Implementation and Assessment Methodologies of Teachers' Training Courses for STEM Activities

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Effects of neuroendocrine obesity induction on systemic hemodynamics and left ventricular function of normotensive rats

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of obesity induced by neonatal Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) administration upon body weight, tail blood pressure, systemic hemodynamics and left ventricular function of Wistar rats. Two groups of Wistar rats were prepared: a) 18 animals made obese through the administration of 2mg/Kg/SC of MSG during the first 11 days of the neonatal period and b)16 control animals (vehicle treated for the same period). Adults animals were followed from the 3rd up the 6th month of life with blood pressure and body weight being measured twice a week. At the end of this period, in part of animals from both groups, we evaluated the left ventricular function through the Langendorff isolated heart preparation whereas the remainders were used to evaluate the systemic hemodynamics through a termodilution method. Results: MSG animals showed significant increases in heart rate (WST = 235,0 ± 35,1; MSG = 312,0 ± 90,8 bpm), total peripheral resistance (WST = 0,312 ± 0,100; MSG = 0,535 ± 0,195 mmHg.ml-1.min) and in relative epididymal adipose tissue content (WST = 2,076 ± 0,622; MSG = 2,731 ± 0,722 g/100g) and a reduction of systolic volume (WST = 1,020 ± 0,364; MSG = 0,748 ± 0,455 ml/bat). An increase in mean arterial pressure was also detected in obese animals during the hemodynamic evaluation. The increases in HR and TPR and the reduction in SV suggest an augmentation in the sympathetic activation of those obese normotensive rats associated with an increased visceral fat deposition.O objetivo do estudo foi avaliar o efeito da obesidade induzida pela administração neonatal de glutamato monossódico (MSG) sobre o peso corporal, a pressão arterial de cauda, a hemodinâmica sistêmica e a função ventricular esquerda de ratos Wistar. Dois grupos de ratos Wistar foram preparados: a)18 animais foram tornados obesos por meio da administração de 2 mg/kg/SC de MSG durante os 11 primeiros dias do período neonatal e b)16 animais controles (que receberam o veículo do MSG pelo mesmo período). Animais adultos foram acompanhados dos três aos seis meses de vida e tiveram pressão arterial e peso corporal medidos duas vezes por semana. Ao final desse período, em parte dos animais dos dois grupos, avaliou-se a função ventricular por intermédio da preparação do coração isolado de Langerdorff, e os animais restantes foram usados para o estudo da hemodinâmica sistêmica por meio de um método de termodiluição. Resultados: Nos animais MSG houve aumento da gordura epididimal relativa (WST = 2,076 ± 0,622; MSG = 2,731 ± 0,722 g/100 g), aumento significante da freqüência cardíaca (WST = 235,0 ± 35,1; MSG = 312,0 ± 90,8 bpm), da resistência periférica total (WST = 0,312 ± 0,100; MSG = 0,535 ± 0,195 mmHg.ml-1.min), e diminuição do volume sistólico (WST = 1,020 ± 0,364; MSG = 0,748 ± 0,455 µl/bat). No estudo hemodinâmico, também detectou-se nos animais obesos aumento da pressão arterial média. Os aumentos da FC e da RPT e a diminuição do VS sugerem que houve aumento da atividade simpática nos ratos normotensos com obesidade associado ao aumento da deposição de gordura visceral.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Disciplina de Nefrologia Laboratório de Hipertensão Arterial ExperimentalUNIFESP, Disciplina de Nefrologia Laboratório de Hipertensão Arterial ExperimentalSciEL

Design of a multi-purpose building "to zero energy consumption" according to european directive 2010/31/ce: Architectural and plant solutions

Considering the significant impact that the residential sector has on energy consumption, it is particularly important to implement policies aimed at improving energy efficiency in buildings for saving primary energy, and also to spread the concept of sustainable development through the use of appropriate technology and proper project criteria for new constructions. For these reasons the Municipality of Città della Pieve promoted the creation of a "Renewable Energy Park" in a deprived area of its territory, so that there were the main technologies for the production of green energy. In this context, it could not be lacking an educational/demonstrative "zero energy consumption" building for multifunctional activities realized with the most innovative techniques to save energy. The building will exemplify the optimization of the benefits derived from improved energy efficiency in synergy with systems of energy production from renewable sources, such as to make possible the transition from "passive" building to get to "active" building. In this paper we describe the technical solutions adopted both in the building envelope and the system concept for the project of that "zero energy consumption" building according to Directive 2010/31/CE. In order to validate the proposed solutions, it has also been carried out a simulation of the behaviour of the building in summer and winter so that it is possible to assess the actual benefits obtained both in terms of energy and in economic terms following the adoption of the proposed solutions

From deceased to bioengineered graft: New frontiers in liver transplantation

none6siopenCesaretti M.; Zarzavajian Le Bian A.; Moccia S.; Iannelli A.; Schiavo L.; Diaspro A.Cesaretti, M.; Zarzavajian Le Bian, A.; Moccia, S.; Iannelli, A.; Schiavo, L.; Diaspro, A

Decreasing incidence of gastric MALT lymphomas in the era of anti-Helicobacter pylori interventions: results from a population-based study on extranodal marginal zone lymphomas

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Giant Sigmoid Diverticulum: A Rare Presentation of a Common Pathology

