An HLD framework for cationic ammonium surfactants

The Hydrophilic-Lipophilic Difference (HLD) model can be described by additive contributions accounting for the effect of the oil and surfactant nature, temperature, ionic strength, and so on. The first step to build an HLD framework for a surfactant class is to have Winsor III phase equilibria in a restricted range of formulation variables. In this respect, anionic and nonionic surfactants are well suited for an HLD study. On the contrary, it is difficult achieve for pure cationic surfactant Winsor III phase equilibria without the addition of alcohols and this has precluded the extension of the HLD to cationic surfactants. In the present contribution, we first propose a system based on a blend of single-tailed and double-tailed cationic surfactant to study the oil contribution, and then we afforded the determination of the surfactant contribution trough an experimental approach (the “HLD-titration”) that is especially tailored for systems displaying a wide range of existence of Winsor III phase equilibria. HLD-titration results confirmed the ionic strength contribution to HLD as a logarithmic function of salinity for cationic-based microemulsions similarly to anionic ones. However, the oil carbon number contribution is almost four-fold larger (k=0.70.1) with respect to anionic surfactants. A clearing point was observed in correspondence of the Winsor III phase equilibria under stirring. This approach allows us the determination of the so-called characteristic curvature (Cc), i.e. the term describing the surfactant nature contribution to the film curvature, of the cationic surfactant. Finally, the method was adopted to determine Cc values of 7 quaternary ammonium surfactants differing in the polar heads nature and further three amine oxide surfactant at pH=1 where they are protonated

MatFuse: Controllable Material Generation with Diffusion Models

Creating high quality and realistic materials in computer graphics is a challenging and time-consuming task, which requires great expertise. In this paper, we present MatFuse, a novel unified approach that harnesses the generative power of diffusion models (DM) to simplify the creation of SVBRDF maps. Our DM-based pipeline integrates multiple sources of conditioning, such as color palettes, sketches, and pictures, enabling fine-grained control and flexibility in material synthesis. This design allows for the combination of diverse information sources (e.g., sketch + image embedding), enhancing creative possibilities in line with the principle of compositionality. We demonstrate the generative capabilities of the proposed method under various conditioning settings; on the SVBRDF estimation task, we show that our method yields performance comparable to state-of-the-art approaches, both qualitatively and quantitatively

Trade-Offs between Energy Saving and Reliability in Low Duty Cycle Wireless Sensor Networks Using a Packet Splitting Forwarding Technique

One of the challenging topics and design constraints in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is the reduction of energy consumption because, in most application scenarios, replacement of power resources in sensor devices might be unfeasible. In order to minimize the power consumption, some nodes can be put to sleep during idle times and wake up only when needed. Although it seems the best way to limit the consumption of energy, other performance parameters such as network reliability have to be considered. In a recent paper, we introduced a new forwarding algorithm for WSNs based on a simple splitting procedure able to increase the network lifetime. The forwarding technique is based on the Chinese Remainder Theorem and exhibits very good results in terms of energy efficiency and complexity. In this paper, we intend to investigate a trade-off between energy efficiency and reliability of the proposed forwarding scheme when duty-cycling techniques are considered too

Meat intake and non-Hodgkin lymphoma: a meta-analysis of observational studies

Purpose: High intake of meat has been inconsistently associated with increased risk of NonHodgkin Lymphoma (NHL). We carried out a meta-analysis to summarise the evidence of published observational studies reporting association between red meat and processed meat intake and NHL risk. Methods: Analytical studies reporting relative risks with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for the association between intake of red and/or processed meat and NHL or major histological subtypes were eligible. We conducted random-effects meta-analysis comparing lowest and highest intake categories and dose-response meta-analysis when risk estimates and intake levels were available for more than three exposure classes. Results: Fourteen studies (4 cohort and 10 case-control) were included in the meta-analysis, involving a total of 10121 NHL cases. The overall relative risks of NHL for the highest versus the lowest category of consumption were 1.14 (95%CI: 1.03, 1.26) for red meat and 1.06 (95%CI: 0.98, 1.15) for processed meat. Significant associations were present when the analysis was restricted to case-control studies but not when restricted to cohort studies. No significant associations were found for major NHL etiological subtypes. Dose response meta-analysis could be based only on 8 studies that provided sufficient data and, compared to no meat consumption, the overall NHL relative risk increased not linearly with increased daily intake of red meat. Conclusion: The observed positive association between red meat consumption and NHL is mainly supported by the effect estimates coming from case-control studies and is affected by multiple sources of heterogeneity. This meta-analysis provided mixed and inconclusive evidences on the supposed relationship between red and processed meat consumption and NHL

Videolaparo-assisted subtotal colectomy with cecorectal anastomosis in the treatment of chronic slow transit constipation

Mechanical cecorectal anastomosis after subtotal colectomy, in the treatment of slow transit constipation, probably represents the most attractive surgical alternative to total colectomy and ileorectal anastomosis. In fact the operation allows better results in terms of postoperative diarrhoea, fecal incontinence and postoperative adherential syndrome. Literature data have demonstrated the feasibility of the laparoscopic approach with tipically advantages of less invasive surgery respect of parietal integrity,less postoperative pain and ileus, fewer postoperative adhesions, a reduced hospitalitation and finally, a better cosmesis. The Authors report a case of mechanical end to end cecorectal anastomosis after laparo-assisted subtotal colectomy (by four trocars) preserving superior rectal and ilecolic vessels, for the treatment of slow transit constipation in a 20 years old male patient .The reported operative approach which links tipical laparoscopic advantages to a more “safety” and “accurate” extracorporeal mechanical anastomosis

