Cyclotron lines in X-ray pulsars as a probe of relativistic plasmas in superstrong magnetic fields

The systematic search for the presence of cyclotron lines in the spectra of accreting X-ray pulsars is being carried on with the BeppoSAX satellite since the beginning of the mission. These highly successful observations allowed the detection of cyclotron lines in many of the accreting X-ray pulsars observed. Some correlations between the different measured parameters were found. We present these correlations and discuss them in the framework of the current theoretical scenario for the X-ray emission from these sources.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, uses aipproc.sty, to appear in Proceeding of Fifth Compton Symposiu

To Sketch-a-Scratch

A surface can be harsh and raspy, or smooth and silky, and everything in between. We are used to sense these features with our fingertips as well as with our eyes and ears: the exploration of a surface is a multisensory experience. Tools, too, are often employed in the interaction with surfaces, since they augment our manipulation capabilities. “Sketch-a-Scratch” is a tool for the multisensory exploration and sketching of surface textures. The user’s actions drive a physical sound model of real materials’ response to interactions such as scraping, rubbing or rolling. Moreover, different input signals can be converted into 2D visual surface profiles, thus enabling to experience them visually, aurally and haptically

Monte Carlo studies of the jet activity in Higgs + 2 jet events

Tree-level studies have shown in the past that kinematical correlations between the two jets in Higgs+2-jet events are direct probes of the Higgs couplings, e.g. of their CP nature. In this paper we explore the impact of higher-order corrections on the azimuthal angle correlation of the two leading jets and on the rapidity distribution of extra jets. Our study includes matrix-element and shower MC effects, for the two leading sources of Higgs plus two jet events at the CERN LHC, namely vector-boson and gluon fusion. We show that the discriminating features present in the previous leading-order matrix element studies survive.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Version to appear on JHEP. Figs. 5-8 replaced with colour version

Rupture Of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Due To Endograft Infection After Endovascular Aneurysm Repair (EVAR): A Case Report

Endograft infection is a rare event, with few reports in the literature. This report describes delayed infection of an aortic endoprosthesis that eventually resulted in abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) rupture. The procedure was performed in an angiographic suite. In the postoperative period the patient developed a central venous line infection. This appears to be the first recognized and reported case in which the infected aortic neck completely dilated due to the radial force of the stent graft

Prevalence of IgG antibodies against Borrelia Burgdorferi s.l. and Ehrlichia Phagocytophila in sera of patients presenting symptoms of Lyme disease in a central region of Italy.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence (seroprevalence) of antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi and Ehrlichia phagocytophila among patients resident in Lazio, a region of central Italy. Of a sample of 1,050 patients, which presented clinical manifestations related to Lyme disease, 34 (3.2%) were Borrelia-seropositive (Lyme index value ≥ 1.2). The sera of 25 out of the 34 patients that were Borrelia-positive were also analysed for the presence of antibodies against E. phagocytophila and 3 (12%) were found Ehrlichia-positive (titres >1:64). No Ehrlichia-positive samples were found among sera of 250 Borrelia-negative patients. Since both B. burgdorferi s.l. and Ehrlichia species share the same tick vector ( Ixodes ricinus), our results indicate that concurrent transmission of these microbial pathogens might have been occurred among the patients included in this study

Multi-views Embedding for Cattle Re-identification

People re-identification task has seen enormous improvements in the latest years, mainly due to the development of better image features extraction from deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and the availability of large datasets. However, little research has been conducted on animal identification and re-identification, even if this knowledge may be useful in a rich variety of different scenarios. Here, we tackle cattle re-identification exploiting deep CNN and show how this task is poorly related to the human one, presenting unique challenges that make it far from being solved. We present various baselines, both based on deep architectures or on standard machine learning algorithms, and compared them with our solution. Finally, a rich ablation study has been conducted to further investigate the unique peculiarities of this task

Psychobiological evidence of the stress resilience fostering properties of a cosmetic routine

