109 research outputs found
Neurological involvement of IgG4-related disease: description of a case and review of the literature
No full text IgG4-related disease is a recently discovered pathological entity, histologically characterised by fibrosis and IgG4-positive plasma cell infiltration. This condition may virtually involve every site of the organism, with a various range of clinical presentations. The most commonly affected organ is the pancreatic gland, but it can also involve the biliary tract, salivary and lacrimal glands, kidneys, orbital tissues, lymph nodes, lungs and many others. More recently, IgG4-related disease has been demonstrated to involve, in rare cases, also the central nervous system, with a pattern mainly characterised by hypertrophic pachymeningitis. In this paper we evaluated the clinical and magnetic resonance imaging features of the IgG4-related disease in the central nervous system, reporting a case of brain and spinal cord involvement. In our case, in fact, a 62-year-old man complaining of paresthesia, burning dysesthesia and severe hyposthenia in the lower limbs presented with inflammatory pseudotumour with orbital involvement and focal dural and spinal root thickening. </jats:p
Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy Syndrome Presenting with Atypical Findings: Report of Two Cases
No full textBackground. Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is characterized by a variable association of symptoms including headache, consciousness impairment, visual disturbances, seizures, and focal neurological signs. Treating the underlying cause usually leads to partial or complete resolution of symptoms within days or weeks. Brain MRI findings include hyperintensities on T2-weighted sequences and their reversibility on follow-up exams. We describe two patients, one with an atypical clinical presentation characterized by a severe and prolonged impairment of consciousness and the other with atypical neuroimaging findings. Case Presentation. The first patient was a 42-year-old woman, with a negative medical history, presenting with seizures, lethargy, and left hemiparesis, 60 hours after uncomplicated delivery. Brain MRI showed an atypical pattern of alterations, with patchy asymmetric distribution in all lobes. Symptoms completely resolved after twelve days. The second patient was a 59-year-old woman with a history of hypertension, presenting with severe impairment of consciousness, vision loss, and seizures. Symptoms partially resolved after three weeks. Conclusion. PRES is characterized by reversible symptoms and radiological findings. Brain MRI usually shows widespread oedema in white matter with typical patterns. The cases we described suggest that PRES may presents with atypical symptoms and radiological manifestations, mimicking other neurological conditions
Long-term follow-up of dogs with leishmaniosis treated with meglumine antimoniate plus allopurinol versus miltefosine plus allopurinol
No full textVisceral leishmaniosis is a potentially life-threatening illness caused by a protozoan parasite of the genus Leishmania. It is found mainly in areas where both the parasite and its vector are endemic and is one of the most challenging infectious diseases in the world to control. HIV infected patients are vulnerable to Leishmania infections, and the main reservoir hosts of Leishmania infantum parasites are domestic dogs. Here, we evaluated the long-term efficacy of treatment with meglumine antimoniate plus allopurinol (G1) compared to miltefosine plus allopurinol (G2) in dogs naturally infected L. infantum
[Primary intestinal tuberculosis].
No full textTuberculosis, with its pulmonary and extrapulmonary localizations, is rapidly increasing in Italy. The authors describe a case of a primary colonic tuberculosis in a 52-year-old Caucasian man. At admission the patient reported a 6-month history of constipation, weight loss and abdominal pain. He had rectal bleeding in the last two weeks. Haematological tests and chest X-ray were negative. Colonoscopy showed a stricture in the proximal transverse colon and multiple ulcers in the ileocecal tract. Multiple biopsies and culture demonstrated tuberculosis. The patient underwent a right hemicolectomy after an episode of acute intestinal hemorrhage and received pharmacological treatment for nine months. After four years he is still free of disease
Aristotele, Costituzione degli Spartani - Frammenti
No full text2013 - 2014Il presente lavoro consiste in una ricostituzione del corpus dei frammenti attribuibili alla
Costituzione degli Spartani di Aristotele con traduzione e commento esegetico, storico e
storiografico. Rientrano nel corpus sia i frammenti di tradizione indiretta sia l’estratto di
Eraclide Lembo, erudito alessandrino del II secolo a.C, che realizzò un lavoro di epitome
delle Politeiai aristoteliche, con ogni probabilità a noi giunto ulteriormente compendiato da
un anonimo excerptor. Essendo stata provata e comunemente accettata la sostanziale
fedeltà degli estratti eraclidei all’originale aristotelico, per quanto concerne la presenza di
argomenti e la successione delle notizie, l’estratto spartano è utilizzato, quando presente,
come elemento di supporto, per il lavoro di ricostituzione del corpus nel riconoscimento e
nella numerazione dei frammenti. Punto di riferimento sono state le precedenti edizioni dei
frammenti aristotelici di tradizione indiretta, realizzate da V. Rose e da O. Gigon, che, dopo
i Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (FHG) di C. Muller. Nel presente lavoro sono stati
riconosciuti come frammenti sia testi che presentano citazione esplicita, insieme, di
Aristotele e dell’opera, del solo Aristotele o della sola opera sia testi in cui è presente
soltanto una forte similarità di contenuto8
con altri che si possono riportare all’opuscolo
aristotelico. Alcuni elementi, emersi nel corso del lavoro, hanno indotto a procedere ad una
nuova numerazione dei frammenti rispetto a quelle proposte da Rose e poi da Gigon.
