Transcranial magnetic stimulation as a new tool to control pain perception.

Treatment for chronic pain is frequently unsuccessful or characterized by side-effects. The high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (HF-rTMS) has been suggested in the management of refractory chronic pain. Various studies have shown that HF-rTMS sessions of long-duration applied at primary motor cortex induce pain relief through mechanisms of plastic changes. Efficacy of rTMS mostly depends on stimulation parameters, but this aspect requires better characterization. A rationale to target other cortical areas exists. Current data are promising, but a careful analysis of stimulation settings and maintenance treatment design are need

Visualizing correlations among Parkinson biomedical data through information retrieval and machine learning techniques

AbstractIn the last few years, the integration of researches in Computer Science and medical fields has made available to the scientific community an enormous amount of data, stored in databases. In this paper, we analyze the data available in the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), a comprehensive observational, multi-center study designed to identify progression biomarkers important for better treatments for Parkinson's disease. The data of PPMI participants are collected through a comprehensive battery of tests and assessments including Magnetic Resonance Imaging and DATscan imaging, collection of blood, cerebral spinal fluid, and urine samples, as well as cognitive and motor evaluations. To this aim, we propose a technique to identify a correlation between the biomedical data in the PPMI dataset for verifying the consistency of medical reports formulated during the visits and allow to correctly categorize the various patients. To correlate the information of each patient's medical report, Information Retrieval and Machine Learning techniques have been adopted, including the Latent Semantic Analysis, Text2Vec and Doc2Vec techniques. Then, patients are grouped and classified into affected or not by using clustering algorithms according to the similarity of medical reports. Finally, we have adopted a visualization system based on the D3 framework to visualize correlations among medical reports with an interactive chart, and to support the doctor in analyzing the chronological sequence of visits in order to diagnose Parkinson's disease early

CleAir monitoring system for particulate matter. A case in the Napoleonic Museum in Rome

Monitoring the air particulate concentration both outdoors and indoors is becoming a more relevant issue in the past few decades. An innovative, fully automatic, monitoring system called CleAir is presented. Such a system wants to go beyond the traditional technique (gravimetric analysis), allowing for a double monitoring approach: the traditional gravimetric analysis as well as the optical spectroscopic analysis of the scattering on the same filters in steady-state conditions. The experimental data are interpreted in terms of light percolation through highly scattering matter by means of the stretched exponential evolution. CleAir has been applied to investigate the daily distribution of particulate matter within the Napoleonic Museum in Rome as a test case

Spectroscopic Study of the Open Cluster NGC 6811

The NASA space telescope Kepler has provided unprecedented time-series observations which have revolutionised the field of asteroseismology, i.e. the use of stellar oscillations to probe the interior of stars. The Kepler-data include observations of stars in open clusters, which are particularly interesting for asteroseismology. One of the clusters observed with Kepler is NGC 6811, which is the target of the present paper. However, apart from high-precision time-series observations, sounding the interiors of stars in open clusters by means of asteroseismology also requires accurate and precise atmospheric parameters as well as cluster membership indicators for the individual stars. We use medium-resolution (R~25,000) spectroscopic observations, and three independent analysis methods, to derive effective temperatures, surface gravities, metallicities, projected rotational velocities and radial velocities, for 15 stars in the field of the open cluster NGC 6811. We discover two double-lined and three single-lined spectroscopic binaries. Eight stars are classified as either certain or very probable cluster members, and three stars are classified as non-members. For four stars, cluster membership could not been assessed. Five of the observed stars are G-type giants which are located in the colour-magnitude diagram in the region of the red clump of the cluster. Two of these stars are surely identified as red clump stars for the first time. For those five stars, we provide chemical abundances of 31 elements. The mean radial-velocity of NGC 6811 is found to be +6.68$\pm$0.08 km s$^{-1}$ and the mean metallicity and overall abundance pattern are shown to be very close to solar with an exception of Ba which we find to be overabundant.Comment: 18 pages, 11 tables, 7 figures, accepted for MNRA

Warping effects in strongly perturbed metrics

A technique devised some years ago permits to study a theory in a regime of strong perturbations. This translates into a gradient expansion that, at the leading order, can recover the BKL solution in general relativity. We solve exactly the leading order Einstein equations in a spherical symmetric case, assuming a Schwarzschild metric under the effect of a time-dependent perturbation, and we show that the 4-velocity in such a case is multiplied by an exponential warp factor when the perturbation is properly applied. This factor is always greater than one. We will give a closed form solution of this factor for a simple case. Some numerical examples are also given.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures. Version accepted in Physic

A method for an effective microclimate management in historical buildings combining monitoring and dynamic simulation: the case of “Museo Archeologico di Priverno”

In this work a method is proposed to estimate the effect of indoor microclimate on the risk of degradation of ancient materials stored in historical buildings. The method, which combines microclimate observations and dynamic simulation, has shown to be strategic in preventive conservation of historical buildings. Indeed, once the building model is calibrated, it can be effectively used for evaluating the microclimate control solutions on the conservation reducing general degradation risks. The method has been applied to a historical building close to Rome, where deteriorations in ceilings occurred and visitors complain about thermal discomfort. First, the HVAC system in the model has set in order to guarantee both thermal comfort and adequate condition for the conservation of the material. Then, the crack width of wooden ceiling has been estimated by means of an empirical model based on indoor temperature and relative humidity data and validated with the measurements of the crack width. It was found a reduction of annual variation from 0.4 mm to 0.2 mm, experimented by panels, and an improvement of maximum daily variation, especially in winter and summer (less than 0.01 mm on average)

