Mesh-based 3D Textured Urban Mapping

In the era of autonomous driving, urban mapping represents a core step to let vehicles interact with the urban context. Successful mapping algorithms have been proposed in the last decade building the map leveraging on data from a single sensor. The focus of the system presented in this paper is twofold: the joint estimation of a 3D map from lidar data and images, based on a 3D mesh, and its texturing. Indeed, even if most surveying vehicles for mapping are endowed by cameras and lidar, existing mapping algorithms usually rely on either images or lidar data; moreover both image-based and lidar-based systems often represent the map as a point cloud, while a continuous textured mesh representation would be useful for visualization and navigation purposes. In the proposed framework, we join the accuracy of the 3D lidar data, and the dense information and appearance carried by the images, in estimating a visibility consistent map upon the lidar measurements, and refining it photometrically through the acquired images. We evaluate the proposed framework against the KITTI dataset and we show the performance improvement with respect to two state of the art urban mapping algorithms, and two widely used surface reconstruction algorithms in Computer Graphics.Comment: accepted at iros 201

Il diritto all'istruzione nel sistema Interamericano dei diritti umani

La presente tesi ha il compito di analizzare profondamente il diritto all’istruzione all’interno del sistema interamericano dei diritti umani con alcune comparazioni con il sistema europeo laddove necessario. Il compito prefissato non è solo quello di analizzare le norme e l’evoluzione dell’istituto nell’ambito regionale, ma quello di poter verificare l’analisi della giurisprudenza e dottrina a riguardo e poter muovere delle critiche, laddove possibile, ad eventuali lacune giurisprudenziali o ad eventuali ordinamenti nazionali. Partendo dall’articolo 13 del Protocollo di San Salvador, come norma più completa nel tutelare il diritto all’istruzione nel sistema interamericano, si analizzerà il contenuto di suddetto diritto e l’evoluzione dei suoi principi all’interno dei vari livelli dell’istruzione. Verranno analizzati con dettaglio problemi legati al diritto dei genitori di scegliere l’educazione e la religione dei propri figli e si chiuderà cercando di dare un’opinione sopra al problema dell’accesso all’istruzione superiore all’interno dei paesi interamericani. A riguardo verranno analizzati problemi e si risponderà alla domanda se il diritto è, indirettamente, violato dallo stesso articolo 13 del protocollo che lo tutela. Tutto il lavoro è contornato da ricerche svolte in differenti paesi e, soprattutto, da ricerche svolte in Brasile grazie al programma “tesi all’estero”. Nelle conclusioni non mancheranno difatti delle considerazioni personali sull’argomento avute da questa esperienza in loco. Per poter analizzare i problemi da una visione di 360°, la bibliografia presentata e studiata dal sottoscritto è in più lingue e proviene da differenti paesi sia europei che americani. Le opinioni a riguardo infatti cambiano ed era obbligatorio citare, come si dice, le due campane

Surgical Repair of Postinfarction Ventricular Septal Rupture: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background. Ventricular septal rupture (VSR) is a rare but life-threatening complication after acute myocardial infarction. Although surgical correction is challenging and associated with high mortality, it remains the treatment of choice. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the early outcome of surgical VSR repair.Methods. We searched electronic databases from January 1998 to February 2020. Studies reporting patients undergoing surgical treatment for VSR were analyzed. The primary outcome assessed was operative mortality. Differences were expressed as odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to assess the relationships of predefined surgical variables and clinical prognosis.Results. A total of 6361 adult patients from 41 studies were identified. Operative mortality was 38.2%. Pooled ORs showed increased odds of operative mortality in patients with preoperative or perioperative intraaortic balloon pump insertion (OR = 3.48; 95% CI, 3.01-4.02; P >= .001), right ventricular dysfunction (OR = 2.85; 95% CI, 1.47-5.52; P = .002), posterior VSR (OR = 1.73; 95% CI, 1.30-2.31; P >= .001), and emergency surgery (OR = 3.79; 95% CI, 2.52-5.72; P >= .001). Temporal trend evaluation revealed no difference over time in the operative mortality rate; it was 34% in both time-related groups (1971-2000 versus 2001-2018).Conclusions. Ventricular septal rupture repair has a high operative mortality. Patients with preoperative or perioperative intraaortic balloon pump support, right ventricular dysfunction at presentation, or posterior defects, and those undergoing emergent VSR correction have increased odds of operative mortality. (C) 2021 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc

A Multi-Criteria-Based Evaluation of Android Applications

Android users can face the risk of downloading and installing bad applications on their devices. In fact, many applications may either hide malware, or their expected behavior do not fully follow the user\u27s expectation. This happens because, at install-time, even if the user is warned with the potential security threat of the application, she often skips this alert message. On Android this is due to the complexity of the permission system, which may be tricky to fully understand. We propose a multi-criteria evaluation of Android applications, to help the user to easily understand the trustworthiness degree of an application, both from a security and a functional side. We validate our approach by testing it on more than 180 real applications found either on official and unofficial markets

