Prototipo di Piattaforma LDB

Il documento descrive un sistema progettato e realizzato per rispondere alle necessità di equipaggiamenti a bordo di palloni di lunga durata (Long Duration Balloon: LDB) che si effettuano necessariamente da regioni Artiche ed Antartiche. Le caratteristiche del sistema, denominato Prototipo Piattaforma LDB (PPLDB), lo rendono inoltre utilizzabile per ogni genere di voli di pallone stratosferico, per il controllo di payload sub-orbitali, o per il controllo remoto di qualsiasi strumentazione quando siano assenti collegamenti terrestri. Le caratteristiche del sistema lo rendono compatibile o facilmente adattabile alle specifiche proprie sia di un equipaggiamento primario (per il controllo del volo) sia di un payload. Il sistema PPLDB é stato testato in condizioni simulate di voli stratosferici, pertanto qualificato in un ampio intervallo operativo di temperatura e pressione, in tutti i suoi componenti

The Walsh family resilience questionnaire: The Italian version

Background: Resilience focuses on strength under stress, in the context of adversity. Walsh\u2019s theoretical model identifies relational processes that allow families to tackle and overcome critical situations, dividing them into three domains of family function. The aim of this study was to assess resilience in families of patients with a chronic disease by adapting and validating the Italian version of the Walsh Family Resilience Questionnaire (Walsh-IT). Patients and methods: An Italian adult sample of 421 participants (patients and relatives) was collected with the aim to assess the reliability and validity of the Walsh-IT. Concurrent validity was carried out by comparing this instrument with the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale III (FACES III) administered at the same time as the Walsh-IT. Results: Reliability showed high correlation between repeated measurements. The alpha coefficient was 0.946. Both parallel analysis and minimum average partial criteria suggested that the best number of domains is equal to 3, explaining 50.4% of the total variance. Based on the results obtained from the Rasch analysis, items 10, 11, 16, 22, and 23 have been removed resulting in a short-form questionnaire (Walsh-IT-R) of 26 items with three domains: shared beliefs and support (SBS, \u3b1=0.928); family organization and interaction (FOI, \u3b1=0.863); and utilization of social resources (USR, \u3b1=0.567). The total score of the Walsh-IT-R was strongly correlated with the total score of FACES III Real Family Scale (r=0.68; p,0.0001). Conclusion: Results support that the Walsh-IT-R is a valid instrument for the assessment of family resilience in Italy when contending with the challenges of chronic disease. It could be used in pre- and post-assessment in practice effectiveness research, offering a profile of family resilience processes at the start and end of interventions and follow-up

P-SOCRATES: A Parallel Software Framework for Time-Critical Many-Core Systems

The advent of next-generation many-core embedded platforms has the chance of intercepting a converging need for predictable high-performance coming from both the High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Embedded Computing (EC) domains. On one side, new kinds of HPC applications are being required by markets needing huge amounts of information to be processed within a bounded amount of time. On the other side, EC systems are increasingly concerned with providing higher performance in real-time, challenging the performance capabilities of current architectures. This converging demand, however, raises the problem about how to guarantee timing requirements in presence of parallel execution. This paper presents the approach of project P-SOCRATES for the design of an integrated framework for the execution of workload-intensive applications with real-time requirements on top of next-generation commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) platforms based on many-core accelerated architectures. The time-criticality and parallelisation challenges are addressed by merging techniques coming from both HPC and EC domains, identifying the main sources of indeterminism and proposing efficient mapping and scheduling algorithms, along with the associated timing and schedulability analysis, to guarantee the real-time and performance requirements of the applications

Cost-effectiveness analysis of online hemodiafiltration versus high-flux hemodialysis

BACKGROUND: Clinical studies suggest that hemodiafiltration (HDF) may lead to better clinical outcomes than high-flux hemodialysis (HF-HD), but concerns have been raised about the cost-effectiveness of HDF versus HF-HD. Aim of this study was to investigate whether clinical benefits, in terms of longer survival and better health-related quality of life, are worth the possibly higher costs of HDF compared to HF-HD. METHODS: The analysis comprised a simulation based on the combined results of previous published studies, with the following steps: 1) estimation of the survival function of HF-HD patients from a clinical trial and of HDF patients using the risk reduction estimated in a meta-analysis; 2) simulation of the survival of the same sample of patients as if allocated to HF-HD or HDF using three-state Markov models; and 3) application of state-specific health-related quality of life coefficients and differential costs derived from the literature. Several Monte Carlo simulations were performed, including simulations for patients with different risk profiles, for example, by age (patients aged 40, 50, and 60 years), sex, and diabetic status. Scatter plots of simulations in the cost-effectiveness plane were produced, incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were estimated, and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves were computed. RESULTS: An incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of €6,982/quality-adjusted life years (QALY) was estimated for the baseline cohort of 50-year-old male patients. Given the commonly accepted threshold of €40,000/QALY, HDF is cost-effective. The probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that HDF is cost-effective with a probability of ~81% at a threshold of €40,000/QALY. It is fundamental to measure the outcome also in terms of quality of life. HDF is more cost-effective for younger patients. CONCLUSION: HDF can be considered cost-effective compared to HF-HD

Pattern of care and effectiveness of treatment for glioblastoma patients in the real world: Results from a prospective population-based registry. Could survival differ in a high-volume center?

BACKGROUND: As yet, no population-based prospective studies have been conducted to investigate the incidence and clinical outcome of glioblastoma (GBM) or the diffusion and impact of the current standard therapeutic approach in newly diagnosed patients younger than aged 70 years. METHODS: Data on all new cases of primary brain tumors observed from January 1, 2009, to December 31, 2010, in adults residing within the Emilia-Romagna region were recorded in a prospective registry in the Project of Emilia Romagna on Neuro-Oncology (PERNO). Based on the data from this registry, a prospective evaluation was made of the treatment efficacy and outcome in GBM patients. RESULTS: Two hundred sixty-seven GBM patients (median age, 64 y; range, 29-84 y) were enrolled. The median overall survival (OS) was 10.7 months (95% CI, 9.2-12.4). The 139 patients 64aged 70 years who were given standard temozolomide treatment concomitant with and adjuvant to radiotherapy had a median OS of 16.4 months (95% CI, 14.0-18.5). With multivariate analysis, OS correlated significantly with KPS (HR = 0.458; 95% CI, 0.248-0.847; P = .0127), MGMT methylation status (HR = 0.612; 95% CI, 0.388-0.966; P = .0350), and treatment received in a high versus low-volume center (HR = 0.56; 95% CI, 0.328-0.986; P = .0446). CONCLUSIONS: The median OS following standard temozolomide treatment concurrent with and adjuvant to radiotherapy given to (72.8% of) patients aged 6470 years is consistent with findings reported from randomized phase III trials. The volume and expertise of the treatment center should be further investigated as a prognostic factor