Preschoolers and Mind Body Health

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Bamboo trusses with low cost and high ductility joints

Innovative solutions of joints for bamboo trusses are presented. Experimental tests show the performances and the high level of ductility of the proposed technique, joined with simplicity in the concept of the joints, low level of technology and low cost of all used materials. It can permit a proper dissemination and a sustainable maintenance in developing countries

Damage and restoration of historical urban walls: literature review and case of studies

Within this work, the causes of collapses and damages occurred in masonry artefacts have been evaluated to properly identify suitable monitoring and restoration methods. In this regard, a comprehensive literature review has been performed. Based on the results, moisture has been found to be a critical parameter, that affects the structural health of masonry artefacts. Various non-destructive methods were employed to measure moisture and monitor the materials involved, including Infrared Thermography, Electrical Resistivity Tomography, Ground Penetrating Radar, Laser Scanning and Digital Terrestrial Photogrammetry, Global Navigation Satellite Systems, Unilateral Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Laser-Induced Fluorescence technique, Acoustic Imaging and Acoustic Tomography, Geographic Information System, on-site survey process and computer modeling of the structure with specific FEM software. Finally, the implementation of tie-beams, Fiber Reinforced Polymers layers, ventilation, draining systems, and high-quality materials are proposed as solutions for controlling the moisture effect and retrofitting

Fertility preservation in ovarian tumours

A considerable number of patients with a cancer diagnosis are of childbearing age and have not satisfied their desire for a family. Despite ovarian cancer (OC) usually occurring in older patients, 3%–14% are diagnosed at a fertile age with the overall 5-year survival rate being 91.2% in women ≤44 years of age when it is found at 1A–B stage. In this scenario, testing the safety and the efficacy of fertility sparing strategies in OC patients is very important overall in terms of quality of life. Unfortunately, the lack of randomised trials to validate conservative approaches does not guarantee the safety of fertility preservation strategies. However, evidence-based data from descriptive series suggest that in selected cases, the preservation of the uterus and at least one part of the ovary does not lead to a high risk of relapse. This conservative surgery helps to maintain organ function, giving patients of childbearing age the possibility to preserve their fertility. We hereby analysed the main evidence from the international literature on this topic in order to highlight the selected criteria for conservative management of OC patients, including healthy BRCA mutations carriers

Integrating uavs and canopy height models in vineyard management: A time-space approach

The present study illustrates an operational approach estimating individual and aggregate vineyards’ canopy volume estimation through three years Tree-Row-Volume (TRV) measurements and remotely sensed imagery acquired with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Red-Green-Blue (RGB) digital camera, processed with MATLAB scripts, and validated through ArcGIS tools. The TRV methodology was applied by sampling a different number of rows and plants (per row) each year with the aim of evaluating reliability and accuracy of this technique compared with a remote approach. The empirical results indicate that the estimated tree-row-volumes derived from a UAV Canopy Height Model (CHM) are up to 50% different from those measured on the field using the routinary technique of TRV in 2019. The difference is even much higher in the two 2016 dates. These empirical findings outline the importance of data integration among techniques that mix proximal and remote sensing in routine vineyards’ agronomic practices, helping to reduce management costs and increase the environmental sustainability of traditional cultivation systems

Machine learning approach using MLP and SVM algorithms for the fault prediction of a centrifugal pump in the oil and gas industry

The demand for cost-effective, reliable and safe machinery operation requires accurate fault detection and classification to achieve an efficient maintenance strategy and increase performance. Furthermore, in strategic sectors such as the oil and gas industry, fault prediction plays a key role to extend component lifetime and reduce unplanned equipment thus preventing costly breakdowns and plant shutdowns. This paper presents the preliminary development of a simple and easy to implement machine learning (ML) model for early fault prediction of a centrifugal pump in the oil and gas industry. The data analysis is based on real-life historical data from process and equipment sensors mounted on the selected machinery. The raw sensor data, mainly from temperature, pressure and vibrations probes, are denoised, pre-processed and successively coded to train the model. To validate the learning capabilities of the ML model, two different algorithms-the Support Vector Machine (SVM) and the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP)-are implemented in KNIME platform. Based on these algorithms, potential faults are successfully recognized and classified ensuring good prediction accuracy. Indeed, results from this preliminary work show that the model allows us to properly detect the trends of system deviations from normal operation behavior and generate fault prediction alerts as a maintenance decision support system for operatives, aiming at avoiding possible incoming failures

