A novel approach to rainfall measuring: methodology, field test and business opportunity

Being able to measure rainfall is crucial in everyday life. The more rainfall measures are accurate, spatially distributed and detailed in time, the more forecast models - be they meteorological or hydrological - can be accurate. Safety on travel networks could be increased by informing users about the nearby roads’ conditions in real time. In the agricultural sector, being able to gain a detailed knowledge of rainfalls would allow for an optimal management of irrigation, nutrients and phytosanitary treatments. In the sport sector, a better measurement of rainfalls for outdoor events (e.g., motor, motorcycle or bike races) would increase athletes’ safety. Rain gauges are the most common and widely used tools for rainfall measurement. However, the existent monitoring networks still fail in providing accurate spatial representations of localized precipitation events due to the sparseness. This effect is magnified by the intrinsic nature of intense precipitation events, as they are naturally characterized by a great spatial and temporal variability. Potentially, coupling at-ground measures (i.e., coming from pluviometric and disdrometric networks) with remote measurement (e.g., radars or meteorological satellites) could allow to describe the rainfall phenomena in a more continuous and spatially detailed way. However, this kind of approach requires that at-ground measurements are used to calibrate the remote sensors relationships, which leads us back to the dearth of ground networks diffusion. Hence the need to increase the presence of ground measures, in order to gain a better description of the events, and to make a more productive use of the remote sensing technologies. The ambitious aim of the methodology developed in this thesis is to repurpose other sensors already available at ground (e.g., surveillance cameras, webcams, smartphones, cars, etc.) into new source of rain rate measures widely distributed over space and time. The technology, developed to function in daylight conditions, requires that the pictures collected during rainfall events are analyzed to identify and characterize each raindrop. The process leads to an instant measurement of the rain rate associated with the captured image. To improve the robustness of the measurement, we propose to elaborate a higher number of images within a predefined time span (i.e., 12 or more pictures per minute) and to provide an averaged measure over the observed time interval. A schematic summary of how the method works for each acquired image is represented hereinafter : 1. background removal; 2. identification of the rain drops; 3. positioning of each drop in the control volume, by using the blur effect; 4. estimation of drops’ diameters, under the hypothesis that each drop falls at its terminal velocity; 5. rain rate estimation, as the sum of the contributions of each drop. Different techniques for background recognition, drops detection and selection and noise reduction were investigated. Each solution has been applied to the same images sample, in order to identify the combination producing accuracy in the rainfall estimate. The best performing procedure was then validated, by applying it to a wider sample of images. Such a sample was acquired by an experimental station installed on the roof of the Laboratory of Hydraulics of the Politecnico di Torino. The sample includes rainfall events which took place between May 15th, 2016 and February 15th, 2017. Seasonal variability allowed to record events characterized by different intensity in varied light conditions. Moreover, the technology developed during this program of research was patented (2015) and represents the heart of WaterView, spinoff of the Politecnico di Torino founded in February 2015, which is currently in charge of the further development of this technology, its dissemination, and its commercial exploitation

Blood Loss in the Minimally Invasive Posterior Approach to Total Hip Arthroplasty: A Comparative Study

AIMS: Our primary aimwas to evaluate whether there is really less bleeding in patients for whom the minimally invasive posterior approach is used in comparison with the direct lateral approachfor primary total hip arthroplasty. Our secondary aim was to evaluate the clinical functional results after six months as well as the postoperative radiographic result. METHODS: In a comparative non-random prospective study, 76 adult patients underwent elective total hip arthroplasty using one of two approaches. The minimally invasive posterior approach (34 cases; mini-incision group) was compared with the standard direct lateral approach (42 cases; control group). RESULTS: Lower total estimated bleeding (means of 1083.5 ml versus 1682.3 ml; p < 0.001) and lower intraoperative bleeding (means of 745.6 ml versus 1282.8 ml; p < 0.001) were found in the mini-incision group. There was, however, no difference in the volume of blood drained after the operation (means of 340 ml and 399 ml; p = 0.77). There was also a difference between the two groups regarding the need for allogenic transfusion (8.8% in the mini-incision group versus 28.6%, p = 0.02). We observed a better clinical result in the mini-incision group (p = 0.002) despite the lack of difference between the two groups in relation to the radiographic result. DISCUSSION: Our results draw attention to the possibility that other authors may have underestimated blood losses when using minimally invasive approaches. CONCLUSION: The minimally invasive approach gave rise to a positive final impression with regard to lower blood loss

