1,642 research outputs found

    Therapeutic approaches with intravitreal injections in geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration: current drugs and potential molecules

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    The present review focuses on recent clinical trials that analyze the efficacy of intravitreal therapeutic agents for the treatment of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), such as neuroprotective drugs, and complement inhibitors, also called immunomodulatory or anti-inflammatory agents. A systematic literature search was performed to identify randomized controlled trials published prior to January 2019. Patients affected by dry AMD treated with intravitreal therapeutic agents were included. Changes in the correct visual acuity and reduction in geographic atrophy progression were evaluated. Several new drugs have shown promising results, including those targeting the complement cascade and neuroprotective agents. The potential action of the two groups of drugs is to block complement cascade upregulation of immunomodulating agents, and to prevent the degeneration and apoptosis of ganglion cells for the neuroprotectors, respectively. Our analysis indicates that finding treatments for dry AMD will require continued collaboration among researchers to identify additional molecular targets and to fully interrogate the utility of pluripotent stem cells for personalized therapy

    Robust Head Mounted Wearable Eye Tracking System for Dynamical Calibration

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    In this work, a new head mounted eye tracking system is presented. Based on computer vision techniques, the system integrates eye images and head movement, in real time, performing a robust gaze point tracking. Nystagmus movements due to vestibulo-ocular reflex are monitored and integrated. The system proposed here is a strongly improved version of a previous platform called HATCAM, which was robust against changes of illumination conditions. The new version, called HAT-Move, is equipped with accurate inertial motion unit to detect the head movement enabling eye gaze even in dynamical conditions. HAT-Move performance is investigated in a group of healthy subjects in both static and dynamic conditions, i.e. when head is kept still or free to move. Evaluation was performed in terms of amplitude of the angular error between the real coordinates of the fixed points and those computed by the system in two experimental setups, specifically, in laboratory settings and in a 3D virtual reality (VR) scenario. The achieved results showed that HAT-Move is able to achieve eye gaze angular error of about 1 degree along both horizontal and vertical direction

    Protein Ingredients Control in Gluten Free Products Using SDS-PAGE, Developed Competitive Enzyme Immunoassays and Commercial ELISA Kits.

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    Some protein ingredients declared in the label of gluten free products are allergenic proteins (milk, soy and egg).The proper identification of these proteins in food products is important for consumers who have food allergies. The aim of this study was to control the presence of protein ingredients declared in the label of gluten free products. Samples were analyzed with sodium dodecylsulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), using an extractive solution of total proteins (Tris-ClH buffer 0.0625 M with 3% sodium dodecylsulfate and 2% 2-mercaptoethanol; pH: 6.8) and a selective solvent for the extraction of caseins (isopropanol 55° + 2-mercaptoethanol / ISO + ME). Developed Competitive enzyme immunoassays were used for the detection / quantification of milk, soy and egg proteins in products elaborated with rice flour. Specific polyclonal rabbit antiserums against milk, soy and egg proteins were used as primary antibodies in these competitive enzyme immunoassays. Commercial ELISA kits from Neogen, R-Biopharm and Romer were used to verify the results. In some samples undeclared allergens were detected. Correct allergens labeling is very important for the safety of allergic consumers. In conclusion, it is possible to identify all the proteins ingredients in these gluten-free foods studied, using a combination of electrophoretic methods and immunochemical methods.Fil: Cellerino, Karina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Cagnasso, Carolina Elisa. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica; ArgentinaFil: Greco, Carola Beatriz. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica; ArgentinaFil: Docena, Guillermo H.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Estudios Inmunológicos y Fisiopatológicos. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Estudios Inmunológicos y Fisiopatológicos; ArgentinaFil: Polenta, Gustavo Alberto. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Ferreyra, Marcela Verónica. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial; ArgentinaFil: Lopez, Laura Beatriz. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

    cvxEDA: a Convex Optimization Approach to Electrodermal Activity Processing

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    This paper reports on a novel algorithm for the analysis of electrodermal activity (EDA) using methods of convex optimization. EDA can be considered one of the most common observation channels of sympathetic nervous system activity, and manifests itself as a change in electrical properties of the skin, such as skin conductance (SC). The proposed model describes SC as the sum of three terms: the phasic component, the tonic component, and an additive white Gaussian noise term incorporating model prediction errors as well as measurement errors and artifacts. This model is physiologically inspired and fully explains EDA through a rigorous methodology based on Bayesian statistics, mathematical convex optimization and sparsity. The algorithm was evaluated in three different experimental sessions to test its robustness to noise, its ability to separate and identify stimulus inputs, and its capability of properly describing the activity of the autonomic nervous system in response to strong affective stimulation. Results are very encouraging, showing good performance of the proposed method and suggesting promising future applicability, e.g. in the field of affective computing

    A remark on an overdetermined problem in Riemannian Geometry

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    Let (M,g)(M,g) be a Riemannian manifold with a distinguished point OO and assume that the geodesic distance dd from OO is an isoparametric function. Let ΩM\Omega\subset M be a bounded domain, with OΩO \in \Omega, and consider the problem Δpu=1\Delta_p u = -1 in Ω\Omega with u=0u=0 on Ω\partial \Omega, where Δp\Delta_p is the pp-Laplacian of gg. We prove that if the normal derivative νu\partial_{\nu}u of uu along the boundary of Ω\Omega is a function of dd satisfying suitable conditions, then Ω\Omega must be a geodesic ball. In particular, our result applies to open balls of Rn\mathbb{R}^n equipped with a rotationally symmetric metric of the form g=dt2+ρ2(t)gSg=dt^2+\rho^2(t)\,g_S, where gSg_S is the standard metric of the sphere.Comment: 8 pages. This paper has been written for possible publication in a special volume dedicated to the conference "Geometric Properties for Parabolic and Elliptic PDE's. 4th Italian-Japanese Workshop", organized in Palinuro in May 201

    Interpreting Psychophysiological States Using Unobtrusive Wearable Sensors in Virtual Reality

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    One of the main challenges in the study of human be- havior is to quantitatively assess the participants’ affective states by measuring their psychophysiological signals in ecologically valid conditions. The quality of the acquired data, in fact, is often poor due to artifacts generated by natural interactions such as full body movements and gestures. We created a technology to address this problem. We enhanced the eXperience Induction Machine (XIM), an immersive space we built to conduct experiments on human behavior, with unobtrusive wearable sensors that measure electrocardiogram, breathing rate and electrodermal response. We conducted an empirical validation where participants wearing these sensors were free to move in the XIM space while exposed to a series of visual stimuli taken from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Our main result consists in the quan- titative estimation of the arousal range of the affective stimuli through the analysis of participants’ psychophysiological states. Taken together, our findings show that the XIM constitutes a novel tool to study human behavior in life-like conditions

    Taller de creatividad e innovación en medios digitales y festival de spots publicitarios de las asignaturas y los TFG vinculados al área de producción y realización publicitaria

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    El objetivo principal de este grupo de innovación es canalizar todas las actividades extra académicas que venimos realizando en torno a la realización publicitaria y hacerlas llegar al alumnado de la Universidad
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