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All-in-one: Understanding and Generation in Multimodal Reasoning with the MAIA Benchmark
No full textWe introduce MAIA (Multimodal AI Assessment), a native-Italian benchmark designed for fine-grained investigation of the reasoning abilities of visual language models on videos. MAIA differs from other available video benchmarks for its design, its reasoning categories, the metric it uses, and the language and culture of the videos. MAIA evaluates Vision Language Models (VLMs) on two aligned tasks: a visual statement verification task, and an open-ended visual question-answering task, both on the same set of video-related questions. It considers twelve reasoning categories that aim to disentangle language and vision relations by highlighting the role of the visual input. Thanks to its carefully taught design, it evaluates VLMs' consistency and visually grounded natural language comprehension and generation simultaneously through an aggregated metric revealing low results that highlight models' fragility. Last but not least, the video collection has been carefully selected to reflect the Italian culture, and the language data are produced by native-speakers
International Liver Transplantation Society/Liver Intensive Care Group of Europe guidelines for cardiovascular assessment before liver transplantation
No full text: Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among liver transplantation (LT) recipients. A panel of 24 experts from the International Liver Transplantation Society and the Liver Intensive Care Group of Europe convened to develop guidelines for preoperative cardiovascular assessment of LT candidates. The panel identified 7 areas required for standard cardiovascular preoperative assessment. Quality of evidence was evaluated using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation approach. Strong or conditional recommendations were provided according to the overall level of evidence. Good practice statements were provided for recommendations with only low to very low quality of evidence. After 2 rounds of deliberations, the panel provided 7 strong (high level of evidence, grade 1 ±) recommendations and 6 conditional (low level of evidence, grade 2 ±) recommendations for cardiovascular evaluation before LT. Seven recommendations were based on good practice statements because of a very low level of evidence. Agreement between panelists was reached for 100% of recommendations. Several recommendations are made to improve a candidate's cardiovascular assessment before LT
Il dominio fiorentino a San Gimignano nel secondo Trecento. Riflessioni a partire da un registro inedito
No full textOptimizing and Tuning Fairness in Machine Learning: An Augmented Lagrangian Method with a Performance Budget
No full textUn approccio basato su NLP per la sorveglianza delle infezioni del sito chirurgico utilizzando le lettere di dimissione ospedaliera
No full textBackground
Le infezioni del sito chirurgico (ISC) rappresentano una per- centuale significativa delle infezioni associate all’assistenza sanitaria e costituiscono un onere importante in ambito ospe- daliero. La sorveglianza tradizionale delle ISC, basata sulla re- visione manuale delle cartelle cliniche a testo libero, richiede molto tempo ed è scarsamente modulabile. Questo studio si propone di sviluppare e valutare un sistema di sorveglianza semi-automatizzato basato sull’intelligenza artificiale (AI) per il rilevamento delle ISC utilizzando le cartelle cliniche in lin- gua italiana di un grande ospedale universitario.
Metodi
È stata condotta un’analisi retrospettiva sulle lettere di dimissio- ne ospedaliera non strutturate e anonime dell’Ospedale di Pisa (Italia). Il testo clinico è stato elaborato e vettorizzato utilizzan- do TF-IDF, Word2Vec e BERT (incluso il pre-training e il fine tuning). I classificatori comprendevano regressione logistica, Decision Trees, random forest e XGBoost. Le prestazioni finali sono state valutate utilizzando la convalida incrociata stratificata a 10 volte, il punteggio F1 e l’AUC. Dato lo sbilanciamento 1:100 tra record ISC e non ISC, sono state testate tecniche di oversampling and undersampling. Inoltre, sono stati valutati due modelli linguistici di grandi dimensioni (LLM) - OpenBioLLM e Minerva - utilizzando prompting a zero e a pochi colpi.
Risultati
Le migliori prestazioni sono state ottenute da un modello BERT ulteriormente pre-addestrato sul corpus specifico del dominio e messo a punto per la classificazione (BERT-FT), con XGBoost come classificatore: F1-score=0,79, Precision=0,86, Recall=0,74. I metodi di vettorizzazione tradizionali (TF-IDF e Word2Vec) hanno prodotto punteggi F1 significativamente inferiori (massimo=0,34). I LLM hanno ottenuto risultati in- feriori, classificando tutti i casi come negativi, probabilmente a causa delle limitazioni nella comprensione del linguaggio medico italiano e dei vincoli dei token.