The use of a modular titanium endoprosthesis in skeletal reconstructions after bone tumor resections: method presentation and analysis of 37 cases

Os autores analisaram 37 pacientes operados de 1992 a 1998 no Grupo de Oncologia Ortopédica, em que foi utilizada a endoprótese modular de titânio na reconstrução esquelética, após a ressecção segmentar de tumores ósseos. Doze pacientes foram do sexo masculino e 25 do sexo feminino, sendo que a idade variou de 9 a 81 anos, com média de 30 anos. O tempo de seguimento variou de dois a 48 meses, com média de 14 meses. Com relação ao diagnóstico pré-operatório, este foi confirmado pela biópsia em todos os casos e teve a seguinte distribuição: osteossarcoma osteoblástico (14 casos), carcinoma metastático (10), sarcoma de Ewing (4), tumor de células gigantes (4), fibrohistiocitoma maligno (3), condrossarcoma (1) e cisto ósseo aneurismático (1). Nestes foram realizadas onze endopróteses de joelho articulado (total), oito de fêmur proximal com quadril parcial bipolar, oito de úmero proximal parcial, três de fêmur total, duas parciais proximais da tíbia, duas diafisárias de fêmur, duas diafisárias de úmero, e uma proximal do fêmur com quadril total e componente acetabular sem cimento. As complicações relacionadas ao uso da endoprótese foram: infecção (5 casos), luxação (3), soltura de módulo (1) e parestesia do nervo ulnar (1). Utilizamos como critérios clínicos a presença de dor, a mobilidade articular, a estabilidade da reconstrução, as complicações cirúrgicas e oncológicas e a aceitação do paciente. Obtivemos 56,8% de bons resultados, 32,4% de regulares e 10,8% de maus.We analyzed 37 patients who underwent segmental wide resection of bone tumors and reconstruction with a modular titanium endoprosthesis at the Orthopaedic Oncology Group, between 1992 and 1998. Twelve patients were male and 25 were female, with a mean age of 30 years (9 - 81). The mean follow-up was 14 months (2 - 48). The diagnoses were: osteosarcoma (14 cases), metastatic carcinoma (10), Ewing's sarcoma (4), giant cell tumor (4), malignant fibrous histiocytoma (3), chondrosarcoma (1), and aneurysmal bone cyst (1). Eleven articulated total knee, 8 partial proximal femur with bipolar acetabulum, 8 partial proximal humerus, 3 total femur, 2 partial proximal tibia, 2 diaphyseal femur, 2 diaphyseal humerus, and 1 total proximal femur with cementless acetabulum endoprosthesis implant procedures were done. The complications related to the procedure included: infection (5 cases), dislocation (3), module loosening (1), and ulnar nerve paresthesia (1). We used the following criteria for the clinical evaluation: presence of pain, range of motion, reconstruction stability, surgical and oncologic complications, and patient acceptance. The results were good in 56.8% of the cases, regular in 32.4% and poor in 10.8%

A comparative radiographic investigation of femoroacetabular impingement in young patients with and without hip pain

