Functional shift with maintained regenerative potential following portal vein ligation

Selective portal vein ligation (PVL) allows the two-stage surgical resection of primarily unresectable liver tumours by generating the atrophy and hypertrophy of portally ligated (LL) and non-ligated lobes (NLL), respectively. To evaluate critically important underlying functional alterations, present study characterised in vitro and vivo liver function in male Wistar rats (n = 106; 210-250 g) before, and 24/48/72/168/336 h after PVL. Lobe weights and volumes by magnetic resonance imaging confirmed the atrophy-hypertrophy complex. Proper expression and localization of key liver transporters (Ntcp, Bsep) and tight junction protein ZO-1 in isolated hepatocytes demonstrated constantly present viable and well-polarised cells in both lobes. In vitro taurocholate and bilirubin transport, as well as in vivo immunohistochemical Ntcp and Mrp2 expressions were bilaterally temporarily diminished, whereas LL and NLL structural acinar changes were divergent. In vivo bile and bilirubin-glucuronide excretion mirrored macroscopic changes, whereas serum bilirubin levels remained unaffected. In vivo functional imaging (indocyanine-green clearance test; (99mTc)-mebrofenin hepatobiliary scintigraphy; confocal laser endomicroscopy) indicated transitionally reduced global liver uptake and -excretion. While LL functional involution was permanent, NLL uptake and excretory functions recovered excessively. Following PVL, functioning cells remain even in LL. Despite extensive bilateral morpho-functional changes, NLL functional increment restores temporary declined transport functions, emphasising liver functional assessment

Intelligence at the IoT Edge: Activity Recognition with Low-Power Microcontrollers and Convolutional Neural Networks

Recently, Deep Learning (DL) techniques have shown their effectiveness for Human Activity Recognition (HAR) tasks. However, due to the storage and computational requirements, most of the existing HAR solutions assume that the training and inference phases are offloaded to the cloud or an external server, with a harmful impact on the network load of the mobile/wearable device as well as on the user’s privacy. A promising solution is represented by the emerging Edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques that aim at moving the data analytics closer to the sensing units or directly on them. In this paper, we present our preliminary results about the offloading of HAR inference tasks on low-power microcontroller units. We consider the problem of detecting critical movements (e.g. falling, running) of workers within an industrial environment for safety purposes. The full pipeline of the HAR system is presented by using an Arduino BLE 33 Sense as a wearable unit: for the detection task, a DL model based on a Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) is trained on the inertial sensor data. A dynamic range quantization technique is used to reduce the size of the model which is then loaded on the firmware. Preliminary results show that the accuracy of the CNN model is 97% and overcomes baseline, non-DL techniques, while the quantization technique ensures a reduction of 53% of the model size

VALORI E MERCATO. PERCORSI TRA ETICA ED ECONOMIA

Ethics and economics, values and market: since the beginning of modernity, the relationship between the terms of the two couples seems hopelessly conflicted. For some, only the market can be a powerful and neutral means of aggregation, on the basis of mutual interests between individuals of different faiths and beliefs. For others, ethics and religion are the best antidote to the chaos and the moral indifferentism, products from the market. A group of scholars of moral philosophy and politics, mainly composed of young researchers trained at the University of Genoa, has taken up the intellectual challenge that dichotomy between values and market brings. In the essays collected by Mirella Pasini, the authors discuss theories by Adam Smith and Vilfredo Pareto, Luigi Einaudi and Piero Sraffa, Leo Strauss and John Rawls, along with corporate social responsibility, the interactions between individual ethics and public institutions, the critique of liberalism. The result is a wide-ranging discussion, that the effects of globalization and the current crisis make increasingly urgent. M.Pasini wrote the Introduction and the essay \u201cFiducia, sicurezza, mercato\u201d

Giorgio Vasari al Servizio di Pio V: affermazione artistica o ostaggio diplomatico?

Il ruolo diplomatico dell'arte e degli artisti tra Roma e Firenze all'epoca di Giorgio Vasar

Giorgio Vasari al Servizio di Pio V: affermazione artistica o ostaggio diplomatico?

Il ruolo diplomatico dell'arte e degli artisti tra Roma e Firenze all'epoca di Giorgio Vasar