1,720,970 research outputs found
A tricky diagnosis. Thyroid, hyperglycemia, pregnancy: What association?[Una diagnosi insidiosa. Tiroide, iperglicemia, gravidanza: Quale associazione?]
No full textLa diagnosi di diabete gestazionale (DG) può presentare insidie fuorvianti. Nonostante la recente revisione della definizione consenta una fenotipizzazione più puntuale utile anche per il tipo di follow-up nel post partum, sovente, nella pratica clinica, abbiamo condizioni sfumate e complesse. Il clinico dovrà considerare ogni aspetto per utilizzare l’armamentario di conoscenza e richiedere, nell’ottica dell’appropriatezza, i giusti approfondimenti volti a un inquadramento completo e alla formulazione di una diagnosi precisa
Overcoming inertia in innovation networks: evidence from Italian SMEs
No full textIn recent research studies on management and organization, aggregations among SMEs are continuously brought up and put forward as a tool for gaining competitiveness and overcoming the crisis that is still gripping the global economy. In some cases these aggregations are promoted and encouraged by public policies or incentivized in other ways. Networks are believed to be able to lead SMEs towards new market scenarios, mainly thanks to the strengthening of their innovative capacity that require them to reach a “critical mass” in terms of resources and competences. This suggests to carefully investigate the drivers of network performance. This suggests that a careful investigation of the drivers of network performance is advisable. Keeping in mind the topics that have been proposed, we believe it could be interesting to see how the translation of change strategies into practices that are able to generate innovation happens. Our research pursues explorative goals through an in-depth, longitudinal analysis of a single
case-study. Under investigation is the start-up of an innovation network (Neftech) consisting of six small- and micro-sized firms, located in northern Italy and operating in the hightechnology sector. The research is linked to two of the fields proposed in the sub-theme: namely the overcoming of inertia and the shift from design to operating activities; it also refers to tensions between stability and change, these being clearly perceived during the early running of the analyzed network. The research question we aim to answer is oriented towards understanding if a specific pattern of roles and actors involved can help to overcome inertia that emerges in the evolutionary process of an innovation-oriented network. In particular, we propose to assess how the keyactors try to manage the symptoms and causes of inertia, encountered while leading the network to the full operating stage.
This paper is structured as follows: before introducing the research design we propose a synthetic theoretical background; subsequently, we describe and reflect upon the case history and finally, we outline the following research phases
Quality of life in women with gestational diabetes mellitus: A systematic review
Full text linkBackground and Objective. Diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) could significantly increase the likelihood of health problems concerning both potential risks for the mother, fetus, and child's development and negative effects on maternal mental health above all in terms of a diminished Quality of Life (QoL).The current systematic review study is aimed at further contributing to an advancement of knowledge about the clinical link between GDM and QoL. Methods. According to PRISMA guidelines, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane databases were searched for studies aimed at evaluating and/or improving levels ofQoL in women diagnosed with GDM. Results. Fifteen research studies were identified and qualitatively analyzed by summarizing results according to the following two topics: GDMand QoL and interventions on QoL in patients with GDM. Studies showed that, in women with GDM, QoL is significantly worse in both the short term and long term. However, improvements on QoL can be achieved through different intervention programs by enhancing positive diabetes-related self-management behaviors. Conclusion. Future studies are strongly recommended to further examine the impact of integrative programs, including telemedicine and educational interventions, on QoL of GDM patients by promoting their illness acceptance and healthy lifestyle behaviors
Nutrigenetics, epigenetics and gestational diabetes: consequences in mother and child.
Full text linkGestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is the most common metabolic condition during pregnancy and may result in short- and long-term complications for both mother and offspring. The complexity of phenotypic outcomes seems influenced by genetic susceptibility, nutrient-gene interactions and lifestyle interacting with clinical factors. There is strong evidence that not only the adverse genetic background but also the epigenetic modifications in response to nutritional and environmental factors could influence the maternal hyperglycemia in pregnancy and the foetal metabolic programming. In this view, the correlation between epigenetic modifications and their transgenerational effects represents a very interesting field of study. The present review gives insight into the role of gene variants and their interactions with nutrients in GDM. In addition, we provide an overview of the epigenetic changes and their role in the maternal-foetal transmission of chronic diseases. Overall, the knowledge of epigenetic modifications induced by an adverse intrauterine and perinatal environment could shed light on the potential pathophysiological mechanisms of long-term disease development in the offspring and provide useful tools for their prevention
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Shape from Motion Project: 3D Modelling by Analogic Video Input Data for the Reconstruction of Archaeological Sites
No full textOne of the fundamental problems in early Computer Vision is the measurement of optical flow. In many cases when a scene is observed by a camera there exists motion, created either by the movement of the camera or by the independent movement of objects in the scene. In both cases the goal is to correspond to each visible point a 3D velocity vector. In general, it is impossible to infer from one view the 3D velocity map. However most motion estimation algorithms calculate the projection of the velocity map onto the imaging surface. A large number of different algorithms have been developed in order to solve this problem.
The problem of estimating the optical flow has received much attention because of its many different applications. Tasks such as passive scene interpretation, image segmentation, surface structure reconstruction, inference of egomotion, and active navigation, all use optical flow as input information.
Until now, most motion estimation algorithms consider optical flow with displacements of only a few pixels per frame. This approach limits the applications to slower motions and fails to seriously address the issue of motion blur. Moreover they work on images that are considered to be taken with infinitely small exposure time, more or less in a "stop and shoot" approach, which limits the real time applications. Also most of these algorithms work on a series of images by calculating the displacement of every pixel from image to image, ignoring any information about motion that exists within each single image.
In this work we approach the problem of visual motion estimation from a different point of view. We have developed an algorithm that is based on interpreting the motion blur to estimate the optical flow field in a single image. The algorithm works in the spatial frequency domain, using all the information that can be gathered from a patch of the image. The first step is to obtain the logarithm of the spectrum, by applying the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) on the image patch. It is recognizable on the result an ellipse centered on the origin with orientation perpendicular to the orientation of the velocity vector. In order to exctract this orientation we apply a steerable second Gaussian derivative filter. To compute the magnitude of the velocity vector, which is one dimensional we need only a 1D signal. Noise patterns make it difficult to estimate this magnitude from the 2D log spectrum. Therefore we collapse the 2D logarithm of the spectrum along the orientation of the velocity vector, transfering from two dimensions to one. The next step is to take the Cepstrum, by applying the FFT to this one dimensional signal. The Cepstrum is useful in extracting the magnitude of the velocity vector because the central ellipse in the 2D spectrum is echoed along the direction of the velocity vectors with a period equivalent to the magnitude of the velocity vector. This is obvious in the Cepstrum by the appearence of a negative peak at the value of the magnitude of the velocity vector. The computational complexity of the algorithm is bounded by the FFT which is The computational complexity of the algorithm is bounded by the FFT which is O(n \log n) where n the number of pixels in the image
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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