Although colonic diverticulum is a common disease, affecting about 35% of patients above the age of 60, giant sigmoid diverticulum is an uncommon variant of which only relatively few cases have been described in the literature. We report on our experience with a patient affected by giant sigmoid diverticulum who was treated with diverticulectomy. Resection of the diverticulum is a safe surgical procedure, provided that the colon section close to the lesion presents no sign of flogosis or diverticula; in addition, recurrences are not reported after 6-year follow-up

Difracción por pupilas fractales y principio de Babinet

La difracción óptica por pupilas fractales provee un método para estudiar las propiedades de estos objetos, las que se traducen en las distribuciones de intensidad resultantes (cif. Allain et al 1986). El principio de Babinet es formulado a partir del comportamiento de la luz al atravesar aberturas que pueden representarse como regiones en el espacio euclídeo.Facultad de Ciencias ExactasCentro de Investigaciones Óptica

Computer-assisted liver graft steatosis assessment via learning-based texture analysis

Purpose: Fast and accurate graft hepatic steatosis (HS) assessment is of primary importance for lowering liver dysfunction risks after transplantation. Histopathological analysis of biopsied liver is the gold standard for assessing HS, despite being invasive and time consuming. Due to the short time availability between liver procurement and transplantation, surgeons perform HS assessment through clinical evaluation (medical history, blood tests) and liver texture visual analysis. Despite visual analysis being recognized as challenging in the clinical literature, few efforts have been invested to develop computer-assisted solutions for HS assessment. The objective of this paper is to investigate the automatic analysis of liver texture with machine learning algorithms to automate the HS assessment process and offer support for the surgeon decision process. Methods: Forty RGB images of forty different donors were analyzed. The images were captured with an RGB smartphone camera in the operating room (OR). Twenty images refer to livers that were accepted and 20 to discarded livers. Fifteen randomly selected liver patches were extracted from each image. Patch size was 100 × 100. This way, a balanced dataset of 600 patches was obtained. Intensity-based features (INT), histogram of local binary pattern (HLBPriu2), and gray-level co-occurrence matrix (FGLCM) were investigated. Blood-sample features (Blo) were included in the analysis, too. Supervised and semisupervised learning approaches were investigated for feature classification. The leave-one-patient-out cross-validation was performed to estimate the classification performance. Results: With the best-performing feature set (HLBPriu2+INT+Blo) and semisupervised learning, the achieved classification sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 95, 81, and 88%, respectively. Conclusions: This research represents the first attempt to use machine learning and automatic texture analysis of RGB images from ubiquitous smartphone cameras for the task of graft HS assessment. The results suggest that is a promising strategy to develop a fully automatic solution to assist surgeons in HS assessment inside the OR

Use of Artificial Intelligence as an Innovative Method for Liver Graft Macrosteatosis Assessment

The worldwide implementation of a liver graft pool using marginal livers (ie, grafts with a high risk of technical complications and impaired function or with a risk of transmitting infection or malignancy to the recipient) has led to a growing interest in developing methods for accurate evaluation of graft quality. Liver steatosis is associated with a higher risk of primary nonfunction, early graft dysfunction, and poor graft survival rate. The present study aimed to analyze the value of artificial intelligence (AI) in the assessment of liver steatosis during procurement compared with liver biopsy evaluation. A total of 117 consecutive liver grafts from brain-dead donors were included and classified into 2 cohorts: ≥30 versus <30% hepatic steatosis. AI analysis required the presence of an intraoperative smartphone liver picture as well as a graft biopsy and donor data. First, a new algorithm arising from current visual recognition methods was developed, trained, and validated to obtain automatic liver graft segmentation from smartphone images. Second, a fully automated texture analysis and classification of the liver graft was performed by machine-learning algorithms. Automatic liver graft segmentation from smartphone images achieved an accuracy (Acc) of 98%, whereas the analysis of the liver graft features (cropped picture and donor data) showed an Acc of 89% in graft classification (≥30 versus <30%). This study demonstrates that AI has the potential to assess steatosis in a handy and noninvasive way to reliably identify potential nontransplantable liver grafts and to avoid improper graft utilization

A COMPARISON OF PRE-PROCESSING APPROACHES FOR REMOTELY SENSED TIME SERIES CLASSIFICATION BASED ON FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS

Satellite remote sensing has gained a key role for vegetation mapping distribution. Given the availability of multi-temporal satellite data, seasonal variations in vegetation dynamics can be used trough time series analysis for vegetation distribution mapping. These types of data have a very high variability within them and are subjected by artifacts. Therefore, a pre-processing phase must be performed to properly detect outliers, for data smoothing process and to correctly interpolate the data. In this work, we compare four pre-processing approaches for functional analysis on 4-years of remotely sensed images, resulting in four time series datasets. The methodologies presented are the results of the combination of two outlier detection methods, namely tsclean and boxplot functions in R and two discrete data smoothing approaches (Generalized Additive Model ”GAM” on daily and aggregated data). The approaches proposed are: tsclean-GAM on aggregated data (M01), boxplot-GAM on aggregated data (M02), tsclean-GAM on daily data (M03), boxplot-GAM on daily data (M04). Our results prove that the approach which involves tsclean function and GAM applied to daily data (M03) is ameliorative to the logic of the procedure and leads to better model performance in terms of Overall Accuracy (OA) which is always among the highest when compared with the others obtained from the other three different approaches