Sand bag barriers for coastal protection along the Emilia Romagna littoral, Northern Adriatic Sea, Italy

Beach nourishments protected by submerged sand bag barriers have been largely used in Emilia Romagna (Italy), whose low and sandy coast faces the relatively mild Northern Adriatic Sea. The paper, after a brief description of the eight projects of this type realised in the last 25 years along the Emilia Romagna littoral, details the case study of Riccione Southern beach. The performance of the defence is described by means of cross-shore profiles, bathymetries, collection of sediment samples, underwater pictures, monitoring of environmental conditions and performed maintenance. The combined analysis of the available data suggests that the sand bag barrier may stabilise the position of the natural sandy bar and ultimately the beach profile

Identification of Contradictory Patterns in Experimental Datasets for the Development of Models for Electrical Cables Diagnostics

International audienceThe state of health of an electrical cable may be difficult to know, without destructive or very expensive tests. To overcome this, partial discharge (PD) measurements have been proposed as a relatively economic and simple-to-apply experimental technique for retrieving information on the state of health of an electrical cable. The retrieval is based on a relationship between PD measurements and the health of the cable. Given the difficulties in capturing such relationship by analytical models, empirical modeling techniques based on experimental data have been propounded. In this view, a set of PD measurements have been collected by Enea Ricerca sul Sistema Elettrico-ERSE during past campaigns, for building a diagnostic system of electrical cable health state. These experimental data may contain contradictory information which remarkably reduces the performance of the state classifier, if not a priori identified and possibly corrected. In the present paper, a novel technique based on the Adaboost algorithm is proposed for identifying contradictory PD patterns within an a priori analysis aimed at improving the diagnostic performance. Adaboost is a bootstrap-inspired, ensemble-based algorithm which has been effectively used for addressing classification problems

Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Function/Dysfunction and Type 2 Diabetes

“Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food” stated Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, in 400 B.C. This statement was based on the belief that food was able to influence disease, a concept that was revived several times in later years by painters, writers, scientists, and philosophers. One such philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, famously wrote in his 1863-4 essay “man is what he eats” introducing the idea that if we want to improve the spiritual conditions of people we must first improve their material conditions (Feuerbach, 2003). However, for years his warnings remained unheeded, at least in Western countries, in contrast to the teachings of Indian and Chinese medicine which for millennia have argued that a living organism has to assume a healthy diet. Like diet, physical activity has been also considered an important starting point for people's health. Hippocrates wrote in his book Regimen "if we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health" (Hippocrates, 1955). Our knowledge about the links between diet, exercise, and disease has vastly increased since Hippocrates time. A healthy lifestyle based on diet and physical activity is now considered the keystone of disease prevention and the basis for a healthy aging. However, modern society has created conditions with virtually unrestricted access to food resources and reduced physical activity, resulting in a positive overall energy balance. This is far from the environment of our ”hunter-gathered ancestros” whose genes were modulated over thousands of years adapting our metabolism to survive when food was scarce and maximizing energy storage when food became available. In terms of evolution, this radical and sudden lifestyle change in modern society has led to a dramatic increase in the incidence of metabolic diseases including obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). It seems clear that the development of T2DM has a genetic component that becomes obvious when individuals are exposed to western lifestyle. However, environment plays a critical role in the incidence of the disease being obesity the main etiological cause of T2DM. Thus, modest weight loss is enough for obese glucose intolerant subjects to prevent the development of T2DM (National Task Force on the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity, 2000)..

Beach monitoring and morphological response in the presence of coastal defense strategies at riccione (Italy)

The coastal area at Riccione, in the southern Emilia-Romagna littoral region, is exposed to erosive processes, which are expected to be enhanced by climate change. The beach, mostly composed of fine sand, is maintained through various defense strategies, including frequent nourishment interventions for balancing the sediment deficit and other experimental solutions for reducing coastal erosion. Artificial reshaping of the beach and \u201ccommon practices\u201d in the sediment management redefine the beach morphology and the sediment redistribution almost continuously. These activities overlap each other and with the coastal dynamics, and this makes it very difficult to evaluate their effectiveness, as well as the role of natural processes on the beach morphological evolution. Topo-bathymetric and sedimentological monitoring of the beach has been carried out on a regular basis since 2000 by the Regional Agency for Prevention, Environment and Energy of Emilia-Romagna (Arpae). Further monitoring of the emerged and submerged beach has been carried out in 2019\u20132021 in the framework of the research project STIMARE, focusing on innovative strategies for coastal monitoring in relation with erosion risk. The aim of this study is to assess the coastal behavior at the interannual/seasonal scale in the southern coastal stretch of Riccione, where the adopted coastal defense strategies and management actions mostly control the morphological variations in the emerged and submerged beach besides the wave and current regime. The topo-bathymetric variations and erosion/accretion patterns provided by multitemporal monitoring have been related to natural processes and to anthropogenic activities. The morphological variations have been also assessed in volumetric terms in the different subzones of the beach, with the aim of better understanding the onshore/offshore sediment exchange in relation with nourishments and in the presence of protection structures. The effectiveness of the adopted interventions to combat erosion, and to cope with future climate change-related impacts, appears not fully successful in the presence of an overall sediment deficit at the coast. This demonstrates the need for repeated monitoring of the emerged and submerged beach in such a critical setting

To Learn or Not to Learn Features for Deformable Registration?