Conclusioni
Questo studio dimostra la fattibilità dell’uso dell’IA per la sor- veglianza delle ISC sulle lettere di dimissione ospedaliera non strutturate. Il modello BERT ottimizzato ha superato in modo significativo sia le tecniche NLP tradizionali che il generico LLM. I sistemi basati su BERT rappresentano una strada pro- mettente per la sorveglianza modulabile e in tempo reale delle infezioni in ambito sanitario
A Head-to-Head Comparison Between [18F]Fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]FDG) Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) and 99m Technetium-Hexamethylpropilene Amine Oxime (HMPAO)-Labeled Leuhocyte Scintingraphy in a Case Series of Patients with Suspected Vascular Prosthesis Infection: To Trust Is Good, but to Check Is Better
No full textBackground: Prosthetic vascular graft infection (PVGI) is a serious complication
associated with vascular prostheses. Nuclear medicine techniques, including
[18F]fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT)
and 99mtechnetium-hexamethylpropylene amine oxime (HMPAO)-labeled leukocyte (WBC)
scintigraphy, are part of the MAGIC diagnostic criteria for PVGI. Methods: In this retrospective
study, we analyzed eight patients with suspected PVGI who underwent both [18F]FDG
PET/CT and WBC scintigraphy within an average of 8 days. Results: Of all eight patients
(median age 69 years), three showed concordant positive results with both PET/CT and
WBC, and their final diagnosis confirmed the presence of infection; five showed discordant
results: in all five of these patients, PET/CT showed false-positive findings, whereas WBC
correctly identified five true-negative cases. Conclusions: [18F]FDG PET/CT is highly
sensitive but prone to false positives. WBC scintigraphy, combined with SPECT/CT, particularly
in the evaluation of the treatment response, showed greater specificity, and it may
warrant consideration as a MAGIC major diagnostic criterion for PVGI
Regioisomerism Induced Circularly Polarized Luminescence Switching in Natural (+)-Camphor-Based Bis(pyrazolyl)pyridine Europium(III) Complexes
No full textChiral 2,6-bis(pyrazol-1-yl)pyridine (bpp) ligands containing camphor units have been used in their enantiopure, racemic, and meso forms to prepare luminescent europium(III) complexes. The bpp ligands have been fully characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and chiroptical spectroscopy. For one of the enantiopure ligands, namely bis(4S,7R)camphor-2,2-bpp, the regioisomer bis(4S,7R)camphor-1,2-bpp, containing one pyrazole connected through the N1 nitrogen atom, has been obtained and used to coordinate the europium(III) ion. Ancillary hexafluoroacetylacetonato ligands were used to complete the coordination sphere of the lanthanide. The complexes with the 2,2-bpp ligands have been structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. They are isostructural in spite of the noncentrosymmetric monoclinic P21 space group for the enantiopure compounds and the centrosymmetric monoclinic P21/n space group for the meso and the racemic ones. The metal center is ennea-coordinated within slightly distorted Muffin-type geometry. The three enantiopure complexes show strong circularly polarized luminescence activity, with anisotropy factors glum reaching up ±0.2 for the 7F1 ← 5D0 magnetic dipole sensitive transition. Most remarkably, the polarization of the emission is inverted for the two complexes bearing the regioisomeric bis(4S,7R)camphor-2,2-bpp and bis(4S,7R)camphor-1,2-bpp ligands, yet having the same absolute configuration of the camphor units, thus allowing an unprecedented possibility of CPL switching
Human serum lipids affect Staphylococcus aureus sensitivity to phage infection
No full textObjectives: To explore phage therapy as an alternative for targeting multidrug-resistant bacterial strains, it is crucial to study phage-bacteria interaction under conditions that mimic in vivo environments. Recent studies have demonstrated that staphylococcal phage activity can be significantly hindered by human blood components, including plasma and serum. This study aimed to identify serum components responsible for phage inhibition and assess whether this effect occurred across multiple Staphylococcus aureus strains. Methods: Phage Sb-1 activity against S. aureus ATCC 43300 was tested by pre-incubating or co-incubating bacteria and phages with 30% (v/v) heat-inactivated (56 °C and 80 °C) human, bovine, or foetal calf serum, IgG-depleted or delipidated serum, and BSA. Bacteria were incubated with serum before phage exposure, followed by washing with 0.1% Triton X-100. Additionally, growth kinetics of ten S. aureus strains incubated with or without Sb-1 were assessed over 24 hours in the presence of human serum. Results: We found that adult human serum completely impairs phage infectivity due to interactions between serum components and bacterial cells rather than direct phage neutralisation. Albumin, IgG, and thermolabile components were demonstrated not to significantly contribute to the inhibitory effect, whereas lipids were identified as playing a key role. Furthermore, the sensitivity of different bacterial strains to phages was shown to be differentially affected by the presence of serum, as two of the strains tested remained susceptible to lysis despite serum exposure. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings suggest that serum lipid fraction impacts phage infectivity in a strain-specific manner, highlighting the need for tailored approaches for phage therapy
Rare‐Earth Salicylate Phenanthroline Complexes Cause Cell Death in Human Tumor Cells
No full textRare-earth (RE) salicylate phenanthroline complexes [RE(sal)3(phen)] (RE = Y, Eu, Dy, Yb; sal = salicylate; Phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) are conveniently prepared starting from RE homoleptic carbamate precursors and salicylic aldehyde in the presence of phenanthroline. The yttrium derivative is structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, IR, and NMR spectroscopy, showing the mononuclear nature of the complex, while the structure of the other paramagnetic complexes are assigned on comparative IR spectra bases and elemental analyses. The antiproliferative effect of the complexes are studied in vitro on a panel of human tumor cell lines (A2780, ovarian carcinoma sensitive to cisplatin; A2780cis, ovarian carcinoma resistant to cisplatin and LN229, glioblastoma), and on nontumorigenic mesothelial cells (MeT-5A). The reactive oxygen species production is determined to investigate the intracellular mechanism of action. For the most interesting complex [Dy(sal)3(phen)] (3), the effects on mitochondrial transmembrane potential and on cell cycle are also analyzed. Finally, epifluorescence images allow to demonstrate the uptake of the complex and to observe relevant morphological changes in cells, suggesting the occurrence of mitotic catastrophe
