Medium-Long-Term Radiographic and Clinical Outcomes after Surgical Treatment of Intra-Articular Tibial Pilon Fractures by Three Different Techniques

The goal of this retrospective, observational, case series study was to evaluate the medium-long-term clinical and radiographic results of the three most common surgical osteosynthesis techniques used for the treatment of articular tibial pilon fractures: ORIF, MIPO, and EF. Materials and Methods. A consecutive series of patients with articular pilon fractures who underwent surgery at our institution were enrolled in this study. Fractures were classified according to the M\ufcller AO classification system. Overall outcomes took the following into account: radiographic quality of reduction, evaluated using Ovadia and Beals\u2019 criteria; clinical assessment, evaluated using the AOFAS questionnaire; and general health, evaluated with the SF36-v2 Health Survey. Results. A total of 94 articular pilon fractures (34 type 43-B and 60 43-C) were evaluated with a mean follow-up of 56.34 months (range 33\u2013101). The techniques used were ORIF, MIPO, and EF in 63 (67%), 17 (18.9%), and 14 cases (14.1%), respectively. According to Ovadia and Beals\u2019 criteria, good, fair, and poor results were reported in 61 (64.89%), 26 (27.66%), and 7 (7.45%) cases, respectively. The mean AOFAS score was 82.41 for MIPO, 79.83 for ORIF, and 50.57 for EF, respectively. Thirty-nine patients (41.49%) presented early and/or late complications. Conclusion. Satisfactory outcomes using the three different techniques were reported. In particular, the radiographic outcomes were inversely proportional to the fracture comminutions and statistically different between internal and external osteosynthesis, but comparable between ORIF and MIPO techniques. On the other hand, the clinical outcomes were closely related to the soft tissue conditions and the anatomical reconstruction of the joint

No short term effect of Clinostomum complanatum (Trematoda: Digenea: Clinostomatidae) on survival of Triturus carnifex (Amphibia: Urodela: Salamandridae)

In this paper we evaluated the effects of the metacercariae of C. complanatum on body condition and survival probability of the Italian crested newt. We studied two populations of T. carnifex, with one of the two infected by the trematode, in central Italy, for a year. We found that: i) paedomorphic newts were more likely to be infected; ii) cysts were mostly located on the head and into the mouth; iii) the infection did not affect the body size of newts; iv) survival probabilities of infected and not infected newts from the same population did not differ, and it was similar to the survival of newts from the not-infected population. We conclude that, at least in the short term, the metacercariae of C. complanatum are not damaging for T. carnifex

Vertebral rotation estimation from frontal X-rays using a quasi-automated pedicle detection method

Purpose Measurement of vertebral axial rotation (VAR) is relevant for the assessment of scoliosis. Stokes method allows estimating VAR in frontal X-rays from the relative position of the pedicles and the vertebral body. This method requires identifying these landmarks for each vertebral level, which is time-consuming. In this work, a quasi-automated method for pedicle detection and VAR estimation was proposed. Method A total of 149 healthy and adolescent idiopathic scoliotic (AIS) subjects were included in this retrospective study. Their frontal X-rays were collected from multiple sites and manually annotated to identify the spinal midline and pedicle positions. Then, an automated pedicle detector was developed based on image analysis, machine learning and fast manual identification of a few landmarks. VARs were calculated using the Stokes method in a validation dataset of 11 healthy (age 6–33 years) and 46 AIS subjects (age 6–16 years, Cobb 10°–46°), both from detected pedicles and those manually annotated to compare them. Sensitivity of pedicle location to the manual inputs was quantified on 20 scoliotic subjects, using 10 perturbed versions of the manual inputs. Results Pedicles centers were localized with a precision of 84% and mean difference of 1.2 ± 1.2 mm, when comparing with manual identification. Comparison of VAR values between automated and manual pedicle localization yielded a signed difference of − 0.2 ± 3.4°. The uncertainty on pedicle location was smaller than 2 mm along each image axis. Conclusion The proposed method allowed calculating VAR values in frontal radiographs with minimal user intervention and robust quasi-automated pedicle localization.The authors are grateful to the ParisTech BiomecAM chair program on subject-specific musculoskeletal modeling for funding (with the support of ParisTech and Yves Cotrel Foundations, Société Générale, Proteor and Covea)

