Sustainable interaction for mobility system

The results of top-down policymaking approach are not enough, "sustainable development can not be imposed from above. It will not take root unless people across the country are actively engaged (UK DEFRA 2002, 7) ". The goal of this research is to try to use the interaction and gamification strategy as a tool combined with a set of personal data to increase users' awareness of the impact of each action. The research context is the mobility system. The increase in road congestion and so the risk to compromise human well-being are just some of the critical points in the future. There are already some possible solutions for these problems, such as shared mobility and autonomous cars, but this is not just a business or technological change. Citizens will first and foremost influence the future with their decisions and behaviour. For the experimentation, a case study was developed, useful for obtaining and analyzing the qualitative and quantitative research results. The case study, thought to be developed within a fully self-driving car, concerns the design of an interactive augmented reality game in which the user’ role is to make decisions as a leader of his fictional world, as result of his decisions the environment around him change. The game continually reconfigures itself taking advantage of users' personal information and data collected through different ways. The gesture, copy, and other characterizing elements will follow the needs of each user. Instead of a more traditional approach that results frustrating and not very involving for the user, the game uses an ironic, surreal, and funny tone of voice in order to be more engageable. The goal is to make conscious users towards the environment that surrounds him and his ability to affect positively or negative the system in which he lives

The synthesis of decades of groundwater knowledge: the new Hydrogeological Map of Rome

This paper describes the contents and the path taken to get to the new Hydrogeological map of the City of Rome. The map, which is the result of a combination of "expert elaborations" and GIS processing performed using the most recent available data, extends to the entire municipality (1285 km2) and is based on both the most recent scientific studies on groundwater field and new survey activities carried out in order to fill the data gaps in several areas of the examined territory. The work represents also an example of inter-institutional collaboration between government agencies, research institutes and universities

Long-term evaluation of patient satisfaction and quality of life in pectus excavatum repair

Abstract Background: The aim of our study was to evaluate long-term patient satisfaction and quality-of-life improvement in grown-up patients treated for pectus excavatum with the Nuss procedure in the pediatric age, searching for correlation between preoperative characteristics and long-term outcomes. Methods: At first, we performed a retrospective analysis of pediatric patients undergoing the Nuss procedure in a 5-year period. We administered, at least 5 years after bar removal, a single-step questionnaire to focus on the assessment of patient satisfaction with operative results. Results: Most patients stated general health and exercise tolerance were improved after the operation. High levels of overall satisfaction were reported after Nuss repair, with 95.6% of patients being either satisfied or very satisfied. Overall, 87.0% of patients stated they would have the operation again. The high overall satisfaction after surgery was not correlated with the deformity severity and the presence of physical symptoms before correction. Conclusions: Patients expressed high levels of satisfaction in terms of self-image and quality of life. Improvement in cosmetic appearance and health in general translated in most patients in an improvement of social life. The degree of postoperative pain after the Nuss procedure is the overriding factor in the patient’s perception of the quality of the postoperative course

A Multi-One Instruction Set Computer for Microcontroller Applications

This work presents a simple integer-only instruction set architecture and microarchitecture derived from One Instruction Set Computers (OISCs) and embedding multiple execution modes ( ${m}$ OISC), capable of running at a reasonable performance level to enable basic usability in microcontroller applications. The purpose of ${m}$ OISC is to enable simple data transfer tasks and run small programs while maintaining ultimate simplicity. We present the internal organization for a computer architecture including an 8bit I/O register, and 64kB central Random Access Memory (RAM), organized in two-bytes words. The processor can run code generated assuming an OISC or a Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) scheme (op-code based), depending on the programmer’s demands and based on the initial setting of a register during start-up. To enable practical applications and demonstrate successful exploitation of ${m}$ OISC in view of integration in a compiler back-end, we designed a custom Proof-of-Concept (PoC) software design toolchain based on LLVM and clang. Although not targeting all the features of commercial ISA, the toolchain is capable of compiling C code from LLVM intermediate representation or generating ${m}$ OISC code translated from ARM, x86, RISC-V, and MIPS assembly. The toolchain also enables practical Value Change Dump (VCD) simulations output with graphical plots of the CPU state and associated symbols. A PoC microcontroller system has been synthesized in a low power Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and verified in a basic wireless telemetry application including a Synchronous Peripheral Interface (SPI) RFM9x Long RAnge (LoRA) transceiver and a MAX30205 Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) temperature sensor, using its 8bit I/O port, with software bus interface implementation. ${m}$ OISC occupies ~6% of resources on a Cyclone 10LP FPGA, for 1397 Adaptive Look-Up Tables (ALUTs) and 461 dedicated logic registers. The measured dynamic current consumption of the complete FPGA board with synthesized ${m}$ OISC is 12mA at 100MHz clock

