2,400 research outputs found
Field evaluation of a second-generation cytometer UF-100 in diagnosis of acute urinary tract infections in adult patients
AbstractAims The authors evaluated the analytical performance of the Sysmex UF-100 cytometer vs. the diagnosis of urinary tract infections (UTI).Methods We considered 2010 subjects, aged between 18 and 78, 870 males and 1140 females. The majority (90.2%) of the samples were voided urine specimens collected by using the midstream technique. Each sample was subjected to microbiological evaluation (culture + residual antibacterial activity), dipstick tests, UF-100 examination and microscopic observation. In order to obtain a final diagnosis of UTI these laboratory results were taken into consideration together with clinical data and patients' characteristics. The analytical performance of the laboratory tests was obtained by adopting this diagnosis as standard practice.Results Out of the total 2010 subjects considered a clinical diagnosis of UTI was obtained in 529 cases (26.32%). The UF-100-based screening had sensitivity, 0.94; specificity, 0.93; positive predictive value, 0.83; negative predictive value, 0.98; and correctly classified incidence, 0.93.Conclusions In our experience the results of the UF-100-based screening show a very good correlation with the diagnosis of acute UTI in adults patients
Shedding light on nocturnal movements in parkinson’s disease: Evidence from wearable technologies
In Parkinson’s disease (PD), abnormal movements consisting of hypokinetic and hyperkinetic manifestations commonly lead to nocturnal distress and sleep impairment, which significantly impact quality of life. In PD patients, these nocturnal disturbances can reflect diseaserelated complications (e.g., nocturnal akinesia), primary sleep disorders (e.g., rapid eye movement behaviour disorder), or both, thus requiring different therapeutic approaches. Wearable technologies based on actigraphy and innovative sensors have been proposed as feasible solutions to identify and monitor the various types of abnormal nocturnal movements in PD. This narrative review addresses the topic of abnormal nocturnal movements in PD and discusses how wearable technologies could help identify and assess these disturbances. We first examine the pathophysiology of abnormal nocturnal movements and the main clinical and instrumental tools for the evaluation of these disturbances in PD. We then report and discuss findings from previous studies assessing nocturnal movements in PD using actigraphy and innovative wearable sensors. Finally, we discuss clinical and technical prospects supporting the use of wearable technologies for the evaluation of nocturnal movements
Correlation between wearable inertial sensor data and standardised Parkinson's disease axial impairment measures using machine learning
Wearable sensors represent a valuable means for monitoring motion signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD). In this paper, we explore the potential of a single inertial sensor to yield information correlated to the patient’s subjective perception of axial motion impairment during daily activities. This latter is expressed using as a relevant metric the sum of MDS-UPDRS items 2.11-2.13. Methods: thirty-one patients with PD were enrolled in this study, and asked to perform a timed-up-and-go test while wearing an inertial sensor on their thigh. Several time- and frequency-domain features were extracted from the inertial signals. They were fed to a random forest regression model for the prediction of the axial impairment metric. The model was optimized using 10-fold cross-validation and performance were assessed using leave-one-subject-out test. Results: Pearson correlation coefficient with the addressed metric of 0.76 (0.86) and mean absolute error of 1.70 (1.52) were obtained in patients under (not under) dopaminergic therapy. Moreover, moderate to strong correlations were found between the predicted score and some important disease progression, axial impairment, and motor performance metrics. Conclusion: a single wearable inertial sensor may be used for assessing motor disabilities of patients with PD
The role of micronutrients in high-yielding dairy ruminants: Choline and vitamin E
This review addresses the potential role of antioxidants and methyl-group sources in optimising the metabolic health of dairy ruminants. The productivity of high-yielding dairy cows has increased over the past 40 years and the milk yield has doubled. Such increases in milk production have been observed not only in dairy cows but also to some extent in other dairy ruminants such as ewes, goats and buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis). As a consequence, in all specialized dairy ruminants it is essential to optimize the macro and micro-nutrient supply, especially during the most critical period in the animals' production cycle i.e. from parturition until the peak of lactation. In this critical phase, an array of factors can enhance the balance between the intake and demand for nutrients, although the availability and supply of the selected micronutrients is also important. The supplementation of dietary antioxidants or boosting the endogenous methyl group status, via vitamin E, selenium and choline are proposed as possible strategies in maintaining stable metabolic health and optimising milk production