Feature-based registration has been popular with a variety of features ranging from voxel intensity to Self-Similarity Context (SSC). In this paper, we examine the question on how features learnt using various Deep Learning (DL) frameworks can be used for deformable registration and whether this feature learning is necessary or not. We investigate the use of features learned by different DL methods in the current state-of-the-art discrete registration framework and analyze its performance on 2 publicly available datasets. We draw insights into the type of DL framework useful for feature learning and the impact, if any, of the complexity of different DL models and brain parcellation methods on the performance of discrete registration. Our results indicate that the registration performance with DL features and SSC are comparable and stable across datasets whereas this does not hold for low level features.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Emergence of a non trivial fluctuating phase in the XY model on regular networks

We study an XY-rotor model on regular one dimensional lattices by varying the number of neighbours. The parameter $2\ge\gamma\ge1$ is defined. $\gamma=2$ corresponds to mean field and $\gamma=1$ to nearest neighbours coupling. We find that for $\gamma<1.5$ the system does not exhibit a phase transition, while for $\gamma > 1.5$ the mean field second order transition is recovered. For the critical value $\gamma=\gamma_c=1.5$, the systems can be in a non trivial fluctuating phase for whichthe magnetisation shows important fluctuations in a given temperature range, implying an infinite susceptibility. For all values of $\gamma$ the magnetisation is computed analytically in the low temperatures range and the magnetised versus non-magnetised state which depends on the value of $\gamma$ is recovered, confirming the critical value $\gamma_{c}=1.5$

Chest diameter measurement in pediatric patients for chest compression feedback calibration

Adequate compression depth is a main quality parameter during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Current CPR feedback devices can guide adult target depth which is fixed between 5 and 6 cm. For pediatric patients, conversely, target depth should be one third of the antero-posterior diameter of the chest. The aim of this study was to develop an algorithm to estimate chest diameter in pediatric patients using accelerometers. Using a tri-axial accelerometer, we measured the accelerations generated when moving the sensor from the floor to five different heights that simulated chest diameter. Five volunteers generated two records each per height. A total of fifty records were acquired. Chest diameter was measured by discrete integration of the z-axis acceleration signal. Velocity signal was band-pass filtered before computing the displacement signal. Chest diameter was identified as the displacement value at the instant in which the movement finished. Median (P25, P75) unsigned absolute and relative errors were 0.9 cm (0.3, 1.9) and 9.2 % (2.5, 14.6), respectively. Error in estimation of pediatric target compression depth was below 6.5 mm in 75 % of the cases. The proposed algorithm could be used to calibrate target chest compression depth in CPR feedback devices to be adapted for pediatric patients

YY1 overexpression is associated with poor prognosis and metastasis-free survival in patients suffering osteosarcoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The polycomb transcription factor Yin Yang 1 (YY1) overexpression can be causally implicated in experimental tumor growth and metastasization. To date, there is no clinical evidence of YY1 involvement in outcome of patients with osteosarcoma. Prognosis of osteosarcoma is still severe and only few patients survive beyond five years. We performed a prospective immunohistochemistry analysis to correlate YY1 immunostaining with metastatic development and survival in a selected homogeneous group of patients with osteosarcoma.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We studied 41 patients suffering from osteosarcoma (stage II-IVa). Multivariate analysis was performed using Cox proportional hazard regression to evaluate the correlation between YY1 expression and both metastasis development and mortality.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>YY1 protein is not usually present in normal bone; in contrast, a high number of patients (61%) showed a high score of YY1 positive cells (51-100%) and 39% had a low score (10-50% positive cells). No statistical difference was found in histology, anatomic sites, or response to chemotherapy between the two degrees of YY1 expression. Cox regression analysis demonstrated that the highest score of YY1 expression was predictive of both low metastasis-free survival (HR = 4.690, 95%CI = 1.079-20.396; p = 0.039) and poor overall survival (HR = 8.353, 95%CI = 1.863-37.451 p = 0.006) regardless of the effects of covariates such as age, gender, histology and chemonecrosis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Overexpression of YY1 in primary site of osteosarcoma is associated with the occurrence of metastasis and poor clinical outcome.</p

Lectin Pathway of Complement Activation Is Associated with Vulnerability of Atherosclerotic Plaques

Inflammatory mechanisms may be involved in atherosclerotic plaque rupture. By using a novel histology-based method to quantify plaque instability here, we assess whether lectin pathway (LP) of complement activation, a major inflammation arm, could represent an index of plaque instability. Plaques from 42 consecutive patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy were stained with hematoxylin-eosin and the lipid core, cholesterol clefts, hemorrhagic content, thickness of tunica media, and intima, including or not infiltration of cellular debris and cholesterol, were determined. The presence of ficolin-1, -2, and -3 and mannose-binding lectin (MBL), LP initiators, was assessed in the plaques by immunofluorescence and in plasma by ELISA. LP activation was assessed in plasma by functional in vitro assays. Patients presenting low stenosis (≤75%) had higher hemorrhagic content than those with high stenosis (>75%), indicating increased erosion. Increased hemorrhagic content and tunica media thickness, as well as decreased lipid core and infiltrated content were associated with vulnerable plaques and therefore used to establish a plaque vulnerability score that allowed to classify patients according to plaque vulnerability. Ficolins and MBL were found both in plaques’ necrotic core and tunica media. Patients with vulnerable plaques showed decreased plasma levels and intraplaque deposition of ficolin-2. Symptomatic patients experiencing a transient ischemic attack had lower plasma levels of ficolin-1. We show that the LP initiators are present within the plaques and their circulating levels change in atherosclerotic patients. In particular, we show that decreased ficolin-2 levels are associated with rupture-prone vulnerable plaques, indicating its potential use as marker for cardiovascular risk assessment in atherosclerotic patients