152 research outputs found

    Unleashing the Power of User Reviews: Exploring Airline Choices at Catania Airport, Italy

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    This study aims to investigate the possible relationship between the mechanisms of social influence and the choice of airline, through the use of new tools, with the aim of understanding whether they can contribute to a better understanding of the factors influencing the decisions of consumers in the aviation sector. We have chosen to extract user reviews from well-known platforms: Trustpilot, Google, and Twitter. By combining web scraping techniques, we have been able to collect a comprehensive dataset comprising a wide range of user opinions, feedback, and ratings. We then refined the BERT model to focus on insightful sentiment in the context of airline reviews. Through our analysis, we observed an intriguing trend of average negative sentiment scores across various airlines, giving us deeper insight into the dynamics between airlines and helping us identify key partnerships, popular routes, and airlines that play a central role in the aeronautical ecosystem of Catania airport during the specified period. Our investigation led us to find that, despite an airline having received prestigious awards as a low-cost leader in Europe for two consecutive years 2021 and 2022, the "Catanese" user tends to suffer the dominant position of other companies. Understanding the impact of positive reviews and leveraging sentiment analysis can help airlines improve their reputation, attract more customers, and ultimately gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1311.3475 by other author

    Low molecular weight ϵ-caprolactone-pcoumaric acid copolymers as potential biomaterials for skin regeneration applications

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    ϵ-caprolactone-p-coumaric acid copolymers at different mole ratios (ϵ-caprolactone:p-coumaric acid 1:0, 10:1, 8:1, 6:1, 4:1, and 2:1) were synthesized by melt-polycondensation and using 4-dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid as catalyst. Chemical analysis by NMR and GPC showed that copolyesters were formed with decreasing molecular weight as p-coumaric acid content was increased. Physical characteristics, such as thermal and mechanical properties, as well as water uptake and water permeability, depended on the mole fraction of pcoumaric acid. The p-coumarate repetitive units increased the antioxidant capacity of the copolymers, showing antibacterial activity against the common pathogen Escherichia coli. In addition, all the synthesized copolyesters, except the one with the highest concentration of the phenolic acid, were cytocompatible and hemocompatible, thus becoming potentially useful for skin regeneration applications

    Producción de hidrógeno en el hidrotratamiento de etanol utilizando γ-Fe₂O₃ como catalizador: influencia de la temperatura

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    El previsible agotamiento de los combustibles actualmente empleados y las graves cuestiones de la contaminación atmosférica, obligan a plantear de nuevo cómo obtener la energía necesaria sin emitir compuestos capaces de perturbar la atmósfera que respiramos, y a partir de fuentes renovables. Puesto que puede obtenerse de una diversa gama de fuentes, tales como agua, biomasa, etc, el hidrógeno ofrece, a futuro, un enorme potencial energético. La industria biotecnológica permite obtener etanol a partir de una fuente renovable. La utilización de éste como punto de partida para la obtención de otros productos, tales como hidrógeno, presenta un nuevo desafío para la tecnología química. Dentro de esta línea, el hidrotratamiento de etanol utilizando diversos óxidos de hierro como catalizadores ha recibido especial atención, debido a la elevada actividad de alguno de ellos hacia la producción de hidrógeno como producto principal de reacción. El objetivo del presente trabajo consiste en evaluar la estabilidad de la fase γ del óxido férrico en la reacción mencionada a medida que se incrementa la temperatura, observando la influencia de la misma en la conversión y en la selectividad hacia hidrógeno.Facultad de Ciencias Exacta

    A Super Stable Mutant of the Plant Protein Monellin Endowed with Enhanced Sweetness

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    Sweet proteins are a class of proteins with the ability to elicit a sweet sensation in humans upon interaction with sweet taste receptor T1R2/T1R3. Single-chain Monellin, MNEI, is among the sweetest proteins known and it could replace sugar in many food and beverage recipes. Nonetheless, its use is limited by low stability and high aggregation propensity at neutral pH. To solve this inconvenience, we designed a new construct of MNEI, dubbed Mut9, which led to gains in both sweetness and stability. Mut9 showed an extraordinary stability in acidic and neutral environments, where we observed a melting temperature over 20 C higher than that of MNEI. In addition, Mut9 resulted twice as sweet than MNEI. Both proteins were extensively characterized by biophysical and sensory analyses. Notably, Mut9 preserved its structure and function even after 10 min boiling, with the greatest differences being observed at pH 6.8, where it remained folded and sweet, whereas MNEI lost its structure and function. Finally, we performed a 6-month shelf-life assessment, and the data confirmed the greater stability of the new construct in a wide range of conditions. These data prove that Mut9 has an even greater potential for food and beverage applications than MNEI