OBJECTIVE: To compare the existence of radiographic abnormalities in two groups of patients, those with and without hip pain. METHODS: A total 222 patients were evaluated between March 2007 and April 2009; 122 complained of groin pain, and 100 had no symptoms. The individuals in both groups underwent radiographic examinations of the hip using the following views: anteroposterior, Lequesne false profile, Dunn, Dunn 45º, and Ducroquet. RESULTS: A total of 1110 radiographs were evaluated. Female patients were prevalent in both groups (52% symptomatic, 58% asymptomatic). There were statistically significant differences between the groups in age (p<0.0001), weight (p = 0.002) and BMI (p = 0.006). The positive findings in the group with groin pain consisted of the presence of a bump on the femoral head in the anteroposterior view (p<0.0001) or in the Dunn 45º view (p = 0.008). The difference in the a angle in the anteroposterior, Dunn, Dunn 45º, and Ducroquet views for all of the cases studied was p,0.0001. The joint space measurement differed significantly between groups in the Lequesne view (p = 0.007). The Lequesne anteversion angle (&#961;) and the femoral offset measurement also differed significantly (p = 0.005 and p = 0.0001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the best views for diagnosing a femoroacetabular impingement are the anteroposterior pelvic orthostatic, the Dunn 45º, and the Ducroquet views. The following findings correlated with hip pain: a decrease in the femoral offset, an increase in the &#945; angle, an increase in the Lequesne &#961; angle, a decrease in the CE angle of Wiberg, a thinner articular space and the presence of a bump on the femoral head-neck transition

Obesity Is a Marker of Reduction in QoL and Disability

The purpose of this paper is to verify the association between outcome measures of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and disability, BMI, gender, and age. Adult obese patients were clustered using HRQoL (IWQoL-Lite) and disability (WHO-DAS II) scores into three groups: mild, moderate, and high. One-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc test was used to evaluate differences in age and BMI between subjects from different clusters, contingency coefficient to test the relationship between cluster groups and gender. In total, 117 patients were enrolled: subjects with higher disability and HRQoL decrement were older and had higher BMI. Women were more likely to present moderate disability and reduction in HRQoL, while men more likely presented mild disability and HRQoL reduction. Our data further confirm the connection between disability and HRQoL, high BMI and older age. These data obtained with outcomes measures might better address rehabilitation programs

Isometric arm counter-pressure maneuvers to abort impending vasovagal syncope

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Self-supervised and semi-supervised learning for road condition estimation from distributed road-side cameras

Monitoring road conditions, e.g., water build-up due to intense rainfall, plays a fundamental role in ensuring road safety while increasing resilience to the effects of climate change. Distributed cameras provide an easy and affordable alternative to instrumented weather stations, enabling diffused and capillary road monitoring. Here, we propose a deep learning-based solution to automatically detect wet road events in continuous video streams acquired by road-side surveillance cameras. Our contribution is two-fold: first, we employ a convolutional Long Short-Term Memory model (convLSTM) to detect subtle changes in the road appearance, introducing a novel temporally consistent data augmentation to increase robustness to outdoor illumination conditions. Second, we present a contrastive self-supervised framework that is uniquely tailored to surveillance camera networks. The proposed technique was validated on a large-scale dataset comprising roughly 2000 full day sequences (roughly 400K video frames, of which 300K unlabelled), acquired from several road-side cameras over a span of two years. Experimental results show the effectiveness of self-supervised and semi-supervised learning, increasing the frame classification performance (measured by the Area under the ROC curve) from 0.86 to 0.92. From the standpoint of event detection, we show that incorporating temporal features through a convLSTM model both improves the detection rate of wet road events (+10%) and reduces false positive alarms (–45%). The proposed techniques could benefit also other tasks related to weather analysis from road-side and vehicle-mounted cameras

Estudo prospectivo do tratamento das artroplastias infectadas do quadril sem e com o uso de espaçador de cimento com antibiótico

