Statistical process control for improving healthcare processes. A case study in an Italian teaching hospital

This study aims to investigate the utility and potentialities of statistical process control for monitoring performances of healthcare organizations. We retrospectively applied the statistical process control for monitoring perioperative system performance, represented in this study by the operating room turnaround time. The results showed that the control charts are able to identify the steady-state behavior of the process and to detect improvements or deteriorations in process performance over tim

A case of sarcoidosis with isolated hepatosplenic onset and development of inflammatory bowel disease during recovery stage

Sarcoidosis is a systemic disease characterized by an immune-mediated disorder, which leads to the development of non-caseating granulomas in the involved organs. More than 90% of patients with sarcoidosis present lungs and lymphatic system involvement at onset, while less than 10% has an isolated extrapulmonary localization. Here, we describe the case of an elderly patient with isolated hepato-splenic onset (multiple splenic lesions at imaging and cholestasis), and subsequent pulmonary involvement. The liver biopsy showed the presence of noncaseating granulomas, suggesting sarcoidosis. Despite the complete recovery was obtained with steroid therapy, after dosage reduction the patient presented watery diarrhea. Endoscopic investigations with biopsies were performed, describing the presence of an important lympho-plasmacytic infiltrate of terminal ileum mucosa with typical aspects of inflammatory bowel disease. The symptomatology completely disappeared after steroid dosage increase. This case confirms that sarcoidosis could present in a very atypical way, involving several organs in a different manner at the same time and that every symptom should not be underestimated, despite the rare presentation

Synthesis, self-assembly-behavior and biomolecular recognition properties of thyminyl dipeptides

This article describes the synthesis of Thy-(Phe-Phe) and Thy-(Tyr-Tyr), two thymine-bearing dipeptides based on L-phenylalanine and L-tyrosine, the circular dichroism (CD), UV and dynamic light scattering (DLS) characterization of their self-assemblies, and a CD study of their interaction with nucleic acids (using homoadenine DNA and RNA) and serum proteins (employing BSA as model protein). DLS studies, alongside with CD and UV investigations conducted on aqueous solutions of the derivatives under different concentration and temperature conditions, showed the formation of extensive molecular architectures with hydrodynamic mean diameters higher than 300 nm, with Thy-(Tyr-Tyr) forming at pH=7.5 particularly large and stable networks, involving multiple units, connected by H-bonding, aromatic and hydrophobic interactions. Finally, the findings of our study suggested that Thy-(Phe-Phe) and Thy-(Tyr-Tyr), very stable in human serum, were able to bind BSA protein altering its secondary structure

Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Known and Emerging Risk Factors

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent primary liver cancer with a high mortality rate. While chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections represent the leading risk factors worldwide, the spreading of metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) justifies the increasing attention on their oncogenic mechanisms. This review discusses about the main pathogenic mechanisms implicated in occurrence of HCC in presence of viral and metabolic diseases. Additionally, it points to the importance of clinical surveillance for those patients considered at risk of HCC and highlights the strategical role of serum markers, such as alfa-fetoprotein (αFP) and Protein Induced by Vitamin K Absence or Antagonist II (PIVKA-II), which, in association to a strictly instrumental follow-up, contribute to the early detection of hepatic nodules with a better prognosis for affected patients

A systematic approach for modeling and identification of eddy current dampers in rotordynamic applications

Eddy current dampers (ECDs) exploit Lorentz forces due to the induced eddy currents in a conductor subject to a time–varying magnetic field. ECDs can be used to introduce damping in rotordynamic applications without mechanical contact to the rotor, thus introducing negligible impact on the dynamic response of the whole system. They are suitable for applications where contactless support of a rotor is required, thus being a perfect match for passive magnetic bearings such as permanent magnet bearings and superconducting bearings. However, modeling and identification of the amount of damping induced by ECDs is a difficult task due to complicated geometry and working conditions. A novel and systematic approach for modeling and identification of the damping characteristics of ECDs in rotordynamic applications is proposed in the present paper. The proposed approach employs an analytical dynamic model of the ECD and curve fitting with results of finite element (FE) models to obtain the parameters characterizing the ECD’s mechanical impedance. The damping coefficient can be obtained with great accuracy from a single FE simulation in quasi-static conditions. Finally, the accuracy of the identification approach is verified by comparing the results with experimental tests. The validity of this approach is in the cases where ECDs employ an axisymmetric conductor, thus covering most cases in rotordynamic applications

FPGA Implementation of Gaussian Mixture Model Algorithm for 47 fps Segmentation of 1080p Video

Circuits and systems able to process high quality video in real time are fundamental in nowadays imaging systems. The circuit proposed in the paper, aimed at the robust identification of the background in video streams, implements the improved formulation of the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) algorithm that is included in the OpenCV library. An innovative, hardware oriented, formulation of the GMM equations, the use of truncated binary multipliers, and ROM compression techniques allow reduced hardware complexity and increased processing capability. The proposed circuit has been designed having commercial FPGA devices as target and provides speed and logic resources occupation that overcome previously proposed implementations. The circuit, when implemented on Virtex6 or StratixIV, processes more than 45 frame per second in 1080p format and uses few percent of FPGA logic resources