Disease or function? What matters most for self-rated health in older people depends on age

n/

Journey through crohn’s disease complication: From fistula formation to future therapies

Crohn’s Disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory disorder in which up to 50% of patients develop fistula within 20 years after the initial diagnosis, and half of these patients suffer perianal fistulizing disease. The etiopathogenesis of CD-related perianal fistula is still unclear, and its phe-notypical and molecular characteristics are even more indefinite. A better understanding would be crucial to develop targeted and more effective therapeutic strategies. At present, the most accredited theory for the formation of CD-related fistula identifies the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) as the driving force. It has been well recognized that CD carries an increased risk of malig-nancy, particularly mucinous adenocarcinoma is often associated with long-standing fistula in CD patients. Despite the availability of multiple treatment options, perianal fistulizing CD represents a therapeutic challenge and is associated with an important impact on patients’ quality of life. To date, the most effective management is multidisciplinary with the cooperation of gastroenterologists, surgeons, radiologists, and nutritionists and the best recommended treatment is a combination of medical and surgical approaches

Effect of pre-season training phase on anthropometric, hormonal and fitness parameters in young soccer players

The aims of the study were to investigate 1) the effect of 8 weeks of PSP training on anthropometrics, salivary hormones and fitness parameters in youth soccer players, 2) the correlations between fitness and hormonal parameters, and 3) the impact of the experience of the coach and his methodology of training on these parameters. Weight, height, BMI, pubertal development (PDS), salivary Cortisol (sC), salivary Testosterone (sT), salivary sDHEAS, intermittent tests (VO2max), and countermovement jump test (CMJ) modifications of 35 youth soccer players (age: 14±0 yrs; BMI: 20.8±1.8 k/m2 ) from two Italian clubs (“Lupa Frascati” -LF-; “Albalonga” -AL) were analysed. A significant (p<0.05) time by club effect was observed in sC (F(1,31) = 9.7, ES = 1.13), sT (F(1,31) = 4.2, ES = 0.74), CMJ (F(1,28) = 26.5, ES = 1.94), and VO2max (F(1,28) = 8.5, ES = 1.10). Statistical differences (p<0.05) in weight (F(1,32) = 25.5, ES = 0.11), sC (F(1,31) = 32.1, ES = 1.43), sT/sC ratio (F(1,31) = 10.1, ES = 0.97), sDHEAS/sC ratio (F(1,31) = 6.3, ES = 0.70), and VO2max (F(1,28) = 64.3, ES = 1.74) were found within time factor. Between clubs, differences (p<0.05) in sC (F(1,32) = 8.5, ES = 1.17), sT (F(1,31) = 4.2, ES = 0.74), CMJ (F(1,28) = 26.5, ES = 1.50), and VO2max (F(1,28) = 8.5, ES = 1.10) were found. CMJ was inversely correlated with sDHEAS (r = -0.38) before PSP, while Δ of CMJ showed significant correlations with Δ of sC (r = 0.43) and ΔVO2max was inversely correlated with ΔBMI (r = -0.54) and ΔsC (r = -0.37) in all subjects. Considering each single club, ΔVO2max showed correlations with ΔBMI (r = -0.45) in AL, while ΔCMJ showed correlations with ΔPDS (r = 0.72) in LF club. Since the PSP is often limited training time to simultaneously develop physical, technical and tactical qualities, an efficient method to distribute the training load is important in youth soccer players to increase the performance and to avoid injuries

On the Influence of low-power laser source on the evaporation of single droplets: experimental and numerical approaches

This work investigates the influence of laser power on an evaporating single droplet made from an H2O and NaCl mixture. Heat and mass transfer of a single droplet with the presence of a low-power laser source (as He-Ne laser) is studied both numerically and experimentally in this article. A new model is presented to simulate water droplet evaporation. The model is robust enough to be applied for various initial concentrations and conditions of the droplet, ambient conditions, and dissolved media properties. Moreover, laser energy is taken into consideration as a source term which is a function of the wave length of the source beam and refractive index of the droplet. Considering the involved parameters, the model is implemented in a MATLAB code and validated using experimental data obtained in this study on top of those already available in the literature. Experimental data were collected for droplets with an initial radius of 500μm at room temperature for three initial concentrations of 3%, 5%, and 10% (by mass) of NaCl in water as well as pure water droplet to provide a comprehensive validation dataset. It is shown that low-power laser source significantly increases the evaporation rate (2.7 to 5.64 for 0% and 10% initial concentration of salt, respectively) which must be taken into consideration while using laser based measurement techniques

Displacement power spectrum measurement of a macroscopic optomechanical system at thermal equilibrium

