Implementazione e calibrazione di un modello di pressione massima in camera di combustione basato sulla misura della corrente di ionizzazione

L’obbiettivo dell’attività svolta presso il dipartimento di Sperimentazione Motopropulsori di Ferrari S.p.a. è sviluppare un modello in grado di stimare la pressione massima sviluppata dal motore, partendo dalla corrente di ionizzazione misurata in camera di combustione. Tale richiesta nasce dalla volontà di conoscere le condizioni in cui si trova il pistone durante il funzionamento in vettura, al fine di studiare il reale limite di detonazione. Oggigiorno, infatti, il limite di detonazione viene imposto attraverso convenzioni ingegneristiche. Queste convenzioni comportano limiti sull’anticipo di accensione che risultano troppo stringenti, andando così a perdere i vantaggi che una combustione ad alto anticipo di accensione produce. L’elaborato spiega i passaggi che hanno caratterizzato il processo di implementazione e calibrazione del modello di pressione massima. Nel primo capitolo vengono spiegati gli effetti delle principali grandezze motore sulla pressione massima, approfondendo quelli relativi alle tre grandezze scelte come input del modello: velocità di rotazione dell’albero motore, coefficiente di riempimento e MFB50 (50% mass fraction burnt). Il secondo capitolo spiega l’attività, svolta a monte, di implementazione di un modello in grado di identificare l’MFB50 a partire dalla corrente di ionizzazione misurata in camera di combustione. Nel terzo capitolo invece viene spiegato l’intero procedimento di calibrazione del modello di PMAX: dall’attività al banco prova fino ad arrivare al modello completamente calibrato. Infine il quarto capitolo mostra tutti i risultati ottenuti a valle dell’attività di validazione del modello, caratterizzata da una prima fase di confronto con un secondo modello sviluppato presso l’Università di Bologna e una seconda fase in cui è stato simulato il funzionamento di un motore controllato sulla base delle informazioni in uscita dal modello di PMAX

MoDiPO: text-to-motion alignment via AI-feedback-driven Direct Preference Optimization

Diffusion Models have revolutionized the field of human motion generation by offering exceptional generation quality and fine-grained controllability through natural language conditioning. Their inherent stochasticity, that is the ability to generate various outputs from a single input, is key to their success. However, this diversity should not be unrestricted, as it may lead to unlikely generations. Instead, it should be confined within the boundaries of text-aligned and realistic generations. To address this issue, we propose MoDiPO (Motion Diffusion DPO), a novel methodology that leverages Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) to align text-to-motion models. We streamline the laborious and expensive process of gathering human preferences needed in DPO by leveraging AI feedback instead. This enables us to experiment with novel DPO strategies, using both online and offline generated motion-preference pairs. To foster future research we contribute with a motion-preference dataset which we dub Pick-a-Move. We demonstrate, both qualitatively and quantitatively, that our proposed method yields significantly more realistic motions. In particular, MoDiPO substantially improves Frechet Inception Distance (FID) while retaining the same RPrecision and Multi-Modality performances

Focus on: le spondiloartriti. La diagnosi precoce può modificare il decorso della malattia?

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Targeting the Nerve Growth Factor Signaling Impairs the Proliferative and Migratory Phenotype of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells.

Triple-negative breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that still lacks specific therapeutic approaches. The identification of new biomarkers, predictive of the disease’s aggressiveness and pharmacological response, is a challenge for a more tailored approach in the clinical management of patients. Nerve growth factor, initially identified as a key factor for neuronal survival and differentiation, turned out to be a multifaceted molecule with pleiotropic effects in quite divergent cell types, including cancer cells. Many solid tumors exhibit derangements of the nerve growth factor and its receptors, including the tropomyosin receptor kinase A. This receptor is expressed in triple-negative breast cancer, although its role in the pathogenesis and aggressiveness of this disease is still under investigation. We now report that triple-negative breast cancer-derived MDAMB- 231 and MDA-MB-453 cells express appreciable levels of tropomyosin receptor kinase A and release a biologically active nerve growth factor. Activation of tropomyosin receptor kinase by nerve growth factor treatment positively affects the migration, invasion, and proliferation of triple-negative breast cancer cells. An increase in the size of triple-negative breast cancer cell spheroids is also detected. This latter effect might occur through the nerve growth factor-induced release of matrix metalloproteinase 9, which contributes to the reorganization of the extracellular matrix and cell invasiveness. The tropomyosin receptor kinase A inhibitor GW441756 reverses all these responses. Co-immunoprecipitation experiments in both cell lines show that nerve growth factor triggers the assembly of the TrkA/b1-integrin/FAK/Src complex, thereby activating several downstream effectors. GW441756 prevents the complex assembly induced by nerve growth factor as well as the activation of its dependent signaling. Pharmacological inhibition of the tyrosine kinases Src and FAK (focal adhesion kinase), together with the silencing of b1-integrin, shows that the tyrosine kinases impinge on both proliferation and motility, while b1-integrin is needed for motility induced by nerve growth factor in triple-negative breast cancer cells. The present data support the key role of the nerve growth factor/tropomyosin receptor kinase A pathway in triple-negative breast cancer and offer new hints in the diagnostic and therapeutic management of patients

