86,954 research outputs found
Comparison of prothrombin time INR and clot waveform analysis performed with 129-mmol/L and 105-mmol/L citrate tubes
No full textEffetti benefici del verde sulla salute e sul benessere psico-fisico.
No full textL’obiettivo di questo contributo è offrire una rassegna della letteratura riguardo il rapporto individuo-natura, con particolare attenzione agli spazi verdi. In particolare, verranno descritti i principali effetti derivanti dal contatto con la natura, illustrando potenziali problemi e specifici benefici in riferimento ad alcune categorie di utenti ed evidenziando tre possibili processi esplicativi delle funzioni benefiche che gli spazi verdi hanno sulle persone.
Nello specifico, il primo paragrafo espone i benefici degli ambienti naturali sull’individuo, dal punto di vista fisiologico, psicologico e sociale. Numerose ricerche si sono dedicate, nel tempo, allo studio degli effetti positivi che l’ambiente naturale ha sulla salute e sul benessere dell’uomo e un numero crescente di studi ha dimostrato l’utilità del tempo trascorso nella natura a tali fini. L’esposizione agli ambienti naturali è stata infatti associata a un’ampia varietà di conseguenze positive sulla salute. In relazione ai benefici
fisiologici, la natura è efficace nel mitigare alcuni degli effetti fisiologici negativi dei fattori di rischio ambientale presenti nelle zone urbane: la natura riesce in particolare ad alleviare gli effetti fisiologici negativi dello stress, oltre che favorire il rilassamento fisiologico e
il miglioramento della funzione immunitaria. In merito agli effetti psicologici, è ampiamente dimostrato che il contatto con ambienti naturali aumenta la percezione di benessere e l’esperienza di emozioni positive, migliora il ripristino delle funzioni cognitive e
funge da fattore preventivo rispetto al rischio di sviluppo di patologie psicologiche e psichiatriche. Infine, per quanto riguarda l’aspetto sociale, la ricerca ha enfatizzato la capacità dei luoghi naturali di facilitare le interazioni sociali e rafforzare la coesione sociale
On the efficacy of handcrafted and deep features for seed image classification
No full textComputer vision techniques have become important in agriculture and plant sciences due to their wide variety of applications. In particular, the analysis of seeds can provide meaningful information on their evolution, the history of agriculture, the domestication of plants, and knowledge of diets in ancient times. This work aims to propose an exhaustive comparison of several different types of features in the context of multiclass seed classification, leveraging two public plant seeds data sets to classify their families or species. In detail, we studied possible optimisations of five traditional machine learning classifiers trained with seven different categories of handcrafted features. We also fine-tuned several well-known convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and the recently proposed SeedNet to determine whether and to what extent using their deep features may be advantageous over handcrafted features. The experimental results demonstrated that CNN features are appropriate to the task and representative of the multiclass scenario. In particular, SeedNet achieved a mean F-measure of 96%, at least. Nevertheless, several cases showed satisfactory performance from the handcrafted features to be considered a valid alternative. In detail, we found that the Ensemble strategy combined with all the handcrafted features can achieve 90.93% of mean F-measure, at least, with a considerably lower amount of times. We consider the obtained results an excellent preliminary step towards realising an automatic seeds recognition and classification framework
A new genetic algorithm for polygonal approximation
No full textIn this chapter, the problem of approximating a closed digital curve with a simplified representation by a set of feature points containing almost complete information of the contour, i.e., dominant points, is addressed. We adopt an approach based on genetic algorithms (GAs) since they use parallel search and have good performance in solving optimization problems. The chromosome coincides with an approximating polygon and is represented by a binary string. Each bit, called gene, represents a curve point where dominant points have 1-value. The proposed algorithm enhances the selection and mutation phase avoiding the premature convergence issue. Our method is compared to other similar approaches and its efficiency is clearly demonstrated by experimental results giving a better approximation by lowering the error norm with respect to the original curves