    ROLE OF IMAGING IN THE PREOPERATIVE ASSESSMENT OF PELVIC AND EXTRAPELVIC ENDOMETRIOSIS: A PICTORIAL ESSAY

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    -To create a MR radiological template for endometriosis -To review MR reports and images in patients with endometriosis to assess the accurancy of the reports

    Linear discriminant analysis and principal component analysis to predict coronary artery disease

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    Coronary artery disease is one of the most prevalent chronic pathologies in the modern world, leading to the deaths of thousands of people, both in the United States and in Europe. This article reports the use of data mining techniques to analyse a population of 10,265 people who were evaluated by the Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences for myocardial ischaemia. Overall, 22 features are extracted, and linear discriminant analysis is implemented twice through both the Knime analytics platform and R statistical programming language to classify patients as either normal or pathological. The former of these analyses includes only classification, while the latter method includes principal component analysis before classification to create new features. The classification accuracies obtained for these methods were 84.5 and 86.0 per cent, respectively, with a specificity over 97 per cent and a sensitivity between 62 and 66 per cent. This article presents a practical implementation of traditional data mining techniques that can be used to help clinicians in decision-making; moreover, principal component analysis is used as an algorithm for feature reduction

    Cervical dystonia patients display subclinical gait changes

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    Gait disorders in cervical dystonia (CD) are reported in patients under DBS or in severe cases complicated with spinal deformities

    Relationship between anxiety level and radiological investigation. Comparison among different diagnostic imaging exams in a prospective single-center study

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    Objective: Every patient could feel anxious when he waits in a radiological department to undergo diagnostic exams. The aim of our study is to evaluate the impact of the radiological exams on patient anxiety. Materials and methods: We evaluated 343 patients (mean age 54.83 years) who underwent different types of diagnostic exams in the Department of Diagnostic Imaging at our Hospital from April 2013 to August 2014. We administered to patients the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory Test, which detected with high sensitivity both state anxiety and trait anxiety. A team of clinical psychologists and radiologists evaluated the scores obtained. Results: 83 out of 343 patients were excluded because refused to file the questionnaire. 31 % of the patients were submitted to MR, 18 % to breast imaging, 10 % to X-ray, 22 % Computer Tomography and 19 % to ultrasound, as previously described. 41 % of patients were submitted to the examination because of an oncologic disease, while 59 % because of non-oncological disease. Therefore, it was found that high levels of anxiety were present in most (about 91 %) of the patients and the scores varied according to the imaging examination and to the examination’s reason: anxiety level was higher in non-oncological patients (54 %) and in patients waiting to undergo to MRI exams (29 %). Conclusion: Our data suggest that the diagnostic exams are stressful events for the patient, also in non-oncological patients. So, it is important to adequate the radiological staff to receive the patient, to inform him and perform exams with emotive involvement with a targeted education. Also, further studies are needed to evaluate the anxiety level and the quality of the images, because the anxiety can result in a somatic disorder with hyperactivity of the autonomic nervous system which may affect the patient’s physical examination, causing problems in the evaluation of radiological images making to non-cooperative patient. MRI imaging is the examination that more of all led to an anxious state of patients but the main stressor is not related to the type of diagnostic examination, but to the uncertainty of the diagnosis, therapy and prognosis

    Positive impact of indicaxanthin from Opuntia ficusindica fruit on high-fat diet–induced neuronal damage and gut microbiota dysbiosis

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    Indicaxanthin is a betalain that is abundant in Opuntia ficus-indica orange fruit and has antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects. Nevertheless, very little is known about the neuroprotective potential of indicaxanthin. This study investigated the impact of indicaxanthin on neuronal damage and gut microbiota dysbiosis induced by a high-fat diet in mice. The mice were divided into three groups according to different diets: the negative control group was fed a standard diet; the high-fat diet group was fed a high-fat diet; and the high-fat diet + indicaxanthin group was fed a high-fat diet and received indicaxanthin orally (0.86 mg/kg per day) for 4 weeks. Brain apoptosis, redox status, inflammation, and the gut microbiota composition were compared among the different animal groups. The results demonstrated that indicaxanthin treatment reduced neuronal apoptosis by downregulating the expression of proapoptotic genes and increasing the expression of antiapoptotic genes. Indicaxanthin also markedly decreased the expression of neuroinflammatory proteins and genes and inhibited high-fat diet–induced neuronal oxidative stress by reducing reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, malondialdehyde, and nitric oxide levels. In addition, indicaxanthin treatment improved the microflora composition by increasing the abundance of healthy bacterial genera, known as producers of short-chain fatty acids (Lachnospiraceae, Alloprovetella, and Lactobacillus), and by reducing bacteria related to unhealthy profiles (Blautia, Faecalibaculum, Romboutsia and Bilophila). In conclusion, indicaxanthin has a positive effect on high-fat diet–induced neuronal damage and on the gut microbiota composition in obese mice
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