Risk analysis of Android applications: A user-centric solution

Android applications (apps) pose many risks to their users, e.g., by including code that may threaten user privacy or system integrity. Most of the current security countermeasures for detecting dangerous apps show some weaknesses, mainly related to users' understanding and acceptance. Hence, users would benefit from an effective but simple technique that indicates whether an app is safe or risky to be installed. In this paper, we present MAETROID (Multi-criteria App Evaluator of TRust for AndrOID), a framework to evaluate the trustworthiness of Android apps, i.e., the amount of risk they pose to users, e.g., in terms of confidentiality and integrity. MAETROID performs a multi-criteria analysis of an app at deploy-time and returns a single easy-to-understand evaluation of the app's risk level (i.e., Trusted, Medium Risk, and High Risk), aimed at driving the user decision on whether or not installing a new app. The criteria include the set of requested permissions and a set of metadata retrieved from the marketplace, denoting the app quality and popularity. We have tested MAETROID on a set of 11,000 apps both coming from Google Play and from a database of known malicious apps. The results show a good accuracy in both identifying the malicious apps and in terms of false positive rate

Scaling relations of metallicity, stellar mass, and star formation rate in metal-poor starbursts: II. Theoretical models

Scaling relations of metallicity (O/H), star formation rate (SFR), and stellar mass give important insight on galaxy evolution. They are obeyed by most galaxies in the Local Universe and also at high redshift. In a companion paper, we compiled a sample of ~1100 galaxies from redshift 0 to ~3, spanning almost two orders of magnitude in metal abundance, a factor of $\sim10^6$ in SFR, and of ~10^5 in stellar mass. We have characterized empirically the star-formation "main sequence" (SFMS) and the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) for this sample, and also identified a class of low-metallicity starbursts, rare locally but more common in the distant universe. These galaxies deviate significantly from the main scaling relations, with high SFR and low metal content for a given M*. In this paper, we model the scaling relations and explain these deviations from them with a set of multi-phase chemical evolution models based on the idea that, independently of redshift, initial physical conditions in a galaxy's evolutionary history can dictate its location in the scaling relations. Our models are able to successfully reproduce the O/H, M*, and SFR scaling relations up to z~3, and also successfully predict the molecular cloud fraction as a function of stellar mass. These results suggest that the scaling relations are defined by different modes of star formation: an "active" starburst mode, more common at high redshift, and a quiescent "passive" mode that is predominant locally and governs the main trends.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA

Phase II study of liposomal doxorubicin, docetaxel and trastuzumab in combination with metformin as neoadjuvant therapy for HER2-positive breast cancer

Background:The aim of this study was to improve activity over single human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-blockade sequential neaodjuvant regimens for HER2-positive breast cancer, by exploiting the concomitant administration of trastuzumab, taxane and anthracycline, while restraining cardiac toxicity with use of liposomal doxorubicin, and by adding metformin, based on preliminary evidence of antitumor activity.Patients and methods:This multi-center, single-arm, two-stage phase II trial, assessed the safety and the activity of a new treatment regimen for HER2-positive, early or locally advanced breast cancer. Patients received six 21-day cycles of non-pegylated liposomal doxorubicin, 50 mg/m(2) intravenously (i.v.) on day 1, docetaxel, 30 mg/m(2) i.v. on days 2 and 9, trastuzumab, 2 mg/kg/week i.v. on days 2, 9, and 16 (with 4 mg/kg loading dose), in association with metformin 1000 mg orally twice daily. The primary endpoint was the rate of pathological complete response (pCR) in the breast and axilla (ypT0/is ypN0). A subgroup of patients performed a 3-deoxy-3-18F-fluorothymidine positron emission tomography (FLT-PET) at baseline and after one cycle.Results:Among 47 evaluable patients, there were 18 pCR [38.3%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 24.5-53.6%]. A negative estrogen-receptor status, high Ki67, and histological grade 3 were related with pCR, although only grade reached statistical significance. FLT-PET maximum standardized uptake value after one cycle was inversely related to pCR in the breast (odds ratio 0.29, 95% CI 0.06-1.30, p = 0.11). Toxicity included grade 3-4 neutropenia in 70% and febrile neutropenia in 4% of patients, grade 1-2 nausea/vomiting in 60%/38%, and grade 3 in 4%/2%, respectively, grade 1-2 diarrhea in 72%, and grade 3 in 6%. There were two cases of reversible grade 2 left-ventricular ejection-fraction decrease, and one case of sharp troponin-T increase.Conclusions:The concomitant administration of trastuzumab, liposomal doxorubicin, docetaxel, and metformin is safe and shows good activity, but does not appear to improve activity over conventional sequential regimens