227,119 research outputs found
Questioni di fine vita
No full textIl volume raccoglie i contributi che sono stati presentati in occasione del convegno che si è tenuto a Roma Tre il 29 aprile 2019, in tema di fine vita. La questione, al centro del dibattito giuridico, viene analizzata in tre saggi preceduti dalla premessa di Maria Alessandra Sandulli. Nel primo saggio, Ettore Battelli, con lo sguardo del civilista, dedica particolare attenzione al tema del cd. consenso informato e alle dichiarazioni anticipate di trattamento, anche attraverso un’analisi critica della legge n. 219/2017. Nel secondo saggio, Antonella Massaro, attraverso lo studio dei casi Welby, Englaro e Antoniani, analizza i rapporti esistenti tra le questioni di fine vita e il diritto penale. Nel terzo saggio, Giovanna Pistorio, dedicando particolare attenzione al caso Englaro, affronta il tema dal punto di vista del diritto costituzionale, soffermandosi, in particolare, sui rapporti tra la libertà di cura e la dignità
Fine scale eddies in turbulent Taylor-Couette flow up to Re 25 000
No full textReynolds number effects on fine scale eddies in the turbulent Taylor-Couette flow have been investigated by high accuracy direct numerical simulations from Re = 8000 to 25 000. The Reynolds number dependency of the mean torque changes near Re = 10 000, and the transition is closely linked to the turbulence characteristics. As the Reynolds number increases, the fine scale eddies are more densely populated and take more various tilting angles. The joint probability density function of the tilting angle and the radial position exhibits a preferential pattern corresponding to the large scale motion of Taylor vortices. The present results suggest that in this Reynolds number range, the fine scale eddies progressively prevail a large part of the domain, and their contribution to the fundamental statistics such as the Reynolds shear stress becomes more evident
Population differences in immune responses to Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccination in infancy.
No full textBacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination induces a marked increase in the interferon (IFN)-gamma response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis purified protein derivative (Mtb PPD) in UK adolescents, but not in Malawian adolescents. We hypothesized that Mtb PPD-induced IFN-gamma after BCG vaccination would be similar in infants from these 2 countries. Infants were vaccinated with BCG during the first 3-13 weeks of life. Three months after BCG vaccination, 51 (100%) of 51 UK infants had an IFN-gamma response to Mtb PPD, compared to 41 (53%) of 78 of Malawian infants, in whom responses varied according to their season of birth. We conclude that population differences in immune responses after BCG vaccination are observed among infants, as well as among young adults
La fine del mondo alla sua 'fine': sulla sparizione dell'umano in "Die letzte Welt" (Il mondo estremo,1988) di Cristoph Ransmayr
No full textIl contributo è basato sul romanzo Die letzte Welt di Christoph Ransmayr, che rielabora la vicenda ovidiana dell’esilio sulle aspre rive del Mar Nero, a Tomi. La scelta del titolo del romanzo, ambientato alla ‘fine’ del mondo, non è banale e si collega allo stesso Ovidio che definisce il luogo del suo esilio «ultima tellus» e «orbis ultimus» (Epistulae ex Ponto, II, 7, 66). L’elaborazione della ‘fine’ non si esaurisce con la sola dimensione geografica. La trama rappresenta un progressivo avvicinamento verso un’ineluttabile fine sociale, culturale e fisica, non corrispondente tuttavia alla mera cancellazione, piuttosto alla trasformazione. Rielaborando il tema della metempsicosi affrontato da Ovidio nel quindicesimo libro delle Metamorfosi («Nec species sua cuique manet, rerumque novatrix», Metamorfosi, XV, 252-253), in un continuo gioco di citazioni con l’ipertesto ovidiano la fine umana dei personaggi coincide con nuove forme di esistenza che si manifestano nelle metamorfosi, rappresentanti una forma di redenzione e sollievo per un’umanità deturpata.
La trama è incentrata sulla figura di Cotta che, partito da Roma alla ricerca del poeta esiliato e creduto morto, compie un viaggio spirituale che lo porterà ad abbandonare progressivamente la razionalità romana per il caos di quel mondo barbaro, ma affascinante, ribaltando il suo paradigma epistemologico di partenza. Come in Kermode (1966), la fine è immanente: si ritrova ben prima dell’epilogo, già tra le rovine di quella città alla fine del mondo, nei rapporti umani dilaniati dall’egoismo e nella perdita costante dei valori “universali”.
