Electronic market as a strategic lever of an innovation virtual system - an integrative approach to territorial innovations management

During the last years, electronic market has become established very quickly in all areas of the business world. Moreover, according to the most recent forecasts, it will grow exponentially during the years. ?Electronic market? phenomenon highlights the most significant effect of the Information and Communication Technologies development: space and time independence of the economic and social processes; every people, every social group, every Organization can communicate or can share information, knowledge, objectives, anywhere and anytime. In this new socioeconomic context, a re-thinking of local system economic growth models becomes necessary. In this paper we present Innovation Virtual System, as a new model for local systems development. Innovation System is conceived as a set of interacting Organizations, embedded in a dense web of social and economic relationships, skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge and at adapting their behavior according to knowledge about their external and internal settings. More specifically, we try to identify the effects of electronic market on these ?knowledge creating? Organizations, that is on their internal learning circuits and on their external relationships. Particularly we focus in the Internet based electronic market, highlighting the differences between Internet and the previous computing and communication environment, in order to give a clearer understanding of Internet as the strategic infrastructure of electronic market. After describing the impact of the Internet based electronic market on a single Organization, we present a framework of a local system collective learning process, and we describe some of the opportunities offered by the Internet based electronic market to this process.

Transrectal Sonography in Prostate Cancer Detection – Our 25 Years Experience of Implementation

Prostate cancer is a leading public health problem of male population in developed countries. Gold standard for prostate cancer diagnosis is true cut biopsy guided by transrectal ultrasound1–5. Aim of this study was to determine sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive and negative predictive value of transrectal sonography (TRUS) in prostate cancer detection. The analysis was made for two time periods, before and after routine implementation of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in prostate cancer diagnostics. From 1984 to 1993 TRUS guided prostate biopsy was performed in 564, and from 1994 to 2008 in 5678 patients. In the second period PSA was routinely used in prostate cancer diagnostics. In the first period by TRUS we have made an exact diagnosis of prostate cancer in 18.97% of patients what was confirmed by biopsy. 4.61% ware false positive and 11.34% ware false negative. In the second period prostate cancer was recognized in 30.34% of patients, confirmed by biopsy. False positive cases ware 6.11% and false negative 29.31%. Sensitivity of transrectal sonography in the first period was 62.57%, specificity 94.2%, accuracy 86.2%, positive predictive value 80.45% and negative predictive value 87.72%. In the second period sensitivity was 50.87%, specificity 91.93%, accuracy 73.84%, positive predictive value 83.24% and negative predictive value 70.39%. Based on our experience we can conclude that prostate cancer is mostly found in the peripheral zone. Smaller tumors are hipoechoic and bigger tumors are hiperechoic. Prostate cancer lesions are impossible to differentiate from chronic prostatitis only by TRUS. Implementation of PSA has significantly decrease sensitivity, accuracy and negative predictive value of TRUS in prostate cancer detection. TRUS guided true cut biopsy is a gold standard in prostate cancer diagnostics

Performance comparison of microwave cavities used for extraction operations

In the agri-food industry world, billions of tons of waste are produced every year. This represents both a direct loss (due to the failure to exploit their potential value, and their nutritional and energy content) and indirect loss, due to their necessary treatment and/or disposal. Some substances contained in the wastes, of potential high value, can be recovered by means of extraction. Conventional extraction processes involve the use of solvents, which end up requiring an additional process of separation from the solute identified as the desired product. In recent years, extraction techniques have been proposed without the use of solvents. This work compares the performance of two microwave cavities used for extraction operations, both working at 2.45 GHz. A calorimetric analysis performed by following the heating rate and temperature evolution in rack of 25 beakers filled with 25 mL of water, coupled with the solution of the heat transfer balance in the system, allowed to build the spatial distribution of the electromagnetic power dissipated as heat in each of the beakers. Fluid-dynamics aspects related to the recovery of the vapour phase produced during the extraction were also analyzed, with particular emphasis on the mean residence time of the vapour fraction in the extraction chamber as a function of its configuration

Osteoma del mascellare associato a cisti odontogena omolaterale: approccio chirurgico combinato.