Offloading security applications into the network

Users currently experience different levels of protection when accessing the Internet via their various personal devices and network connections, due to variable network security conditions and security applications available at each device. The SECURED project addresses these issues by designing an architecture to offload security applications from the end-user devices to a suitable trusted node in the network: the Network Edge Device (NED). Users populate a repository with their security applications and policy, which will then be fetched by the closest NED to protect the user’s traffic when he connects to a network. This setting provides uniform protection, independent of the actual user device and network location (e.g. public WiFi hotspot or 3G mobile connection). In other words, a user-centric approach is fostered by this architecture, opposed to the current device- or network-based security schema, with cost and protection benefits and simultaneously enabling new business models for service and network providers

Students’ Confidence and Interest in Palliative and Bereavement Care: A European Study

As part of a European Erasmus Plus project entitled Death Education for Palliative Psychology, this study assessed the ways in which Master’s Degree students in psychology and the creative arts therapies self-rated their confidence and interest in death education and palliative and bereavement care. In five countries (Austria, Israel, Italy, Poland, Romania), 344 students completed an online questionnaire, and 37 students were interviewed to better understand their views, interest, and confidence. The results revealed some significant differences between countries, and showed that older respondents with previous experience as formal caregivers for end-of-life clients showed greater interest in obtaining practical clinical competence in these fields. A mediation analysis indicated that students’ previous care experiences and past loss experiences were related to students’ current interest in death education and palliative and bereavement care through the mediation of their sense of confidence in this field. The qualitative findings identified five shared themes: life and death, learning about death, the psychological burden, personal experience and robust training, and four key training needs. Overall, students’ interest in studying and working with terminal illness and death are rooted in internal resources, a preliminary sense of confidence, but also external requirements

Application of a New Method for GWAS in a Related Case/Control Sample with Known Pedigree Structure: Identification of New Loci for Nephrolithiasis

In contrast to large GWA studies based on thousands of individuals and large meta-analyses combining GWAS results, we analyzed a small case/control sample for uric acid nephrolithiasis. Our cohort of closely related individuals is derived from a small, genetically isolated village in Sardinia, with well-characterized genealogical data linking the extant population up to the 16th century. It is expected that the number of risk alleles involved in complex disorders is smaller in isolated founder populations than in more diverse populations, and the power to detect association with complex traits may be increased when related, homogeneous affected individuals are selected, as they are more likely to be enriched with and share specific risk variants than are unrelated, affected individuals from the general population. When related individuals are included in an association study, correlations among relatives must be accurately taken into account to ensure validity of the results. A recently proposed association method uses an empirical genotypic covariance matrix estimated from genome-screen data to allow for additional population structure and cryptic relatedness that may not be captured by the genealogical data. We apply the method to our data, and we also investigate the properties of the method, as well as other association methods, in our highly inbred population, as previous applications were to outbred samples. The more promising regions identified in our initial study in the genetic isolate were then further investigated in an independent sample collected from the Italian population. Among the loci that showed association in this study, we observed evidence of a possible involvement of the region encompassing the gene LRRC16A, already associated to serum uric acid levels in a large meta-analysis of 14 GWAS, suggesting that this locus might lead a pathway for uric acid metabolism that may be involved in gout as well as in nephrolithiasis

Microsatellites and SNPs linkage analysis in a Sardinian genetic isolate confirms several essential hypertension loci previously identified in different populations

Background. A multiplicity of study designs such as gene candidate analysis, genome wide search (GWS) and, recently, whole genome association studies have been employed for the identification of the genetic components of essential hypertension (EH). Several genome-wide linkage studies of EH and blood pressure-related phenotypes demonstrate that there is no single locus with a major effect while several genomic regions likely to contain EH-susceptibility loci were validated by multiple studies. Methods. We carried out the clinical assessment of the entire adult population in a Sardinian village (Talana) and we analyzed 16 selected families with 62 hypertensive subjects out of 267 individuals. We carried out a double GWS using a set of 902 uniformly spaced microsatellites and a high-density SNPs map on the same group of families. Results. Three loci were identified by both microsatellites and SNP scans and the obtained linkage results showed a remarkable degree of similarity. These loci were identified on chromosome 2q24, 11q23.1–25 and 13q14.11–21.33. Further support to these findings is their broad description present in literature associated to EH or related phenotypes. Bioinformatic investigation of these loci shows several potential EH candidate genes, several of whom already associated to blood pressure regulation pathways. Conclusion. Our search for major susceptibility EH genetic factors evidences that EH in the genetic isolate of Talana is due to the contribution of several genes contained in loci identified and replicated by earlier findings in different human populations