Sistema per l'acquisizione e la trasmissione dei dati della stazione mareografica MENFOR

Il presente documento descrive i componenti e le funzionalità del sistema realizzato per l’acquisizione e la trasmissione dei dati della stazione mareografica MENFOR sviluppata nell’ambito del progetto “Sviluppo di una stazione portuale per la previsione dei flussi di marea meteorologica, finalizzata a costituire un servizio per la sicurezza della navigazione e per la protezione dei natanti nel Golfo della Spezia” supportato dal programma PRAI-FESR della Regione Liguria. Il sistema qui descritto è stato realizzato con il contributo di tutti gli Enti coinvolti

Survey Evidence on Conditional Norm Enforcement

We discuss survey evidence on individuals' willingness to sanction norm violations - such as evading taxes, drunk driving, fare dodging, or skiving o work - by expressing disapproval or social exclusion. Our data suggest that people condition their sanctioning behavior on their belief about the frequency of norm violations. The more commonly a norm violation is believed to occur, the lower the individuals' inclination to punish it. Based on an instrumental variable approach, we demonstrate that this pattern reflects a causal relationship

The Online dating romance scam: The psychological impact on victims – both financial and non-financial

This paper examined the psychological impact of the online dating romance scam. Unlike other mass-marketing fraud victims, these victims experienced a ‘double hit’ of the scam: a financial loss and the loss of a relationship. For most, the loss of the relationship was more upsetting than their financial losses (many described the loss of the relationship as a ‘death’). Some described their experience as traumatic and all were affected negatively by the crime. Most victims had not found ways to cope given the lack of understanding from family and friends. Denial (e.g., not accepting the scam was real or not being able to separate the fake identity with the criminal) was identified as an ineffective means of coping, leaving the victim vulnerable to a second wave of the scam. Suggestions are made as to how to change policy with regards to law enforcement deal with this crime

Thy-1 Attenuates TNF-α-Activated Gene Expression in Mouse Embryonic Fibroblasts via Src Family Kinase

Heterogeneous surface expression of Thy-1 in fibroblasts modulates inflammation and may thereby modulate injury and repair. As a paradigm, patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease with pathologic features of chronic inflammation, demonstrate an absence of Thy-1 immunoreactivity within areas of fibrotic activity (fibroblast foci) in contrast to the predominant Thy-1 expressing fibroblasts in the normal lung. Likewise, Thy-1 deficient mice display more severe lung fibrosis in response to an inflammatory injury than wildtype littermates. We investigated the role of Thy-1 in the response of fibroblasts to the pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-α. Our study demonstrates distinct profiles of TNF-α-activated gene expression in Thy-1 positive (Thy-1+) and negative (Thy-1−) subsets of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEF). TNF-α induced a robust activation of MMP-9, ICAM-1, and the IL-8 promoter driven reporter in Thy-1− MEFs, in contrast to only a modest increase in Thy-1+ counterparts. Consistently, ectopic expression of Thy-1 in Thy-1− MEFs significantly attenuated TNF-α-activated gene expression. Mechanistically, TNF-α activated Src family kinase (SFK) only in Thy-1− MEFs. Blockade of SFK activation abrogated TNF-α-activated gene expression in Thy-1− MEFs, whereas restoration of SFK activation rescued the TNF-α response in Thy-1+ MEFs. Our findings suggest that Thy-1 down-regulates TNF-α-activated gene expression via interfering with SFK- and NF-κB-mediated transactivation. The current study provides a novel mechanistic insight to the distinct roles of fibroblast Thy-1 subsets in inflammation

Unemployment and disability pension-an 18-year follow-up study of a 40-year-old population in a Norwegian county

<p>© 2012 Støver et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.</p><p>This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p

Change in the Gender Division of Domestic Work after Mummy or Daddy Took Leave: An Examination of Alternative Explanations

This study investigates how the duration of child care leave taken by mothers and fathers relates to changes in couples' division of housework and child care after postnatal labour market return in Germany. It explores whether take-up of child care related leave may impact the gender division of domestic work beyond the period of leave and examines three theoretical explanations: 1) development of domestic work skills, 2) bargaining power based on economic resources, and 3) adaptations in gender role or parenting identities. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1992-2012) on 797 and 762 couples with a first or second birth, respectively, we applied OLS regression models with lagged dependent variables in combination with Heckman selection correction. The results suggested that dual-earner couples where mothers took longer leaves experienced a greater shift towards a gender-traditional division of domestic labour after childbirth even in the medium-term after labour market return. The linear relationship and stronger effects on the division of child care than for housework lent support to identity-based explanations. Paternal leave take-up was associated with a more equal division of housework and child care after first births but not after second birth transitions. The relationship with the leave duration was less clear. In terms of explaining the mechanisms for fathers, the findings provided greatest support for explanations relating to domestic skills development possibly in combination with changes in fathering identities

