BCI-assisted training for upper limb motor rehabilitation: estimation of effects on individual brain connectivity and motor functions

The aim of the study is to quantify individual changes in scalp connectivity patterns associated to the affected hand movement in stroke patients after a 1-month training based on BCIsupported motor imagery to improve upper limb motor recovery. To perform the statistical evaluation between pre- and post-training conditions at the single subject level, a resampling approach was applied to EEG datasets acquired from 12 stroke patients during the execution of a motor task with the stroke affected hand before and after the rehabilitative intervention. Significant patterns of the network reinforced after the training were extracted and a significant correlation was found between indices related to the reinforced pattern and the clinical outcome indicated by clinical scales

First Ex-Vivo Validation of a Radioguided Surgery Technique with beta- Radiation

Purpose: A radio-guided surgery technique with beta- -emitting radio-tracers was suggested to overcome the effect of the large penetration of gamma radiation. The feasibility studies in the case of brain tumors and abdominal neuro-endocrine tumors were based on simulations starting from PET images with several underlying assumptions. This paper reports, as proof-of-principle of this technique, an ex-vivo test on a meningioma patient. This test allowed to validate the whole chain, from the evaluation of the SUV of the tumor, to the assumptions on the bio-distribution and the signal detection. Methods: A patient affected by meningioma was administered 300 MBq of 90Y-DOTATOC. Several samples extracted from the meningioma and the nearby Dura Mater were analyzed with a beta- probe designed specifically for this radio-guided surgery technique. The observed signals were compared both with the evaluation from the histology and with the Monte Carlo simulation. Results: we obtained a large signal on the bulk tumor (105 cps) and a significant signal on residuals of $\sim$0.2 ml (28 cps). We also show that simulations predict correctly the observed yields and this allows us to estimate that the healthy tissues would return negligible signals (~1 cps). This test also demonstrated that the exposure of the medical staff is negligible and that among the biological wastes only urine has a significant activity. Conclusions: This proof-of-principle test on a patient assessed that the technique is feasible with negligible background to medical personnel and confirmed that the expectations obtained with Monte Carlo simulations starting from diagnostic PET images are correct.Comment: 17 pages, 4 Figs, Accepted by Physica Medic

Measurement of secondary particle production induced by particle therapy ion beams impinging on a PMMA target

Particle therapy is a technique that uses accelerated charged ions for cancer treatment and combines a high irradiation precision with a high biological effectiveness in killing tumor cells [1]. Informations about the secondary particles emitted in the interaction of an ion beam with the patient during a treatment can be of great interest in order to monitor the dose deposition. For this purpose an experiment at the HIT (Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center) beam facility has been performed in order to measure fluxes and emission profiles of secondary particles produced in the interaction of therapeutic beams with a PMMA target. In this contribution some preliminary results about the emission profiles and the energy spectra of the detected secondaries will be presente

In Car Audio

This chapter presents implementations of advanced in Car Audio Applications. The system is composed by three main different applications regarding the In Car listening and communication experience. Starting from a high level description of the algorithms, several implementations on different levels of hardware abstraction are presented, along with empirical results on both the design process undergone and the performance results achieved

Development of a gas absorption heat pump for residential applications

Thermally Driven Heat Pumps represent an option to reduce the energy consumption for space heating and domestic hot water in hard-to-decarbonize buildings without impacting the electrical grid and utilizing the current and future gaseous energy vectors with high efficiency. Ariston Group and Politecnico di Milano developed a gas absorption heat pump for the residential market, exploiting design and manufacturing solutions to enable large-scale production and introducing technical features to assure high performance over the entire working range. In particular, the use of a variable restrictor setup coupled with a patented solution, called “booster”, can reduce the temperature of the generator at high load and high lift conditions, enabling the heat pump to provide the nominal capacity from -22 °C to +40 °C of outdoor air temperature, with supply temperature up to 70 °C. Moreover, coupled with a specifically designed combustion system, the heat pump can modulate at 1:6 ratio of its nominal capacity. This feature makes it possible to maintain high efficiency also at part load conditions, avoiding the on-off operation and making redundant the installation of inertial buffer. Additionally, an innovative strategy to perform the defrosting of the air-sourced heat exchanger without the need of acting on the thermodynamic cycle has been developed. This allows defrosting operations extremely fast, while offering an almost negligible effect on the heat pump performance and substantially no interruption to the heating service and contributing to the elimination of the need to install an inertial buffer. The thermodynamic core of the appliance was built targeting large scale production. It allows for high specific capacity (kg/kW) and a small footprint (m2/kW) with the ability to serve nominal capacities ranging from 8 to 15 kW based on the configurations. Laboratory test to assess the performances based on the European Standard EN 12309 returned a seasonal gas utilization efficiency on the net calorific of 1.50, a seasonal primary energy ratio of 1.27, and extremely low electrical consumption for the auxiliaries

Bryophytes: how to conquer an alien planet and live happily (ever after)

There are many push and pull factors that commonly drive individuals to leave their homeland. For example, escaping competition and occupying a novel habitat undoubtedly offer the advantage of new opportunities to pilgrims, but the absence of unfavorable biotic interactions can be counterbalanced by other antagonistic abiotic forces. After all, conquering an alien planet is not now nor ever was an easy task. We cannot know how many attempts and failures have punctuated the journey that led ancestral, photosynthetic organisms to leave the aquatic world and successfully establish on dry land. However, some traits developed by the ancestors of modern bryophytes that allowed them to adapt their life cycle to such a different habitat and persist there, have been undoubtedly identified

Eukaryotic and prokaryotic phytochelatin synthases differ less in functional terms than previously thought: a comparative analysis of Marchantia polymorpha and Geitlerinema sp. PCC 7407

This paper reports functional studies on the enzyme phytochelatin synthase in the liverwortMarchantia polymorphaand the cyanobacteriumGeitlerinemasp. strain PCC 7407. In vitro activity assays in control samples (cadmium-untreated) showed that phytochelatin synthase was constitutively expressed in both organisms. In the presence of 100 mu M cadmium, in both the liverwort and the cyanobacterium, the enzyme was promptly activated in vitro, and produced phytochelatins up to the oligomer PC4. Likewise,in vivoexposure to 10-36 mu M cadmium for 6-120 h induced in both organisms phytochelatin synthesis up to PC4. Furthermore, the glutathione (GSH) levels inM. polymorphawere constitutively low (compared with the average content in higher plants), but increased considerably under cadmium stress. Conversely, the GSH levels inGeitlerinemasp. PCC 7407 were constitutively high, but were halved under metal treatments. At odds with former papers, our results demonstrate that, as inM. polymorphaand other plants, the cyanobacterial phytochelatin synthase exposed to cadmium possesses manifest transpeptidasic activity, being able to synthesize phytochelatins with a degree of oligomerization higher than PC2. Therefore, prokaryotic and eukaryotic phytochelatin synthases differ less in functional terms than previously thought

Phosphorus and metal removal combined with lipid production by the green microalga Desmodesmus sp.: An integrated approach

This work focused on the potential of Desmodesmus sp. to be employed for wastewater 15 bioremediation and biodiesel production. The green microalga was grown in a culture medium with a phosphorus (P) content of 4.55 mg L-1 16 simulating an industrial effluent; it was also exposed to a bimetal solution of copper (Cu) and nickel (Ni) for 2 days. P removal was between 94 and 100%. After 2 days of exposure to metals, 94% of Cu and 85% of Ni were removed by Desmodesmus sp. Adsorption tests showed that the green microalga was able to remove up to 90% of Cu and 43% of Ni in less than 30 minutes. The presence of metals decreased the lipid yield, but biodiesel quality from the biomass obtained from metal exposed samples was higher than that grown without metals. This result revealed that this technology could offer a new alternative solution to environmental pollution and carbon-neutral fuel generation

Tools for in vitro propagation/synchronization of the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha and application of a validated HPLC-ESI-MS-MS method for glutathione and phytochelatin analysis

Bryophytes, due to their poikilohydric nature and peculiar traits, are useful and versatile organisms for studies on metal accumulation and detoxification in plants. Among bryophytes, the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha is an excellent candidate as a model organism, having a key role in plant evolutionary history. In particular, M. polymorpha axenic cultivation of gametophytes offers several advantages, such as fast growth, easy propagation and high efficiency of crossing. Thus, the main purpose of this work was to promote and validate experimental procedures useful in the establishment of a standardized set-up of M. polymorpha gametophytes, as well as to study cadmium detoxification processes in terms of thiol-peptide production, detection and characterisation by HPLC-mass spectrometry. The results show how variations in the composition of the Murashige and Skoog medium impact the growth rate or development of this liverwort, and what levels of glutathione and phytochelatins are produced by gametophytes to counteract cadmium stress