Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Metabolic Syndrome after Liver Transplant

Liver transplant is the unique curative therapy for patients with acute liver failure or end-stage liver disease, with or without hepatocellular carcinoma. Increase of body weight, onset of insulin resistance and drug-induced alterations of metabolism are reported in liver transplant recipients. In this context, post-transplant diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, and arterial hypertension can be often diagnosed. Multifactorial illnesses occurring in the post-transplant period represent significant causes of morbidity and mortality. This is especially true for metabolic syndrome. Non-alcoholic steatosis and steatohepatitis are hepatic manifestations of metabolic syndrome and after liver transplant both recurrent and de novo steatosis can be found. Usually, post-transplant steatosis shows an indolent outcome with few cases of fibrosis progression. However, in the post-transplant setting, both metabolic syndrome and steatosis might play a key role in the stratification of morbidity and mortality risk, being commonly associated with cardiovascular disease. The single components of metabolic syndrome can be treated with targeted drugs while lifestyle intervention is the only reasonable therapeutic approach for transplant patients with non-alcoholic steatosis or steatohepatitis

TYPICAL RISK PATTERN FOR ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT INJURY IS LARGELY PRESENT IN COMPETITIVE ATHLETES: BIOMECHANICAL SCREENING THROUGH WEARABLE SENSORS

The purpose of this study was to investigate the presence of biomechanical risk patterns for Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury in a healthy population during the execution of high-dynamics movements. Competitive athletes (n=34) performed a test battery, including single-leg landings, sprints, and cuts. Kinematics was assessed through wearable sensors, and movements exhibiting risk patterns were searched through multiple joint thresholds based on the current literature on ACL injury mechanism. A large portion of the athletes exhibited dangerous patterns in one (94%) or more movements (up to 11). The incidence was higher at initial foot contact and for the movement performed with the non-dominant limb. The early identification of at-risk athletes might support ACL professionals and promote preventative training strategies focused on the increase of movement quality

BIOMECHANICS AND JOINT COORDINATION IN ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT-INJURED FEMALE FOOTBALLERS DURING A 90° CHANGE OF DIRECTION

The purpose of this study was to investigate the biomechanical predictors of Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury in female football players by means of 3D motion capture with vector coding. Women\u27s first-division healthy football players (n=16) performed a series of 90° change of directions. Biomechanics was collected through a marker-based optoelectronic system. In the next 2 consecutive football seasons, 4 ACL injuries were registered. Vector cording technique was used to compare angle-angle coordination between ACL-injured and non-injured players. ACL-injured players showed greater knee valgus (p=0.029) and internal rotation (p=0.017), external hip rotation (p=0.003), ankle eversion (

Study of the Serum Metabolomic Profile in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Research and Clinical Perspectives

In recent years, metabolomics has attracted great scientific attention. The metabolomics methodology might permit a view into transitional phases between healthy liver and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Metabolomics can help to analyze the metabolic alterations that play a main role in the progression of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Lipid, glucose, amino acid, and bile acid metabolism should be widely studied to understand the complex pathogenesis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. The discovery of new biomarkers would be important for diagnosis and staging of liver disease as well as for the assessment of efficacy of new drugs. Here, we review the metabolomics data regarding nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. We analyzed the main studies regarding the application of metabolomics methodology in the complex context of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, trying to create a bridge from the basic to the clinical aspects

Surrogate Model for Ship Resistance : a Sensitivity Analysis of Shape Deformation

Shape optimization and sensitivity can now be considered a standard to design efficient ships and new unconventional hull forms. There might be very different strategies to achieve such a process, depending on many circumstances, both operational (e.g. available time windows for computations) and methodological (e.g. available numerical methods). As in most of the engineering cases, the best trade-off between accuracy of the solution and the time required to achieve it is searched. When using medium-fidelity methods e.g. Boundary Element Methods (BEMs) for wave resistance and seakeeping, population based optimization algorithm can still be a viable way to achieve a design solution (see e.g. Vernengo et al., 2015 or Vernengo and Brizzolara, 2017). However, when the solution of the quantity of interest becomes more demanding, alternative methods of searching through the design space are needed. In this perspective, a surrogate model based approach for hull form sensitivity analysis is presented. The method relies on the features of a Kriging response surface (see for instance Forrester et al., 2008) to interpolate few computed solutions and to predict the same solution over the whole explored domain. The sensitivity analysis focuses on the effect of hull form variations with respect to calm water resistance at a given forward speed. The total ship resistance is computed by means of a high-fidelity viscous solver based on the openFOAM libraries (Jasak et al., 2007). The shape variations are achieved by a combined approach specifically developed to preserve the fairness of the hull surface based on Subdivision Surface and Free Form Deformation (FFD) (Copped\ue9 et al., 2018). The hydrodynamic solver has been preliminary validated by comparison against available experimental measurements on the KRISO Container Ship (KCS) hull. The variation of the Kriging response surface performance with respect to different sizes of the initial sampling have been studied and possible optimum hull shape have been detected and compared in terms of calm water resistance, wave patterns and pressure on the surface

The effect of carbon nanofibers surface properties in hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions

In this study, carbon nanofiber-supported Pd nanoparticles were used in the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde and in the dehydrogenation of cinnamyl alcohol. The different graphitisation of the surface of the nanofibers and the amount of oxygen functionalisation significantly affected both activity and selectivity to the various reaction products. In particular, a decrease in nanoparticle dimensions and oxygen content resulted in an increase in overall activity for both of the studied reactions. Moreover, the selectivity to hydrocinnamaldehyde enhanced with increasing surface oxygen content in the cinnamaldehyde hydrogenation, while the selectivity to cinnamaldehyde was higher with low-functionalised nanofibers in the cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenation. Finally, the most active catalyst proved also to be stable in consecutive runs

Free Surface Hydrodynamics of Submarine Masts Configurations

Sailing at snorkel depth is a necessary but dangerous operating scenario for submarines. The main and straightforward reason is that such an operating condition represents a time of possible vulnerability of the vessel. From a design perspective this condition affects the so-called indiscretion rate, that is exactly the ratio between this time of greater vulnerability and the total operating time. Moreover, when the vessel operates at snorkel depths there are some relevant operations that might be accomplished related to both snorkeling, communications and threats detection. These operations are typically carried out by using a certain number of masts, of slightly different shapes and sizes, that might be used in various configurations. The proposed study aims at providing some insights into the unsteady, turbulent, hydrodynamics of several submarine masts configurations. The analysis is carried out in terms of behaviors of the developed free surface, considering the nonlinear interactions rising among the masts considered. The maximum height and length of the breaking wave generated at the bow of each mast is analyzed. Both the near field and the far field unsteady wave patterns are discussed comparing several configurations and focusing on the interaction effects. The computational study is carried out by using an open-source Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic solver called DualSPHysics, able to exploit the computational acceleration provided by GP-GPU cards