A Preliminary Study on SVM based Analysis of Underwater Magnetic Signals for Port Protection

People who attend to the problem of underwater port protection usually use sonar based systems. Recently it has been shown that integrating a sonar system with an auxiliary array of magnetic sensors can improve the effectiveness of the intruder detection system. One of the major issues that arise from the integrated magnetic and acoustic system is the interpretation of the magnetic signals coming from the sensors. In this paper a machine learning approach is proposed for the detection of divers or, in general, of underwater magnetic sources. The research proposed here, by means of a windowing of the signals, uses Support Vector Machines for classification, as tool for the detection problem. Empirical results show the effectiveness of the method

Oxygen therapy in headache disorders: A systematic review

Background: The global active prevalence of migraines is approximately 14.7%. Oxygen therapy may reduce the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) which often have various negative side effects. The purpose of this systematic review is to analyze the literature on the efficacy of high flow oxygen for the management of headache disorders, compared to placebo treatment. Methods: Studies were identified by PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus database from 1980 to the 30 October 2020. The search included the following terms: “oxygen therapy” and “headache” and “migraine”. Studies were included if high flow oxygen was used in the treatment of headache disorders. All selected studies were qualitatively analyzed. Results: Our literature search identified 71 studies, of which 65 were discarded and 6 were included in the meta-analysis. The random effect model did not show a pooled significant resolution of headache disorders (OR 2.08 (95% CI 0.92–4.70), p < 0.0001) in the oxygen therapy group compared to the placebo group. Conclusion: In our systematic review of six studies, there were no significant differences between high flow oxygen and placebo treatment groups

Harbour Sea-floor Clearance: “HD” High Definition Magnetic Survey Performance

Seafloor clearance methods based on acoustic, direct-inspection, and single-sensor magnetic approaches suffer from limitations in controlling the target-sensor distance, and may prove ineffective when the small size or the dangerous nature of targets requires high accuracy in localization. Moreover, random magnetic variations over time bring about spatial decorrelation phenomena, and hinder the application of double-sensor methods in noisy harbour environments. The new High Definition (HD) magnetic survey protocol tackles the measurement-distance problem in two ways: first, by varying the sensor depth dynamically, and secondly by backprojecting the measured field according to seafloor data and vertical incremental factors associated with the bandwidth characteristics of targets. The method to make up for timeinduced loss in spatial localization ability exploits the local behaviour of a coherence function, which correlates local observations to a set of spatially-stabilized reference stations. The consequent normalization of measured magnetic signals allows one to assign the monitored areas with a specific level of confidence in the detection results, ranging from 100% (certainty) to 0% (random events). The principles of HD detection have been fully applied in the seafloor clearance of the firing test site located south of Cape Teulada (Sardinia, Italy), where very weak signal sources such as cartridge cases, mines, and small objects down to 1 Kg mass values (lobster pots) have been successfully localized, even when covered by extensive colonies of Posidonia

Il costo di una neutropenia febbrile

Febrile neutropenia (FN) is one of the most common and severe complications of chemotherapy, particularly when used for the treatment of hematological malignancies and bone marrow transplantation. Estimating its cost for the National Health service (NHS) is difficult, in that the cost of FN is included in the overall reimbursement, which is based on the main DRG declared at discharge. Aim of the present survey, conducted on the patient population treated in two oncology centers in Milan in the years 2001- 2002, was to evaluate the most frequent DRGs associated with neutropenia, with the objective to estimate the mean cost per patient hospitalized with FN. As expected, oncology patients with NF are spread through a wide range of DRGs, but the mean cost per patient resulted comparable in the two considered hospitals ( ~ 9500 euro), as well as the overall distribution among DRGs. The single most frequent DRG was 398 (diseases of reticuloendothelial and immune systems, with complications) which appears to be appropriate, being the closest to the clinical definition of FN available

Altered gut microbiota in Rett syndrome

Background The human gut microbiota directly affects human health, and its alteration can lead to gastrointestinal abnormalities and inflammation. Rett syndrome (RTT), a progressive neurological disorder mainly caused by mutations in MeCP2 gene, is commonly associated with gastrointestinal dysfunctions and constipation, suggesting a link between RTT’s gastrointestinal abnormalities and the gut microbiota. The aim of this study was to evaluate the bacterial and fungal gut microbiota in a cohort of RTT subjects integrating clinical, metabolomics and metagenomics data to understand if changes in the gut microbiota of RTT subjects could be associated with gastrointestinal abnormalities and inflammatory status. Results Our findings revealed the occurrence of an intestinal sub-inflammatory status in RTT subjects as measured by the elevated values of faecal calprotectin and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. We showed that, overall, RTT subjects harbour bacterial and fungal microbiota altered in terms of relative abundances from those of healthy controls, with a reduced microbial richness and dominated by microbial taxa belonging to Bifidobacterium, several Clostridia (among which Anaerostipes, Clostridium XIVa, Clostridium XIVb) as well as Erysipelotrichaceae, Actinomyces, Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Eggerthella, Escherichia/Shigella and the fungal genus Candida. We further observed that alterations of the gut microbiota do not depend on the constipation status of RTT subjects and that this dysbiotic microbiota produced altered short chain fatty acids profiles. Conclusions We demonstrated for the first time that RTT is associated with a dysbiosis of both the bacterial and fungal component of the gut microbiota, suggesting that impairments of MeCP2 functioning favour the establishment of a microbial community adapted to the costive gastrointestinal niche of RTT subjects. The altered production of short chain fatty acids associated with this microbiota might reinforce the constipation status of RTT subjects and contribute to RTT gastrointestinal physiopathology