Le traduzioni sono state realizzate, cercando di rispettare, quanto più possibile, il testo
greco, sia a livello lessicale che sintattico. Questo per evitare che distorsioni del lessico e
della struttura della fonte citante potessero impedire di cogliere eventuali distorsioni da
questa operate sul testo aristotelico tràdito.
Il commento ha affrontato problemi testuali ove necessario, più frequentemente aspetti
storici, storiografici, e, in alcuni casi, filologici; si è cercato innanzitutto di rendere ragione
delle scelte operate, per quanto concerne l’attribuzione dei frammenti, la loro delimitazione
all’interno della fonte tralatrice e la numerazione a questi attribuita. Si è proposto inoltre,
per alcuni testi, il riconoscimento come frammenti dubbi, potenzialmente attribuibili
all’opuscolo aristotelico. Si tratta di testi non riconosciuti dalle precedenti edizioni,
individuati graficamente dal punto interrogativo.
I testi paralleli, cioè quei testi che riportano un contenuto simile a quello dei testi già
riconosciuti di provenienza aristotelica ma che non presentano citazione esplicita né di
Aristotele né dell’opera, sono individuati graficamente con un asterisco. [a cura dell'Autore]This work consists in a reconstitution of the corpus of fragments ascribable to the Constitution of the Spartans by Aristotle through the translation and the exegetical, historical and historiographical commentary.
Within the corpus of both the fragments preserved by the indirect tradition and the extract of Heraclides Lembo, the Alexandrian scholar of the second century B.C., who created an epitome of the Aristotelean Politeiai, which, in all likelihood, came to us in a further epitomized form by an anonymous excerptor. Since the substantial fidelity of the original extracts from Heracleides to the original version by Aristotle has been proved and accepted. For what concerns the presence of topics and the succession of the information, the Spartan extract is used, when possible, as a support element for the reconstitution work of the corpus in the recognition and numbering of fragments. The points of reference were the previous editions of Aristotle's fragments of indirect tradition made by V. Rose and O. Gigon and the Historicorum Fragmenta Graecorum (FHG) of C. Muller. In this work have been recognized as fragments both texts with explicit quotations from Aristotle or from the discussed work by Aristotle, and texts, in which there is just a strong similarity with others which can be connected with the Aristotelian pamphlet. Some information which emerged from the work led to proceed with a new and different numbering of the fragments compared with the one proposed by Rose and then by Gigon.
The translations were made trying to respect as much as possible the Greek text both from the lexical and the syntactical point of view. This was to prevent distortions of the vocabulary and of the structure of the citing source, which could made difficult to detect distortions operated from the translation on the traditionalized text by Aristotle.
The comments faced textual problems, where necessary, more frequently historical, historiographical, and, in some cases, philological issues; it was first tried to give an account of the choices regarding the allocation of the fragments, their boundaries within the texte- source and the numbering which has been attributed to them. For some texts it has also been proposed the recognition of doubtful fragments, potentially attributable to the Aristotelian
pamphlet. These texts are not recognized by previous editions and graphically identified by the question mark.
The parallel texts, i.e. the texts that report a content similar to that of the already recognized texts as Aristotelian, do not show explicit mention either of Aristotle or his work and they are graphically identified with an asterisk. [edited by Author]XIII n.s
KTT 2.0 - Vietnamese Soviet Housing District, Hanoi, Vietnam
No full textThe KTT (‘Khu Tap The’; Dormitory Region) district is a housing district based on the Soviet microrayon (microdistrict). In contrast to other former or current communist countries, the microrayons in Hanoi have transformed greatly. This occurred from 1986 when Vietnam entered a free market economy by setting up its Doi-Moi (reformation) policy. Ever since Vietnam finds itself in a paradoxical situation: “a one party communist regime overseeing a Wild-West style of capitalism” (World Crunch News, 2013). Today the public spaces in between the KTT housing blocks have been filled up with slum-like developments due to overcrowding and lack of buildings regulations. The paradoxical situation of contemporary Vietnam is the starting point for a new type of housing district: the KTT 2.0. This housing district is more flexible and open to the rapid changes in culture, economy and politics that are taking place in Vietnam today. At the same time it partly preserves the ideals with which these microrayons were designed. The new design is worked out from bottom-up in one of the existing KTT districts: The KTT Kim Lien. Based on thorough research and analyses, requirements were set up to create a type of housing block which is able to meet the variable demands of its inhabitants. This housing block replaces the existing ones and is part of three different types of blocks which, together with various street section designs, form the tools to the creation of new types of (smaller) KTT districts.Vertical Cities AsiaArchitectureArchitecture and The Built Environmen
A reduced order model of glioblastoma growth and its neuroimaging-informed estimation of patient-specific parameters
No full textLAUREA MAGISTRALEI parametri fisici che determinano la crescita e ricomparsa del glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) sono altamente specifici per ciascun paziente.