L’osteoma osteoide è una lesione osteogenica benigna la cui localizzazione nel seno mascellare è piuttosto rara, appena 7 casi descritti negli ultimi 15 anni. Di più frequente riscontro, sono le cisti odontogene del mascellare. Il riscontro contestuale delle due patologie è un evento piuttosto raro. Descriviamo il caso di osteoma del mascellare associato a voluminosa cisti odontogena omolaterale a partenza dalla radice dell’11mo. La paziente (42a), giungeva alla nostra osservazione per ostruzione respiratoria nasale, cacosmia, rinorrea mucopurulenta ed epifora monolaterali. L’imaging evidenziava la presenza di entrambe le lesioni che occupavano interamente il seno mascellare destro. La paziente veniva indirizzata a chirurgia e si optava per un approccio endoscopico combinato con doppio accesso transorale e transnasale con exeresi delle lesioni e ricostruzione del pavimento del mascellare con ausilio di membrana con PRGF (plasma ricco di fattori di crescita). Nessuna complicanza peri e post-operatoria è stata osservata. Il caso in esame pone l’attenzione sull’approccio multidisciplinare alla patologia e sulla scelta di una tecnica chirurgica conservativa con utilizzo di PRGF

COVID-19 and arrhythmia: The factors associated and the role of myocardial electrical impulse propagation. An observational study based on cardiac telemetric monitoring

BACKGROUND: The heart is commonly involved in COVID-19, and rhythm disorders have been largely reported. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association of some non-cardiac and cardiac comorbidities and QT dispersion with arrhythmias and their impact on outcomes in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. METHODS: Each patient underwent cardiac telemetry monitoring through the entire hospitalization period, laboratory analyses, 12-lead ECG, and lung imaging examination. Patients with arrhythmia were divided into three groups (bradyarrhythmias, tachyarrhythmias, and tachy- and bradyarrhythmias). RESULTS: Two-hundred patients completed the study (males, 123; mean age, 70.1 years); of these, 80 patients (40%) exhibited rhythm disorders on telemetry. Patients with arrhythmia were older (p < 0.0001), had a greater number of comorbidities (p < 0.0001), higher values of creatinine (p = 0.007), B-type natriuretic peptide (p < 0.0001), troponin (p < 0.0001), C-reactive protein (p = 0.01), ferritin (p = 0.001), D-dimer (p < 0.0001), procalcitonin (p = 0.0008), QT interval (p = 0.002), QTc interval (p = 0.04), and QTc dispersion (p = 0.01), and lower values of sodium (p = 0.03), magnesium (p = 0.04), glomerular filtration rate (p < 0.0001), and hemoglobin (p = 0.008) as compared to patients without arrhythmia. By comparing the three subgroups of patients, no significant differences were found. At multivariate analysis, age [odds ratio (OR) = 1.14 (95% CI: 1.07–1.22); p = 0.0004], coronary artery disease [OR = 12.7 (95% CI: 2.38–68.01); p = 0.005], and circulating troponin [OR = 1.05 (95% CI: 1.003–1.10); p = 0.04] represented risk factors independently associated with arrhythmia. All-cause in-hospital mortality was ∼40-fold higher among patients with arrhythmia [OR = 39.66 (95% CI: 5.20–302.51); p = 0.0004]. CONCLUSION: Arrhythmias are associated with aging, coronary artery disease, subtle myocardial injury, hyperinflammatory status, coagulative unbalance, and prolonged QTc dispersion in patients with COVID-19, and confer a worse in-hospital prognosis. Given its usefulness, routinary use of cardiac telemetry should be encouraged in COVID wards

Influence of Insolation on Osteoporosis Progression in Androgen Deprived Nonmetastatic Prostate Cancer Patients

Prostate cancer is a major public health problem in all the developed countries. Increasing numbers of men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer are receiving long-term androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). ADT is associated the loss of bone mineral density and a increased risk of bone fractures. The standard recommendations for male bone health include above all optimizing calcium and vitamin D intake, and exercise. Vitamin D3 is an essential factor in the maintenance of bone health and calcium homeostasis. The main supply of vitamin D3 is obtained through photosynthesis in the skin. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of insolation on osteoporosis progression in androgen deprived nonmetastatic prostate cancer patients. We divided our androgen deprived prostate cancer patients in 2 groups. The first group (A) consists of 224 patients with insolation rate less then 3h per week. The second group (B) consists of 174 patients with insolation rate greater then 10h per week. With a questionnaire we determined, that patients from both groups were 70 to 80 years old, body mass index was 25–30 kg/m2, androgen deprivation was 4–6 years and received no vitamin D supplements. In the group A 21.86% suffered pathologic fractures do to osteoporosis. In the group B 10.92% patients suffered from osteoporotic bone fractures. The risk for pathological bone fractures is significantly greater in the group A. In conclusion higher insolation in androgen deprived nonmetastatic prostate cancer patients significantly decreases the osteoporosis progression and the risk of pathologic bone fractures