176 research outputs found
Vestibular rehabilitation in older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment: Effects of virtual reality using a head-mounted display
No full textPurpose: Due to the gap in the knowledge in the field of vestibular rehabilitation the purpose of this randomized study is to highlight the outcomes of head-mounted display (HMD)implementation in older adults and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), suffering from unilateral vestibular hypofunction (UVH). Materials and methods: Vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR)gain, postural sway examination and dizziness-related and quality of life scores were collected in 12 UVH elderly and 12 UVH subjects suffering from MCI only undergoing vestibular rehabilitation and in 11 UVH elderly and 12 UVH subjects suffering from MCI undergoing a home-based HMD + vestibular rehabilitation protocol. Results: Although the within-subjects analysis found in all groups a significant (p < 0.05)improvement in posturography parameters and dizziness-related and quality of life scores and no changes in VOR gain, implementation of HMD demonstrated a significant (p < 0.05)increase in post-treatment between-group comparisons in the same tests and VOR gain with respect to those older adults and participants with MCI only undergoing vestibular rehabilitation. Positive correlations were discovered between Mini-Mental Score Exam values and pre-/post-treatment differences in (i)power spectra values in the low-frequency interval (r = 0.72)and in (ii)Dynamic Gait Index scores (r = 0.76). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the implementation of a home-based virtual reality protocol may be a safe option in order to ameliorate VOR, postural control and the quality of life also in the vestibular impaired patients in whom the presence of cognitive decline could hinder the achievement of the goal of rehabilitation
The new GRASS 5.1 vector architecture
No full textThe presentation describes the new GRASS 5.1 vector library architecture. This new architecture overcomes the vector limitations of GRASS 4.x-5.0 by extending the vector support with attributes stored in external relational databases and by new 3D capabilities. Besides internal file based storage the geometry may alternatively be stored in PostGIS database. This enables users to maintain large data sets with simultaneous write access. External GIS formats such as SHAPE-files may be used directly without necessity of format conversio
Recognition of office-like environments through the extraction of the perspectwe structure
No full textIn this paper we propose a vision-based system that lets the robot recognize an environment observed through the construction of a perspective structure which characterizes it. The individualization of the most significant characteristics of the perspective structure is performed by a geometric method that, using the information given by the image, represents the scene through elementary geometrical forms (such as straight lines) and, on the basis of this geometrical representation, it detects the perspective structure elements (e.g. the vanishing point). The method returns results that can help the robot to establish if he is really inside a corridor or in another place
Recognition in Office-Like Environments Through the extraction of the Perspective Structure
No full textZooplankton size structure in the Gulf of Tadjoura (Djibouti) during whale shark sighting: a preliminary study
No full textZooplankton, collected in the Gulf of Tadjoura (Republic of Djibouti) during a cruise conducted to study the feeding behavior of the whale shark Rhincodon typus, was analyzed in terms of size class, abundance and species composition. This pilot study was aimed to better understand a possible correlation between mesozooplankton composition and size spectra, collected up to 10 m depth, and different feeding behaviour of R. typus. Our data indicate that holoplankton accounted from 93 to 100% of the total community, copepods represented more than 80% of the zooplanktonic community, with 14 copepod genera and 9 species. Our preliminary results suggest an association between suction feeding activity of R. typus and high abundance of small copepod species. Passive feeding was recorded during the lowest abundance of zooplankton, mainly composed by large chaetognaths and larvae of Belbezub hansenii belonging to the family of Luciferidae (Sergestids). These first results highlight the importance of analyzing the dimensional structure of mesozooplankton in the aggregation areas of whale shark and open up new and intriguing investigative approaches to better understand the biology of R. typus
Zooplankton size structure in the Gulf of Tadjoura (Djibouti) during whale shark sighting: a preliminary study|Structure de taille du zooplancton du Golfe de Tadjoura (Djibouti) pendant l’observation de requins baleines: étude préliminaire
No full textZooplankton, collected in the Gulf of Tadjoura (Republic of Djibouti) during a cruise conducted to study the feeding behavior of the whale shark Rhincodon typus, was analyzed in terms of size class, abundance and species composition. This pilot study was aimed to better understand a possible correlation between mesozooplankton composition and size spectra, collected up to 10 m depth, and different feeding behaviour of R. typus. Our data indicate that holoplankton accounted from 93 to 100% of the total community, copepods represented more than 80% of the zooplanktonic community, with 14 copepod genera and 9 species. Our preliminary results suggest an association between suction feeding activity of R. typus and high abundance of small copepod species. Passive feeding was recorded during the lowest abundance of zooplankton, mainly composed by large chaetognaths and larvae of Belbezub hansenii belonging to the family of Luciferidae (Sergestids). These first results highlight the importance of analyzing the dimensional structure of mesozooplankton in the aggregation areas of whale shark and open up new and intriguing investigative approaches to better understand the biology of R. typus
A possible case of mycosis in a post-classical burial from La Selvicciola (Italy)
No full textAn examination of an adult male buried from the post-classical necropolis of La Selvicciola (Viterbo, Latium, Italy; 4th–6th centuries AD) revealed a series of skeletal lesions. The lesions, both proliferative and lytic, ranging in size from small (around 0.01 mm) to extensive (up to 16.00 mm) pits, occurred at multiple sites. A holistic approach assessed lesion type, frequency and location in a differential diagnosis, which included myeloma, metastatic carcinoma, tuberculosis, leukemia, osteomyelitis, and mycoses. It was concluded that a mycosis, specifically Cryptococcosis, was the most likely cause of these lesions. Both macroscopic analyses and X-ray scans support our diagnosis. We also provide a methodological scheme as a model for examining unknown lesion patterns
Pushing "Underfitting" to the Limit: Learning in Bidimensional Text Categorization
No full textThe analysis of two heuristic supervised learning algorithms for
text categorization in two dimensions is presented here. The
graphical properties of the bidimensional representation allows
one to tailor a geometrical heuristic approach in order to exploit
the peculiar distribution of text documents. In particular, we
want to investigate the theoretical linear cost of the algorithms
and try to push the performance to the limit. The experiments on
Reuters-21578 standard benchmark confirm that this approach is an
alternative to the standard linear learning models, such as
support vector machines, for text classification. Moreover, due to
the fast training session, this approach may also be considered as
a support for text categorization systems for fast graphical
investigations of large collections of documents
Swarm Intelligence: Agents for Adaptive Web Search
No full textIn this paper, we present an adaptive and scalable Web search system, based on a multi-agent reactive architecture, which drew inspiration from biological researches on the ant foraging behavior. Its target is to search autonomously information on particular topics, in huge hypertextual collections, such as the Web, exploiting the outstanding properties of the agent architectures. The algorithm has proven to be robust against environmental alterations and adaptive to user's information need changes, discovering valuable evaluation results from standard Web collections
Community Detection and Recommender Systems
No full textCommunity-based recommender systems suggest resources, such as products and services, based on groups of users that manifest similar preferences and behaviors one another
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