A Study on Texture and Acoustic Properties of Cold Laid Microsurfacings

AbstractSlurry microsurfacing is an economical maintenance intervention that provides effective skid resistance and surface evenness in a thin layer, thus improving the road safety. Researchers aimed to develop an innovative application of slurry seal, capable of gathering in a single material some technical solutions for various functional and environmental aspects. The purposes of this intervention are: restoring skid resistance, sealing surface cracking, reducing tire/pavement noise, adding crumb rubber from tires as a recycling material and reducing atmospheric emissions using the cold technique. A 3D laser scanner device has been used to evaluate the surface texture and analyze the roughness parameters

WIT3: il corpus dei sottotitoli multilingue degli interventi alle conferenze TED

In questo lavoro viene presentato WIT3, il sito web che abbiamo sviluppato per distribuire una versione pronta all'uso della collezione di sottotitoli multilingua degli interventi alle conferenze TED. Siamo persuasi che questa collezione rappresenti una risorsa preziosa per la comunita` scientifica che si occupa di traduzione automatica, data la sua dimensione in continua crescita e data la sua varieta` sia in termini di lingue sia di argomenti trattati. Infatti gia` ad oggi, giugno 2013, il sito TED raccoglie la registrazione di piu` di 2000 interventi che spaziano su tutto lo scibile umano, dalla tecnologia all'intrattenimento, dall'economia alla scienza; le trascrizioni in inglese sono gia` disponibili per la maggior parte delle registrazioni, mentre le traduzioni vengono via via aggiunte e al momento coprono fino a 100 lingue diverse. La nostra ambizione e` di fornire attraverso WIT3 un servizio adeguato alla comunita` scientifica distribuendo: (a) per un numero consistente di coppie di lingue il materiale per l'addestramento di sistemi statistici di traduzione e la loro valutazione, insieme a delle traduzioni generate automaticamente che possono fungere da riferimento; (b) i file originali del sito di TED con degli strumenti di elaborazione che consentono a chiunque di preparare autonomamente l'ambiente sperimentale per qualsiasi coppia di lingue

WIT3: Web Inventory of Transcribed and Translated Talks

We describe here a Web inventory named WIT3 that offers access to a collection of transcribed and translated talks. The core of WIT3 is the TED Talks corpus, that basically redistributes the original content published by the TED Conference website (http://www.ted.com). Since 2007, the TED Conference, based in California, has been posting all video recordings of its talks together with subtitles in English and their translations in more than 80 languages. Aside from its cultural and social relevance, this content, which is published under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license, also represents a precious language resource for the machine translation research community, thanks to its size, variety of topics, and covered languages. This effort repurposes the original content in a way which is more convenient for machine translation researchers

Postoperative spine infections

Postoperative spinal wound infection is a potentially devastating complication after operative spinal procedures. Despite the uti- lization of perioperative prophylactic antibi- otics in recent years and improvements in sur- gical technique and postoperative care, wound infection continues to compromise patients’ outcome after spinal surgery. In the modern era of pending health care reform with increasing financial constraints, the financial burden of post-operative spinal infections also deserves consideration. The aim of our work is to give to the reader an updated review of the latest achievements in prevention, risk factors, diagnosis, microbiology and treatment of post- operative spinal wound infections. A review of the scientific literature was carried out using electronic medical databases Pubmed, Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus for the years 1973-2012 to obtain access to all publica- tions involving the incidence, risk factors, pre- vention, diagnosis, treatment of postoperative spinal wound infections. We initially identified 119 studies; of these 60 were selected. Despite all the measures intended to reduce the inci- dence of surgical site infections in spine sur- gery, these remain a common and potentially dangerous complication

Lumbar Degenerative Disc Disease: Current and Future Concepts of Diagnosis and Management

Low back pain as a result of degenerative disc disease imparts a large socioeconomic impact on the health care system. Traditional concepts for treatment of lumbar disc degeneration have aimed at symptomatic relief by limiting motion in the lumbar spine, but novel treatment strategies involving stem cells, growth factors, and gene therapy have the theoretical potential to prevent, slow, or even reverse disc degeneration. Understanding the pathophysiological basis of disc degeneration is essential for the development of treatment strategies that target the underlying mechanisms of disc degeneration rather than the downstream symptom of pain. Such strategies ideally aim to induce disc regeneration or to replace the degenerated disc. However, at present, treatment options for degenerative disc disease remain suboptimal, and development and outcomes of novel treatment options currently have to be considered unpredictable

First genome-wide data from Italian European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.): strong and ancient differentiation between Alps and Apennines

The European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) is one of the most widespread forest trees in Europe whose distribution and intraspecific diversity has been largely shaped by repeated glacial cycles. Previous studies, mainly based on palaeobotanical evidence and a limited set of chloroplast and nuclear genetic markers, highlighted a complex phylogeographic scenario, with southern and western Europe characterized by a rather heterogeneous genetic structure, as a result of recolonization from different glacial refugia. Despite its ecological and economic importance, the genome of this broad-leaved tree has only recently been assembled, and its intra-species genomic diversity is still largely unexplored. Here, we performed whole-genome resequencing of nine Italian beech individuals sampled from two stands located in the Alpine and Apennine mountain ranges. We investigated patterns of genetic diversity at chloroplast, mitochondrial and nuclear genomes and we used chloroplast genomes to reconstruct a temporally-resolved phylogeny. Results allowed us to test European beech differentiation on a whole-genome level and to accurately date their divergence time. Our results showed comparable, relatively high levels of genomic diversity in the two populations and highlighted a clear differentiation at chloroplast, mitochondrial and nuclear genomes. The molecular clock analysis indicated an ancient split between the Alpine and Apennine populations, occurred between the Günz and the Riss glaciations (approximately 660 kyrs ago), suggesting a long history of separation for the two gene pools. This information has important conservation implications in the context of adaptation to ongoing climate change