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle for Food Waste: A Second Life for Fresh-Cut Leafy Salad Crops in Animal Diets
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The world\u2019s population is growing rapidly, which means that the environmental impact of food production needs to be reduced and that food should be considered as something precious and not wasted. Moreover, an urgent challenge facing the planet is the competition between the food produced for humans and the feed for animals. There are various solutions such as the use of plant/vegetable by-products (PBPs) and former foodstuffs, which are the co/by-products of processing industries, or the food losses generated by the food production chain for human consumption. This paper reviews the by-co-products derived from the transformation of fresh-cut leafy salad crops. A preliminary nutritional evaluation of these materials is thus proposed. Based on their composition and nutritional features, in some cases similar to fresh forage and grasses, this biomass seems to be a suitable feedstuff for selected farm animals, such as ruminants. In conclusion, although the present data are not exhaustive and further studies are needed to weigh up the possible advantages and disadvantages of these materials, fresh-cut leafy salad crops represent a potential unconventional feed ingredient that could help in exploiting the circular economy in livestock production, thereby improving sustainability
Objective assessment of walking impairments in myotonic dystrophy by means of a wearable technology and a novel severity index
Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is a genetic inherited autosomal dominant disease characterized by multisystem involvement, including muscle, heart, brain, eye, and endocrine system. Although several methods are available to evaluate muscle strength, endurance, and dexterity, there are no validated outcome measures aimed at objectively evaluating qualitative and quantitative gait alterations. Advantageously, wearable sensing technology has been successfully adopted in objectifying the assessment of motor disabilities in different medical occurrences, so that here we consider the adoption of such technology specifically for DM1. In particular, we measured motor tasks through inertial measurement units on a cohort of 13 DM1 patients and 11 healthy control counterparts. The motor tasks consisted of 16 meters of walking both at a comfortable speed and fast pace. Measured data consisted of plantar-flexion and dorsi-flexion angles assumed by both ankles, so to objectively evidence the footdrop behavior of the DM1 disease, and to define a novel severity index, termed SI-Norm2, to rate the grade of walking impairments. According to the obtained results, our approach could be useful for a more precise stratification of DM1 patients, providing a new tool for a personalized rehabilitation approach
Bone mineral status and metabolism in patients with Williams-Beuren syndrome.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate bone mineral status and metabolism in a cohort of patients with Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS).
PATIENTS: Thirty-one children (15 females, 16 males; mean age 9.6±2.74 years) and 10 young adults (6 females, 4 males; mean age 21.4±5.11 years) with WBS were cross-sectionally evaluated and compared with two age-, sex-, and body-size-matched paediatric (155 subjects, 75 females and 80 males; mean age 9.7±2.93 years) and adult (50 subjects, 30 females and 20 males; mean age 22.3±5.42 years) healthy controls.
MEASUREMENTS: We evaluated ionised and total calcium, phosphate, parathyroid hormone (PTH), 25-hydroxyvitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, osteocalcin, bone alkaline phosphatase levels, and urinary deoxypyridinoline concentrations. We also calculated the phalangeal amplitude-dependent speed of sound (AD-SoS) and the bone transmission time (BTT) z-scores.
RESULTS: WBS patients showed a significantly reduced AD-SoS z-score (p <0.001) and BTT z-score (p <0.001) compared with the controls. This finding persisted when we divided the sample into paediatric and adult patients. WBS patients also had significantly higher ionised (p <0.001) and total calcium (p <0.001) levels as well as higher PTH levels (p <0.001) compared with the controls. Furthermore, WBS children and adolescents had significantly lower serum osteocalcin levels (p <0.001) and urinary deoxypyridinoline concentrations (p <0.001) than controls.