Per questo motivo, la ricerca di modelli matematici che permettano una stima adeguatamente accurata dei parametri a partire da immagini cliniche è di fondamentale importanza se si vuole aiutare il personale medico nel prendere decisioni.
In generale, la stima dei parametri richiede un alto costo computazionale, spesso incompatibile per l’utilizzo clinico, se non coadiuvata a tecniche per ridurre la complessità del problema di partenza.
In questa tesi, proponiamo un modello ad interfaccia diffusa per la crescita del GBM, che consiste in una equazione Cahn-Hilliard accoppiata ad un’equazione di reazione-diffusione per descrivere l’evoluzione del nutriente delle cellule tumorali.
La specificità per ciascun paziente è modellata attraverso dei parametri numerici, che dettano la crescita peculiare di ciascun tumore e la cui predizione è l’obiettivo finale della metodologia proposta.
Partendo da una discretizzazione full-order del modello proposta (FOM), otteniamo un modello a basi ridotte (ROM) attraverso la tecnica di Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD).
Per la soluzione del sistema di PDE e la sua riduzione, utilizziamo le librerie FEniCSx e RBniCSx.
Utilizzando un approccio basato su reti neurali, costruiamo una mappa tra lo spazio dei parametri e la soluzione proiettata sullo spazio ridotto che descrive la concentrazione tumorale nel tempo.
Per stimare i parametri specifici del paziente, proponiamo l’utilizzo di un’ulteriore rete neurale allenata a predire i parametri del modello basandosi sulla distribuzione del tumore in due istanti di tempo distinti.
In questo modo, lo sforzo computazionale concentrato nel training delle reti, che richiede che il FOM sia risolto molte volte partendo dalle medesime condizioni iniziali, è bilanciato dalla rapidità con cui i parametri vengono stimati una volta disponibile l’informazione sulla evoluzione reale del tumore ad un secondo instante temporale.
Questo metodo potrebbe essere sfruttato in un caso reale per dedurre i parametri del modello dalle immagini cliniche in possesso.The physical parameters driving the growth and the recurrence of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) are highly specific to each patient.
For this reason, the proposal of finding a mathematical model that allows an accurate parameters estimation from neuroimaging data becomes of fundamental importance if we want to propose a computational framework that could help clinicians with decision-making. In general, the estimation of the parameters requires a high computational cost, often unsuitable for clinical use if not assisted with techniques to reduce the complexity of starting problem.
In this thesis, we propose a diffuse interface model of GBM growth based on mixture theory, which consists of a Cahn-Hilliard equation coupled with a reaction-diffusion equation to describe the evolution of the nutrient for cancer cells.
The specificity of each patient is modelled via a set of numerical parameters, which dictate the peculiar growth of the tumour and whose prediction is the final objective of the proposed methodology, and through the tensors D and T, obtained with Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), respectively denoting a patient-specific preferential diffusion direction for the nutrient and preferential motility for the tumour growth, that determine the actual shape of the GBM.
Starting from a full-order discretization of the proposed model based on the finite element method, we obtain a reduced-base model (ROM) through the proper orthogonal decomposition technique (POD).
For the solution of the full order PDEs system, we make use of FEniCSx, a powerful open-source computing platform. The implementation of the used code heavily relies on two of its libraries: DOLFINx and Unified Form Language (UFL).
The Full Order Model reduction is computed thanks to the C++/Python library RBniCSx that contains a set of functions for performing reduced order modelling techniques.
By means of a neural network-based approach, we build a map between the parameter space and the solution in the reduced space that describes the concentration of the tumour over time. As a tool to estimate patient-specific parameters, we propose an approach based on a second neural network trained to predict the parameters of the model based on the tumour distribution in two separate time instants.
In this way, the computational effort focused on the training phase, that requires the FOM to be solved several times starting from the same initial condition, is balanced by the rapidity in the estimation of the parameters once the information on the actual evolution of the tumour at a second time instant is available.
Such an approach may be exploited in clinical practice to deduce the parameters of the model from imaging data
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