Everyday life psychosocial stressors contribute to poor health and disease vulnerabilty. Means alternative to pharmacotherapy that are able to foster stress resilience are more and more under the magnifying glass of biomedical research. The aim of this study was to test stress resilience fostering properties of the self-administration of a cosmetic product enriched with essential oils. On day 0, fourty women, 25-50 years old, self-administered both the enriched cosmetic product (ECP) and a placebo one (PCP). Then, women were randomized for daily self-administration (from day 1 to 28) of either ECP

Vitamin D in pediatric age: consensus of the Italian Pediatric Society and the Italian Society of Preventive and Social Pediatrics, jointly with the Italian Federation of Pediatricians.

Vitamin D plays a pivotal role in the regulation of calcium-phosphorus metabolism, particularly during pediatric age when nutritional rickets and impaired bone mass acquisition may occur.Besides its historical skeletal functions, in the last years it has been demonstrated that vitamin D directly or indirectly regulates up to 1250 genes, playing so-called extraskeletal actions. Indeed, recent data suggest a possible role of vitamin D in the pathogenesis of several pathological conditions, including infectious, allergic and autoimmune diseases. Thus, vitamin D deficiency may affect not only musculoskeletal health but also a potentially wide range of acute and chronic conditions. At present, the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is high in Italian children and adolescents, and national recommendations on vitamin D supplementation during pediatric age are lacking. An expert panel of the Italian Society of Preventive and Social Pediatrics reviewed available literature focusing on randomized controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation to provide a practical approach to vitamin D supplementation for infants, children and adolescents

5G Visualization: The METIS-II Project Approach

[EN] One of the main objectives of the METIS-II project was to enable 5G concepts to reach and convince a wide audience from technology experts to decision makers from non-ICT industries. To achieve this objective, it was necessary to provide easy-to-understand and insightful visualization of 5G. This paper presents the visualization platform developed in the METIS-II project as a joint work of researchers and artists, which is a 3D visualization tool that allows viewers to interact with 5G-enabled scenarios, while permitting simulation driven data to be intuitively evaluated. The platform is a game-based customizable tool that allows a rapid integration of new concepts, allows real-time interaction with remote 5G simulators, and provides a virtual reality-based immersive user experience. As a result, the METIS-II visualization platform has successfully contributed to the dissemination of 5G in different fora and its use will be continued after METIS-II.This work has been performed in the framework of the H2020/5G-PPP project METIS-II cofunded by the EU. The authors wish to thank the rest of METIS-II colleagues who contributed to the development of the METIS-II visualization platform.Martín-Sacristán, D.; Herranz Claveras, C.; Monserrat Del Río, JF.; Szczygiel, A.; Kuruvatti, NP.; Garcia-Roger, D.; Prado-Alvarez, D.... (2018). 5G Visualization: The METIS-II Project Approach. Mobile Information Systems. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/2084950S18Zyda, M. (2005). From visual simulation to virtual reality to games. Computer, 38(9), 25-32. doi:10.1109/mc.2005.297Johnson, C. (2004). Top scientific visualization research problems. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 24(4), 13-17. doi:10.1109/mcg.2004.20Tullberg, H., Popovski, P., Li, Z., Uusitalo, M. A., Hoglund, A., Bulakci, O., … Monserrat, J. F. (2016). The METIS 5G System Concept: Meeting the 5G Requirements. IEEE Communications Magazine, 54(12), 132-139. doi:10.1109/mcom.2016.1500799cmLee, B., Riche, N. H., Isenberg, P., & Carpendale, S. (2015). More Than Telling a Story: Transforming Data into Visually Shared Stories. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 35(5), 84-90. doi:10.1109/mcg.2015.99Yi, J. S., Kang, Y. ah, & Stasko, J. (2007). Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Role of Interaction in Information Visualization. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 13(6), 1224-1231. doi:10.1109/tvcg.2007.70515Campbell, B. D. (2016). Immersive Visualization to Support Scientific Insight. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 36(3), 17-21. doi:10.1109/mcg.2016.6