Microvascular response to transfusion in elective spine surgery

AIM: To investigate the microvascular (skeletal muscle tissue oxygenation; SmO2) response to transfusion in patients undergoing elective complex spine surgery. METHODS: After IRB approval and written informed consent, 20 patients aged 18 to 85 years of age undergoing \u3e 3 level anterior and posterior spine fusion surgery were enrolled in the study. Patients were followed throughout the operative procedure, and for 12 h postoperatively. In addition to standard American Society of Anesthesiologists monitors, invasive measurements including central venous pressure, continual analysis of stroke volume (SV), cardiac output (CO), cardiac index (CI), and stroke volume variability (SVV) was performed. To measure skeletal muscle oxygen saturation (SmO2) during the study period, a non-invasive adhesive skin sensor based on Near Infrared Spectroscopy was placed over the deltoid muscle for continuous recording of optical spectra. All administration of fluids and blood products followed standard procedures at the Hospital for Special Surgery, without deviation from usual standards of care at the discretion of the Attending Anesthesiologist based on individual patient comorbidities, hemodynamic status, and laboratory data. Time stamps were collected for administration of colloids and blood products, to allow for analysis of SmO2 immediately before, during, and after administration of these fluids, and to allow for analysis of hemodynamic data around the same time points. Hemodynamic and oxygenation variables were collected continuously throughout the surgery, including heart rate, blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, SV, CO, CI, SVV, and SmO2. Bivariate analyses were conducted to examine the potential associations between the outcome of interest, SmO2, and each hemodynamic parameter measured using Pearson\u27s correlation coefficient, both for the overall cohort and within-patients individually. The association between receipt of packed red blood cells and SmO2 was performed by running an interrupted time series model, with SmO2 as our outcome, controlling for the amount of time spent in surgery before and after receipt of PRBC and for the inherent correlation between observations. Our model was fit using PROC AUTOREG in SAS version 9.2. All other analyses were also conducted in SAS version 9.2 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, United States). RESULTS: Pearson correlation coefficients varied widely between SmO2 and each hemodynamic parameter examined. The strongest positive correlations existed between ScvO2 (P = 0.41) and SV (P = 0.31) and SmO2; the strongest negative correlations were seen between albumin (P = -0.43) and cell saver (P = -0.37) and SmO2. Correlations for other laboratory parameters studied were weak and only based on a few observations. In the final model we found a small, but significant increase in SmO2 at the time of PRBC administration by 1.29 units (P = 0.0002). SmO2 values did not change over time prior to PRBC administration (P = 0.6658) but following PRBC administration, SmO2 values declined significantly by 0.015 units (P \u3c 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Intra-operative measurement of SmO2 during large volume, yet controlled hemorrhage, does not show a statistically significant correlation with either invasive hemodynamic, or laboratory parameters in patients undergoing elective complex spine surgery

Recent transmission clustering of HIV-1 C and CRF17_BF strains characterized by NNRTI-related mutations among newly diagnosed men in central Italy

Increased evidence of relevant HIV-1 epidemic transmission in European countries is being reported, with an increased circulation of non-B-subtypes. Here, we present two recent HIV-1 non-B transmission clusters characterized by NNRTI-related amino-acidic mutations among newly diagnosed HIV-1 infected men, living in Rome (Central-Italy)

Three-dimensional spin-wave dynamics, localization and interference in a synthetic antiferromagnet

Spin waves are collective perturbations in the orientation of the magnetic moments in magnetically ordered materials. Their rich phenomenology is intrinsically three dimensional, from the trajectory of the spin precession during their propagation, to the profiles of the spin-wave mode throughout the volume of the magnetic system. This gives rise to novel complex phenomena with high potential for applications in the field of magnonics. However, the three-dimensional imaging of spin waves, key to understanding and harnessing these phenomena, has so far not been possible. Here, we image the three-dimensional dynamics of spin waves excited in a synthetic antiferromagnet, with nanoscale spatial resolution and sub-ns temporal resolution, using time-resolved magnetic laminography. In this way, we map the distribution of the spin-wave modes throughout the volume of the structure, revealing unexpected depth-dependent profiles originating from the interlayer dipolar interaction. We experimentally demonstrate the existence of complex three-dimensional interference patterns, and analyze them via micromagnetic modelling. We find that these patterns are generated by the superposition of spin waves with non-uniform amplitude profiles, and that their features can be controlled by tuning the composition and structure of the magnetic system. Our results open unforeseen possibilities for the study of complex spin-wave modes and their interaction within nanostructures, and for the generation and manipulation of three-dimensional spin-wave landscapes for the design of novel functions in magnonic devices.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure