Multiple aspect trajectories: A case study on fishing vessels in the northern adriatic sea

In this paper we build, implement and analyze a spatio-temporal database describing the fishing activities in the Northern Adriatic Sea over four years. The database results from the fusion of two complementary data sources: trajectories from fishing vessels (obtained from terrestrial Automatic Identification System, or AIS, data feed) and the corresponding fish catch reports (i.e., the quantity and type of fish caught). We present all the phases of the dataset creation, starting from the raw data and proceeding through data exploration, data cleaning, trajectory reconstruction and semantic enrichment. Moreover, we formalise and compare different techniques to distribute the fish caught by the fishing vessels along their trajectories. We implement the database with MobilityDB, an open source geospatial trajectory data management and analysis platform. Subsequently, guided by our ecological experts, we perform some analyses on the resulting spatio-temporal database, with the goal of mapping the fishing activities on some key species, highlighting all the interesting information and inferring new knowledge that will be useful for fishery management

From multiple aspect trajectories to predictive analysis: a case study on fishing vessels in the Northern Adriatic sea

In this paper we model spatio-temporal data describing the fishing activities in the Northern Adriatic Sea over four years. We build, implement and analyze a database based on the fusion of two complementary data sources: trajectories from fishing vessels (obtained from terrestrial Automatic Identification System, or AIS, data feed) and fish catch reports (i.e., the quantity and type of fish caught) of the main fishing market of the area. We present all the phases of the database creation, starting from the raw data and proceeding through data exploration, data cleaning, trajectory reconstruction and semantic enrichment. We implement the database by using MobilityDB, an open source geospatial trajectory data management and analysis platform. Subsequently, we perform various analyses on the resulting spatio-temporal database, with the goal of mapping the fishing activities on some key species, highlighting all the interesting information and inferring new knowledge that will be useful for fishery management. Furthermore, we investigate the use of machine learning methods for predicting the Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE), an indicator of the fishing resources exploitation in order to drive specific policy design. A variety of prediction methods, taking as input the data in the database and environmental factors such as sea temperature, waves height and Clorophill-a, are put at work in order to assess their prediction ability in this field. To the best of our knowledge, our work represents the first attempt to integrate fishing ships trajectories derived from AIS data, environmental data and catch data for spatio-temporal prediction of CPUE – a challenging task

A latent trait look at pretest-posttest validation of criterion-referenced test items

Since Cox and Vargas (1966) introduced their pretest-posttest validity index for criterion-referenced test items, a great number of additions and modifications have followed. All are based on the idea of gain scoring; that is, they are computed from the differences between proportions of pretest and posttest item responses. Although the method is simple and generally considered as the prototype of criterion-referenced item analysis, it has many and serious disadvantages. Some of these go back to the fact that it leads to indices based on a dual test administration- and population-dependent item p values. Others have to do with the global information about the discriminating power that these indices provide, the implicit weighting they suppose, and the meaningless maximization of posttest scores they lead to. Analyzing the pretest-posttest method from a latent trait point of view, it is proposed to replace indices like Cox and Vargas’ Dpp by an evaluation of the item information function for the mastery score. An empirical study was conducted to compare the differences in item selection between both methods

The management of acute venous thromboembolism in clinical practice. Results from the European PREFER in VTE Registry

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe. Data from real-world registries are necessary, as clinical trials do not represent the full spectrum of VTE patients seen in clinical practice. We aimed to document the epidemiology, management and outcomes of VTE using data from a large, observational database. PREFER in VTE was an international, non-interventional disease registry conducted between January 2013 and July 2015 in primary and secondary care across seven European countries. Consecutive patients with acute VTE were documented and followed up over 12 months. PREFER in VTE included 3,455 patients with a mean age of 60.8 ± 17.0 years. Overall, 53.0 % were male. The majority of patients were assessed in the hospital setting as inpatients or outpatients (78.5 %). The diagnosis was deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) in 59.5 % and pulmonary embolism (PE) in 40.5 %. The most common comorbidities were the various types of cardiovascular disease (excluding hypertension; 45.5 %), hypertension (42.3 %) and dyslipidaemia (21.1 %). Following the index VTE, a large proportion of patients received initial therapy with heparin (73.2 %), almost half received a vitamin K antagonist (48.7 %) and nearly a quarter received a DOAC (24.5 %). Almost a quarter of all presentations were for recurrent VTE, with >80 % of previous episodes having occurred more than 12 months prior to baseline. In conclusion, PREFER in VTE has provided contemporary insights into VTE patients and their real-world management, including their baseline characteristics, risk factors, disease history, symptoms and signs, initial therapy and outcomes

Efficacia e sicurezza delle vaccinazioni anti-influenza e anti-pneumococco nei pazienti con artrite reumatoide trattati con farmaci biologici

\uc8 noto da tempo come i pazienti con artrite reumatoide (AR) abbiano un alto rischio di morbilit\ue0 e mortalit\ue0 legato a polmonite e sepsi e come queste infezioni contribuiscano in modo significativo alla riduzione delle aspettative di vita 1-3. Le ragioni per l\u2019aumentata prevalenza di infezioni in questi pazienti non sono completamente chiare, e l\u2019uso di farmaci immunosoppressivi (soprattutto corticosteroidi) sembra contribuire solo in parte all\u2019aumentato rischio. Inoltre, la possibilit\ue0 che i normali segni clinici di infezione siano meno evidenti nei pazienti in trattamento con farmaci antiinfiammatori o immunomodulanti pu\uf2 comportare un ritardo nell\u2019inizio della terapia 1. L\u2019adozione di strategie che comprendano la vaccinazione anti-influenza (V-inf) e antipneumococco (V-pn) sembrano promettenti nel ridurre fino a 4 volte il rischio di ospedalizzazione e di fatalit\ue0 legato alle infezioni polmonari nei pazienti con AR e pertanto le autorit\ue0 sanitarie di molti paesi hanno formulato raccomandazioni specifiche sull\u2019impiego dei vaccini nei soggetti in terapia immunosoppressiva 4. Tuttavia numerosi audit concordano nel registrare un utilizzo subottimale della V-inf e V-pn nei pazienti con AR, nei quali tali strategie di profilassi vengono impiegate in non pi\uf9 del 20-43% dei cas