1,337 research outputs found
Oral anticoagulants for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation and previous intracranial hemorrhage
No full textAn overview of blockchain-based systems and smart contracts for digital coupons
No full textAmong the accessory applications of the blockchain, the idea of using it as an immutable register for tracking and certifying documents is recently gaining interest in research and industry. The problems of traceability, non-counterfeiting and unique usage of digital coupons fall within this area; many couponing platforms are hence exploring the possibility of addressing the above limitations with blockchain technologies. In view of the foregoing, in this work we analyse and compare several blockchain-based couponing systems. To do so, we first propose a general schema of digital coupon and define the desirable properties of a couponing system. Then, we select a sample of these systems and we examine them, describing their design choices and summarizing their relevant properties. Finally, we inspect their code and study how the notion of couponing system is interpreted in their smart contracts. We also highlight their distinctive features and relevant implementation solutions. We conclude by discussing what emerged from our analysis and proposing some possible future investigations
Genes and goals: An approach to microarray analysis in autoimmunity
No full textOertelt S, Selmi C, Invernizzi P, Podda M, Gershwin ME. Genes and goals: An approach to microarray analysis in autoimmunity. Autoimmunity Reviews. 2005;4(7):414-422
Environmental mineralogy in the mining area of Montevecchio Ponente (SW Sardinia)
No full textThe Montevecchio mining area (Arbus – Guspini, Sardinia SW) has been exploited for centuries, for the
extraction of lead and zinc minerals.
The following work focuses on the study and characterization of the sources and contaminants present in
the “Cantieri Sanna” from the area of Montevecchio Ponente.
There is a large amount of mining residues in the area downstream of the washing plants, affected by
important erosion phenomena, which involve a solid transport of contaminants in solution.
These mineral residues were characterized by diffractometric (XRD) and chemical analysis (ICP-MS), after
their solubilization. The whitish biomineral patinas present along the Rio Roia Cani were also analyzed by
means of diffractometric analysis and a scanning electron microscope (SEM).
From the analysis carried out, the presence of secondary phases emerged, such as: epsomite, glaucocerinite,
goethite, hydroxyapatite, minium, nantokite, plumbojarosite and zincite, indicating a remarkable reactivity
of the tailings with atmospheric agents; these results made it possible to identify tailings as a source of
contamination. Furthermore, the presence of sub-economic contents of rare earths elements (REE), more
particularly of light rare earths elements (LREE), and of Al, Fe, Pb and Zn emerged.
Biomineralization occurs in the area was found in the streambed of rio Roja Cani; it appears like that which
forms in the bed of the rio Naracauli, described in detail in Medas et al. (2014).
SEM-EDS analysis confirm that biomineralization is mediated by bacterial activity, due to the filamentous
and tubular structures present in biofilms; furthermore, the presence of zinc and oxygen emerges from the
compositional maps, confirming that the biomineralization is composed of hydrozincite, as revealed by the
XRD analysis.
We argued that this biomineralization rules natural attenuation of zinc as already found in rio Naracauli
(Wanty et al., 2013; De Giudici et al., 2014)
Adhesive Small Bowel Obstruction and the six w's: Who, How, Why, When, What, and Where to diagnose and operate?
No full textBackground and aims: Approximately 75% of patients admitted with small bowel obstruction have intra-abdominal adhesions as their cause (adhesive small bowel obstruction). Up to 70% of adhesive small bowel obstruction cases, in the absence of strangulation and bowel ischemia, can be successfully treated with conservative management. However, emerging evidence shows that surgery performed early during the first episode of adhesive small bowel obstruction is highly effective. The objective of this narrative review is to summarize the current evidence on adhesive small bowel obstruction management strategies. Materials and methods: A review of the literature published over the last 20 years was performed to assess Who, hoW, Why, When, What, and Where diagnose and operate on patients with adhesive small bowel obstruction. Results: Adequate patient selection through physical examination and computed tomography is the key factor of the entire management strategy, as failure to detect patients with strangulated adhesive small bowel obstruction and bowel ischemia is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The indication for surgical exploration is usually defined as a failure to pass contrast into the ascending colon within 8-24 h. However, operative management with early adhesiolysis, defined as operative intervention on either the calendar day of admission or the calendar day after admission, has recently shown to be associated with an overall long-term survival benefit compared to conservative management. Regarding the surgical technique, laparoscopy should be used only in selected patients with an anticipated single obstructing band, and there should be a low threshold for conversion to an open procedure in cases of high risk of bowel injuries. Conclusion: Although most adhesive small bowel obstruction patients without suspicion of bowel strangulation or gangrene are currently managed nonoperatively, the long-term outcomes following this approach need to be analyzed in a more exhaustive way, as surgery performed early during the first episode of adhesive small bowel obstruction has shown to be highly effective, with a lower rate of recurrence
Anonimizzazione e Pseudonimizzazione di Sentenze Giudiziarie
No full textIl contributo analizza i due principali modelli di trattamento dati contemplati dal GDPR: anonimizzazione e pseudonimizzazione, applicati alle sentenze giudiziarie
Response to comment on “Antibiotic treatment and appendectomy for uncomplicated acute appendicitis in adults and children: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” by Minneci PC et al
No full text
Analysis of a consensus protocol for extending consistent subchains on the bitcoin blockchain
No full textCurrently, an increasing number of third-party applications exploit the Bitcoin blockchain to store tamper-proof records of their executions, immutably. For this purpose, they leverage the few extra bytes available for encoding custom metadata in Bitcoin transactions. A sequence of records of the same application can thus be abstracted as a stand-alone subchain inside the Bitcoin blockchain. However, several existing approaches do not make any assumptions about the consistency of their subchains, either (i) neglecting the possibility that this sequence of messages can be altered, mainly due to unhandled concurrency, network malfunctions, application bugs, or malicious users, or (ii) giving weak guarantees about their security. To tackle this issue, in this paper, we propose an improved version of a consensus protocol formalized in our previous work, built on top of the Bitcoin protocol, to incentivize third-party nodes to consistently extend their subchains. Besides, we perform an extensive analysis of this protocol, both defining its properties and presenting some real-world attack scenarios, to show how its specific design choices and parameter configurations can be crucial to prevent malicious practices
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