The Compound Muscle Action Potential as Neurophysiological Marker for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Objectives: To definite the peripheral nervous involvement in ALS through the repeated use of the compound motor action potential (CMAP) to test the progression of disease, to determine different change of phrenic CMAP and forced vital capacity (FVC) in spinal and bulbar onset, and to establish clinical and neurophysiological features of patients with poor prognosis. Material & Methods: CMAP from phrenic, ulnar, and medial plantar nerves, Medical Research Council (MRC) score, revised ALS functional rating scale (ALSFRS-R) and FVC were evaluated in 117 ALS patients every three months in one year-period. Results: Bulbar onset patients had lower FVC but similar amplitude of phrenic CMAP at baseline compared to spinal onset patients. The patients with poor prognosis had lower phrenic CMAP and FVC at baseline. CMAP values, when compared to the rate found in the previous visit, reduced significantly in both poor and good prognosis groups during the entire follow-up period, while the FVC reduced significantly only in the first three months. Conclusions: CMAP is a reproducible sensitive marker for motor neurons loss and collateral reinnervation in ALS also in a short period of time. The changes in CMAP, MRC, FVC and ALSFRS-R score resulted correlated, but CMAP is the only parameter with the advantage to demonstrate objectively the progression of disease in both patients with poor and good prognosis for the entire period of follow-up. It should be used as clinical outcome of ALS in clinical trials, taking advantage of its objectivity and selectivity for peripheral nervous system study

The Rhythms of the Night: increase in online night activity and emotional resilience during the Spring 2020 Covid-19 lockdown

Context. The lockdown orders established in multiple countries in response to the Covid-19 pandemics are arguably one of the most widespread and deepest shock experienced by societies in recent years. Studying their impact trough the lens of social media offers an unprecedented opportunity to understand the susceptibility and the resilience of human activity patterns to large-scale exogenous shocks. Firstly, we investigate the changes that this upheaval has caused in online activity in terms of time spent online, themes and emotion shared on the platforms, and rhythms of content consumption. Secondly, we examine the resilience of certain platform characteristics, such as the daily rhythms of emotion expression. Data. Two independent datasets about the French cyberspace: a fine-grained temporal record of almost 100 thousand YouTube videos and a collection of 8 million Tweets between February 17 and April 14, 2020. Findings. In both datasets we observe a reshaping of the circadian rhythms with an increase of night activity during the lockdown. The analysis of the videos and tweets published during lockdown shows a general decrease in emotional contents and a shift from themes like work and money to themes like death and safety. However, the daily patterns of emotions remain mostly unchanged, thereby suggesting that emotional cycles are resilient to exogenous shocks.Comment: Under revie

A mobile augmented reality application for supporting real-time skin lesion analysis based on deep learning

AbstractMelanoma is considered the deadliest skin cancer and when it is in an advanced state it is difficult to treat. Diagnoses are visually performed by dermatologists, by naked-eye observation. This paper proposes an augmented reality smartphone application for supporting the dermatologist in the real-time analysis of a skin lesion. The app augments the camera view with information related to the lesion features generally measured by the dermatologist for formulating the diagnosis. The lesion is also classified by a deep learning approach for identifying melanoma. The real-time process adopted for generating the augmented content is described. The real-time performances are also evaluated and a user study is also conducted. Results revealed that the real-time process may be entirely executed on the Smartphone and that the support provided is well judged by the target users

Examination on total ozone column retrievals by Brewer spectrophotometry using different processing software

The availability of long-term records of the total ozone content (TOC) represents a valuable source of information for studies on the assessment of short-and long-term atmospheric changes and their impact on the terrestrial ecosystem. In particular, ground-based observations represent a valuable tool for validating satellite-derived products. To our knowledge, details about software packages for processing Brewer spectrophotometer measurements and for retrieving the TOC are seldom specified in studies using such datasets. The sources of the differences among retrieved TOCs from the Brewer instruments located at the Italian stations of Rome and Aosta, using three freely available codes (Brewer Processing Software, BPS; O3Brewer software; and European Brewer Network (EUBREWNET) level 1.5 products) are investigated here. Ground-based TOCs are also compared with Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) TOC retrievals used as an independent dataset since no other instruments near the Brewer sites are available. The overall agreement of the BPS and O3Brewer TOC data with EUBREWNET data is within the estimated total uncertainty in the retrieval of total ozone from a Brewer spectrophotometer (1%). However, differences can be found depending on the software in use. Such differences become larger when the instrumental sensitivity exhibits a fast and dramatic drift which can affect the ozone retrievals significantly. Moreover, if daily mean values are directly generated by the software, differences can be observed due to the configuration set by the users to process single ozone measurement and the rejection rules applied to data to calculate the daily value. This work aims to provide useful information both for scientists engaged in ozone measurements with Brewer spectrophotometers and for stakeholders of the Brewer data products available on Web-based platforms