A Look into Dante\u27s Inferno: Praise through Proactivity

A look into Canto III and Canto VII, and how proactivity in one\u27s life can equate to salvation, as well as a light comparison between Dante\u27s society and government and ours.https://digital.sandiego.edu/ital-347/1003/thumbnail.jp

A 1-year follow-up study with C-VEMPs, O-VEMPs and video head impulse testing in vestibular neuritis

The aim of this paper was to evaluate prospectively, in a group of patients affected by VN, a diagnostic protocol employing C-VEMPs, O-VEMPs and vHIT together. The diagnosis of vestibular neurolabyrinthitis was based on the clinical history, absence of associated auditory or neurological symptoms, and a neuro-otological examination with an evaluation of lateral semicircular canal function using the Fitzgerald-Hallpike caloric vestibular test and ice test. Our series revealed an incidence of 55 % of superior and inferior vestibular neurolabyrinthitis, 40 % of superior vestibular neurolabyrinthitis and 5 % of inferior vestibular neurolabyrinthitis. These data, however, comprised different degrees of vestibular involvement considering the evaluation of each single vestibular end-organ with potential different prognosis. Four patients had only deficits of the horizontal and superior semicircular canals or their ampullary nerves. The implementation of C-VEMPs, O-VEMPs and vHIT in a vestibular diagnostic protocol has made possible to observe patients with ampullary VN, unidentifiable with other types of vestibular exams. The effect of age seems to have some impact on the recovery. When recovery firstly involves the utricular and saccular nerves and subsequently the ampullary nerves, it may be reasonable to expect a more favorable and successful outcome

Giant petrous bone cholesteatoma: combined microscopic surgery and an adjuvant endoscopic approach

Petrous bone cholesteatomas (PBCs) are epidermoid cysts, which have developed in the petrous portion of the temporal bone and may be congenital or acquired. Cholesteatomas arising in this region have a tendency to invade bone and functional structures and the middle and posterior fossae reaching an extensive size. Traditionally, surgery of a giant PBC contemplates lateral transtemporal or middle fossa microscopic surgery; however, in recent years, endoscopic surgical techniques (primary or complementary endoscopic approach) are starting to receive a greater consensus for middle ear and mastoid surgeries. We report the rare case of an 83-year-old Caucasian male affected by a giant cholesteatoma that eroded the labyrinth and the posterior fossa dura and extended to the infralabyrinthine region, going beyond the theca and reaching the first cervical vertebra. The giant cholesteatoma was managed through a combined approach (microscopic and, subsequently, complementary endoscopic approach). In this case report, we illustrate some advantages of this surgical choice

Selective insulators and anomalous responses in three-component fermionic gases with broken SU(3) symmetry

We study a three-component fermionic fluid in an optical lattice in a regime of intermediate to strong interactions allowing for optical processes connecting the different components, similar to those used to create artificial gauge fields. Using dynamical mean-field theory, we show that the combined effect of interactions and the external field induces a variety of anomalous phases in which different components of the fermionic fluid display qualitative differences, i.e., the physics is flavor selective. Remarkably, the different components can display huge differences in the correlation effects, measured by their effective masses and nonmonotonic behavior of their occupation number as a function of the chemical potential, signaling a sort of selective instability of the overall stable quantum fluid

Taste and olfaction in middle ear surgery

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess pre- and postoperative taste ability in patients undergoing middle ear surgery for otosclerosis or chronic otitis media. Olfactory function was also evaluated to rule out taste deficits due to concomitant nasal pathology. METHODS: All patients underwent ear, nose, and throat examination, otomicroscopy, nasal endoscopy, anterior rhinomanometry, taste testing, and olfactory testing. Patients were evaluated at 1 to 5 days preoperatively (T0), and at 1 (T1), 6 (T6), and 12 (T12) months postoperatively. RESULTS: Both groups of patients experienced worsening of the mean taste threshold postoperatively. This phenomenon was more serious in poststapedotomy patients. Follow-up showed progressive improvement in both groups. All values of olfactory testing were within the normal range for otosclerosis patients. Patients with chronic otitis media showed variable postoperative findings. CONCLUSION: Chorda tympani function can be negatively affected by middle ear surgery. Deficits may be more marked in stapedotomy patients than in those undergoing tympanoplasty. Postoperative recovery of taste is satisfactory, although with different timelines for the 2 types of patholog

