Al2O3/ZrO2/Y3Al5O12 composites. A high-temperature mechanical characterization

An Al2O3/5 vol%·ZrO2/5 vol%·Y3Al5O12 (YAG) tri-phase composite was manufactured by surface modification of an alumina powder with inorganic precursors of the second phases. The bulk materials were produced by die-pressing and pressureless sintering at 1500 °C, obtaining fully dense, homogenous samples, with ultra-fine ZrO2 and YAG grains dispersed in a sub-micronic alumina matrix. The high temperature mechanical properties were investigated by four-point bending tests up to 1500 °C, and the grain size stability was assessed by observing the microstructural evolution of the samples heat treated up to 1700 °C. Dynamic indentation measures were performed on as-sintered and heat-treated Al2O3/ZrO2/YAG samples in order to evaluate the micro-hardness and elastic modulus as a function of re-heating temperature. The high temperature bending tests highlighted a transition from brittle to plastic behavior comprised between 1350 and 1400 °C and a considerable flexural strength reduction at temperatures higher than 1400 °C; moreover, the microstructural investigations carried out on the re-heated samples showed a very limited grain growth up to 1650 °C

Tint 2.0: an All-inclusive Suite for NLP in Italian

In this we paper present Tint 2.0, an open-source, fast and extendable Natural Language Processing suite for Italian based on Stanford CoreNLP. The new release includes some improvements of the existing NLP modules, and a set of new text processing components for fine-grained linguistic analysis that were not available so far, including multi-word expression recognition, affix analysis, readability and classification of complex verb tenses.In questo articolo presentiamo Tint 2.0, una collezione di moduli opensource veloci e personalizzabili per l’analisi automatica di testi in italiano basata su Stanford CoreNLP. La nuova versione comprende alcune migliorie relative ai moduli standard, e l’integrazione di componenti totalmente nuovi per l’analisi linguistica. Questi includono per esempio il riconoscimento di espressioni polirematiche, l’analisi degli affissi, il calcolo della leggibilità e il riconoscimento dei tempi verbali composti

Analysing the Evolution of Students’ Writing Skills and the Impact of Neo-standard Italian with the help of Computational Linguistics

We present a project aimed at studying the evolution of students’ writing skills in a temporal span of 15 years (from 2001 to 2016), analysing in particular the impact of neo-standard Italian. More than 2,500 essays have been transcribed and annotated by teachers according to 28 different linguistic traits. We present here the annotation process together with the first data analysis supported by NLP tools

Analysing the Evolution of Students’ Writing Skills and the Impact of Neo-standard Italian with the help of Computational Linguistics

We present a project aimed at studying the evolution of students’ writing skills in a temporal span of 15 years (from 2001 to 2016), analysing in particular the impact of neo-standard Italian. More than 2,500 essays have been transcribed and annotated by teachers according to 28 different linguistic traits. We present here the annotation process together with the first data analysis supported by NLP tools.In questo contributo presentiamo un progetto finalizzato allo studio dell’evoluzione delle abilità di scrittura negli studenti in un arco temporale di 15 anni (dal 2001 al 2016), e in particolare all’analisi dell’impatto dell’italiano neostandard. In questo contesto, più di 2.500 temi sono stati trascritti e annotati da insegnanti, registrando la presenza di 28 diversi tratti linguistici. Il presente studio illustra il processo di annotazione e le prime analisi dei dati con il supporto di strumenti TAL

Using Semantic Linking to Understand Persons' Networks Extracted from Text

In this work, we describe a methodology to interpret large persons' networks extracted from text by classifying cliques using the DBpedia ontology. The approach relies on a combination of NLP, Semantic web technologies, and network analysis. The classification methodology that first starts from single nodes and then generalizes to cliques is effective in terms of performance and is able to deal also with nodes that are not linked to Wikipedia. The gold standard manually developed for evaluation shows that groups of co-occurring entities share in most of the cases a category that can be automatically assigned. This holds for both languages considered in this study. The outcome of this work may be of interest to enhance the readability of large networks and to provide an additional semantic layer on top of cliques. This would greatly help humanities scholars when dealing with large amounts of textual data that need to be interpreted or categorized. Furthermore, it represents an unsupervised approach to automatically extend DBpedia starting from a corpus