Xenon Anesthesia Improves Respiratory Gas Exchanges in Morbidly Obese Patients

Background. Xenon-in-oxygen is a high density gas mixture and may improve PaO2/FiO2 ratio in morbidly obese patients uniforming distribution of ventilation during anesthesia. Methods. We compared xenon versus sevoflurane anesthesia in twenty adult morbidly obese patients (BMI > 35) candidate for roux-en-Y laparoscopic gastric bypass and assessed PaO2/FiO2 ratio at baseline, at 15 min from induction of anaesthesia and every 60 min during surgery. Differences in intraoperative and postoperative data including heart rate, systolic and diastolic pressure, oxygen saturation, plateau pressure, eyes opening and extubation time, Aldrete score on arrival to the PACU were compared by the Mann-Whitney test and were considered as secondary aims. Moreover the occurrence of side effects and postoperative analgesic demand were assessed. Results. In xenon group PaO2-FiO2 ratio was significantly higher after 60 min and 120 min from induction of anesthesia; heart rate and overall remifentanil consumption were lower; the eyes opening time and the extubation time were shorter; morphine consumption at 72 hours was lower; postoperative nausea was more common. Conclusions. Xenon anesthesia improved PaO2/FiO2 ratio and maintained its distinctive rapid recovery times and cardiovascular stability. A reduction of opioid consumption during and after surgery and an increased incidence of PONV were also observed in xenon group

Early identification of acute kidney injury after bariatric surgery: Role of NGAL and cystatin C

Background: The aim of our study was to evaluate plasmatic and urinary NGAL and serum cystatin C as early diagnostic markers of acute kidney injury in obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery. Methods: For this this prospective observational study, we recruited 23 patients undergoing gastric by-pass or sleeve gastrectomy, and admitted to the Low Dependence Unit after the surgery. Plasma NGAL (pNGAL), urinary NGAL (uNGAL), serum cystatin C, serum creatinine, and serum urea were measured before surgery as well as 10 h and 24 h after surgery. Mean values of pNGAL, uNGAL, cystatin C, creatinine, and urea concentrations of pre- and post-surgery periods were compared using Student’s t test for paired data. We also evaluated the presence of correlation between modifications of NGAL and cystatin C after surgery and fluid balance, hydration (ml/kg) and diuresis using Pearson’s coefficient of correlation. Results: No patient developed AKI according to the AKIN criteria. pNGAL was significantly higher at T10th than T0(p=0.004). There was no significant difference between uNGAL at T0 and T10th (p=0.53) and between uNGAL at T0 and T24th (p=0.31). uNGAL at T24th was significantly higher in comparison to T10th (p=0.024). uNGAL concentrations were normal in all patients at every time step. Cystatin C concentration did not increase after surgery. Serum creatinine level was significantly higher at T48th, despite being still within the normal range, when compared to T0 (p=0.038). Conclusion: Our study shows that pNGAL can reflect mild tubular damage as its levels increase within a few hours from surgery and return to normal limits afterwards. Concerning uNGAL, there is a minimal increase at T24th, when NGAL concentration in plasma has already decreased. Serum cystatin C does not show any relevant kidney changes, or at least, no more than those ones shown by pNGAL

A Configurable 64-Channel ASIC for Cherenkov Radiation Detection from Space

This work presents the development of a 64-channel application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), implemented to detect the optical Cherenkov light from sub-orbital and orbital altitudes. These kinds of signals are generated by ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and cosmic neutrinos (CNs). The purpose of this front-end electronics is to provide a readout unit for a matrix of silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs) to identify extensive air showers (EASs). Each event can be stored into a configurable array of 256 cells where the on-board digitization can take place with a programmable 12-bits Wilkinson analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The sampling, the conversion process, and the main digital logic of the ASIC run at 200 MHz, while the readout is managed by dedicated serializers operating at 400 MHz in double data rate (DDR). The chip is designed in a commercial 65 nm CMOS technology, ensuring a high configurability by selecting the partition of the channels, the resolution in the interval 8–12 bits, and the source of its trigger. The production and testing of the ASIC is planned for the forthcoming months

Non-invasive sensors for wound monitoring and therapy

Chronic wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers affect in Europe more than 10 million people, a number that is expected to grow due to the aging of the population. Sensors can be a valid tool to improve the quality of healthcare for wound monitoring and management. The integration of sensor data within health information and decision support systems may allow the delivery of personalized treatments at decreased cost. The EU FP7 SWAN-iCare project is developing a negative-pressure device associated with non-invasive sensors capable to monitor some physiological parameters related to the wound status, such as pH, temperature and transepidermal water loss. These sensors will help to provide personalized therapies to patients and check the effectiveness of treatments remotely

In-situ synchrotron microtomography reveals multiple reaction pathways during soda-lime glass synthesis

Ultrafast synchrotron microtomography has been used to study in-situ and in real time the initial stages of silicate glass melt formation from crystalline granular raw materials. Significant and unexpected rearrangements of grains occur below the nominal eutectic temperature, and several drastically different solid-state reactions are observed to take place at different types of intergranular contacts. These reactions have a profound influence on the formation and the composition of the liquids produced, and control the formation of defects.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure