Automating the multimodal analysis of musculoskeletal imaging in the presence of hip implants

In patients treated with hip arthroplasty, the muscular condition and presence of inflammatory reactions are assessed using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). As MRI lacks contrast for bony structures, computed tomography (CT) is preferred for clinical evaluation of bone tissue and orthopaedic surgical planning. Combining the complementary information of MRI and CT could improve current clinical practice for diagnosis, monitoring and treatment planning. In particular, the different contrast of these modalities could help better quantify the presence of fatty infiltration to characterise muscular condition after hip replacement. In this thesis, I developed automated processing tools for the joint analysis of CT and MR images of patients with hip implants. In order to combine the multimodal information, a novel nonlinear registration algorithm was introduced, which imposes rigidity constraints on bony structures to ensure realistic deformation. I implemented and thoroughly validated a fully automated framework for the multimodal segmentation of healthy and pathological musculoskeletal structures, as well as implants. This framework combines the proposed registration algorithm with tailored image quality enhancement techniques and a multi-atlas-based segmentation approach, providing robustness against the large population anatomical variability and the presence of noise and artefacts in the images. The automation of muscle segmentation enabled the derivation of a measure of fatty infiltration, the Intramuscular Fat Fraction, useful to characterise the presence of muscle atrophy. The proposed imaging biomarker was shown to strongly correlate with the atrophy radiological score currently used in clinical practice. Finally, a preliminary work on multimodal metal artefact reduction, using an unsupervised deep learning strategy, showed promise for improving the postprocessing of CT and MR images heavily corrupted by metal artefact. This work represents a step forward towards the automation of image analysis in hip arthroplasty, supporting and quantitatively informing the decision-making process about patient’s management

Effects of observing hand motor action on number processing: an online study

In this online study we hypothesized that hand pointing might specifically contribute to the processing of number ordinality, since we learn to list, order, and count series of items through pointing. To test this hypothesis, we asked participants to observe hand pointing or grasping prior to executing number comparison. In experiment 1, participants (N=77) indicated whether a number was larger/smaller than a reference number (magnitude task), therefore processing number cardinality. In Experiment 2, participants (N=75) processed number ordinality, judging whether a number came before/after a reference number in a mental number line (order task). The results showed that response times in the magnitude task (Exp. 1) were faster after grasping as compared to pointing. In the order task (Exp. 2), response times did not differ between grasping and pointing conditions. These results suggest that hand action contribute to specific aspects of numerical processing, in line with embodied accounts of cognition

Corpo, sensi e realtà nel teatro italiano del nuovo millennio

The article proposes a study of the Italian theater in the new millennium through the revaluation of the body, of the senses and of the reality. If the main thrust is the presence of the body, the first part studies particularly the definition and the analysis of a language-body, what it is recovered in La madre (2010) of Mimmo Borrelli, methodologically privileging a textual analysis. The second part studies the theatrical relationships, analyzing a particular typology of sensory dramaturgy in the Teatro del Lemming. Beginning from these analyses and from a rapids review of other experiences, the article concludes on the attempt to define what "reality." means today for the theater and to theatre

Senso e sensi: per un teatro politico emozionale postbrechtiano

The paper aims to analyse the possibilities of an emotional political theatre, which finds its roots in poetry of Artaud’s rather than Brecht’s. Two stagings of Christopher Marlowe’s The Massacre at Paris are analysed: the first directed by Patrice Chéreau at the Théâtre National Populaire in 1972 (Massacre à Paris) and the second by Ricci/Forte staged in 2016 (La strage di Parigi). Despite the aesthetic and time differences both staging aim to actualise Marlowe’s play through sensorial stimulation (smell and touch) and allusions to contemporary ideological murders

Dissociation and Synesthesia: the Modalities of the Senses’ Presence in Theatre

In this article we propose an excursus of how spectators’ five senses are activated throughout different ages in representative or performative theater. We have opted to present our work divided into differing sections, each one corresponding to the sense which seemed to us to prevail. In this way we have noted that each theatrical performance proposes a sensory communication and a hierarchisation of the senses specific to it, in emphasizing dissociation, disjunction, alternation or synaesthesia. &nbsp