Underage drinking on saturday nights, sociodemographic and environmental risk factors: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Excessive alcohol consumption in underage people is a rising phenomenon. A major proportion of the disease burden and deaths of young people in developed nations is attributable to alcohol abuse. The aim of this study was to investigate social, demographic and environmental factors that may raise the risk of Saturday night drinking and binge drinking among Italian school students. METHODS: The study was conducted on a sample of 845 Italian underage school students, by means of an anonymous, self-test questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression was applied to identify independent risk factors for alcohol drinking and binge drinking. Ordered logistic regression was used to identify independent risk factors for harmful drinking patterns. RESULTS: The independent variables that confer a higher risk of drinking in underage students are older age classes, male sex, returning home after midnight, belonging to a group with little respect for the rules, or to a group where young people are not seen as leaders. The higher the perception of alcohol consumption by the group, the higher the risk. Spending time in bars or discos coincides with a two-fold or four-fold increase, respectively, in the risk of alcohol consumption. CONCLUSION: Our findings show that certain environmental and social risk factors are associated with underage drinking. The most important role for preventing young people's exposure to these factors lies with the family, because only parents can exert the necessary control and provide a barrier against potentially harmful situations

Communication between cells: exosomes as a delivery system in prostate cancer.

Despite the considerable efforts in screening and diagnostic protocols, prostate cancer still represents the second leading cause of cancer-related death in men. Many patients with localized disease and low risk of recurrence have a favourable outcome. In a substantial proportion of patients, however, the disease progresses and becomes aggressive. The mechanisms that promote prostate cancer progression remain still debated. Many findings point to the role of cross-communication between prostate tumor cells and their surrounding microenvironment during the disease progression. Such a connection fosters survival, proliferation, angiogenesis, metastatic spreading and drug-resistance of prostate cancer. Recent years have seen a profound interest in understanding the way by which prostate cancer cells communicate with the surrounding cells in the microenvironment. In this regard, direct cell-to-cell contacts and soluble factors have been identified. Increasing evidence indicates that PC cells communicate with the surrounding cells through the release of extracellular vesicles, mainly the exosomes. By directly acting in stromal or prostate cancer epithelial cells, exosomes represent a critical intercellular communication system. By querying the public database (https:// pubmed. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov) for the past 10 years, we have found more than four hundred papers. Among them, we have extrapolated the most relevant about the role of exosomes in prostate cancer malignancy and progression. Emerging data concerning the use of these vesicles in diagnostic management and therapeutic guidance of PC patients are also presented

Severe combined immunodeficiency-an update

Severe combined immunodeficiencies (SCIDs) are a group of inherited disorders responsible for severe dysfunctions of the immune system. These diseases are life-threatening when the diagnosis is made too late; they are the most severe forms of primary immunodeficiency. SCID patients often die during the first two years of life if appropriate treatments to reconstitute their immune system are not undertaken. Conventionally, SCIDs are classified according either to the main pathway affected by the molecular defect or on the basis of the specific immunologic phenotype that reflects the stage where the blockage occurs during the differentiation process. However, during the last few years many new causative gene alterations have been associated with unusual clinical and immunological phenotypes. Many of these novel forms of SCID also show extra-hematopoietic alterations, leading to complex phenotypes characterized by a functional impairment of several organs, which may lead to a considerable delay in the diagnosis. Here we review the biological and clinical features of SCIDs paying particular attention to the most recently identified forms and to their unusual or extra-immunological clinical features

