LivDet 2017 Fingerprint Liveness Detection Competition 2017

Fingerprint Presentation Attack Detection (FPAD) deals with distinguishing images coming from artificial replicas of the fingerprint characteristic, made up of materials like silicone, gelatine or latex, and images coming from alive fingerprints. Images are captured by modern scanners, typically relying on solid-state or optical technologies. Since from 2009, the Fingerprint Liveness Detection Competition (LivDet) aims to assess the performance of the state-of-the-art algorithms according to a rigorous experimental protocol and, at the same time, a simple overview of the basic achievements. The competition is open to all academics research centers and all companies that work in this field. The positive, increasing trend of the participants number, which supports the success of this initiative, is confirmed even this year: 17 algorithms were submitted to the competition, with a larger involvement of companies and academies. This means that the topic is relevant for both sides, and points out that a lot of work must be done in terms of fundamental and applied research.Comment: presented at ICB 201

Training school teachers to the use of ICT – a preliminary study on motivation and attitude to innovation

[EN] As part of an innovation project for the public schools of an Italian municipality, the whole body of teachers was enrolled in a training course on the use of ICT in didactic. Before the training, data on ICT expertise, attitude towards teaching and attitude towards training on the use of ICT were collected, to identify factors facilitating and preventing a successful exit of the training, in order to better customize it. A total of 456 questionnaires were analyzed. The interviewed showed an average level of ICT competence, but relevant gaps on some useful teaching tool. Teachers expressed a good inclination towards the more creative aspects of their profession, an element evaluated as congruent with the adoption of more student-centered pedagogical practice, but conflicting attitudes were expressed on the whole idea of entering a training process. Results suggest that an effective training program needs to address the change of pedagogical approach adopted from the teachers, the use of online communication tools and spaces as well as educational apps and tool and the reinforcement of a virtuous circle of feedback reception from the students that contribute to motivate the teachers actively involved in the process of changeMura, G.; Ferrari, M.; Diamantini, D. (2016). Training school teachers to the use of ICT – a preliminary study on motivation and attitude to innovation. En 2nd. International conference on higher education advances (HEAD'16). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 453-460. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD16.2015.2859OCS45346

Design, Evaluation and Comparison of Nanostructured Lipid Carriers and Chitosan Nanoparticles as Carriers of Poorly Soluble Drugs to Develop Oral Liquid Formulations Suitable for Pediatric Use

© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).There is a serious need of pediatric drug formulations, whose lack causes the frequent use of extemporaneous preparations obtained from adult dosage forms, with consequent safety and quality risks. Oral solutions are the best choice for pediatric patients, due to administration ease and dosage-adaptability, but their development is challenging, particularly for poorly soluble drugs. In this work, chitosan nanoparticles (CSNPs) and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) were developed and evaluated as potential nanocarriers for preparing oral pediatric solutions of cefixime (poorly soluble model drug). The selected CSNPs and NLCs showed a size around 390 nm, Zeta-potential > 30 mV, and comparable entrapment efficiency (31–36%), but CSNPs had higher loading efficiency (5.2 vs. 1.4%). CSNPs maintained an almost unchanged size, homogeneity, and Zeta-potential during storage, while NLCs exhibited a marked progressive Zeta-potential decrease. Drug release from CSNPs formulations (differently from NLCs) was poorly affected by gastric pH variations, and gave rise to a more reproducible and controlled profile. This was related to their behavior in simulated gastric conditions, where CSNPs were stable, while NLCs suffered a rapid size increase, up to micrometric dimensions. Cytotoxicity studies confirmed CSNPs as the best nanocarrier, proving their complete biocompatibility, while NLCs formulations needed 1:1 dilution to obtain acceptable cell viability values.This research was supported by FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) Portugal, under grants UIDB/04138/2020 and UIDP/04138/2020. Lídia Gonçalves is financed by FCT under principal investigator grant CEECIND/03143/2017.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterization of upper limb use in health care workers during regular shifts: A quantitative approach based on wrist-worn accelerometers

Despite the high prevalence of upper limb (UL) work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD) among health care workers (HCWs), little is known about their relationship with exposure to biomechanical risk factors. This study aimed to assess UL activity features under actual working conditions using two wrist-worn accelerometers. Accelerometric data were processed to obtain duration, intensity, and asymmetry of UL use in 32 HCWs during the execution of commonly performed tasks (e.g., patient hygiene, transfer, and meal distribution) within a regular shift. The results show that such tasks are characterized by significantly different patterns of UL use, in particular, higher intensities and larger asymmetries were observed respectively for patient hygiene and meal distribution. The proposed approach appears, thus, suitable to discriminate tasks characterized by different UL motion patterns. Future studies could benefit from the integration of such measures with self-reported workers’ perception to elucidate the relationship between dynamic UL movements and WRMSD

