Ocular-based automatic summarization of documents: is re-reading informative about the importance of a sentence?

Automatic document summarization (ADS) has been introduced as a viable solution for reducing the time and the effort needed to read the ever-increasing textual content that is disseminated. However, a successful universal ADS algorithm has not yet been developed. Also, despite progress in the field, many ADS techniques do not take into account the needs of different readers, providing a summary without internal consistency and the consequent need to re-read the original document. The present study was aimed at investigating the usefulness of using eye tracking for increasing the quality of ADS. The general idea was of that of finding ocular behavioural indicators that could be easily implemented in ADS algorithms. For instance, the time spent in re-reading a sentence might reflect the relative importance of that sentence, thus providing a hint for the selection of text contributing to the summary. We have tested this hypothesis by comparing metrics based on the analysis of eye movements of 30 readers with the highlights they made afterward. Results showed that the time spent reading a sentence was not significantly related to its subjective value, thus frustrating our attempt. Results also showed that the length of a sentence is an unavoidable confounding because longer sentences have both the highest probability of containing units of text judged as important, and receive more fixations and re-fixations

All-suture anchors in arthroscopic acetabular labral repair: our experience

BACKGROUND: Over the past years, the role of the acetabular labrum in hip joint biomechanics and its relations with joint health has been of particular interest. There is a good clinical improvement of patients in whom the acetabular labrum is preserved during arthroscopic hip surgery. The purpose of this study is to report the results of arthroscopic repair of labral tears at a medium term follow up. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of all cases that underwent hip arthroscopy at our Institution from January 2013 until December 2018. There were 24 patients, 13 males and 11 females, and their mean age at the time of surgery was 29, 42 years (range, 19 to 43 years). All patients were treated by the same surgeon with an extracapsular OUT-IN approach. Suture was performed using a non-absorbable suture anchor all-suture. Clinical assessment was performed at December 2019 using a modified Harris hip score (mHHS), hip outcomes score activities of daily living (HOS ADL), hip outcomes score activities of sport scale (HOS SS). All patients with acetabular labrum injury had femoro-acetabular impingement. RESULTS: The mean overall values in the preoperative period were 67.21 \ub1 10.31 for mHHS, 70.04 \ub1 12.11 for HOS-ADL and 60.06 \ub1 14.58 for HOS -SS. The results obtained in the re-evaluations of patients in December 2019 with a mean follow-up of 38, 3 months (minimum 1 year) are on average 82.17 \ub1 11.36 for mHHS, 83.00 \ub1 12.80 for HOS-ADL and 76.09 \ub1 18.52 for HOS-SS. CONCLUSIONS: The progress of knowledge and the advancement of diagnostic and therapeutic skills has led to a greater awareness of the importance of treating acetabular labrum tears. Arthroscopic treatment with suture appear to be a good option for these patients and we had encouraging results in our center

Extended narrow-line region in Seyfert galaxies

We present our recent results about the extended narrow-line region (ENLR) of two nearby Seyfert 2 galaxies (IC 5063 and NGC 7212) obtained by modelling the observed line profiles and spectra with composite models (photoionization+shocks) in the different regions surrounding the AGN. Then, we compare the Seyfert 2 ENLRs with the very extended one recently discovered in the narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxy Mrk 783. We have found several evidences of interaction between the ISM of the galaxies and their radio jets, such as a) the contribution of shocks in ionizing the high velocity gas, b) the complex kinematics showed by the profile of the emission lines, c) the high fragmentation of matter, etc. The results suggest that the ENLR of IC 5063 have a hollow bi-conical shape, with one edge aligned to the galaxy disk, which may cause some kind of dependence on velocity of the ionization parameter. Regarding the Mrk 783 properties, it is found that the extension of the optical emission is almost twice the size of the radio one and it seems due to the AGN activity, although there is contamination by star formation around 12 arcsec from the nucleus. Diagnostic diagrams excluded the contribution of star formation in IC 5063 and NGC 7212, while the shock contribution was used to explain the spectra emitted by their high velocity gas.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, proceeding of the conference "Quasars at all cosmic epochs", accepted for publication in Front. Astron. Space Sci. - Milky Way and Galaxie