DiGeorge-like Syndrome in a Child with a 3p12.3 Deletion Involving MIR4273 Gene Born to a Mother with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Chromosome 22q11.2 deletion is the most common chromosomal alteration associated with DiGeorge syndrome (DGS), even though this is not the only underlying cause of DGS. In rare patients, mutations in a single gene, TBX1, have been described resulting in a DGS phenotype. Recently, it has been reported that at least part of the TBX1 mutant phenotype is due to excessive bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP) signaling. Evidence suggests that miRNA may modulate the expression of critical T-box transcriptional regulators during midface development and Bmp-signaling. We report on a 7-year-old Caucasian male born to a mother affected with gestational diabetes (GDM) who had a 371Kb-interstitial deletion of 3p12.3 identified by array CGH, involving the ZNF717, MIR1243 and 4273 genes. The child presented with a DiGeorge anomaly (DGA) associated with unilateral renal agenesis and language delay. The immunological evaluation revealed a severe reduction and impairment of T lymphocytes. FISH analysis and TBX1 sequencing were negative. Among the miRNA-4273 predicted target genes, we found BMP3, which is involved in several steps of embryogenesisincluding kidney and lung organogenesis and in insulin gene expression. Since DGA is not commonly found in newborns of diabetic mothers, we hypothesize that the pathogenesis of DGA associated with GDM is multifactorial, involving both genetic and/or epigenetic cofactors

Assessing thermal maturity through a multi-proxy approach: a case study from the Permian Faraghan Formation (Zagros Basin, Southwest Iran)

This study focuses on the thermal maturity of Permian deposits from the Zagros Basin, Southwest Iran, employing both optical methods (Thermal Alteration Index, Palynomorph Darkness Index, Vitrinite Reflectance, UV Fluorescence) and geochemical analyses of organic matter (Rock Eval Pyrolysis and MicroRaman spectroscopy) applied to the Faraghan Formation along two investigated Darreh Yas and Kuh e Faraghan surface sections. Furthermore, an integrated palynofacies and lithofacies analysis was carried out in order to integrate the few studies on the depositional environment. The Faraghan Formation, which is widely distributed in the Zagros area, generally consists of shale intercalated with sandstones and pebble conglomerates in the lower part, followed by a succession of sandstone, siltstone and shaly intercalations and with carbonate levels at the top. The integrated palynofacies and lithofacies data confirm a coastal depositional setting evolving upwards to a shallow marine carbonate environment upwards. Rock Eval Pyrolysis and Vitrinite Reflectance analysis showed that the organic matter from samples of the Darreh Yas and Kuh e Faraghan sections fall in the mature to postmature range with respect to the oil to gas generation window, restricting the thermal maturity range proposed by previous authors. Similar results were obtained with MicroRaman spectroscopy and optical analysis such as Thermal Alteration Index and UV Fluorescence. Palynomorph Darkness Index values were compared with Rock Eval Pyrolysis and vitrinite reflectance values and discussed for the first time in the late stage of oil generation.This research was funded by PRIN (2017RX9XXXY-CIRILLI), by Fondo Ricerca di Base Department of Physics and Geology, University of Perugia (SPIRICBAS2018-SPINA), by the project “Paleontological Studies and Biozonation of Paleozoic Sediments in Central Iran and Zagros Basins” (coordinator R. Rettori) and MIUR grants-SORCI to PhD School of Science and Technology for Physics and Geology (XXXIV Cycle), University of Perugia; Project “Paleontological Studies and Biozonation of Paleozoic Sediments in Central Iran and Zagros Basins” (RETTORI).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluation of 21-Numbered Circle and 10-Centimeter Horizontal Line Visual Analog Scales for Physician and Parent Subjective Ratings in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

Objective.To evaluate the measurement properties of 21-numbered circle visual analog scales (VAS) and traditional 10-cm horizontal line VAS for physician and parent subjective ratings in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).Methods.We studied 2 patient samples in whom physician global rating of overall disease activity, parent global rating of the child's overall well-being, and parent rating of intensity of child's pain were performed using traditional 10-cm horizontal line VAS (n = 397) or 21-numbered circle VAS (n = 471). The measurement performances of the 2 VAS formats were examined by assessing construct validity, score distribution, responsiveness to change over time, and minimal clinically important difference (MCID).Results.Most Spearman correlations with other JIA outcome measures yielded by 21-numbered circle VAS were greater than those obtained with 10-cm horizontal line VAS, revealing that the circle VAS format has better construct validity. Ceiling effects (i.e., score = 0) for physician and parent global ratings were 43.7% and 32.9%, respectively, on 21-numbered circle VAS, and 31.6% and 35.3%, respectively, on 10-cm horizontal line VAS. Responsiveness of 21-numbered circle VAS was good (standardized response mean > 0.8) or moderate (standardized response mean > 0.6) among patients classified as improved or worsened, respectively, by the physician or the parent. Overall, MCID values for 21-numbered circle VAS tended to be greater for worsening than for improvement.Conclusion.The 21-numbered circle VAS are a suitable alternative to the 10-cm horizontal line VAS and may facilitate incorporation of physician and parent subjective ratings in standard clinical practice