Whey Proteins Reduce Appetite, Stimulate Anorexigenic Gastrointestinal Peptides and Improve Glucometabolic Homeostasis in Young Obese Women

Introduction: Proteins, particularly whey proteins, represent the most satiating macronutrient in animals and humans. A dietetic regimen based on proteins enriched preload before eating might be a strategy to counteract obesity. Aims and Methods: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of an isocaloric drink containing whey proteins or maltodextrins (preload) on appetite (satiety/hunger measured by a visual analogue scale or VAS), glucometabolic control (blood glucose/insulin), and anorexigenic gastrointestinal peptides (pancreatic polypeptide or PP, glucagon-like peptide 1 or GLP-1 and peptide YY or PYY) in a cohort of obese young women (n = 9; age: 18.1 \ub1 3.0 years; body mass index, BMI: 38.8 \ub1 4.5 kg/m 2 ). After two and a half hours, they were administered with a mixed meal at a fixed dose; satiety and hunger were measured by VAS. Results: Each drink significantly augmented satiety and reduced hunger, and the effects were more evident with whey proteins than maltodextrins. Similarly, there were significant increases in GLP-1 and PYY levels (but not PP) after the ingestion of each drink; these anorexigenic responses were higher with whey proteins than maltodextrins. While insulinemia identically increased after each drink, whey proteins induced a lower glycemic response than maltodextrins. No differences in satiety and hunger were found after the meal, which is presumably due to the late administration of the meal test, when the hypophagic effect of whey proteins was disappearing. Conclusions: While whey proteins actually reduce appetite, stimulate anorexigenic gastrointestinal peptides, and improve glucometabolic homeostasis in young obese women, further additional studies are mandatory to demonstrate their hypophagic effects in obese subjects, when administered as preload before eating

Jets, Stickiness and Anomalous Transport

Dynamical and statistical properties of the vortex and passive particle advection in chaotic flows generated by four and sixteen point vortices are investigated. General transport properties of these flows are found anomalous and exhibit a superdiffusive behavior with typical second moment exponent (\mu \sim 1.75). The origin of this anomaly is traced back to the presence of coherent structures within the flow, the vortex cores and the region far from where vortices are located. In the vicinity of these regions stickiness is observed and the motion of tracers is quasi-ballistic. The chaotic nature of the underlying flow dictates the choice for thorough analysis of transport properties. Passive tracer motion is analyzed by measuring the mutual relative evolution of two nearby tracers. Some tracers travel in each other vicinity for relatively large times. This is related to an hidden order for the tracers which we call jets. Jets are localized and found in sticky regions. Their structure is analyzed and found to be formed of a nested sets of jets within jets. The analysis of the jet trapping time statistics shows a quantitative agreement with the observed transport exponent.Comment: 17 pages, 17 figure

Number of apoptotic cells as a prognostic marker in invasive breast cancer

Apoptosis plays an important role in tumorigenesis. Tumour growth is determined by the rate of cell proliferation and cell death. We counted the number of apoptotic cells in haematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained tumour sections in series of 172 grade I and II invasive breast cancers with long-term follow-up. The number of apoptotic cells in ten high-power fields were converted to the number of apoptotic cells per mm2to obtain the apoptotic index (AI). The AI showed a positive correlation to the mitotic activity index (MAI) (P = 0.0001), histological grade (P< 0.0001) and worse tumour differentiation. Patients with high AI showed shorter overall survival than patients with low AI in the total group as well as in the lymph node-positive group. Tumour size, MAI, lymph node status and AI were independent prognostic indicators in multivariate analysis. The AI was shown to be of additional prognostic value to the MAI in the total patients group as well as in the lymph node-positive group. The correlation between the AI and the MAI points to linked mechanisms of apoptosis and proliferation. Since apoptotic cells can be counted with good reproducibility in H&E-stained tumour sections, the AI may be used as an additional prognostic indicator in invasive breast cancer. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Motion of Three Vortices near Collapse

A system of three point vortices in an unbounded plane has a special family of self-similarly contracting or expanding solutions: during the motion, vortex triangle remains similar to the original one, while its area decreases (grows) at a constant rate. A contracting configuration brings three vortices to a single point in a finite time; this phenomenon known as vortex collapse is of principal importance for many-vortex systems. Dynamics of close-to-collapse vortex configurations depends on the way the collapse conditions are violated. Using an effective potential representation, a detailed quantitative analysis of all the different types of near-collapse dynamics is performed when two of the vortices are identical. We discuss time and length scales, emerging in the problem, and their behavior as the initial vortex triangle is approaching to an exact collapse configuration. Different types of critical behaviors, such as logarithmic or power-law divergences are exhibited, which emphasizes the importance of the way the collapse is approached. Period asymptotics for all singular cases are presented as functions of the initial vortices configurations. Special features of passive particle mixing by a near-collapse flows are illustrated numerically.Comment: 45 pages, 22 figures Last version of the paper with all update