Malpractice and patient safety descriptors: an innovative grid to evaluate the quality of clinical records

Introduction: The medical record contains all the health information related to the patient’s clinical condition and its evolution during hospitalization. It was defined by the Italian Ministry of Health in 1992 as "The information tool designed to record all relevant demographic and clinical information about a patient during a single episode of hospitalization". The documents and information in a Medical Record must meet the following criteria: traceability, clarity, accuracy, authenticity, pertinence and completeness. The objectives of our study was to develop a tool capable of assessing the quality of the clinical record and pointed the critical point at the Organizational, Technical - Professional, Managerial level. Methods: To evaluate the quality of the medical documentation, we created an assessment grid composed of 4 sections with a total of 92 criteria. This grid was tested on 200 medical records that were randomly selected from 25 (18 medical and 7 surgical) wards of a teaching hospital in Rome. Results: The grid contains 4 sections. The first part regards administrative and clinical data; the second assesses the quality of hospital stay and surgical/invasive procedures; the third part is concerned with the discharge of the patient and the fourth aims to identify the presence of advisory reports given to the patient. This grid has been validated to verify internal consistency with Cronbach's Alpha = 0,743. Conclusions: Medical records were analyzed using a validated tool with grids to identify critical issues in care activities. Weaknesses in the system were identified in order to improve planning. The sample testing also in terms of ‘self-assessment' represents a tool to introduce activities to improve safety and quality of care, greatly reducing the costs of litigation

MIDGARD: A Simulation Platform for Autonomous Navigation in Unstructured Environments

We present MIDGARD, an open-source simulation platform for autonomous robot navigation in outdoor unstructured environments. MIDGARD is designed to enable the training of autonomous agents (e.g., unmanned ground vehicles) in photorealistic 3D environments, and to support the generalization skills of learning-based agents through the variability in training scenarios. MIDGARD's main features include a configurable, extensible, and difficulty-driven procedural landscape generation pipeline, with fast and photorealistic scene rendering based on Unreal Engine. Additionally, MIDGARD has built-in support for OpenAI Gym, a programming interface for feature extension (e.g., integrating new types of sensors, customizing exposing internal simulation variables), and a variety of simulated agent sensors (e.g., RGB, depth and instance/semantic segmentation). We evaluate MIDGARD's capabilities as a benchmarking tool for robot navigation utilizing a set of state-of-the-art reinforcement learning algorithms. The results demonstrate MIDGARD's suitability as a simulation and training environment, as well as the effectiveness of our procedural generation approach in controlling scene difficulty, which directly reflects on accuracy metrics. MIDGARD build, source code and documentation are available at https://midgardsim.org/

Quality assessment of medical record as a tool for clinical risk management: a three year experience of a teaching hospital Policlinico Umberto I, Rome

Introduction: The medical record was defined by the Italian Ministry of Health in 1992 as "the information tool designed to record all relevant demographic and clinical information on a patient during a single hospitalization episode". Retrospective analysis of medical records is a tool for selecting direct and indirect indicators of critical issues (organizational, management and technical). The project’s aim being the promotion of an evaluation and self-evaluation process of medical records as a Clinical Risk Management tool to improve the quality of care within hospitals. Methods: The Authors have retrospectively analysed, using a validated grid, 1,184 medical records of patients admitted to the Teaching Hospital “Umberto I” in Rome during a three-year period (2013-2015). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS for Windows © 19:00. All duly filled out criteria (92) were examined. “Strengths” and "Weaknesses" were identified through data analysis and Best and Bad Practice were identified based on established criteria. Conclusion: The data analysis showed marked improvements (statistically significant) in the quality of evaluated clinical documentation and indirectly upon behaviour. However, when examining some sub-criteria, critical issues emerge; these could be subject to future further corrective action

T cells and delayed graft function

Ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) in kidney transplantation is the major cause of delayed graft function (DGF), an event associated with an increased risk of acute rejection. The aim of this study was to evaluate T helper (Th) cell phenotype in renal transplants with DGF. T-bet (Th1), GATA-3 (Th2) and IL-17 (Th17) protein expression was investigated in pretransplant biopsies, DGF and acute tubular damage (ATD) caused by calcineurin-inhibitor toxicity. Intracytofluorimetric analysis of IFN-γ, IL-4 and IL-17 was performed to analyze Th1, Th2 and Th17 responses in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of recipients with early graft function (EGF) and DGF, before (T0) and 24 h after transplantation (T24). In pretransplant biopsies, T-bet(+) , GATA-3(+) and IL-17(+) cells were barely detectable. In DGF, T-bet(+) and IL-17(+) cells were significantly increased compared with pretransplant and ATD. More than 90% of T-bet(+) and less then 5% of IL-17(+) cells were CD4(+) . GATA-3(+) cells were increased to a lower extent. T-bet(+) /GATA-3(+) cell ratio was significantly higher in DGF. Peripheral CD4(+) IFN-γ/IL-4 ratio was significantly decreased in DGF, while CD4(+) /IL-17(+) cells did not differ between T0 and T24 in DGF. Our data suggest that DGF is characterized by a prevalent Th1 phenotype within the graft. This event might represent a link between DGF and acute rejection