Learning Impact Evaluation of the serious game "Cultural Awareness – Afghanistan Pre-deployment"

Attention to human factor in conducting any type of military/security operations is currently an objective of utmost importance in the context of troop training within NATO. To this purpose, a number of serious games were developed, addressing different aspects of cultural awareness and correctness in approaching human beings during a mission. A significant example is "Afghanistan Pre-deployment – Cultural Awareness", a serious game widely adopted in NATO Defense Schools to support pre-deployment training of troops for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) missions in Afghanistan. In the context of GALA, the European Network of Excellence on Serious Games, the Romanian National Defense University (MAN) and NATO-STO CMRE conducted a user study particularly focused on the learning impact of this serious game. The study was first run in parallel on different typologies of players (soldier trainees at MAN; and civilian/military staff at CMRE) in order to get different perspectives in the game test and evaluation; results of respective analyses were compared, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of this type of serious game as a learning tool. A preliminary correlation study was conducted between users' perception of the game and their respective background and level of engagement

AI and ML in accounting and finance: A bibliometric review

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are two related technologies in accounting and finance studies. This study maps the conceptual structure of AI and ML research with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of this research stream. A bibliometric analysis of 3,836 documents on ai and ML retrieved from the Web of Science database is conducted. The analysis of descriptive performance indicators identifies the main traits of the scientific debate about AI and ML in terms of publications, productive countries and sources. To map the conceptual structure of the dataset, the study performs a thematic evolution. The results highlight the growing academic interest in the research topic, especially in the past few years. The results of this study may provide scholars with a better understanding of AI and ML research in accounting and finance. This paper contributes to the field by providing an examination of the current state of the art of AI e ML research and identifying possible future research directions

AI and ML in accounting and finance: A bibliometric review

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are two related technologies in accounting and finance studies. This study maps the conceptual structure of AI and ML research with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of this research stream. A bibliometric analysis of 3,836 documents on ai and ML retrieved from the Web of Science database is conducted. The analysis of descriptive performance indicators identifies the main traits of the scientific debate about AI and ML in terms of publications, productive countries and sources. To map the conceptual structure of the dataset, the study performs a thematic evolution. The results highlight the growing academic interest in the research topic, especially in the past few years. The results of this study may provide scholars with a better understanding of AI and ML research in accounting and finance. This paper contributes to the field by providing an examination of the current state of the art of AI e ML research and identifying possible future research directions

Indigenous enzymes and leukocyte in sheep milk are markers of health status and physiology of the mammary gland

Plasmin, plasminogen and plasminogen activator in ewe bulk milk were not significantly affected by stage of lactation probably as a consequence of the good health of the ewe udders throughout lactation as indicated by SCC which never exceeded 600,000 cells/mL. Elastase content increased significantly during lactation whereas cathepsin showed the highest content in mid lactation. Changes in macrophages and neutrophyls levels in ewe bulk milk during lactation were also investigated. Macrophages minimally contributed to leukocyte cell count in milk and had the highest levels at the beginning of lactation. An opposite trend was recorded for polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNL) that increased throughout lactation showing the highest value in late lactation. The increase of PMNL percentage and elastase content in milk, in spite of relatively low SCC, suggests that PMNL and elastase underwent a physiological increase associated to the remodelling of mammary gland in late lactation

Early switch to nilotinib in a case of non-optimal response to imatinib

We report a case of excellent response to nilotinib in a 22 years old man with chronic myeloid leukemia in suboptimal response to imatinib. After diagnosis he started cytoreductive therapy with cytarabine and hydroxyurea, then he begun therapy with imatinib 400 mg/day. After 3 months of treatment, he obtained a complete hematologic response (CHR) and a minor cytogenetic response (minor CyR). At 6 months CHR was confirmed, but bone marrow analysis showed increasing number of Ph+ cells (minimal CyR) and non significant reduction of BCR-ABL levels. According to ELN (European LeukemiaNet) guidelines, this is considered a suboptimal response. Clonal evolution, kinase domain mutations and reduced drug intake were excluded, thus we decided to early switch to nilotinib at 400 mg/BID. After 3 months of treatment we obtained a complete cytogenetic response (CCyR) and a strong reduction of BCR-ABL transcript, almost reaching a major molecular response (MMR)

A Novel Approach for Determining the Electromagnetic Properties of a Colloidal Fluid With Magnetic Nanoparticles for Hyperthermia Applications

The paper presents a general analytical method for evaluating the magnetic properties of colloidal fluid with magnetic nanoparticles and agar through in vitro specific absorption rate (SAR) measurements. The approach for the determination of magnetic complex susceptibility herein presented reveals itself as simple, rapid, broadband, and accurate enough to compete with alternative conventional direct methods requiring complex and expensive instrumentation. In particular, it makes use of indirect equations based on the single-order Debye model [linear response theory (LRT)] combined with a punctual set of in vitro SAR measurements. The procedure is effective inside the range of validity of the LRT theory, and it can be easily applied in the up-growing field of magnetic hyperthermia studies

cost of illness study of diabetes mellitus focus on patients with type 2 diabetes

ObjectiveThe aim of the study was to assess the cost of management of diabetic patients; moreover, for type 2 not insulin-dependent patients, also the durability of treatments was evaluated, in ord..