CONCLUSIONS: WBS subjects exhibit a significant reduction in bone mineral status and impaired bone metabolism. These findings point to the need for close monitoring of WBS patients
CsI(Tl) Pulse Shape Discrimination with the Belle II Electromagnetic Calorimeter as a Novel Method to Improve Particle Identification at Electron-Positron Colliders
This paper describes the implementation and performance of CsI(Tl) pulse
shape discrimination for the Belle II electromagnetic calorimeter, representing
the first application of CsI(Tl) pulse shape discrimination for particle
identification at an electron-positron collider. The pulse shape
characterization algorithms applied by the Belle II calorimeter are described.
Control samples of , , , and are
used to demonstrate the significant insight into the secondary particle
composition of calorimeter clusters that is provided by CsI(Tl) pulse shape
discrimination. Comparisons with simulation are presented and provide further
validation for newly developed CsI(Tl) scintillation response simulation
techniques, which when incorporated with GEANT4 simulations allow the particle
dependent scintillation response of CsI(Tl) to be modelled. Comparisons between
data and simulation also demonstrate that pulse shape discrimination can be a
new tool to identify sources of improvement in the simulation of hadronic
interactions in materials. The efficiency and photon-as-hadron
fake-rate of a multivariate classifier that is trained to use pulse shape
discrimination is presented and comparisons are made to a shower-shape based
approach. CsI(Tl) pulse shape discrimination is shown to reduce the
photon-as-hadron fake-rate by over a factor of 3 at photon energies of 0.2 GeV
and over a factor 10 at photon energies of 1 GeV
Photon Reconstruction in the Belle II Calorimeter Using Graph Neural Networks
We present the study of a fuzzy clustering algorithm for the Belle II
electromagnetic calorimeter using Graph Neural Networks. We use a realistic
detector simulation including simulated beam backgrounds and focus on the
reconstruction of both isolated and overlapping photons. We find significant
improvements of the energy resolution compared to the currently used
reconstruction algorithm for both isolated and overlapping photons of more than
30% for photons with energies E < 0.5 GeV and high levels of beam backgrounds.
Overall, the GNN reconstruction improves the resolution and reduces the tails
of the reconstructed energy distribution and therefore is a promising option
for the upcoming high luminosity running of Belle II.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure
Recommended from our members
Measurement of B(B-->X_s {\gamma}), the B-->X_s {\gamma} photon energy spectrum, and the direct CP asymmetry in B-->X_{s+d} {\gamma} decays
The photon spectrum in B --> X_s {\gamma} decay, where X_s is any strange
hadronic state, is studied using a data sample of (382.8\pm 4.2) \times 10^6
e^+ e^- --> \Upsilon(4S) --> BBbar events collected by the BABAR experiment at
the PEP-II collider. The spectrum is used to measure the branching fraction B(B
--> X_s \gamma) = (3.21 \pm 0.15 \pm 0.29 \pm 0.08)\times 10^{-4} and the
first, second, and third moments = 2.267 \pm 0.019 \pm 0.032 \pm
0.003 GeV,, )^2> = 0.0484 \pm 0.0053 \pm 0.0077 \pm
0.0005 GeV^2, and )^3> = -0.0048 \pm 0.0011 \pm 0.0011
\pm 0.0004 GeV^3, for the range E_\gamma > 1.8 GeV, where E_{\gamma} is the
photon energy in the B-meson rest frame. Results are also presented for
narrower E_{\gamma} ranges. In addition, the direct CP asymmetry A_{CP}(B -->
X_{s+d} \gamma) is measured to be 0.057 \pm 0.063. The spectrum itself is also
unfolded to the B-meson rest frame; that is the frame in which theoretical
predictions for its shape are made.Comment: 37 pages, 19 postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D. No
analysis or results have changed from previous version. Some changes to
improve clarity based on interactions with Phys. Rev. D referees, including
one new Figure (Fig. 13), and some minor wording/punctuation/spelling
mistakes fixe
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