Blurring contact maps of thousands of proteins: what we can learn by reconstructing 3D structure

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The present knowledge of protein structures at atomic level derives from some 60,000 molecules. Yet the exponential ever growing set of hypothetical protein sequences comprises some 10 million chains and this makes the problem of protein structure prediction one of the challenging goals of bioinformatics. In this context, the protein representation with contact maps is an intermediate step of fold recognition and constitutes the input of contact map predictors. However contact map representations require fast and reliable methods to reconstruct the specific folding of the protein backbone.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this paper, by adopting a GRID technology, our algorithm for 3D reconstruction FT-COMAR is benchmarked on a huge set of non redundant proteins (1716) taking random noise into consideration and this makes our computation the largest ever performed for the task at hand.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We can observe the effects of introducing random noise on 3D reconstruction and derive some considerations useful for future implementations. The dimension of the protein set allows also statistical considerations after grouping per SCOP structural classes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>All together our data indicate that the quality of 3D reconstruction is unaffected by deleting up to an average 75% of the real contacts while only few percentage of randomly generated contacts in place of non-contacts are sufficient to hamper 3D reconstruction.</p

Surgical Treatment of Paget Disease of the Vulva

ObjectiveThe aim of the study was to evaluate the risk of recurrence according to the surgical margin status and the presence of invasion or of superficially invasive carcinoma in patients with extramammary Paget disease (EMPD) of the vulva, who underwent elective surgical treatment.Materials and MethodsWe performed a retrospective analysis of 27 patients with first diagnosis of extramammary Paget disease of the vulva, who underwent primary and elective surgical treatment from January 1989 to December 2014. A p value of less than .05 was considered statistically significant. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to adjust for confounding factors.ResultsWe observed invasive disease in 11 cases, with microinvasion in 8 of them. A positive surgical margin was found in 10 patients. During a median follow-up period of 79.5 months, 8 patients (29.6%) showed a first recurrence after a median (range) time of 4.9 (2.3-7.1) years. No significant differences were observed between patients with recurrence and patients without recurrence with respect to age, number of vulvar sectors involved, bilaterality and multifocality, presence of invasion or microinvasion, and surgical margin status. However, during the follow-up period, the presence of invasion was higher (67% vs 41%) in patients with recurrence compared with patients without recurrence.ConclusionsThe rate of recurrence of the disease after therapy is high. Patients should be subjected to a close and long-term follow-up to identify those who must undergo further treatment, especially if they presented with an invasive or even microinvasive disease. A free margin of no greater than 1 to 2 cm might be the most appropriate surgical choice

Laser Excisional Treatment for Vaginal Intraepithelial Neoplasia to Exclude Invasion

Objective: We undertook a retrospective analysis of the incidence of complications of carbon dioxide (CO2) laser excision for high-grade vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia (HG-VaIN).Materials and Methods: Retrospective large case series on 128 CO2 laser excisions for HG-VaIN in 106 women treated at the Department of Gynecologic Oncology, Oncologic Referral Center, Aviano, Italy. These procedures were performed under local anesthesiawith a 20-Wcontinuous laser beam focused to a 0.2-mm spot size. Complications were defined as "minor" when limited to vagina, and "major" when surrounding organs were injured or the vaginal vault was opened. To identify possible factors associated with surgical complications, we performed a univariate analysis with the t test for continuous variables and x(2) or Fisher exact test for qualitative variables as appropriate.Results: The overall rate of complication was 7.8% (10/128); nine of themwere vaginal bleeding, and only one (0.8%) was amajor complication with vaginal vault perforation. A greater number of previous destructive treatments and of two or more previous laser vaginal excisional treatments was present in patients with complications compared with ones without complications (10% vs 3.9 %, p = .92, and 30% vs 15.2%, p = .44, respectively), although these differences were not statistically significant. A total of 10.5% (6/57) of occult vaginal cancer was detected in women with initial diagnosis of VaIN3 (HG-VaIN) on biopsy.Conclusions: Carbon dioxide laser excision for HG-VaIN seems to be a safe approach with low rate of complications, probably because of the better accuracy achieved by CO2 laser resections, and permits diagnosis of occult invasive disease