Clinical Results of Treatment of Postsurgical Endotoxin-Mediated Sepsis With Polymyxin-B Direct Hemoperfusion
No full textTransplant Proc. 2010 May;42(4):1021-4. Clinical results of treatment of postsurgical endotoxin-mediated sepsis with polymyxin-B direct hemoperfusion. Novelli G, Ferretti G, Poli L, Pretagostini R, Ruberto F, Perrella SM, Levi Sandri GB, Morabito V, Berloco PB. SourceDipartimento P Stefanini, Chirurgia Generale e Trapianti d'Organo, La Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy. [email protected] Erratum in Transplant Proc. 2011 Apr;43(3):942. Levi, S [corrected to Levi Sandri, G B]. Abstract We evaluated the possibility of preventing the evolution of endotoxin-mediated sepsis in severe septic shock using early treatment of critical endotoxemia with polymyxin-B direct hemoperfusion (PMX-DHP). Thirty-eight postsurgical patients who fulfilled at least 2 criteria for systemic inflammatory response syndrome were stratified on the basis of the value of the endotoxin activity assay. Seventeen patients who demonstrated high risk of endotoxin activity (or=0.6) received standard therapy plus PMX-DHP every 24 hours to lower the endotoxin activity level to less than 0.4, and the remaining 21 patients with endotoxin activity levels less than 0.6 received standard therapy only. Seven patients required 2 courses of PMX-DHP therapy, 8 required 3 courses, and 2 required 4 courses. After treatment, mean arterial pressure increased, from 69.00 mm Hg to 81.35 mm Hg (P .01); heart rate decreased, from 105.40 bpm to 78.12 bpm (P .01); white blood cell count decreased, from 20,700 cells/mm(3) to 9740 cells/mm(3) (P .01); arterial oxygen tension-fraction of inspired oxygen ratio increased, from 273.82 to 305.82 (P .01); and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score decreased, from 7 to 4 (P .01). Length of stay was longer for transplant recipients (16 days) than for other surgical patients (8(1/2) days). All patients survived to 28-day follow-up, and 15 of 16 patients (94%) had survived at 60-day follow-up. Despite the small number of patients included in the study, the encouraging results suggest that PMX-DHP is a useful therapeutic strategy for lowering sepsis-related mortality
Diagnostic value of presepsin for bacterial infection in cirrhosis: a pilot study
No full textIntroduction: Presepsin (or sCD14) has been identified as a protein whose levels increase specifically in the blood of patients with bacterial infections. In this study, we evaluated the clinical performance of sCD14 and its usefulness in the early diagnosis of bacterial infection in decompensated cirrhotic patients. Materials: Seventy patients were enrolled in this study. The mean age of patients was 49.5 years, and 21 were women and 49 men. The heparinized whole blood for the PATHFAST test was used in the evaluation of bacterial infection (T0). The test was repeated after 48 hours (T1); at 96 hours (T2); at 144 hours (T3); then at 15 days (T4) to monitor the clinical responses to therapeutic interventions. Results: Forty-nine patients tested positive for sCD14. The mean sCD14 level was 1854 ± 1744 pg/mL. Microbiological findings confirmed the presence of bacterial infections within 84 ± 4.8 h from enrollment in all 49 positive patients. Thirty-eight patients were considered responders to empirical antibiotic therapy with a decrease of presepsin at the different time points, while an increased level of sCD14 was highlighted in 11 patients. When the test was performed, 45% of the patients showed no signs or symptoms of bacterial infection. At 30 days of follow-up 43 patients survived, and 6 patients died from septic shock. Conclusions: The PATHFAST test highlighted the presence of infection in a very short time (15 minutes), and the presepsin could be considered an early biomarker in patients with cirrhosis. A greater number of patients are necessary to confirm these data
Strictaketal, a new tetraprenyltoluquinol with a heterotetracyclic diterpene moiety from the brown alga Cystoseira stricta
No full text
Strictaketal, a new tetraprenyltoluquinol with a heterotetracyclic diterpene moiety from the brown alga Cystoseira stricta
No full text- …
