101 research outputs found
Design Knowledge Representation: An Ontological Perspective
We present a preliminary high-level formal theory, grounded on knowledge representation techniques and foundational ontologies, for the uniform and integrated representation of the different kinds of (quali- tative and quantitative) knowledge involved in the designing process. We discuss the conceptual nature of engineering design by individuating and analyzing the involved notions. These notions are then formally charac- terized by extending the DOLCE foundational ontology. Our ultimate purpose is twofold: (i) to contribute to foundational issues of design; and (ii) to support the development of advanced modelling systems for (qualitative and quantitative) representation of design knowledge
Features and Components in Product Models
Product structures are represented in engineering models by depicting and linking components, features and assemblies. Their understanding requires knowledge of both design and manufacturing practices, and yet further contextual reasoning is needed to read them correctly. Since these representations are essen- tial to the engineering activities, the lack of a clear and explicit semantics of these models hampers the use of information systems for their assessment and exploita- tion. We study this problem by identifying different interpretations of structure rep- resentations, and then discuss the formal properties that a suitable language needs for representing components, features and combinations of these. We show that the representation of components and features require a non-standard mereology
MID-TERM CLINICAL OUTCOME OF CATANIA™ CORONARY STENT SYSTEM WITH NANOTHIN POLYZENE®-F IN A REAL WORLD UNSELECTED POPULATION: PRELIMINARY RESULTS: I2 POSTER CONTRIBUTIONS
Effectiveness of Rehabilitative Intervention on Pain, Postural Balance, and Quality of Life in Women with Multiple Vertebral Fragility Fractures: A Prospective Cohort Study
Patients with vertebral fragility fractures often experience chronic pain, postural and
balance disorders, and poor quality of life (QoL). Although several studies have investigated the role
of rehabilitation in severe osteoporosis, the effectiveness of this intervention in patients with multiple
vertebral fractures is poorly known. The aim of our longitudinal cohort study is to evaluate the effectiveness of rehabilitation, including postural training, resistance exercises, and visual stabilization
exercises, for a 7-week period, on the pain, postural balance, and QoL of subjects with at least two
vertebral fragility fractures receiving denosumab and vitamin D. We investigated, before (T0) and
after (T1, at 7 weeks) rehabilitation, the following outcome measures on 28 patients: pain (Numerical
Rating Scale (NRS)), self-perceived QoL (36-Item Short Form Survey (SF-36) and Mini-Osteoporosis
Quality of Life Questionnaire (Mini-OQOL)), dizziness (Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI-I)),
mobility (Timed-Up and Go (TUG) test), and instrumental posturographic assessment (FreeMed
posturography system). At the end of the treatment, improvements of pain and QoL were recorded.
Pain relief was highly obtained in patients with more than two vertebral fractures. Moreover, a
significant functional improvement (TUG test) was found in those with two vertebral fractures,
without any statistically significant change reported for other outcomes. Our findings suggest that
combined intervention, including anti-osteoporotic drugs and postural rehabilitation, should be
proposed to osteoporotic patients with multiple vertebral frac
Head to toe ultrasound: a narrative review of experts’ recommendations of methodological approaches
Critical care ultrasonography (US) is widely used by intensivists managing critically ill patients to accurately and rapidly assess different clinical scenarios, which include pneumothorax, pleural effusion, pulmonary edema, hydronephrosis, hemoperitoneum, and deep vein thrombosis. Basic and advanced critical care ultrasonographic skills are routinely used to supplement physical examination of critically ill patients, to determine the etiology of critical illness and to guide subsequent therapy. European guidelines now recommend the use of US for a number of practical procedures commonly performed in critical care. Full training and competence acquisition are essential before significant therapeutic decisions are made based on the US assessment. However, there are no universally accepted learning pathways and methodological standards for the acquisition of these skills. Therefore, in this review, we aim to provide a methodological approach of the head to toe ultrasonographic evaluation of critically ill patients considering different districts and clinical applications
Implementation and performances of the IPbus protocol for the JUNO Large-PMT readout electronics
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a large neutrino
detector currently under construction in China. Thanks to the tight
requirements on its optical and radio-purity properties, it will be able to
perform leading measurements detecting terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos
in a wide energy range from tens of keV to hundreds of MeV. A key requirement
for the success of the experiment is an unprecedented 3% energy resolution,
guaranteed by its large active mass (20 kton) and the use of more than 20,000
20-inch photo-multiplier tubes (PMTs) acquired by high-speed, high-resolution
sampling electronics located very close to the PMTs. As the Front-End and
Read-Out electronics is expected to continuously run underwater for 30 years, a
reliable readout acquisition system capable of handling the timestamped data
stream coming from the Large-PMTs and permitting to simultaneously monitor and
operate remotely the inaccessible electronics had to be developed. In this
contribution, the firmware and hardware implementation of the IPbus based
readout protocol will be presented, together with the performances measured on
final modules during the mass production of the electronics
Mass testing of the JUNO experiment 20-inch PMTs readout electronics
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a multi-purpose,
large size, liquid scintillator experiment under construction in China. JUNO
will perform leading measurements detecting neutrinos from different sources
(reactor, terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos) covering a wide energy range
(from 200 keV to several GeV). This paper focuses on the design and development
of a test protocol for the 20-inch PMT underwater readout electronics,
performed in parallel to the mass production line. In a time period of about
ten months, a total number of 6950 electronic boards were tested with an
acceptance yield of 99.1%
Validation and integration tests of the JUNO 20-inch PMTs readout electronics
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a large neutrino
detector currently under construction in China. JUNO will be able to study the
neutrino mass ordering and to perform leading measurements detecting
terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos in a wide energy range, spanning from
200 keV to several GeV. Given the ambitious physics goals of JUNO, the
electronic system has to meet specific tight requirements, and a thorough
characterization is required. The present paper describes the tests performed
on the readout modules to measure their performances.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figure
- …