures, namely albuminuria and reduced GFR, on the development of stage 653 CKD in a large cohort of patients affected by T1DM. Methods: A total of 4284 patients affected by T1DM followed-up at 76 diabetes centers participating to the Italian Association of Clinical Diabetologists (Associazione Medici Diabetologi, AMD) initiative constitutes the study population. Urinary albumin excretion (ACR) and estimated GFR (eGFR) were retrieved and analyzed. The incidence of stage 653 CKD (eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) or eGFR reduction > 30% from baseline was evaluated. Results: The mean estimated GFR was 98 \ub1 17 mL/min/1.73m2 and the proportion of patients with albuminuria was 15.3% (n = 654) at baseline. About 8% (n = 337) of patients developed one of the two renal endpoints during the 4-year follow-up period. Age, albuminuria (micro or macro) and baseline eGFR < 90 ml/min/m2 were independent risk factors for stage 653 CKD and renal function worsening. When compared to patients with eGFR > 90 ml/min/1.73m2 and normoalbuminuria, those with albuminuria at baseline had a 1.69 greater risk of reaching stage 3 CKD, while patients with mild eGFR reduction (i.e. eGFR between 90 and 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) show a 3.81 greater risk that rose to 8.24 for those patients with albuminuria and mild eGFR reduction at baseline. Conclusions: Albuminuria and eGFR reduction represent independent risk factors for incident stage 653 CKD in T1DM patients. The simultaneous occurrence of reduced eGFR and albuminuria have a synergistic effect on renal function worsening

Validation of Reverse Engineered Web Application Models

Abstract—Web applications have become complex and crucial for many firms, especially when combined with areas such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and BPR (Business Process Reengineering). The scientific community has focused attention to Web application design, development, analysis, testing, by studying and proposing methodologies and tools. Static and dynamic techniques may be used to analyze existing Web applications. The use of traditional static source code analysis may be very difficult, for the presence of dynamically generated code, and for the multi-language nature of the Web. Dynamic analysis may be useful, but it has an intrinsic limitation, the low number of program executions used to extract information. Our reverse engineering analysis, used into our WAAT (Web Applications Analysis and Testing) project, applies mutational techniques in order to exploit server side execution engines to accomplish part of the dynamic analysis. This paper studies the effects of mutation source code analysis applied to Web software to build application models. Mutation-based generated models may contain more information then necessary, so we need a pruning mechanism

Inversion of a physical model of the vocal folds via dynamic programming techniques

This work presents a procedure for the estimation of a two-mass vocal fold model starting from a time-varying target flow signal. The model is specified by a large number of physical parameters, computed as functions of four articulatory parameters (three laryngeal muscle activations and subglottal pressure). Flow waveforms synthesized by the model are characterized by means of a set of typical voice source quantification acoustic parameters. Given a sequences of target acoustic parameters, dynamic programming techniques and interpolation based on Radial Basis Function Networks are used to derive sequences of articulatory parameters that lead to resynthesis of the target signal