Using mobile phone data to map evacuation and displacement: a case study of the central Italy earthquake

Population displacement is one of the most common consequences of disasters, and it can profoundly affect communities and territories. However, gaining an accurate measure of the size of displacement in the days and weeks following a major disaster can be extremely difficult. This study uses aggregated Call Detail Records as an inexpensive and efficient technique to measure post-disaster displacement in four Italian regions affected by repeated earthquakes in 2016-2017. By comparing post-disaster mobile phone count with a forecast computed before the earthquake hit, we can compute an index of change in the presence of mobile phones (MPE). This measure, obtained thanks to advanced analytical techniques, provides a reliable indication of the effect of the earthquake in terms of immediate and medium-term displacement. We test this measure against census data and in combination with other datasets. Looking into available data on economic activities and requests for financial support to rebuild damaged buildings, we can explain MPE and identify significant factors affecting population displacement. It is possible to apply this innovative methodology to other disaster scenarios and use it by policymakers who want to understand the determinants of population displacement

Breast tuberculosis: A case report of primary type mammary tuberculosis

Mammary tuberculosis is exceptional in developed countries. It can mimic an abscess or a granulomatous mastitis. In subjects coming from endemic areas, it is necessary to suspect a tuberculosis infection in case of recurrent mastitis refractory to antibiotics. Positivity of Quantiferon-TB Gold assay can help to confirm the clinical suspicion

rates of latent tuberculosis infection using different diagnostica test

Background.The interferon−g−release assays (IGRA) are emerging as an attractive alternative to the tuberculin skin test (TST) for the diagnosis of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI).The absence of a gold standard for LTBI hampers the assessment of any diagnostic test. Methods.In a prospective study,229 patients (mean age 35.5±24.6 y) from different ward of the Hospital (Respiratory Diseases,Dermatology, Rheumatology, Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, Hematology and Transplant Unit) were simultaneously tested for a suspect of either LTBI or active tuberculosis using all commercially available diagnostics: TST,QuantiFERON−TB Gold (QFT−2G), QuantiFERON−TB Gold In−Tube(QFT−3G) and T−SPOT.TB(TS.TB). Results. 42(18.3%),37(16.2%),59(25.8%) and 79(34.5%) patients were positive with TST,QFT−2G,QFT−3G and TS.TB, respectively.TS.TB(p<0.001) and QFT−3G(p=0.016) provided more positive results than TST, while no difference was found for TST and QFT−2G(p=0.53).All IGRA showed a good overall agreement (TS.TB vs QFT−2G,k=0.55; TS.TB vs QFT−3G,k=0.72;QFT−2G vs QFT−3G, k=0.62). In 22 subjects (9.6%) QFT−3G was positive and QFT−2G negative. Indeterminate results were more frequent with QFT−2G(18.3%) and QFT−3G (12.7%) than with TS.TB(1.3%,p<0.0001). Conclusion. Rates of LTBI as detected by different diagnostic tests may have significant variations. Performances of various IGRA formats were variable in this population

Mobility in Unsupervised Word Embeddings for Knowledge Extraction—The Scholars’ Trajectories across Research Topics

In the knowledge discovery field of the Big Data domain the analysis of geographic positioning and mobility information plays a key role. At the same time, in the Natural Language Processing (NLP) domain pre-trained models such as BERT and word embedding algorithms such as Word2Vec enabled a rich encoding of words that allows mapping textual data into points of an arbitrary multi-dimensional space, in which the notion of proximity reflects an association among terms or topics. The main contribution of this paper is to show how analytical tools, traditionally adopted to deal with geographic data to measure the mobility of an agent in a time interval, can also be effectively applied to extract knowledge in a semantic realm, such as a semantic space of words and topics, looking for latent trajectories that can benefit the properties of neural network latent representations. As a case study, the Scopus database was queried about works of highly cited researchers in recent years. On this basis, we performed a dynamic analysis, for measuring the Radius of Gyration as an index of the mobility of researchers across scientific topics. The semantic space is built from the automatic analysis of the paper abstracts of each author. In particular, we evaluated two different methodologies to build the semantic space and we found that Word2Vec embeddings perform better than the BERT ones for this task. Finally, The scholars’ trajectories show some latent properties of this model, which also represent new scientific contributions of this work. These properties include (i) the correlation between the scientific mobility and the achievement of scientific results, measured through the H-index; (ii) differences in the behavior of researchers working in different countries and subjects; and (iii) some interesting similarities between mobility patterns in this semantic realm and those typically observed in the case of human mobility

Disclosing the Antioxidant and Neuroprotective Activity of an Anthocyanin-Rich Extract from Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L.) Using In Vitro and In Vivo Models

