Manuale per la gestione integrata degli stabulari. Principi e indicazioni per la protezione degli animali e la sicurezza dei lavoratori

Il volume è l’edizione aggiornata del “Manuale per la gestione integrata degli stabulari” - principi e indicazioni per la protezione degli animali e la sicurezza dei lavoratori – (2012), divenuta necessaria in seguito alla emanazione della Direttiva 2010/63/UE, revisione della Direttiva 86/609, recepita in Italia con il Decreto Legislativo 26/2014 il 4 marzo 2014. Il Manuale è redatto secondo un approccio integrato che considera contestualmente sia gli aspetti riguardanti la sperimentazione animale sia quelli di sicurezza e salute degli operatori e dei ricercatori

Dichiarazione ICRP sulle reazioni tissutali ed effetti immediati e tardivi delle radiazioni nei tessuti e negli organi normali - Dosi soglia per le reazioni tissutali nell’ambito della radioprotezione

La pubblicazione ICRP 118 riesamina gli effetti precoci e tardivi delle radiazioni ionizzanti nei diversi organi ed apparati e fornisce stime aggiornate sulle dosi soglia per l'induzione delle numerose reazioni tissutali analizzate. In particolare, a seguito dei progressi nelle conoscenze radiobiologiche e cliniche, pubblicati in numerosi testi specialistici, vengono dettagliatamente presentate le evidenze che hanno condotto alle modificazioni, rispetto alle Raccomandazioni ICRP 103/2007, nella individuazione delle dosi soglia per la induzione della cataratta e delle patologie del sistema circolatorio da parte delle radiazioni ionizzanti. A queste rilevanti considerazioni si affiancano gli approfonditi aggiornamenti sulle conoscenze radiobiologiche e cliniche e le integrazioni delle dosi soglia, individuate in modo più articolato rispetto alle precedenti pubblicazioni, per tutte le altre reazioni tissutali, che rendono questo documento un indispensabile strumento di lavoro e di analisi per tutti coloro che si occupano di radioprotezione, con particolare riferimento agli specialisti di radioprotezione medica. La traduzione in italiano dell’intero testo vuole facilitare la diffusione delle peculiari informazioni contenute nella pubblicazione e motivare una sempre più approfondita ricerca in questo settore che indubbiamente contribuisce a ridurre i rischi derivanti dall’esposizione alle radiazioni ionizzanti. La realizzazione della versione italiana di questa pubblicazione ha richiesto un notevole impegno qualitativo e quantitativo ed è stata possibile per il considerevole e qualificante contributo dei medici dell’AIRM e dei membri del Comitato Internazionale dell'AIRP. A tutti coloro che hanno collaborato alla sua traduzione, revisione e pubblicazione con notevole spirito di sacrificio, è rivolto l'apprezzamento e la riconoscenza delle nostre Associazioni, che riuniscono gli operatori attivi nei vari settori di interesse della radioprotezione

Subjective Symptoms in Magnetic Resonance Imaging Personnel: A Multi-Center Study in Italy

Introduction: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) personnel have significant exposure to static and low-frequency time-varying magnetic fields. In these workers an increased prevalence of different subjective symptoms has been observed. The aim of our study was to investigate the prevalence of non-specific subjective symptoms and of “core symptoms” in a group of MRI personnel working in different centers in Italy, and of possible relationships with personal and occupational characteristics.Methods: The occurrence of 11 subjective symptoms was evaluated using a specific questionnaire with 240 subjects working in 6 different Italian hospitals and research centers, 177 MRI health care and research personnel and 63 unexposed subjects employed in the same departments. Exposure was subjectively investigated according to the type of MRI scanner (≤1.5 vs. ≥3 T) and to the number of MRI procedures attended and/or performed by the personnel, even if no information on how frequently the personnel entered the scanner room was collected. The possible associations among symptoms and estimated EMF exposure, the main characteristics of the population, and job stress perception were analyzed.Results: Eighty-six percent of the personnel reported at least one symptom; drowsiness, headache, and sleep disorders were the most frequent. The total number of symptoms did not differ between exposed persons and controls. Considering the total number of annual MRI procedures reported by the personnel, no significant associations were found nor with the total number of symptoms, nor with “core symptoms.” Only subjects complaining of drowsiness also reported a significantly higher mean annual number of MRI procedures with ≤ 1.5 T scanners when compared with exposed subjects without drowsiness. In a multivariate model, subjects with a high level of perceived stress complained of more symptoms (p = 0.0002).Conclusions: Our study did not show any association between the occurrence of reversible subjective symptoms, including the more specific “core symptoms,” and the occupational exposure of MRI personnel to static and low-frequency time-varying magnetic fields. On the other hand, the role played by occupational stress appears to be not negligible. In further research in this field, measurements of EMF exposure should be considered