Italian National Framework for Cybersecurity and Data Protection

Data breaches have been one of the most common source of concerns related to cybersecurity in the last few years for many organizations. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, strongly impacted this scenario, as organizations operating with EU citizens now have to comply with strict data protection rules. In this paper we present the Italian National Framework for Cybersecurity and Data Protection, a framework derived from the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, that includes elements and tools to appropriately take into account data protection aspects in a way that is coherent and integrated with cybersecurity aspects. The goal of the proposed Framework is to provide organizations of different sizes and nature with a flexible and unified tool for the implementation of comprehensive cybersecurity and data protection programs

Looks can be deceiving : the deceptive milkcaps (Lactifluus, Russulaceae) exhibit low morphological variance but harbour high genetic diversity

The ectomycorrhizal genus Lactifluus is known to contain many species complexes, consisting of morphologically very similar species, which can be considered cryptic or pseudocryptic. In this paper, a thorough molecular study is performed of the Glade around Lactifluus deceptivus (originally described by Peck from North America) or the deceptive milkcaps. Even though most collections were identified as L. deceptivus, the Glade is shown to contain at least 15 species, distributed across Asia and America, indicating that the L. deceptivus Glade represents a species complex. These species are morphologically very similar and are characterized by a tomentose pileus with thin-walled hyphae and a velvety stipe with thick-walled hyphae. An ITS1 sequence was obtained through Illumina sequencing for the lectotype of L. deceptivus, dating from 1885, revealing which Glade represents the true L. deceptivus. In addition, it is shown that three other described species also belong to the L. deceptivus Glade: L. arcuatus, L. caeruleitinctus and L. mordax and molecularly confirmed that L. tomentoso-marginatus represents a synonym of L. deceptivus. Furthermore, two new Neotropical species are described: Lactifluus hallingii and L. domingensis

Body size, age and population structure of Triturus carnifex (Urodela: Salamandridae) in the context of facultative paedomorphosis

Facultative paedomorphosis occurs rarely in the genus Triturus compared to other European newts such as Ichthyosaura alpestris and Lissotriton spp., with most of observation related to single or few individuals per site. In this paper we report about body size, age and population size of two populations of Triturus carnifex with paedomorphs. Since one of the populations consisted of approximately 25% of paedomorphs, this is the first study about a population of large-bodied newts with a conspicuous number of paedomorphic individuals. We found evidences for an ecological causation of paedomorphosis, as well as further support for two recent findings about paedomorphosis: the reduction of sexual size dimorphism and the female-biased sex-ratio within paedomorphs

Business Intelligence INFN : Modello Dati Multidimensionale per Ordini e Acquisti

L’obiettivo di questo elaborato è documentare le difficoltà incontrate, e le soluzioni tecniche adottate, nella creazione di un modello multidimensionale che consenta l’esplorazione dei dati di Gare e Ordini dell’INFN. Da principio ci si è concentrati sull’analisi delle fonti, tra cui il tool RDA che dal 2020 è fonte autoritativa per le gare sotto la soglia dei 40keuro. In un secondo momento, sono stati presi in esame i dati storici e sopra soglia provenienti direttamente dal sistema contabile. I due modelli sono stati uniformati per ottenere una visione coerente e consistente di tutti i dati in possesso dell’ente. Nel documento vengono utilizzati due diversi formalismi descrittivi: i diagrammi E/R (Entity Relationships) [2] e DFM (Dimensional Fact Model)[3] utilizzati, rispettivamente, nella fase di indagine dell’as is e nella progettazione multidimensionale. A seguire viene presentata l’implementazione del modello sul data warehouse della Direzione Sistemi Informativi attraverso i processi di ETL (Extract Transform Load). Infine sono riportate alcune note conclusive e i vantaggi ottenuti

Aging Salamandrina perspicillata (Savi, 1821) by skeletochronology

We assessed age and first reproduction age in Salamandrina perspicillata females by means of skeletochronological analysis. As we examined sections from the third toe of the hind limbs, the tecnique herewith introduced is non-letal and compatible with ecological investigations. Females reached sexual maturity at four or five years; the oldest female was 12. SVL is a reliable body size index for assessing age (r2 = 0.74)