Introduzione

The issue starts from an international conference on the theme The Theatre and the five Senses. Theories, Aesthetics and Dramaturgies, held in Paris on June 13th and 14th 2016. The conference was part of a three-year international research project that comprises three European universities and different cultural and theatrical institutions from three countries (Italy, France, Romania). As the title of the conference indicates, the focus of this issue is the role that the senses play in the theater, in different cultural contexts and in different periods

Wladimiro Acosta y la vivienda colectiva (1928 - 1935) : su aporte a la innovación arqueológica y tipológica en América Latina

VVladimiro Acosta (WA) was a Russian architect with centro-european modem studies. His moving to Latin America in 1928 he meant one of the most significant contributions to Argentinian architecture. Since his arrival until 1935 he would develop ten social housing prototypes, which although they were never built they still represent one of the main and most complete studies on housing unit. The hypothesis which leads this thesis shows these prototypes as one of the most significant contributions in typological and technological innovation on social housing in Argentina and Latin America. We consider social housing as one of the most relevant contributions of the modern period. lts research places us before a central topic in modern discipline, where it is possible to dig the main lines of an architectonic thought born in Europe during the first half of XX Century. Nevertheless, it is the move to a specific place where we want to place our study field. This material shows the works of an architect with modern studies whose professional development is proposed in and for a different hemisphere. The hypothesis that this work presents, describes the particular evolution as the outcome of the confrontation of a theory acquired following the European avant-garde of the 20s with a different economic and territorial reality. This confrontation between the concept of the european urban and architectonic modernity with the socio-cultural reality in Latin America would allow WA to produce highly innovative proposals. When we focus in the typological and technological innovations WA developed on social housing over this short but fruitful period, leads us to endose accurate enough material so as to visualize one of the most valuable contributions in Argentinian Architecture. The prototypes which are studied were never built. Digital technology was used to the graphic construction of these projects, placing drawing as builders. Thus, drawing becomes a complement which adds up to the final outcome. This tool reveals new aspects of the unit and the whole, going through the exactitude of the three dimension construction. In this investigation the graphic construction adds information which creates an investigation tool to give different shades to the original object of study and states an inquiry position in the historic and productive aspects through the observation of architecture as formal material. In this way, the graphic construction is the protagonist since it adds original information, a new aspect of WA work and its potential. This work is intended to identify the design instruments, the logic train of thought where WA based his prototypes so as to find a kind of genealogy of the projects signed by WA. The peculiar evolution in his proposals guides us to the hypothesis which favors the universality of the modern theory by showing the ability of adaptation to any site. This work does not try to define WA's proposals as modern or local, instead it tries to go beyond a mere labeling, investigating the instruments that the author values in his projects . At the same time, it is of interest to check its validity, probably not directly its use nowadays, but in its recognition as contribution in a field that it is still developing.Wladimiro Acosta (WA) era un arquitecto de origen ruso y de formación moderna centroeuropea. Su traslado a América Latina en 1928 provocaría una de las contribuciones más importantes para la disciplina arquitectónica argentina. Desde su arribo y hasta el año 1935 desarrollaría por iniciativa personal diez prototipos de vivienda colectiva que nunca fueron construidos, y que al día de hoy, siguen representando unos de los principales y más completos estudios referidos al tema de la unidad de vivienda. La hipótesis que rige esta tesis presenta a estos prototipos como uno de los aportes más significativos en innovación tipológica y tecnológica de vivienda colectiva para la disciplina arquitectónica argentina, enseñanza que es extrapolable al conjunto de América Latina. Consideramos la vivienda colectiva como una de las contribuciones relevantes del período moderno. Su exploración nos ubica ante un tema central de la disciplina moderna, donde es posible indagar en los lineamientos fundamentales de un pensamiento arquitectónico surgido en Europa durante la primera mitad del siglo XX. Sin embargo, es en el traslado a un lugar especifico donde nos interesa situar el campo de estudio. Este material presenta la obra de un arquitecto de formación moderna, pero cuyo desarrollo profesional es propuesto en y para un hemisferio diferente. La hipótesis que este trabajo plantea describe esta particular evolución como el producto de la confrontación de una teoría disciplinar asimilada en consonancia con las vanguardias centroeuropeas de la década del veinte, con una realidad económica y territorial sustancialmente diferente. Esta confrontación entre los conceptos de la modernidad urbano arquitectónica europea, con la realidad socio cultural, ambiental, tecnológica y disciplinar de América Latina le permitiría a WA realizar propuestas con un alto componente innovador. Centrarse en las innovaciones tecnológicas y tipológicas de vivienda colectiva realizadas por WA a lo largo de este corto pero fructifero período, conlleva la delimitación de un material suficientemente preciso para visualizar uno de los aportes más valiosos existentes en la disciplina arquitectónica en Argentina. Los prototipos en estudio nunca fueron construidos. Se utiliza la tecnología digital para la construcción gráfica de estos proyectos, poniendo al dibujo en el oficio de constructor. De esta manera se ubica el dibujo como algo complementario, que añade sin redundar. Esta herramienta aporta nuevas visiones de la unidad y del conjunto, sometiéndolos al rigor de su construcción en las tres dimensiones del espacio. En este trabajo de investigación la construcción gráfica produce conocimiento, que se constituye como una herramienta investigativa que intenta aportar nuevas miradas respecto al objeto original de estudio y manifiesta una posición de indagación no solo historiográfica sino productiva, a través de la observación de la arquitectura como material formal. De esta manera la construcción gráfica es protagonista, ya que agrega información original, un nuevo conocimiento de la obra de WA y de sus potencialidades. Es interés de este trabajo identificar los instrumentos de diseño, las lógicas, en las que WA se basara para realizar sus prototipos, con el fin de encontrar una especie de genealogía de los proyectos firmados WA. La particular evolución evidenciada en sus propuestas nos acerca a la hipótesis que defiende el valor de universalidad de la teoría moderna, al denotar una particular facultad de adaptación a un territorio sensiblemente diferente al de su formulación. Este trabajo no intenta enmarcar de moderno ni de local a las propuestas de WA sino de ir más allá de una simple catalogación, indagando en los instrumentos que el autor revaloriza en sus concepciones. A su vez, es interés constatar su vigencia, tal vez no desde su uso estricto en la actualidad, sino en el reconocimiento de su labor como esclarecedor de un campo que actualmente sigue en desarrollo

