Saccadic characteristics in autistic children

Some studies suggest that individuals with autism present abnormal saccadic eye movements due to an altered strategy for exploration of the surrounding environment. In this study, potential early abnormalities of saccadic movements were explored in 14 male children with autism (5- to 12-year-olds) and in 20 agematched normal males. Only one patient showed clear abnormalities of the “main sequence”; all the other patients, although showing slight changes in saccadic eye movements, did not present classic deficits. Therefore our results did not confirm the presence of saccadic movement alterations in the early stage of autism. Nonetheless, tracts of saccadic initiation failure, continuous changes in saccadic velocity profiles, and instability of fixation were often observed in the autistic population. These findings could be the expression of an early brainstem impairment in autis

Cooperative Optimization of UAVs Formation Visual Tracking

The use of unmanned vehicles to perform tiring, hazardous, repetitive tasks, is becoming a reality out of the academy laboratories, getting more and more interest for several application fields from the industrial, to the civil, to the military contexts. In particular, these technologies appear quite promising when they employ several low-cost resource-constrained vehicles leveraging their coordination to perform complex tasks with efficiency, flexibility, and adaptation that are superior to those of a single agent (even if more instrumented). In this work, we study one of said applications, namely the visual tracking of an evader (target) by means of a fleet of autonomous aerial vehicles, with the specific aim of focusing on the target so as to perform an accurate position estimation while concurrently allowing a wide coverage over the monitored area so as to limit the probability of losing the target itself. These clearly conflicting objectives call for an optimization approach that is here developed: by considering both aforementioned aspects and the cooperative capabilities of the fleet, the designed algorithm allows controling in real time the single fields of view so as to counteract evasion maneuvers and maximize an overall performance index. The proposed strategy is discussed and finally assessed through the realistic Gazebo-ROS simulation framework

Children under 5\u2005years are at risk for tuberculosis after occasional contact with highly contagious patients: outbreak from a smear-positive healthcare worker

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Topology in soft and biological matter

International audienceThe last years have witnessed remarkable advances in our understanding of the emergence and consequences of topological constraints in biological and soft matter. Examples are abundant in relation to (bio)polymeric systems and range from the characterization of knots in single polymers and proteins to that of whole chromosomes and polymer melts. At the same time, considerable advances have been made in the description of the interplay between topological and physical properties in complex fluids, with the development of techniques that now allow researchers to control the formation of and interaction between defects in diverse classes of liquid crystals. Thanks to technological progress and the integration of experiments with increasingly sophisticated numerical simulations, topological biological and soft matter is a vibrant area of research attracting scientists from a broad range of disciplines. However, owing to the high degree of specialization of modern science, many results have remained confined to their own particular fields, with different jargon making it difficult for researchers to share ideas and work together towards a comprehensive view of the diverse phenomena at play. Compelled by these motivations, here we present a comprehensive overview of topological effects in systems ranging from DNA and genome organization to entangled proteins, polymeric materials, liquid crystals, and theoretical physics, with the intention of reducing the barriers between different fields of soft matter and biophysics. Particular care has been taken in providing a coherent formal introduction to the topological properties of polymers and of continuum materials and in highlighting the underlying common aspects concerning the emergence, characterization, and effects of topological objects in different systems. The second half of the review is dedicated to the presentation of the latest results in selected problems, specifically, the effects of topological constraints on the viscoelastic properties of polymeric materials; their relation with genome organization; a discussion on the emergence and possible effects of knots and other entanglements in proteins; the emergence and effects of topological defects and solitons in complex fluids. This review is dedicated to the memory of Marek Cieplak

Tocilizumab for patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. The single-arm TOCIVID-19 prospective trial

BackgroundTocilizumab blocks pro-inflammatory activity of interleukin-6 (IL-6), involved in pathogenesis of pneumonia the most frequent cause of death in COVID-19 patients.MethodsA multicenter, single-arm, hypothesis-driven trial was planned, according to a phase 2 design, to study the effect of tocilizumab on lethality rates at 14 and 30 days (co-primary endpoints, a priori expected rates being 20 and 35%, respectively). A further prospective cohort of patients, consecutively enrolled after the first cohort was accomplished, was used as a secondary validation dataset. The two cohorts were evaluated jointly in an exploratory multivariable logistic regression model to assess prognostic variables on survival.ResultsIn the primary intention-to-treat (ITT) phase 2 population, 180/301 (59.8%) subjects received tocilizumab, and 67 deaths were observed overall. Lethality rates were equal to 18.4% (97.5% CI: 13.6-24.0, P=0.52) and 22.4% (97.5% CI: 17.2-28.3, P<0.001) at 14 and 30 days, respectively. Lethality rates were lower in the validation dataset, that included 920 patients. No signal of specific drug toxicity was reported. In the exploratory multivariable logistic regression analysis, older age and lower PaO2/FiO2 ratio negatively affected survival, while the concurrent use of steroids was associated with greater survival. A statistically significant interaction was found between tocilizumab and respiratory support, suggesting that tocilizumab might be more effective in patients not requiring mechanical respiratory support at baseline.ConclusionsTocilizumab reduced lethality rate at 30 days compared with null hypothesis, without significant toxicity. Possibly, this effect could be limited to patients not requiring mechanical respiratory support at baseline.Registration EudraCT (2020-001110-38); clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04317092)

Correction to: Tocilizumab for patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. The single-arm TOCIVID-19 prospective trial (Journal of Translational Medicine, (2020), 18, 1, (405), 10.1186/s12967-020-02573-9)

Following publication of the original article [1] the authors identified that the collaborators of the TOCIVID-19 investigators, Italy were only available in the supplementary file. The original article has been updated so that the collaborators are correctly acknowledged. For clarity, all collaborators are listed in this correction article