GePpeTto Carves Italian into a Language Model

In the last few years, pre-trained neural architectures have provided impressive improvements across several NLP tasks. Still, generative language models are available mainly for English. We develop GePpeTto, the first generative language model for Italian, built using the GPT-2 architecture. We provide a thorough analysis of GePpeTto's quality by means of both an automatic and a human-based evaluation. The automatic assessment consists in (i) calculating perplexity across different genres and (ii) a profiling analysis over GePpeTto's writing characteristics. We find that GePpeTto's production is a sort of bonsai version of human production, with shorter but yet complex sentences. Human evaluation is performed over a sentence completion task, where GePpeTto's output is judged as natural more often than not, and much closer to the original human texts than to a simpler language model which we take as baseline

GePpeTto Carves Italian into a Language Model

In the last few years, pre-trained neural architectures have provided impressive improvements across several NLP tasks. Still, generative language models are available mainly for English. We develop GePpeTto, the first generative language model for Italian, built using the GPT-2 architecture. We provide a thorough analysis of GePpeTto's quality by means of both an automatic and a human-based evaluation. The automatic assessment consists in (i) calculating perplexity across different genres and (ii) a profiling analysis over GePpeTto's writing characteristics. We find that GePpeTto's production is a sort of bonsai version of human production, with shorter but yet complex sentences. Human evaluation is performed over a sentence completion task, where GePpeTto's output is judged as natural more often than not, and much closer to the original human texts than to a simpler language model which we take as baseline

Monitoring of hadrontherapy treatments by means of charged particle detection

The interaction of the incoming beam radiation with the patient body in hadrontherapy treatments produces secondary charged and neutral particles, whose detection can be used for monitoring purposes and to perform an on-line check of beam particle range. In the context of ion-therapy with active scanning, charged particles are potentially attractive since they can be easily tracked with a high efficiency, in presence of a relatively low background contamination. In order to verify the possibility of exploiting this approach for in-beam monitoring in ion-therapy, and to guide the design of specific detectors, both simulations and experimental tests are being performed with ion beams impinging on simple homogeneous tissue-like targets (PMMA). From these studies, a resolution of the order of few millimeters on the single track has been proven to be sufficient to exploit charged particle tracking for monitoring purposes, preserving the precision achievable on longitudinal shape. The results obtained so far show that the measurement of charged particles can be successfully implemented in a technology capable of monitoring both the dose profile and the position of the Bragg peak inside the target and finally lead to the design of a novel profile detector. Crucial aspects to be considered are the detector positioning, to be optimized in order to maximize the available statistics, and the capability of accounting for the multiple scattering interactions undergone by the charged fragments along their exit path from the patient body. The experimental results collected up to now are also valuable for the validation of Monte Carlo simulation software tools and their implementation in Treatment Planning Software packages

Invasive fungal infections in patients with acute myeloid leucemia and in those submitted to allogeneic hemopoieticstem cell transplant: who is at highest risk ?

Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) are a growing cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AMLs) and in recipients of allogeneic hemopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCTs) (1–6). It is widely debated if either allo-HSCTs or AMLs are to be considered at higher risk, but no data comparing the two categories of patients have been reported in literature so far. This cohort study has been conducted from January 1999 to December 2003 in hematology wards located throughout Italy. The study was aimed at evaluating the incidence and mortality for IFIs in adult AMLs and in patients submitted to all types of allo-HSCT procedures; a comparison between the two categories of patients was carried out

Phthalate esters (PAEs) concentration pattern reflects dietary habitats (δ13C) in blood of Mediterranean loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta)

Phthalic acid esters (PAEs) are classified as endocrine disruptors, but it remains unclear if they can enter the marine food-web and result in severe health effects for organisms. Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) can be chronically exposed to PAEs by ingesting plastic debris, but no information is available about PAEs levels in blood, and how these concentrations are related to diet during different life stages. This paper investigated, for the first time, six PAEs in blood of 18 wild-caught Mediterranean loggerhead turtles throughout solid-phase extraction coupled with gas chromatography-ion trap/mass spectrometry. Stable isotope analyses of carbon and nitrogen were also performed to assess the resource use pattern of loggerhead turtles. DEHP (12-63 ng mL(-1)) and DBP (6-57 ng mL(-1)) were the most frequently represented PAEs, followed by DiBP, DMP, DEP and DOP. The total PAEs concentration was highest in three turtles (124-260 ng mL(-1)) whereas three other turtles had concentrations below the detection limit. PAEs were clustered in three groups according to concentration in all samples: DEHP in the first group, DBP, DEP, and DiBP in the second group, and DOP and DMP in the third group. The total phthalates concentration did not differ between large-sized (96.3 +/- 86.0 ng mL(-1)) and small-sized (67.1 +/- 34.2 ng mL(-1)) turtles (p < 0.001). However, DMP and DEP were found only in large-sized turtles and DiBP and DBP had higher concentrations in large-sized turtles. On the other hand, DEHP and DOP were found in both small- and large-sized turtles with similar concentrations, i.e. ~ 21.0/32.0 ng mL(-1) and ~ 7(.1)/9.9 ng mL(-1), respectively. Winsored robust models indicated that delta C-13 is a good predictor for DBP and DiBP concentrations (significant Akaike Information criterion weight, AIC(wt)). Our results indicate that blood is a good matrix to evaluate acute exposure to PAEs in marine turtles. Moreover, this approach is here suggested as a useful tool to explain the internal dose of PAEs in term of dietary habits (delta C-13), suggesting that all marine species at high trophic levels may be particularly exposed to PAEs, despite their different dietary habitats and levels of exposure