Scoring predictive models using a reduced representation of proteins: model and energy definition

BACKGROUND: Reduced representations of proteins have been playing a keyrole in the study of protein folding. Many such models are available, with different representation detail. Although the usefulness of many such models for structural bioinformatics applications has been demonstrated in recent years, there are few intermediate resolution models endowed with an energy model capable, for instance, of detecting native or native-like structures among decoy sets. The aim of the present work is to provide a discrete empirical potential for a reduced protein model termed here PC2CA, because it employs a PseudoCovalent structure with only 2 Centers of interactions per Amino acid, suitable for protein model quality assessment. RESULTS: All protein structures in the set top500H have been converted in reduced form. The distribution of pseudobonds, pseudoangle, pseudodihedrals and distances between centers of interactions have been converted into potentials of mean force. A suitable reference distribution has been defined for non-bonded interactions which takes into account excluded volume effects and protein finite size. The correlation between adjacent main chain pseudodihedrals has been converted in an additional energetic term which is able to account for cooperative effects in secondary structure elements. Local energy surface exploration is performed in order to increase the robustness of the energy function. CONCLUSION: The model and the energy definition proposed have been tested on all the multiple decoys' sets in the Decoys'R'us database. The energetic model is able to recognize, for almost all sets, native-like structures (RMSD less than 2.0 Å). These results and those obtained in the blind CASP7 quality assessment experiment suggest that the model compares well with scoring potentials with finer granularity and could be useful for fast exploration of conformational space. Parameters are available at the url:

Molecular diversity, population structure, and linkage disequilibrium in a worldwide collection of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) germplasm

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The goals of our study were to assess the phylogeny and the population structure of tobacco accessions representing a wide range of genetic diversity; identify a subset of accessions as a core collection capturing most of the existing genetic diversity; and estimate, in the tobacco core collection, the extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in seven genomic regions using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. To this end, a collection of accessions were genotyped with SSR markers. Molecular diversity was evaluated and LD was analyzed across seven regions of the genome.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A genotyping database for 312 tobacco accessions was profiled with 49 SSR markers. Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) and Bayesian cluster analysis revealed structuring of the tobacco population with regard to commercial classes and six main clades were identified, which correspond to "Oriental", Flue-Cured", "Burley", "Dark", "Primitive", and "Other" classes. Pairwise kinship was calculated between accessions, and an overall low level of co-ancestry was observed. A set of 89 genotypes was identified that captured the whole genetic diversity detected at the 49 loci. LD was evaluated on these genotypes, using 422 SSR markers mapping on seven linkage groups. LD was estimated as squared correlation of allele frequencies (<it>r²</it>). The pattern of intrachromosomal LD revealed that in tobacco LD extended up to distances as great as 75 cM with <it>r²</it>> 0.05 or up to 1 cM with <it>r²</it>> 0.2. The pattern of LD was clearly dependent on the population structure.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A global population of tobacco is highly structured. Clustering highlights the accessions with the same market class. LD in tobacco extends up to 75 cM and is strongly dependent on the population structure.</p

Cholecalciferol administration blunts the systemic renin–angiotensin system in essential hypertensives with hypovitaminosis D:

Introduction: Vitamin D plasma levels are negatively associated with blood pressure and cardiovascular mortality, and vita- min D supplementation reduces cardiovascular events. Renin-angiotensin system (RAS) suppression may be one of the mechanisms involved. However, there are no interventional prospective studies demonstrating a reduction in circulating RAS components after vitamin D treatment. Methods: Fifteen consecutive drug-free patients with essential hypertension and hypovitaminosis D underwent therapy with an oral dose of 25000 I.U. of cholecalciferol once a week for two months, while maintaining a constant-salt diet. In basal conditions and at the end of the study, RAS activity (plasma angiotensinogen, renin, PRA, angiotensin II, aldosterone and urinary angiotensinogen) was investigated, in addition to blood pressure and plasma vitamin D levels (25(OH)D). Results: After cholecalciferol administration, all patients exhibited normalized plasma 25(OH)D values. At the end of the study, a reduction (p < 0.05) in plasma renin and aldosterone, and a decrement, although not significant, of PRA and angiotensin II, was observed. No difference was found in plasma and urinary angiotensinogen or blood pressure values. Conclusions: Our data indicate that in essential hypertensives with hypovitaminosis D, pharmacological correction of vitamin D levels can blunt systemic RAS activity