Visual engagement with urban street edges: insights using mobile eye-tracking

This study provides empirical insight into the extent to which pedestrians visually engage with urban street edges and how social and spatial factors impact such engagement. This was achieved using mobile eye-tracking. The gaze distribution of 24 study participants was systematically recorded as they carried out everyday tasks on differing streets. The findings demonstrated that street edges are the most visually engaged component of streets; that street edge visual engagement is impacted by everyday social tasks as well as the spatial and physical materiality of edges on differing streets; and that street edges, which attract a lot of visual engagement while undertaking optional tasks, also attract greater amounts of visual engagement while undertaking necessary tasks. These findings offer new insight into urban street edge engagement from the direct perspective of street inhabitants and in doing so provide greater understanding of how street edges are experienced

Validating DICOM Content in a Remote Storage Model

Verifying the integrity of DICOM files transmitted between separate archives (eg, storage service providers, network attached storage, or storage area networks) is of critical importance. The software application described in this article retrieves a specified number of DICOM studies from two different DICOM storage applications; the primary picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and an off-site long-term archive. The system includes a query/retrieve (Q/R) module, storage service class provider (SCP), a DICOM comparison module, and a graphical user interface. The system checks the two studies for DICOM 3.0 compliance and then verifies that the DICOM data elements and pixel data are identical. Discrepancies in the two data sets are recorded with the data elements (tag number, value representation, value length, and value field) and pixel data (pixel value and pixel location) in question. The system can be operated automatically, in batch mode, and manually to meet a wide variety of use cases. We ran this program on a 15% statistical sample of 50,000 studies (7500 studies examined). We found 2 pixel data mismatches (resolved on retransmission) and 831 header element mismatches. We subsequently ran the program against a smaller batch of 1000 studies, identifying no pixel data mismatches and 958 header element mismatches. Although we did not find significant issues in our limited study, given other incidents that we have experienced when moving images between systems, we conclude that it is vital to maintain an ongoing, automatic, systematic validation of DICOM transfers so as to be proactive in preventing possibly catastrophic data loss

Public squares in European city centres

During the latter part of the twentieth century, while a small number of exemplar city centre squares continued to be attractive places, the vast majority acquired either an image of empty spaces or an unattractive picture as traffic islands. This was emphasised by the decline of traditional community activities and the perception of comfort generated by internalising external space; coupled with a commodifying of cities in which they were merely viewed as commercial and retail opportunities. Communities need public spaces as places for assembly. They are the physical manifestation that each community is coherent and vibrant. Increasingly, it is being recognised that identity and place have enormous roles in reinforcing society. The re-introduction of public squares is part of reversing the erosion of the public sector and the public realm, and reclaiming city centres from private interests for the benefit of communities. Criteria for comfortable external spaces have been researched, and these recognise the differences between Northern and Southern Europe. The most recent advances are in the simulation of city centre design; which includes geometry, uses, pedestrian movement and environmental conditions. There is confidence to be gained from visualisation of how squares will look, feel and be used; and will make a real contribution to sustainable urban design

Vitalit\ue0 della cultura classica nel dialogo con il contemporaneo (a proposito della mostra di F. Vezzoli \u201cMuseo Museion\u201d)

Il contributo \ue8 incentrato sul tema dell'attualizzazione dell'arte e della cultura classica realizzata nella mostra di Francesco Vezzoli intitolata "Museo Museion", esposta presso il Museo d'arte moderna e contemporanea di Bolzano. Essa offre l'esempio di una originale rilettura e di un vitale dialogo tra passato e presente, particolarmente adatto ad incuriosire e coinvolgere le nuove generazioni, nel confronto - talvolta bonariamente ironico - fra armonia classica ed emotivit\ue0 moderna

Recommendations for improving the quality of reporting clinical electrochemotherapy studies based on qualitative systematic review

Electrochemotherapy is becoming a well-established treatment for malignancies of skin and non-skin origin and its use is widening across Europe. The technique was developed and optimized from solid experimental and clinical evidence. A consensus document is now warranted to formalize reporting results, which should strengthen evidence-based practice recommendations. This consensus should be derived from high quality clinical data collection, clinical expertise and summarizing patient feedback. The first step, which is addressed in this paper, aims to critically analyze the quality of published studies and to provide the recommendations for reporting clinical trials on electrochemotherapy

Recommendations for improving the quality of reporting clinical electrochemotherapy studies based on qualitative systematic review

BACKGROUND: Electrochemotherapy is becoming a well-established treatment for malignancies of skin and non-skin origin and its use is widening across Europe. The technique was developed and optimized from solid experimental and clinical evidence. A consensus document is now warranted to formalize reporting results, which should strengthen evidence-based practice recommendations. This consensus should be derived from high quality clinical data collection, clinical expertise and summarizing patient feedback. The first step, which is addressed in this paper, aims to critically analyze the quality of published studies and to provide the recommendations for reporting clinical trials on electrochemotherapy. METHODS: The quality of reporting in published studies on electrochemotherapy was analyzed in order to produce procedure specific reporting recommendations. A comprehensive literature search of studies published from 2006 to 2015 was performed followed by qualitative analysis of manuscripts assessing for 47 quality criteria grouped into four major clusters: (1) trial design, (2) description of patient population, (3) description of treatment delivery and patient outcome, (4) analysis of results and their interpretation. The summary measure during literature assessment was the proportion of studies fulfilling each manuscript quality criteria. RESULTS: A total of 56 studies were screened, from the period 2006 to 2015, of which 33 were included in the qualitative analysis, with a total of 1215 patients. Overall, the quality of reporting was highly variable. Twenty-four reports (73%) were single-center, non-comparative studies, and only 15 (45%) were prospective in nature (only 2 of them were entered into a clinical trials registry). Electrochemotherapy technique was consistently reported, with most studies (31/33) adhering closely to published standard operating procedures. The quality of reporting the patient population was variable among the analyzed studies, with only between 45% and 100% achieving dedicated quality criteria. Reporting of treatment delivery and patient outcome was also highly variable with studies only fulfilling between 3% and 100%. Finally, reporting study results critically varied, fulfilling from 27% to 100% of the quality criteria. Based on the critical issues emerging from this analysis, recommendations and minimal requirements for reporting clinical data on electrochemotherapy were prepared and summarized into a checklist. CONCLUSIONS: There is an increasing body of published clinical data on electrochemotherapy, but more high quality clinical data are needed. Published papers often lack accurate description of study population, treatment delivery as well as patient outcome. Our recommendations, provided in the form of a summary checklist, are intended to ameliorate data reporting in future studies on electrochemotherapy and help researchers to provide a solid evidence basis for clinical practice