Arteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy Treated with Intravenous Prostaglandin E1 and Steroids.

Arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (AAION) is an acute ischemia of the posterior ciliary arteries and/or ophthalmic artery due to inflammation. Therapy is immediate intervention with systemic steroids, especially to protect against vision loss in the other eye. The addition of a potent vasodilator to the steroids could help restore ocular blood flow and improve visual acuity. The objective of the current report was to present the use of prostaglandin E(1) (PGE(1)) - a powerful vasodilator of the microcirculation - in the treatment of AAION. Two patients with AAION were treated with intravenous steroids and PGE(1). The visual acuity improved from 4/50 (less than 20/200) to 6/10 (20/35) in one patient and from 1/50 (20/400) to 1/10 (20/200) in the second patient. The visual fields in both patients maintained small central islands of vision. No complications due to the use of PGE(1) were seen. Intravenous PGE(1) should be considered in addition to steroids in cases of AAION to immediately restore blood flow to the optic nerve and improve visual acuity while the steroids reduce the inflammation

Support to Design for Air Traffic Management: An Approach with Agent-Based Modelling and Evolutionary Search

To enhance Air Traffic Management (ATM) and meet the future traffic demand and environmental requirements, present ATM system is going to be modified (SESAR Joint Undertaking, 2017), designing new services to be integrated in future architecture considering the evolution of present fragmented structure of the airspace and the entanglement of air routes. Such a change process is complicated due to the nature of ATM, which is a large-scale Socio-Technical System (STS), typically involving a complex interaction between humans, machines and the environment. In such kind of systems, managing their evolution is a complex and difficult task since the social and technical implications of any proposed concept should be fully assessed before a choice is made whether or not to proceed with the related development. Often, simulation tools are also used to support the design of the concept itself by enabling what-if-analyses. However, these may be too effort and time consuming due to the exponential growth of the required analysis cases. A quite common mismatch between the performance evaluations in simulated conditions and those achieved in real life is represented by the partial assessment of human aspects that can be performed throughout the new concept lifecycle from its lowest maturity level up to “ready to market”. The proposed work defines an approach to support the design of new ATM solutions, including the evaluation on human behaviour. The approach adopts a combined paradigm, which involves Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation (ABMS) to specify and analyse the ATM models, and Agent-based Evolutionary Search (AES) to optimize the design of the new solutions. A specific case study is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Transition from Direct Routing Airspace (DRA) to Free Routing Airspace (FRA), respectively described by Solution #32 and Solution #33 in the SESAR solutions catalogue (SESAR Joint Undertaking, 2017), is used for both validation and experimentation activities. In detail, the proposed experimentation case regards the design of sector collapsing/decollapsing configuration to optimize controller workloads. The achieved results are presented and discussed

Preface: BITS2014, the annual meeting of the Italian Society of Bioinformatics

This Preface introduces the content of the BioMed Central journal Supplements related to BITS2014 meeting, held in Rome, Italy, from the 26th to the 28th of February, 2014

EEGManyPipelines: A Large-scale, Grassroots Multi-analyst Study of Electroencephalography Analysis Practices in the Wild

The ongoing reproducibility crisis in psychology and cognitive neuroscience has sparked increasing calls to re-evaluate and reshape scientific culture and practices. Heeding those calls, we have recently launched the EEGManyPipelines project as a means to assess the robustness of EEG research in naturalistic conditions and experiment with an alternative model of conducting scientific research. One hundred sixty-eight analyst teams, encompassing 396 individual researchers from 37 countries, independently analyzed the same unpublished, representative EEG data set to test the same set of predefined hypotheses and then provided their analysis pipelines and reported outcomes. Here, we lay out how large-scale scientific projects can be set up in a grassroots, community-driven manner without a central organizing laboratory. We explain our recruitment strategy, our guidance for analysts, the eventual outputs of this project, and how it might have a lasting impact on the field

Osteochondral impaction of the posterior acetabular surface without cortical fracture of any wall or column: an undescribed pattern of acetabular injury