Il tema dell’ambiente è posto a cornice. Il romanzo si apre con la descrizione di una città di Tomi imbruttita da un’industrializzazione selvaggia e «ferrigna» (il romanzo è ricco di anacronismi, non è ambientato nell’Età Classica come la vicenda narrata suggerirebbe); con la scomparsa dei personaggi umani e il manifestarsi delle metamorfosi, la città verrà sommersa progressivamente da una natura lussureggiante e selvaggia
God, Fine-Tuning, and the Problem of Old Evidence
No full textThe fundamental constants that are involved in the laws of physics which describe our universe are finely-tuned for life, in the sense that if some of the constants had slightly different values life could not exist. Some people hold that this provides evidence for the existence of God. I will present a probabilistic version of this fine-tuning argument which is stronger than all other versions in the literature. Nevertheless, I will show that one can have reasonable opinions such that the fine-tuning argument doesn’t lead to an increase in one’s probability for the existence of God
Measurement of spatial and temporal fine sediment dynamics in a small river
No full textEmpirical measurements on fine sediment dynamics and fine sediment infiltration and accumulation have been conducted worldwide, but it is difficult to compare the results because the applied methods differ widely. We compared common methods to capture temporal and spatial dynamics of suspended sediment (SS), fine sediment infiltration and accumulation and tested them for their suitability in a small, canalized river of the Swiss Plateau. Measurement suitability was assessed by data comparison, relation to hydrological data and in the context of previously published data. SS concentration and load were assessed by optical backscatter (OBS) sensors and SS samplers. The former exhibit a better temporal resolution, but were associated with calibration problems. Due to the relatively low cost and easy mounting of SS samplers, they can provide a higher spatial distribution in the river’s cross section. The latter resulted in a better correlation between sediment infiltration and SS load assessed by SS samplers than SS concentrations measured with OBS sensors. Sediment infiltration baskets and bed loadtraps capture the temporal and spatial distribution of fine sediment infiltration. Data obtained by both methods were positively correlated with water level and SS. In contrast, accumulation baskets do not assess the temporal behaviour offine sediment, but the net accumulation over a certain time period. Less fine sediment accumulated in upwelling zonesand within areas of higher mean water level due to scouring of fine sediments. Even though SS and sediment infiltration assessed with the bedload traps increased from up- to downstream, less fine sediment accumulated downstream. This is probably also attributable to more scouring downstream
Estimating the need for antiretroviral treatment and an assessment of a simplified HIV/AIDS case definition in rural Malawi.
No full textBACKGROUND: Surveillance in the era of antiretroviral therapy (ART) requires estimates of HIV prevalence as well as the proportion eligible for ART. We estimated HIV prevalence and assessed field staging of individuals to estimate the burden of HIV disease needing treatment in rural Malawi. METHODS: Adults aged 18-59 years in a demographic surveillance system were interviewed, examined, and HIV counselled and tested. Staging that used a simplified version of the WHO criteria ('field checklist') was compared with staging by a medical assistant using a 'clinic checklist' and to CD4 cell results. RESULTS: A total of 2129 of 2303 eligible adults (92.4%) were traced, and 2047 (96.1%) participated. Of the 1443 participants (70.5%) tested, 11.6% were HIV positive. ART eligibility classification by the field and clinic checklists were concordant in 122 of 133 HIV-positive individuals. Compared with the clinic checklist, the field checklist had a sensitivity of 50% and a specificity of 96%. Including those already known to be on ART, staging by the field and clinic checklists estimated ART eligibility at 16.3 and 17.7% of HIV-positive individuals, respectively. Using CD4 cell count under 250 cells/mul or WHO stage III/IV, the Malawi national programme criteria, 38% of HIV-positive individuals were eligible for ART, compared with 31% based on the 2006 WHO criteria of CD4 cell count under 200 cells/mul or WHO stage IV or CD4 cell count of 200-350 cells/mul and WHO stage III. CONCLUSION: The field checklist was not a suitable tool for individual staging. Criteria for ART eligibility based on clinical staging alone missed two-thirds of those eligible by clinical staging and CD4 cell count
Top-down networks: A coarse-to-fine reimagination of CNNs
No full textBiological vision adopts a coarse-to-fine information processing pathway, from initial visual detection and binding of salient features of a visual scene, to the enhanced and preferential processing given relevant stimuli. On the contrary, CNNs employ a fine-to-coarse processing, moving from local, edge-detecting filters to more global ones extracting abstract representations of the input. In this paper we reverse the feature extraction part of standard bottom-up architectures and turn them upside-down: We propose top-down networks. Our proposed coarse-to-fine pathway, by blurring higher frequency information and restoring it only at later stages, offers a line of defence against adversarial attacks that introduce high frequency noise. Moreover, since we increase image resolution with depth, the high resolution of the feature map in the final convolutional layer contributes to the explainability of the network's decision making process. This favors object-driven decisions over context driven ones, and thus provides better localized class activation maps. This paper offers empirical evidence for the applicability of the top-down resolution processing to various existing architectures on multiple visual tasks.Accepted author manuscriptPattern Recognition and Bioinformatic
A Multi-Language Comparison of Influences on Author Verification using Character N-Grams
No full textWe create a new multi-language corpus for author verification based on Wikipedia talkpages, and evaluate the influence that differences in topic and time have on character n-gram author profiles. Topic alignment between two texts is found to increase author verification precision, and an authors writing style is found to change over time, but not more significantly after 3 years than after 1 year.Information ArchitectureWISElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
Is the fine motor–executive functions link stronger for new compared to repeated fine motor tasks?
No full textAlthough the motor–executive function (EF) link is actively being investigated, there remain open questions surrounding why some studies found associations between specific motor and specific EF tasks, while others did not. Furthermore, it is also yet unknown which factors impact the magnitude of the motor–EF link. Findings from neuroimaging studies have proposed that neural activity in networks that are important for motor and cognitive tasks is especially strong when a task is new. In the present behavioral study, we systematically investigated the impact that task novelty had on the motor–EF link. In our study, n = 124 kindergarten children aged five to six administered in a within-subject design three fine motor tasks of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (Posting Coins, Threading Beads, and Drawing Trail) twice in succession (new vs. repeated), and three EF tasks (adapted versions of a Flanker, a N-back, and the Advanced Dimensional Chance Card Sort task). Results not only replicated the fine motor–EF link, but also showed a significantly stronger association between EF and the new task compared to the repeated Drawing Trail task. However, for the time-based task of Posting Coins and Threading Beads, motor–EF associations did not differ between the new task and the repeated task. Future investigations of more than two repetitions will provide further insights into the assumption that the motor–EF link is mainly driven by the EF processes triggered when a task is new, demands attention, and requires fast and flexible adaptation
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