Investigating on the factors responsible for <i>Caulerpa racemosa</i> invasion = Indagini sui fattori responsabili dell'invasione di <i>Caulerpa racemosa</i>

The introduced alga Caulerpa racemosa (Forsskal) J. Agardh (Caulerpales, Chlorophyta) has become an important component of rocky assemblages in the subtidal of the Mediterranean. Understanding the faetors that regulate the establishment and spread of this species is, therefore, crucial to predicting future pathways of invasion and susceptible locales. Further, the aim of this study was to investigate on the factors responsible for Ihe successful invasion of C. racemosa in the Asinara Gulf (NW-Sardinia)

oral hpv infection and persistence in patients with head and neck cancer

ObjectiveTo investigate the presence and persistence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in the oral mucosa of patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and its correlation with prognosis.Study designHPV infection was characterized in tumors and pre and posttreatment oral scrapings in 51 patients with HNSCC and matched controls using the SPF10 LiPA Extra assay. p16INK4A immunostain and in situ hybridization for high-risk HPV genotypes recognized transcriptionally active infection in tumor samples. The risk of infection was compared in patients and controls. The association of pretreatment HPV status with recurrence and survival and with posttreatment HPV persistence was assessed.ResultsOral HPV infection risk was significantly higher in patients with HNSCC than in controls (P < .001). Oral HPV infection was associated with infection in the first posttreatment scrapings (P = .015), but did not affect recurrence or prognosis.ConclusionOral HPV infection is frequent in patients with HNSCC and has no prognostic implications, suggesting that posttreatment polymerase chain reaction monitoring on oral cells is not effective to monitor patient recurrence risk

The transformative potential of health as a Commons

Italy was a participating country in the People’s Health Movement multi-centred action-research project (Civil Society Engagement for Health for All). The Italian team, a collective named Grup-pa, undertook several participatory action-research activities including, in a first phase, a mapping of groups active in fields linked to the social determination of health and health promotion, through individual and collective interviews. In a second phase, three public workshops, structured around the exchange of practices, focused on key themes emerged from phase one. A major construct originated from this work, centred around the co-construction of experiential knowledge on health as a commons, has been named ‘health commons practices’. The focus on practices is not merely strategic (producing synergies and alliances), but inherently political (conceiving participation as a value) and connected to health and staying healthy (as individuals; as a community). The construct of ‘health commons practices’ is meant to make visible an area of ongoing transformations in new spaces created by movements and in more traditional actions in defence of existing public services, addressing health as a socio-political issue. In this essay, we sketch the reflection around six keywords that are central to it: commons, care, technology, efficacy, sustainability, institution

Regulation of CD45 phosphatase by oncogenic ALK in anaplastic large cell lymphoma

Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL) is a subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma frequently driven by the chimeric tyrosine kinase NPM-ALK, generated by the t (2,5)(p23;q35) translocation. While ALK+ ALCL belongs to mature T cell lymphomas, loss of T cell identity is observed in the majority of ALCL secondary to a transcriptional and epigenetic repressive program induced by oncogenic NPM-ALK. While inhibiting the expression of T cell molecules, NPM-ALK activates surrogate TCR signaling by directly inducing pathways downstream the TCR. CD45 is a tyrosine phosphatase that plays a central role in T cell activation by controlling the TCR signaling and regulating the cytokine responses through the JAK/STAT pathway and exists in different isoforms depending on the stage of T-cell maturation, activation and differentiation. ALK+ ALCL cells mainly express the isoform CD45RO in keeping with their mature/memory T cell phenotype. Because of its regulatory effect on the JAK/STAT pathway that is essential for ALK+ ALCL, we investigated whether CD45 expression was affected by oncogenic ALK. We found that most ALK+ ALCL cell lines express the CD45RO isoform with modest CD45RA expression and that NPM-ALK regulated the expression of these CD45 isoforms. Regulation of CD45 expression was dependent on ALK kinase activity as CD45RO expression was increased when NPM-ALK kinase activity was inhibited by treatment with ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Silencing ALK expression through shRNA or degradation of ALK by the PROTAC TL13-112 caused upregulation of CD45RO both at mRNA and protein levels with minimal changes on CD45RA, overall indicating that oncogenic ALK downregulates the expression of CD45. CD45 repression was mediated by STAT3 as demonstrated by ChIP-seq data on ALCL cells treated with the ALK-TKI crizotinib or cells treated with a STAT3 degrader. Next, we found that knocking-out CD45 with the CRISPR/Cas9 system resulted in increased resistance to ALK TKI treatment and CD45 was down-regulated in ALCL cells that developed resistance in vitro to ALK TKIs. Overall, these data suggest that CD45 expression is regulated by ALK via STAT3 and acts as a rheostat of ALK oncogenic signaling and resistance to TKI treatment in ALCL