Effect of Utipro® (containing gelatin-xyloglucan) against Escherichia coli invasion of intestinal epithelial cells: results of an in vitro study

Aim: To evaluate whether Utipro(®), a natural product approved to prevent urinary tract infections, protects intestinal epithelial cells from Escherichia coli adherence/intracellular invasion in vitro. Materials & methods: Caco-2 and CacoGoblet(TM) cells were treated with Utipro (1.5 to 10 mg/ml) or untreated (controls). E. coli adherence/intracellular invasion was evaluated by Trans-Epithelial Electrical Resistance, Lucifer Yellow assay and microbial counts. Results: Utipro was noncytotoxic. Utipro 5 and 10 mg/ml protected cell tight junctions (mean ± SD Trans-Epithelial Electrical Resistance [Ω × cm(2)] 66.83 ± 0.29 and 71.33 ± 0.29, respectively), and protected cells from E. coli intracellular invasion (mean ± SD reductions in total bacteria counts [Log10] 0.9 ± 0.06 and 2.1 ± 0.56, respectively). Conclusion: Results indicate that Utipro creates a protective physical barrier on intestinal epithelial cells in vitro which reduces the settling of E. coli reservoirs. These results constitute the first step in the demonstration of the efficacy of Utipro to prevent urinary tract infections. Further research is needed in in vivo models and clinical trials

Deep Boosted Regression for MR to CT Synthesis

Attenuation correction is an essential requirement of positron emission tomography (PET) image reconstruction to allow for accurate quantification. However, attenuation correction is particularly challenging for PET-MRI as neither PET nor magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can directly image tissue attenuation properties. MRI-based computed tomography (CT) synthesis has been proposed as an alternative to physics based and segmentation-based approaches that assign a population-based tissue density value in order to generate an attenuation map. We propose a novel deep fully convolutional neural network that generates synthetic CTs in a recursive manner by gradually reducing the residuals of the previous network, increasing the overall accuracy and generalisability, while keeping the number of trainable parameters within reasonable limits. The model is trained on a database of 20 pre-acquired MRI/CT pairs and a four-fold random bootstrapped validation with a 80:20 split is performed. Quantitative results show that the proposed framework outperforms a state-of-the-art atlas-based approach decreasing the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) from 131HU to 68HU for the synthetic CTs and reducing the PET reconstruction error from 14.3% to 7.2%.Comment: Accepted at SASHIMI201