Gastrointestinal symptoms and motility disorders in patients with systemic scleroderma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studies on gastrointestinal symptoms, dysfunctions, and neurological disorders in systemic scleroderma are lacking so far.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Thirty-eight scleroderma patients (34 limited, 4 diffuse), 60 healthy controls and 68 dyspeptic controls were scored for upper and lower gastrointestinal symptoms (dyspepsia, bowel habits), gastric and gallbladder emptying to liquid meal (functional ultrasonography) and small bowel transit (H₂-breath test). Autonomic nerve function was assessed by cardiovascular tests.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The score for dyspepsia (mainly gastric fullness) was greater in scleroderma patients than healthy controls, but lower than dyspeptic controls who had multiple symptoms, instead. Scleroderma patients with dyspepsia had a longer disease duration. Fasting antral area and postprandial antral dilatation were smaller in scleroderma patients than dyspeptic and healthy controls. Gastric emptying was delayed in both scleroderma patients (particularly in those with abnormal dyspeptic score) and dyspeptic controls, who also showed a larger residual area. Despite gallbladder fasting and postprandial volumes were comparable across the three groups, gallbladder refilling appeared delayed in dyspeptic controls and mainly dependent on delayed gastric emptying in scleroderma. Small intestinal transit was also delayed in 74% of scleroderma and 66% of dyspeptic controls. Bowel habits were similar among the three groups. Autonomic neuropathy was not associated with dyspepsia, gastric and gallbladder motility and small intestinal transit.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In scleroderma patients dyspepsia (mainly gastric fullness), restricted distension of the gastric antrum and diffuse gastrointestinal dysmotility are frequent features. These defects are independent from the occurrence of autonomic neuropathy.</p

Deep learning methods to predict amyotrophic lateral sclerosis disease progression

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a highly complex and heterogeneous neurodegenerative disease that affects motor neurons. Since life expectancy is relatively low, it is essential to promptly understand the course of the disease to better target the patient’s treatment. Predictive models for disease progression are thus of great interest. One of the most extensive and well-studied open-access data resources for ALS is the Pooled Resource Open-Access ALS Clinical Trials (PRO-ACT) repository. In 2015, the DREAM-Phil Bowen ALS Prediction Prize4Life Challenge was held on PRO-ACT data, where competitors were asked to develop machine learning algorithms to predict disease progression measured through the slope of the ALSFRS score between 3 and 12 months. However, although it has already been successfully applied in several studies on ALS patients, to the best of our knowledge deep learning approaches still remain unexplored on the ALSFRS slope prediction in PRO-ACT cohort. Here, we investigate how deep learning models perform in predicting ALS progression using the PRO-ACT data. We developed three models based on different architectures that showed comparable or better performance with respect to the state-of-the-art models, thus representing a valid alternative to predict ALS disease progression

Wildfires impact on surface nitrogen oxides and ozone in Central Italy

AbstractA summer campaign in Central Italy was carried out to study the impact of fire emissions on the mixing ratios of surface trace gases. Observations with a selective and sensitive instrument that uses the laser induced fluorescence technique for direct measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), show a significant increase of NO2 mixing ratios, in the evening, when a fire plume reached the observations site. The increase of NO2 mixing ratios is well correlated (R=0.83) with that of particulate matter (PM), which is one of the primary product of forest and grassland fires. The tight correlation between NO2 and PM is used to improve the performance of a statistical regression model to simulate the observed O3, and to highlight the effect of fire emissions on the O3 mixing ratios. The statistical regression model of O3 improves in terms of performance (bias reduction of 77% and agreement enhancement of 10% for slope and correlation coefficient) when PM2.5 is included as additional input and proxy of the fire emissions among the usual input parameters (meteorological data and NO2 mixing ratios). A case study, comparing observed and modeled O3 in different days (with and without fire plume), suggests an impact of fire emissions on the O3 mixing ratios of about 10%