A wearable EEG instrument for real-time frontal asymmetry monitoring in worker stress analysis

A highly-wearable single–channel instrument, conceived with off-the-shelf components and dry electrodes, is proposed for detecting human stress in real time by electroencephalography (EEG). The instrument exploits EEG robustness to movement artifacts with respect to other biosignals for stress assessment. The single-channel differential measurement aims at analyzing the frontal asymmetry, a well-claimed EEG feature for stress assessment. The instrument was characterized metrologically on human subjects. As triple metrological references, standardized stress tests, observational questionnaires given by psychologists, and performance measurements were exploited. Four standard machine learning classifiers (SVM, k-NN, Random Forest, and ANN), trained on 50% of the data set, reached more than 90% accuracy in classifying each 2-s epoch of EEG acquired from stressed subjects

Machine Learning Strategies to Improve Cross-Subject and Cross-Session Generalization in EEG-Based Emotion Recognition: A Systematic Review

A systematic review on machine-learning strategies for improving generalization in electroencephalography-based emotion classification was realized. In particular, cross-subject and cross-session generalization was focused. In this context, the non-stationarity of electroencephalographic (EEG) signals is a critical issue and can lead to the Dataset Shift problem. Several architectures and methods have been proposed to address this issue, mainly based on transfer learning methods. In this review, 418 papers were retrieved from the Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and PubMed databases through a search query focusing on modern machine learning techniques for generalization in EEGbased emotion assessment. Among these papers, 75 were found eligible based on their relevance to the problem. Studies lacking a specific cross-subject or cross-session validation strategy, or making use of other biosignals as support were excluded. On the basis of the selected papers’ analysis, a taxonomy of the studies employing Machine Learning (ML) methods was proposed, to gether with a brief discussion of the different ML approaches involved. The studies with the best results in terms of average classification accuracy were identified, supporting that transfer learning methods seem to perform better than other approaches. A discussion is proposed on the impact of (i) the emotion theoretical models and (ii) psychological screening of the experimental sample on the classifier performances

Conceptual design of a machine learning-based wearable soft sensor for non-invasive cardiovascular risk assessment

The number of elderly people is increasing, and heart diseases are a major issue in a healthy aging of population. Indeed, the possibility of hospital care is limited and the avoidance of crowded hospitals recently became even more essential. Meanwhile, the possibility to exploit e-health technology for home care would be desirable. In this framework, the concept design of a soft sensor for measuring cardiovascular risk of a patient in real time is here reported. ECG, blood oxygenation, body temperature, and data acquired from patients’ interviews are processed to extract characterizing features. These are then classified to assess the cardiovascular risk. Experimental results show that patients’ classification accuracy can be as high as 80% when employing a random forest classifier, even with few data employed for training. Finally, method evaluation was extended by exploiting further data and by means of a noise robustness test

Serum Biomarkers in Connective Tissue Disease-Associated Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a life-threatening complication of connective tissue diseases (CTDs) characterised by increased pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance. CTD-PAH is the result of a complex interplay among endothelial dysfunction and vascular remodelling, autoimmunity and inflammatory changes, ultimately leading to right heart dysfunction and failure. Due to the non-specific nature of the early symptoms and the lack of consensus on screening strategies—except for systemic sclerosis, with a yearly transthoracic echocardiography as recommended—CTD-PAH is often diagnosed at an advanced stage, when the pulmonary vessels are irreversibly damaged. According to the current guidelines, right heart catheterisation is the gold standard for the diagnosis of PAH; however, this technique is invasive, and may not be available in non-referral centres. Hence, there is a need for non-invasive tools to improve the early diagnosis and disease monitoring of CTD-PAH. Novel serum biomarkers may be an effective solution to this issue, as their detection is non-invasive, has a low cost and is reproducible. Our review aims to describe some of the most promising circulating biomarkers of CTD-PAH, classified according to their role in the pathophysiology of the disease