Next-generation ophthalmic diagnostics

We are developing a fully automated mobile application (app) to test for contrast sensitivity by measuring the ability of the patient to follow a moving dot on a digital screen. The test results are evaluated automatically using algorithms that measure the gaze direction of the user. Here we present preliminary results of the app development

Vegetation, climate and environmental history of the last 4500 years at lake Shkodra (Albania/Montenegro)

Three parallel overlapping cores have been taken in the Albanian side of Lake Shkodra (Albania/Montenegro). The chronological frame of the record, spanning approximately the last 4500 years, has been assessed using four radiocarbon dates and four well-known tephra layers of Italian volcanoes. Multidisciplinary analyses turned out to be decisive to understand environmental, climatic changes and human impact. Here, we focus on palynology. The humidity at Shkodra was always enough to allow the developing of a luxuriant arboreal vegetation. The pollen percentage diagram does not record important changes in terrestrial plants percentages. Arboreal pollen (AP) shows only a rather slight decrease, with ‘natural forests’ replaced by intensive cultivation of chestnut and walnut in the last seven/eight centuries. The rather minimal changes in composition and dominance are because of the fact that the pollen rain comes from different vegetation belts, from the Mediterranean to the alpine one. Two major periods of humidity are found, one at the base of the pollen concentration and influx diagram, before 4100 yr BP, the other at 1300 yr BP. Minima in pollen influx and concentration occurred soon before 4000, at ca. 2900 and at ca. 1450 yr BP These minima, interpreted as aridity crises, show a temporal coincidence with the so-called Bond events 1-3 already found in other central and eastern Mediterranean records. The minimum in AP occurring after 500 yr BP could represent the record of the ‘Little Ice Age’, even if it could be the effect of a strong land use

A Two-Phase ASP Encoding for Solving Rehabilitation Scheduling

The rehabilitation scheduling process consists of planning rehabilitation physiotherapy sessions for patients, by assigning proper operators to them in a certain time slot of a given day, taking into account several requirements and optimizations, e.g., patient’s preferences and operator’s work balancing. Being able to efficiently solve such problem is of upmost importance, in particular after the COVID-19 pandemic that significantly increased rehabilitation’s needs. In this paper, we present a solution to rehabilitation scheduling based on Answer Set Programming (ASP), which proved to be an effective tool for solving practical scheduling problems. Results of experiments performed on both synthetic and real benchmarks, the latter provided by ICS Maugeri, show the effectiveness of our solution

Studio "Salute degli anziani del territorio" – (SAT), efficacia dell'attività fisica adattata (APA – salute in movimento), nel miglioramento delle performance motorie e delle competenze cognitive in risposta alla cronicità

I risultati ottenuti dimostrano come un programma di attivit\ue0 motoria in dual-task combinato con training cognitivo adattato alle abilit\ue0 dei partecipanti possa contribuire a preservare la funzionalit\ue0 ecologica e le competenze cognitive che concorrono ad una migliore autonomia e conseguente qualit\ue0 della vita dell\u2019anziano. Il risultato pi\uf9 innovativo dello studio \ue8 stato il miglioramento delle capacit\ue0 cognitive riscontrato dopo il periodo di allenamento, in entrambi i Gruppi, ma con un\u2019evidenza significativa maggiore per il gruppo sperimentale, che evidenzia l\u2019importanza di comprendere, in un programma di APA, esercizi di educazione respiratoria e routine di esercizi motori e cognitivi combinati, con particolare riferimento alla fluidit\ue0 verbale, alla capacit\ue0 attentiva nonch\ue9 le abilit\ue0 prassiche spesso legate a deficit cognitivi nelle ADL. Tutto questo potrebbe avere effetti neuro protettivi che possono aiutare a rallentare il declino cognitivo in et\ue0 avanzata. Risulta quindi importante promuovere iniziative per favorire l\u2019APA tra la popolazione anziana

Effect of interchain separation on the photoinduced absorption spectra of polycarbazolyldiacetylenes

The photoinduced absorption spectra of a novel polycarbazolyldiacetylene with long aliphatic chains on the carbazolyl side groups are measured and compared with those of the unsubstituted polyDCHD. The two polymers in the blue form exhibit very similar electronic absorption spectra and Raman frequencies. This fact indicates that the conjugation length of the polydiacetylene backbone is not too affected by the long substituents. In contrast, the near steady-state photoinduced absorption spectra show that different photogeneration mechanisms are involved in the two polymers. This result can be ascribed to the role played by the interchain distance in the dynamics of the relaxation processes in polydiacetylenes

Valutazione dell'efficacia di un programma di attivit\ue0 fisica adattata (APA) in una popolazione di anziani istituzionalizzati affetti da ritardo mentale

Questo studio evidenzia che in questi soggetti l'esercizio fisico continuativo \ue8 risultato essere un elemento fondamentale per garantire benessere psico fisco nall'anziano istituzionalizzato. La performance fisica (WT6' e TUG) e la mobilit\ue0 del cingolo scapolo omerale sono migliorate in modo significativo