Dynamical vertex approximation for the attractive Hubbard model

In this work, we adapt the formalism of the dynamical vertex approximation (D\u393A), a diagrammatic approach including many-body correlations beyond the dynamical mean-field theory, to the case of attractive on-site interactions. We start by exploiting the ladder approximation of the D\u393A scheme, in order to derive the corresponding equations for the nonlocal self-energy and vertex functions of the attractive Hubbard model. Second, we prove the validity of our derivation by showing that the results obtained in the particle-hole symmetric case fully preserve the exact mapping between the attractive and the repulsive models. It will be shown how this property can be related to the structure of the ladders, which makes our derivation applicable for any approximation scheme based on ladder diagrams. Finally, we apply our D\u393A algorithm to the attractive Hubbard model in three dimensions, for different fillings and interaction values. Specifically, we focus on the parameters region in the proximity of the second-order transition to the superconducting and charge-density wave phases, respectively, and calculate (i) their phase-diagrams, (ii) their critical behavior, as well as (iii) the effects of the strong nonlocal correlations on the single-particle properties

Development of a triple well CMOS MAPS device with in-pixel signal processing and sparsified readout capabilities

none 39 The SLIM5 collaboration has designed, fabricated and tested several prototypes of CMOS Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS). The key feature of these devices, with respect to traditional MAPS is to include, at the pixel level, charge amplification and shaping and a first sparsification structure that interfaces with on-chip digital readout circuits. Via the 3-well option of the applied View the MathML source ST-Microelectronics CMOS technology each pixel includes a charge preamplifier, a shaper, a discriminator, an output latch, while retaining a fill factor of the sensitive area close to 90%. The last device of the family was submitted on Q4 2006 and the tests are ongoing. On this sensor, an on-chip, off-pixel digital readout block (streamout data sparsification) was added to implement, to control and to readout a test matrix built up of 4×4 pixels. It is aimed at proposing solutions that will overcome the readout speed limit of future large-matrix MAPS chips. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2007.07.135 none G. Batignani; S. Bettarini; F. Bosi; G. Calderini; R. Cenci; M. Dell'Orso; F. Forti P. ; M.A. Giorgi; A. Lusiani; G. Marchiori; F. Morsani; N. Neri; E. Paoloni; G. Rizzo1; J. Walsh; L. Gaioni; M. Manghisoni; V. Re; G. Traversi; M. Bruschi; A. Gabrielli; B. Giacobbe; N. Semprini; R. Spighi; M. Villa; A. Zoccoli; G. Verzellesi; C. Andreoli5; E. Pozzati; L. Ratti; V. Speziali; D. Gamba; G. Giraudo; P. Mereu; L. Bosisio; G. Giacomini; L. Lanceri; I. Rachevskaia; L. Vitale G. Batignani; S. Bettarini; F. Bosi; G. Calderini; R. Cenci; M. Dell'Orso; F. Forti P. ; M.A. Giorgi; A. Lusiani; G. Marchiori; F. Morsani; N. Neri; E. Paoloni; G. Rizzo1; J. Walsh; L. Gaioni; M. Manghisoni; V. Re; G. Traversi; M. Bruschi; A. Gabrielli; B. Giacobbe; N. Semprini; R. Spighi; M. Villa; A. Zoccoli; G. Verzellesi; C. Andreoli5; E. Pozzati; L. Ratti; V. Speziali; D. Gamba; G. Giraudo; P. Mereu; L. Bosisio; G. Giacomini; L. Lanceri; I. Rachevskaia; L. Vital

Imprecise Arithmetic for Low Power Image Processing

Sometimes reducing the precision of a numerical processor, by introducing errors, can lead to significant performance (delay, area and power dissipation) improvements without compromising the overall quality of the processing. In this work, we show how to perform the two basic operations, addition and multiplication, in an imprecise manner by simplifying the hardware implementation. With the proposed 'sloppy' operations, we obtain a reduction in delay, area and power dissipation, and the error introduced is still acceptable for applications such as image processing. © 2012 IEEE

Power Efficient Design of Parallel/Serial FIR Filters in RNS

It is well known that the Residue Number System (RNS) provides an efficient implementation of parallel FIR filters especially when the filter order and the dynamic range are high. The two main drawbacks of RNS, need of converters and coding overhead, make a serialized implementation of the FIR filter potentially disadvantageous with respect to filters implemented in the conventional number systems. In this work, we show a number of solutions which demonstrate that the power efficiency of RNS FIR filters implemented serially is maintained in ASIC technology, while in modern FPGA technology RNS implementations are less efficien

Imaging features of pancreatic metastases: A comparison with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Purpose: To compare imaging features of pancreatic metastases (PM) with those of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC). Methods: CT and MR scans of 24 patients with 54 PM and 30 patients with PDAC were reviewed to evaluate the imaging features, which were compared by using a Chi square test. Results: We found a statistically significant difference between PM and PDAC based on location (P < 0.001), margins (P < 0.001), arterial enhancement (P = 0.004), rim enhancement (P < 0.001), pancreatic duct dilatation (P = 0.01), common bile duct dilatation (P = 0.003), vascular involvement (P = 0.02), parenchymal atrophy (P < 0.001), peripancreatic fluid (P = 0.03). Conclusion: Imaging features might be helpful to differentiate PM from PDAC