Treatment-Free Remission in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Patients Treated With Low-Dose TKIs: A Feasible Option Also in the Real-Life. A Campus CML Study

Treatment-free remission (TFR) has become a primary therapeutic goal in CML and is also considered feasible by international guidelines. TKIs dose reduction is often used in real-life practice to reduce adverse events, although its impact on TFR is still a matter of debate. This study aimed to explore the attitude of Italian hematologists towards prescribing TKIs at reduced doses and its impact on TFR. In September 2020, a questionnaire was sent to 54 hematology centers in Italy participating to the Campus CML network. For each patient, data on the main disease characteristics were collected. Most of the hematologists involved (64.4%) believed that low-dose TKIs should not influence TFR. Indeed, this approach was offered to 194 patients. At the time of TFR, all but 3 patients had already achieved a DMR, with a median duration of 61.0 months. After a median follow-up of 29.2 months, 138 (71.1%) patients were still in TFR. Interestingly, TFR outcome was not impaired by any of the variables examined, including sex, risk scores, BCR-ABL1 transcript types, previous interferon, type and number of TKIs used before treatment cessation, degree of DMR or median duration of TKIs therapy. On the contrary, TFR was significantly better after dose reduction due to AEs; furthermore, patients with a longer DMR duration showed a trend towards prolonged TFR. This survey indicates that low-dose TKI treatment is an important reality. While one third of Italian hematologists still had some uncertainties on TFR feasibility after using reduced doses of TKIs outside of clinical trials, TFR has often been considered a safe option even in patients treated with low-dose TKIs in the real-life setting. It should be noted that only 28.9% of our cases had a molecular recurrence, less than reported during standard dose treatment. Consequently, TFR is not impaired using low-dose TKIs

Prognostic factors for response to treatment by corticosteroid injection or surgery in carpal tunnel syndrome (PaLMS study): a prospective multi‐centre cohort study

Introduction: Studies of prognosis for surgery and corticosteroid injection for carpal tunnel syndrome have considered only a limited range of explanatory variables for outcome. Methods: Data were prospectively collected on patient‐reported symptoms, physical and psychological functioning, comorbidity and quality of life at baseline and 6 monthly for up to 2 years. Outcomes were patient‐rated change over a 6‐month period and symptom‐severity score at 18 months. Results: 754 patients with CTS completed baseline questionnaires and 626 (83%) completed follow‐up to 18 months. Multivariable modelling identified, independent of symptom severity at outset, higher health utility, fewer comorbidities and lower anxiety as significant predictors of better outcome from surgery. In patients treated by steroid injection, independent of symptom severity at outset, shorter duration of symptoms and having no prior injection were significant predictors of better outcome. Discussion: These multivariable models of outcome may inform shared decision‐making about treatment for CTS

A cognitive framework for object recognition with application to autonomous vehicles

Autonomous vehicles or self-driving cars are capable of sensing the surrounding environment so they can navigate roads without human input. Decisions are constantly made on sensing, mapping and driving policy using machine learning techniques. Deep Learning – massive neural networks that utilize the power of parallel processing – has become a popular choice for addressing the complexities of real time decision making. This method of machine learning has been shown to outperform alternative solutions in multiple domains, and has an architecture that can be adapted to new problems with relative ease. To harness the power of Deep Learning, it is necessary to have large amounts of training data that are representative of all possible situations the system will face. To successfully implement situational awareness in driverless vehicles, it is not possible to exhaust all possible training examples. An alternative method is to apply cognitive approaches to perception, for situations the autonomous vehicles will face. Cognitive approaches to perception work by mimicking the process of human intelligence – thereby permitting a machine to react to situations it has not previously experienced. This paper proposes a novel cognitive approach for object recognition. The proposed cognitive object recognition algorithm, referred to as Recognition by Components, is inspired by the psychological studies pertaining to early childhood development. The algorithm works by breaking down images into a series of primitive forms such as square, triangle, circle or rectangle and memory based aggregation to identify objects. Experimental results suggest that Recognition by Component algorithm performs significantly better than algorithms that require large amounts of training data