1,721,302 research outputs found
An overview of pregnancy-related issues in patients with multiple sclerosis
No full textAlthough pregnancy in women with multiple sclerosis (MS) is not generally considered high risk, there are some associated therapeutic challenges. The pregnancy-associated reduction in the relapse rate, especially in the third trimester, is followed by a sharp increase in the first few months postpartum. Nevertheless, retrospective evidence for pregnant women with and without MS followed for up to 10 years indicates that pregnancy has no perceptible effect on long-term disease course or disability progression. Likewise, MS has no apparent effects on the pregnancy course or fetal outcomes. All disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) have potential adverse effects on fertility and pregnancy outcomes, but the level of risk varies amongst agents. There is some support for continued use of interferon-β and glatiramer acetate throughout pregnancy to reduce the risk of relapse. Use of DMTs during breastfeeding is best avoided if possible. Close evaluation of drug safety information is imperative when managing women with MS who are pregnant or wish to become pregnant. Decision-making should be a shared experience between patient and physician, and the approach must be individualized for each patient
The vestibular system modulates masseter muscle activity
No full textThe aim of this study was to investigate whether, and in what way, the vestibular input may influence the activity of the masseter muscles. The variations in the spontaneous electrical activity and the evoked responses in the masseter motor units to natural or electrical activation of the vestibular afferents were recorded in anesthetized guinea pigs. The effects of a unilateral lesion of the labyrinth on the firing rate of the masseter motor units were also studied. Results show that: 1) vestibular input elicited an excitatory tonic control on masseter muscle activity; 2) a faster labyrinthine control is driven to the contralateral than the homolateral masseter muscles; 3) vestibular macular input does exert an asymmetrical control on masseteric muscles of both sides, in relation to the head displacement in space. The latencies of responses recorded from the masseter motor units suggest that polysynaptic pathways are involved in connecting the vestibular system to the trigeminal compl..
Small-Body Shape Recognition with Convolutional Neural Network and Comparison with Explicit Features Based Method
Full text linkSmall-bodies such as asteroids and comets exhibit a wide variety of shapes and surface characteristics that are often unknown beforehand. Because of that, traditional exploration approaches do not make use of shape information on-board the spacecraft. This work would like to propose an approach based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to provide such type of information for on-board image processing and compare it with three more traditional approaches based on explicit image features such as Hu invariant moments, Fourier descriptors and polar outlines. A group of 8 different small-body shapes is chosen as archetype set and a database of images is generated to train these 4 techniques in the classification task. Their performances are then analyzed in three different scenarios. First, they are analyzed on the test set split from the database. In the second one the CNN is used to classify the shape of new objects that are not part of the archetype set. Lastly, all techniques are used under varying illumination conditions on some models from the archetype set. The CNN classifier outperforms the other methods, reaching an accuracy of 98.52 %, meaningful classification on new models and a robust behaviour under varying illumination conditions. The latter property can be used for efficient training of the CNN with a smaller database. Given the promising results, the CNN classifier is proposed for onboard implementation to provide shape information. Other important results of this work are the identification of an irregularity index for small-bodies and the definition of a shape profile as a fingerprint of the 3D object under varying perspective
Epidemiologia genetica della sclerosi multipla in Sardegna. Risultati dello studio di aggregazione spaziale
No full textAsimmetria percettiva del colore nel punto vendita: alcune implicazioni di merchandising
No full text- …
