Le nuove scoperte e il nuovo contesto della ricerca bio-medica

The article focuses on the cultural ambience which, between the second half of the eigh-teenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, mainly in Germany and partly in France, has been the theatre of that very medical-scientific revolution – a revolution connected to G. Reinold Treviranus’ biology, A. von Haller and F. J. Gall’s experimental works, L. Pasteur’s germ theory, as well as R. Virchow’s cellular pathology, Cabanis and De Tracy’s researches and C. Bernard’s experimental medicine –, which has contributed decisively to transform the “beneficial primitive technophile” in the present “health pro-duction technology”. In such a context, we underline the role of the great French philo-sophes regarding the methodological turning point (from metaphysics to observation and then science) and thus the erosion of the “great division” between the human species and other animal species. The consequence has been the new “anthropological” relief of the di-mension of corporeity. Particularly, this work lingers over two fundamental points: the new comprehension of the “physiology” of man (by the Idéologues) which lays the founda-tions of the mind/body problem and the intuition, from philosophers like Kant and Hegel, of the teleological principle of self-organization of life. The conclusive part, by revisiting these two aspects in consideration of the new scenarios opened by the contemporary theory of complexity in the scientific field, highlights how the present directions of research about cognitive functionalities, in continuity with the process of “embodiment of thought” started by the second half of the eighteenth century, tend to distance themselves from the computational matrix which has originally generated them to come more and more near an interpretation which sees the mind as “embodied”, situated and distributed

Riflessioni sull'esperienza cosciente. Le prospettive della teoria della informazione integrata

Riassunto: Il presente contributo esamina il concetto di esperienza cosciente da una prospettiva epistemologica evoluzionista, ispirata ad un approccio naturalistico non riduzionista. Il lavoro si inserisce nel quadro concettuale delle ricerche nel campo della filosofia della mente, avanzando delle ipotesi circa i possibili processi che hanno determinato la comparsa e lo sviluppo nella nostra biosfera di una mente specificatamente umana sia dal punto di vista filogenetico che da quello ontogenetico. In quest’ottica, vengono rivisitati in chiave epigenetica alcuni tratti salienti della teoria della coscienza di Edelman alla luce delle più recenti ricerche sulla misurazione dell’esperienza cosciente, condotte da Tononi e da altri studiosi nell’ambito della Integrated Information Theory (IIT). In un quadro siffatto, l’articolo analizza alcune criticità dell’approccio algoritmico della IIT, evidenziando la necessità di individuare nuove misure della complessità (nuovi sistemi assiomatici) per quanto riguarda lo studio dei processi semantici di trasmissione dell’informazione biologica (intenzionale).Parole chiave: Coscienza; Evoluzione naturale; Neuroplasticità; Informazione intenzionale; Seconda natura Reflections on conscious experience. The perspectives of the integrated information theoryAbstract: This paper examines the concept of conscious experience from an evolutionary epistemological perspective, inspired by a non-reductionist naturalistic approach. Situated in the conceptual framework of philosophy of mind, it considers what processes could have led to the appearance and development of a specifically human mind in our biosphere, both from a phylogenetic and an ontogenetic point of view. Salient features of Edelman’s theory of consciousness are revisited from an epigenetic perspective, in light of some of the most recent measurements of conscious experience proposed by Tononi and other scholars in the field of Integrated Information Theory (IIT). The paper analyzes some criticalities in the algorithmic approach of the IIT, highlighting the need to identify new measures of complexity (new axiomatic systems) for the study of semantic processes of transmission of biological (intentional) information.Keywords: Consciousness; Natural Evolution; Neuroplasticity; Intentional Information; Second Natur

Point-of-care hemostasis in children with congenital heart disease, the POCHEMO study : baseline reference values of thromboelastometry and impedance aggregometry

: Viscoelastic tests and impedance aggregometry allow coagulation evaluation at the bedside, but reference values are scarce in pediatrics. The aim of this study was to establish reference values of thromboelastometry and impedance aggregometry for this population and compare it between age groups. This prospective, single-center, observational study evaluates viscoelastic tests and impedance aggregometry in children with congenital heart disease. A total of 204 children were included with a median age of 3.6 years old. We provide references values for this population with median, percentile 2.5 and percentile 97.5. Infants demonstrate for extrinsic activity a shorter coagulation time (52 [49-55] vs. 56 [51-62] s, P = 0.007) and clot formation time (90 [71-118] vs. 113 [93-146] s, P < 0.0001) so as for intrinsic activity a shorter clot formation time (53 [44-69] vs. 75 [59-92] s, P < 0.0001). The maximal clot firmness was significantly stronger in infants for extrinsic (65 [61-69] vs. 59 [54-63] mm, P < 0.0001), intrinsic (68 [64-70] vs. 61 [57-65] mm, P < 0.0001), and fibrinogen (12 [9-16] vs. 10 [8-13] mm, P = 0.02) activities. Platelet aggregation was significantly higher in infants with an amplitude at 6 min of 28 [23-34] vs. 22 [15-27] Ω, P less than 0.0001, a maximum speed of 11 [9-13] vs. 7 [5-10] Ω/min, P less than 0.0001, and an area under the curve of 120 [92-135] vs. 86 [59-112] Ω min, P less than 0.0001. We provided the first reference values for impedance aggregometry and thromboelastometry in children with congenital heart disease. We showed that these infants tend to have accelerated coagulation and stronger clot firmness compared with older children, but this finding may have only minimal relevance when treating a bleeding child. Trial registration number: ClinicalTrials.gov (clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02387944)

MORFEO enters final design phase

MORFEO (Multi-conjugate adaptive Optics Relay For ELT Observations, formerly MAORY), the MCAO system for the ELT, will provide diffraction-limited optical quality to the large field camera MICADO. MORFEO has officially passed the Preliminary Design Review and it is entering the final design phase. We present the current status of the project, with a focus on the adaptive optics system aspects and expected milestones during the next project phase

FRCSyn Challenge at WACV 2024:Face Recognition Challenge in the Era of Synthetic Data

Despite the widespread adoption of face recognition technology around the world, and its remarkable performance on current benchmarks, there are still several challenges that must be covered in more detail. This paper offers an overview of the Face Recognition Challenge in the Era of Synthetic Data (FRCSyn) organized at WACV 2024. This is the first international challenge aiming to explore the use of synthetic data in face recognition to address existing limitations in the technology. Specifically, the FRCSyn Challenge targets concerns related to data privacy issues, demographic biases, generalization to unseen scenarios, and performance limitations in challenging scenarios, including significant age disparities between enrollment and testing, pose variations, and occlusions. The results achieved in the FRCSyn Challenge, together with the proposed benchmark, contribute significantly to the application of synthetic data to improve face recognition technology.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, WACV 2024 Workshop