PURPOSE: Our purpose was to compare 2 methods of treatment of chronic infection in hip arthroplasties-with or without an antibiotic-loaded cement spacer. METHODS: In a prospective study, we treated 68 infected hip arthroplasties with discharging sinuses and bone loss, comparing 30 patients treated in 2 stages without the use of a spacer (control group) and 38 patients treated with a vancomycin-loaded spacer (study group). The average follow-up was 4 years (2-8.5 years). One patient died of unrelated causes 4 months after first-stage surgery and was excluded from the study. RESULTS: The 2-stage surgery without spacer controlled the infection in 66.7% of patients, and the 2-stage surgery using the spacer controlled it in 89.1% (P ; 0.05). The average leg length discrepancy was 2.6 cm in the control group and 1.5 cm in the study group (P < 0.05). The patients treated with a spacer had better clinical results (81.5% of patients with good results against 60.0% for the control group). CONCLUSION: The use of an antibiotic-loaded spacer in the 2-stage treatment of infected hip arthroplasties provides better infection control with good functional results and is superior to treatment in 2 stages without a spacer. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic study, Level I-1.OBJETIVO: As revisões em dois tempos continuam sendo os métodos preferidos no tratamento das artroplastias infectadas do quadril. O procedimento em dois estágios apresenta várias desvantagens teóricas, ainda não comprovadas por estudos comparativos. MATERIAIS E MÉTODOS: Em um estudo prospectivo, tratamos 68 pacientes com artroplastias infectadas de quadril com perdas ósseas e fístulas ativas, comparando 30 casos tratados em dois tempos sem espaçador (grupo controle) e 38 casos tratados em dois tempos com o uso de um espaçador de cimento adicionado a vancomicina (grupo de estudo). Um paciente faleceu após quatro meses da cirurgia e foi excluído do estudo. O seguimento médio foi de quatro anos (2-8,5 anos). RESULTADOS: A cirurgia em dois tempos sem espaçador controlou a infecção em 66,7% dos casos comparada a 89,1% (p;0,05). A média de discrepância de membros inferiores foi de 2,6cm no grupo controle e de 1,5cm nos grupo do estudo (

Evolução dos pacientes com condrossarcoma grau I em relação ao tipo de tratamento cirúrgico

PURPOSE: To evaluate the oncological outcome of patients with grade I chondrosarcomas according to the type of surgical treatment performed, since there is still controversy regarding the need for aggressive resections to reach a successful outcome. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The records of 23 patients with grade I chondrosarcomas were reviewed. The mean age was 38.4 years, ranging from 11 to 70 years; 52% were men and 48% were women. The femur was the site of 13 tumors. The tumors were staged as IA (17, 74%) and IB (6, 26%). Regarding tumor location, 74% (17) were medullary, 22% (5) were peripheral, and 4% (1) was indeterminate. Tumor size ranged from 2 to 25 cm, mean 7.9 cm. Regarding the surgical procedure, 11 patients underwent intralesional resection, 9 patients underwent wide resection, and 3 underwent radical resection. The follow-up period ranged from 24 to 192 months. RESULTS: None of the patients developed local recurrence or metastases; 7 patients had other general complications. CONCLUSIONS: This data supports the use of less aggressive procedures for treatment of low-grade chondrosarcomas.OBJETIVO: Avaliar a evolução oncológica de portadores de condrossarcomas grau I de acordo com o tipo de tratamento cirúrgico efetuado. Existe controvérsia em relação à necessidade de ressecções agressivas para obtenção de uma evolução clínica favorável. MATERIAIS E MÉTODOS: Os prontuários de 23 portadores de condrossarcoma grau I foram analisados. A idade dos pacientes variou de 11 a 70 anos com média de 38,4 anos, 52% eram homens e 48% mulheres. O local mais acometido foi o fêmur com 13 pacientes. Dezessete lesões (74%) foram classificadas como IA e seis (26%) como IB. Setenta e quatro por cento dos tumores eram medulares, 22% eram periféricas e uma lesão indeterminada. O tamanho dos tumores variou de 2 a 25 cm, média de 7,9 cm. Onze pacientes foram submetidos a ressecção intralesional, nove a ressecção ampla e três a ressecção radical. O seguimento variou de 24 a 192 meses. RESULTADOS: Complicações não oncológicas ocorreram em sete pacientes. Nenhum dos pacientes apresentou recidiva local ou metástase. Estes dados sugerem que os procedimentos cirúrgicos menos agressivos são seguros para o tratamento dos pacientes com condrossarcoma grau I