Atopic dermatitis and role of Relizema: a multi-country user experience

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is characterized by itching or pruritus, erythematous lesions, pruritus, and a skin barrier defect. Repeated scratching can trigger the itch-scratch cycle. Itching is associated with an adverse impact on quality of life. The first-line treatment of AD includes the use of topical corticosteroids for atopic dermatitis. However, parents of children with atopic dermatitis are often reluctant to accept the use of topical corticosteroids due to their concern of adverse effects flare-up. Relizema™ cream is a prescription emollient device (PED) multi-ingredients moisturizer formulation that has been indicated for the treatment of signs and symptoms of dermatitis. It is approved as medical device (MD) class IIa in Europe and it is registered as a topical medical device in countries of Asia Pacific. A consensus meeting of 9 dermatologists from multiple countries in Asia Pacific region treating atopic dermatitis was conducted. The dermatologists presented their cases of atopic dermatitis. PED was reported by patients to offer good relief of symptoms and improve skin softness unlike other moisturizers. In fact, a few patients reported relief with Relizema™ cream after using other moisturizers which were not demonstrating clinical effectiveness. Patients reported they noticed a softness in their skin after the application of the PED. PED was effective even in patients with lichenified skin. The formulation which is enriched with antioxidants helped relieve eczema. Due to its steroid-free formulation, the PED can be continued as a part of long-term maintenance treatment to maintain healthy skin conditions, prolong remission, and prevent recurrence

Innovative In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation Strategies of the Madonie Fir Abies nebrodensis

Abies nebrodensis (Lojac.) Mattei is an endemic species of the north-west of Sicily located in an 84 ha area in the Madonie Regional park. The current population is limited to 30 relic adult trees and a fluctuating number of juveniles of natural regeneration. The species is defined as “Critically Endangered” in the Italian list of threatened plants and is classified as CR-D in the 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This article reports the key action undertaken by the LIFE4FIR project aimed at preserving A. nebrodensis, and the results obtained so far in three years of activity. OpenArrays SNPs genotyping revealed a high rate of inbreeding in the natural population and that the adult trees are genetically related. Controlled cross-pollination was consequently performed to increase the genetic variability of the progeny. Outbred offspring are currently being grown in the nursery. Reforestation has been planned by using 4000 selected outbred seedlings in 10 areas within Madonie Park to create re-diffusion cores. Support and protection of the relic population have been implemented through regular phytosanitary surveys, as well as new fencing and video surveillance systems against grazing and wild herbivores. A seedbank and cryobank for the long-term germplasm conservation have been established.European Union LIFE18/NAT/IT/00016

Gli strumenti informatici. Sviluppo e risultati.

Per riconoscere i tratti linguistici di interesse su un corpus composto da quasi tremila temi e per annotarli in modo coerente si \ue8 reso necessario lo sviluppo di diversi strumenti informatici. Tali software appartengono a due tipologie: da un lato, si sono sviluppati alcuni moduli per l'analisi del testo, che in modo automatico riconoscono dei tratti o estraggono delle informazioni parziali utili a riconoscere i tratti in modo manuale. Dall'altro, si \ue8 adattata al progetto una piattaforma online che permette di effettuare annotazione linguistica multilivello con diversi annotatori al lavoro in parallelo su porzioni diverse del corpus di temi

Point of care diagnostics for tuberculosis

The goals of the End TB strategy, which aims to achieve a 90% reduction in tuberculosis (TB) incidence and a 95% reduction in TB mortality by 2035, will not be achieved without new tools to fight TB. These include improved point of care (POC) diagnostic tests that are meant to be delivered at the most decentralised levels of care where the patients make the initial contact with the health system, as well as within the community. These tests should be able to be performed on an easily accessible sample and provide results in a timely manner, allowing a quick treatment turnaround time of a few minutes or hours (in a single clinical encounter), hence avoiding patient loss-to-follow-up. There have been exciting developments in recent years, including the WHO endorsement of Xpert MTB/RIF, Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra, loop-mediated isothermal amplification (TB-LAMP) and lateral flow lipoarabinomannan (LAM). However, these tests have limitations that must be overcome before they can be optimally applied at the POC. Furthermore, worrying short- to medium-term gaps exist in the POC diagnostic test development pipeline. Thus, not only is better implementation of existing tools and algorithms needed, but new research is required to develop new POC tests that allow the TB community to truly make an impact and find the ‘‘missed TB cases’’

Multidrug resistant pulmonary tuberculosis treatment regimens and patient outcomes: an individual patient data meta-analysis of 9,153 patients.

Treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is lengthy, toxic, expensive, and has generally poor outcomes. We undertook an individual patient data meta-analysis to assess the impact on outcomes of the type, number, and duration of drugs used to treat MDR-TB