The mirror relative motion of a suspended Fabry-Perot cavity is studied in the frequency range 3-10 Hz. The experimental measurements presented in this paper, have been performed at the Low Frequency Facility, a high finesse optical cavity 1 cm long suspended to a mechanical seismic isolation system identical to that one used in the VIRGO experiment. The measured relative displacement power spectrum is compatible with a system at thermal equilibrium within its environmental. In the frequency region above 3 Hz, where seismic noise contamination is negligible, the measurement distribution is stationary and Gaussian, as expected for a system at thermal equilibrium. Through a simple mechanical model it is shown that: applying the fluctuation dissipation theorem the measured power spectrum is reproduced below 90 Hz and noise induced by external sources are below the measurement.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, to be submitte

On line power spectra identification and whitening for the noise in interferometric gravitational wave detectors

In this paper we address both to the problem of identifying the noise Power Spectral Density of interferometric detectors by parametric techniques and to the problem of the whitening procedure of the sequence of data. We will concentrate the study on a Power Spectral Density like the one of the Italian-French detector VIRGO and we show that with a reasonable finite number of parameters we succeed in modeling a spectrum like the theoretical one of VIRGO, reproducing all its features. We propose also the use of adaptive techniques to identify and to whiten on line the data of interferometric detectors. We analyze the behavior of the adaptive techniques in the field of stochastic gradient and in the Least Squares ones.Comment: 28 pages, 21 figures, uses iopart.cls accepted for pubblication on Classical and Quantum Gravit

Is it possible to detect gravitational waves with atom interferometers?

We investigate the possibility to use atom interferometers to detect gravitational waves. We discuss the interaction of gravitational waves with an atom interferometer and analyze possible schemes

Reciprocal influence of B cells and tumor macro and microenvironments in the ApcMin/+model of colorectal cancer

One of the most fascinating aspects of the immune system is its dynamism, meant as the ability to change and readapt according to the organism needs. Following an insult, we assist to the spontaneous organization of different immune cells which cooperate, locally and at distance, to build up an appropriate response. Throughout tumor progression, adaptations within the systemic tumor environment, or macroenvironment, result in the promotion of tumor growth, tumor invasion and metastasis to distal organs, but also to dramatic changes in the activity and composition of the immune system. In this work, we show the changes of the B-cell arm of the immune system following tumor progression in the ApcMin/+model of colorectal cancer. Tumor macroenvironment leads to an increased proportion of total and IL-10-competent B cells in draining LNs while activates a differentiation route that leads to the expansion of IgA+lymphocytes in the spleen and peritoneum. Importantly, serum IgA levels were significantly higher in ApcMin/+than Wt mice. The peculiar involvement of IgA response in the adenomatous transformation had correlates in the gut-mucosal compartment where IgA-positive elements increased from normal mucosa to areas of low grade dysplasia while decreasing upon overt carcinomatous transformation. Altogether, our findings provide a snapshot of the tumor education of B lymphocytes in the ApcMin/+model of colorectal cancer. Understanding how tumor macroenvironment affects the differentiation, function and distribution of B lymphocytes is pivotal to the generation of specific therapies, targeted to switching B cells to an anti-, rather than pro-, tumoral phenotype

Aided Inertial Estimation of Wing Shape

Advanced large-wing-span aircraft result in more structural flexibility and the potential for instability or poor handling qualities. These shortcomings call for stability augmentation systems that entail active structural control. Consequently, the in-flight estimation of wing shape is beneficial for the control of very flexible aircraft. This paper proposes a new methodology for estimating flexible structural states based on extended Kalman filtering by exploiting ideas employed in aided inertial navigation systems. High-bandwidth-rate gyro angular velocities at different wing stations are integrated to provide a short-term standalone inertial shape estimation solution, and additional low-bandwidth aiding sensors are then employed to bound diverging estimation errors. The proposed filter implementation does not require a flight dynamics model of the aircraft, facilitates the often tedious Kalman filtering tuning process, and allows for accurate estimation under large and nonlinear wing deflections. To illustrate the approach, the technique is verified by means of simulations using sighting devices as aiding sensors, and an observability study is conducted. In contrast to previous work in the literature based on stereo vision, a sensor configuration that provides fully observable state estimation is found using only one camera and multiple rate gyros for Kalman filtering update and prediction phases, respectively

Noise parametric identification and whitening for LIGO 40-meter interferometer data

We report the analysis we made on data taken by Caltech 40-meter prototype interferometer to identify the noise power spectral density and to whiten the sequence of noise. We concentrate our study on data taken in November 1994, in particular we analyzed two frames of data: the 18nov94.2.frame and the 19nov94.2.frame. We show that it is possible to whiten these data, to a good degree of whiteness, using a high order whitening filter. Moreover we can choose to whiten only restricted band of frequencies around the region we are interested in, obtaining a higher level of whiteness.Comment: 11 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication by Physical Review