Surgical treatment of a unusual acetabular fracture is described. This fracture was characterized by impaction and breaking down of the posterior articular surface and comminution of lamina quadrilatera lower portion, without cortical fracture of both columns. The fracture was treated surgically through the Kocher–Langenbeck approach. A small hole was created in the acetabulum posterior wall, the impacted fragment was reduced, and the bone defect was filled with autologous bone from the greater trochanter. A plate was shaped in order to fix both bone graft and fractured fragment

Enhancing the early student experience

This paper is concerned with identifying how the early student experience can be enhanced in order to improve levels of student retention and achievement. The early student experience is the focus of this project as the literature has consistently declared the first year to be the most critical in shaping persistence decisions. Programme managers of courses with high and low retention rates have been interviewed to identify activities that appear to be associated with good retention rates. The results show that there are similarities in the way programmes with high retention are run, with these features not being prevalent on programmes with low retention. Recommendations of activities that appear likely to enhance the early student experience are provided

Inverse Modeling for MEG/EEG data

We provide an overview of the state-of-the-art for mathematical methods that are used to reconstruct brain activity from neurophysiological data. After a brief introduction on the mathematics of the forward problem, we discuss standard and recently proposed regularization methods, as well as Monte Carlo techniques for Bayesian inference. We classify the inverse methods based on the underlying source model, and discuss advantages and disadvantages. Finally we describe an application to the pre-surgical evaluation of epileptic patients.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

Clinical features of patients with type 2 diabetes with and without Covid-19: a case control study (CoViDiab I)

Aims: To evaluate whether subjects with diabetes hospitalized for Coronavirus disease-19 (Covid-19) represent a subgroup of patients with high-risk clinical features compared to patients with diabetes without Covid-19. Methods: In this case-control study 79 patients with type 2 diabetes out of 354 adults hospitalized for Covid-19 and 158 controls with type 2 diabetes but without Covid-19, matched for age and gender, were enrolled. Medical history and concomitant therapies were retrieved from medical charts and compared between cases and controls, controlling for confounders. Results: Fully-adjusted multivariate logistic regression model showed that previous CVD history did not differ between patients with and without Covid-19 (odds ratio 1.40, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.59–3.32, p = 0.45). A higher prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (OR 3.72, 95%CI: 1.42–9.72, p = 0.007) and of chronic kidney disease (CKD) (OR 3.08, 95%CI: 1.18–8.06, p = 0.022) and a lower prevalence of ever smokers (OR 0.30, 95%CI: 0.13–0.67, p = 0.003), of users of lipid lowering agents (OR 0.26, 95%CI: 0.12–0.54, p < 0.001), and of anti-hypertensive drugs (OR 0.39, 95%CI: 0.16–0.93, p = 0.033) were found among cases. Conclusions: CVD prevalence does not differ between people with diabetes with and without Covid-19 requiring hospitalization. An increased prevalence of COPD and of CKD in Covid-19 patients with type 2 diabetes is suggested. These findings aid to clarify the relationship between underlying conditions and SARS-CoV-2 infection in the high-risk group of patients with diabetes

How does student educational background affect transition into the first year of veterinary school? Academic performance and support needs in university education

The first year of university is critical in shaping persistence decisions (whether students continue with and complete their degrees) and plays a formative role in influencing student attitudes and approaches to learning. Previous educational experiences, especially previous university education, shape the students’ ability to adapt to the university environment and the study approaches they require to perform well in highly demanding professional programs such as medicine and veterinary medicine. The aim of this research was to explore the support mechanisms, academic achievements, and perception of students with different educational backgrounds in their first year of veterinary school. Using questionnaire data and examination grades, the effects upon perceptions, needs, and educational attainment in first-year students with and without prior university experience were analyzed to enable an in-depth understanding of their needs. Our findings show that school leavers (successfully completed secondary education, but no prior university experience) were outperformed in early exams by those who had previously graduated from university (even from unrelated degrees). Large variations in student perceptions and support needs were discovered between the two groups: graduate students perceived the difficulty and workload as less challenging and valued financial and IT support. Each student is an individual, but ensuring that universities understand their students and provide both academic and non-academic support is essential. This research explores the needs of veterinary students and offers insights into continued provision of support and improvements that can be made to help students achieve their potential and allow informed "Best Practice"