In this study, an autochthonous variety of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.), namely “Moretta di Vignola”, was processed to prepare extracts rich in polyphenols, which were characterized by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation coupled to UV/DAD and ESI-MSn analysis. Then, a sweet cherry anthocyanin-rich extract (ACE) was prepared, fully characterized and tested for its activity against Parkinson’s disease (PD) in cellular (BV2 microglia and SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma) and in Drosophila melanogaster rotenone (ROT)-induced model. The extract was also evaluated for its antioxidant activity on Caenorhabditis elegans by assessing nematode resistance to thermal stress. In both cell lines, ACE reduced ROT-induced cell death and it decreased, alone, cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) content while reinstating control-like ROS values after ROT-induced ROS rise, albeit at different concentrations of both compounds. Moreover, ACE mitigated SH-SY5Y cell cytotoxicity in a non-contact co-culture assay with cell-free supernatants from ROT-treated BV-2 cells. ACE, at 50 µg/mL, ameliorated ROT (250 µM)-provoked spontaneous (24 h duration) and induced (after 3 and 7 days) locomotor activity impairment in D. melanogaster and it also increased survival and counteracted the decrease in fly lifespan registered after exposure to the ROT. Moreover, heads from flies treated with ACE showed a non-significant decrease in ROS levels, while those exposed to ROT markedly increased ROS levels if compared to controls. ACE + ROT significantly placed the ROS content to intermediate values between those of controls and ROT alone. Finally, ACE at 25 µg/mL produced a significant increase in the survival rate of nematodes submitted to thermal stress (35 °C, 6–8 h), at the 2nd and 9th day of adulthood. All in all, ACE from Moretta cherries can be an attractive candidate to formulate a nutraceutical product to be used for the prevention of oxidative stress-induced disorders and related neurodegenerative diseases

Rhodococcus equi Pneumonia in Kidney Transplant Recipient Affected by Acute Intermittent Porphyria: A Case Report

Rhodococcus equi is a gram-positive coccobacillus responsible for severe infections in patients with weakened immune systems. R equi generally causes pnumonia that may evolve into fatal systemic infection if left untreated. Here, we present a case of a 67-year-old woman affected by acute intermittent porphyria (AIP) who developed R equi pneumonia 7 months after kidney transplant. Although clinical features at presentation were nonspecific, lung computed tomography showed right perihilar consolidation with a mass-like appearance causing bronchial obstruction. Appropriate antibiotic including intravenous meropenem and oral azithromycin that was then switched to oral levofloxacin and oral azithromycin along with reduction of immunosuppressive therapy resolved pneumonia without provoking an acute attack of porphyria. AIP limited the choice of antibiotics for the treatment of R equi infection because some potentially porphyrinogenic antibacterial agents were avoided. Based on this experience, azithromycin and meropenem can be safely administered for the treatment of R Equi infection in patients with AIP

Effects on management and outcome of severe sepsis and septic shock patients admitted to the intensive care unit after implementation of a sepsis program: a pilot study

INTRODUCTION: The application in clinical practice of evidence-based guidelines for the management of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock is still poor in the emergency department, while little data are available for patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of an in-hospital sepsis program on the adherence to evidence-based guidelines and outcome of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock admitted to the ICU.METHODS: This prospective observational cohort study included 67 patients with severe sepsis/septic shock admitted to a multidisciplinary ICU at a University Hospital from January 2005 to June 2007. Compliance to 5 resuscitation and 4 management sepsis interventions and in-hospital mortality were measured following an educational program on sepsis for physician and nurses of all hospital departments and hospital implementation of a specific protocol for recognition and management of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock, including an early consultation by a skilled 'sepsis team'.RESULTS: During the study period, the compliance to all 9 interventions increased from 8% to 35% of the patients (P < 0.01). The implementation of resuscitation and management interventions was associated with a lower risk of in-hospital mortality (23% vs 68% and 27% vs 68%, P < 0.01). In the latter 2 semesters, after activation of the 'sepsis team', in-hospital mortality of ICU septic shock patients decreased by about 40% compared with the previous period (32% vs 79%, P < 0.01).CONCLUSIONS: In our experience, an in-hospital sepsis program, including education of health-care personnel and process-changes, improved the adherence to guidelines and the survival rate of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock admitted to the ICU

Severe pneumonia caused by Legionella pneumophila serogroup 11, Italy.

Legionella pneumophila serogroups (SGs) 1–16 cause pneumonia in humans. Although SG 1 is the serogroup most commonly associated with disease, we report a case of community-acquired legionellosis caused by SG 11

Treatment of wounds colonized by multidrug resistant organisms in immune-compromised patients: a retrospective case series.

Immune-compromised patients incur a high risk of surgical wound dehiscence and colonization by multidrug resistant organisms. Common treatment has been debridement and spontaneous secondary healing.All immune-compromised patients referred to our Institution between March 1, 2010 and November 30, 2011 for dehiscent abdominal wounds growing multidrug resistant organisms were treated by serial wound debridements and negative pressure dressing. They were primarily closed, despite positive microbiological cultures, when clinical appearance was satisfactory.Nine patients were treated by direct wound closure, five had been treated previously by secondary intention healing.According to our results, fast healing can be safely obtained by closure of a clinically healthy wound, despite growth of multidrug resistant organisms, even in immune-compromised patients

Successful Treatment with Patisiran in Amyloid Polyneuropathy Harboring His90Asn Mutation in the TTR Gene

Hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis (hATTR) is a multisystemic, rare, inherited, progressive and adult-onset disease, affecting the sensory-motor nerves, heart, autonomic function, and other organs. There are over 130 mutations known in the TTR gene. The His90Asn mutation has been previously reported in several reports, but its pathogenetic role is still debated. We report two sporadic cases of adult women with a heterozygous His90Asn mutation in TTR gene and neurological involvement extensively investigated. A typical Congo red-positive pathologic deposition of amyloid fibrils in the salivary glands was documented in one subject. Patients were successfully treated with patisiran with a good clinical outcome. These data support a pathogenetic role of His90Asn mutation in hATTR, and suggest early treatment in symptomatic carriers of His90Asn mutation