Diffuse liver disease classification from ultrasound surface characterization, clinical and laboratorial data

In this work liver contour is semi-automatically segmented and quantified in order to help the identification and diagnosis of diffuse liver disease. The features extracted from the liver contour are jointly used with clinical and laboratorial data in the staging process. The classification results of a support vector machine, a Bayesian and a k-nearest neighbor classifier are compared. A population of 88 patients at five different stages of diffuse liver disease and a leave-one-out cross-validation strategy are used in the classification process. The best results are obtained using the k-nearest neighbor classifier, with an overall accuracy of 80.68%. The good performance of the proposed method shows a reliable indicator that can improve the information in the staging of diffuse liver disease

Urinary Extracellular Domain of Neurotrophin Receptor p75 as a Biomarker for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in a Chinese cohort

To comprehensively assess whether p75ECD in urine could be a candidate biomarker for ALS evaluation. Urine samples were collected from 101 ALS patients, 108 patients with other neurological disease (OND) and 97 healthy controls. 61 ALS patients were followed up with clinical data including ALSFRS-r every 6 to 12 months, 23 ALS patients died and 17 ALS patients lost touch during follow up period. Enzyme-linked immunoassay was employed to determine urine p75ECD concentration. The ALSFRS-r was employed to assess the severity of ALS. The concentration of p75ECD in ALS was significantly higher than that of OND and CTRL (p < 0.001). Additionally, urine p75ECD concentrations in ALS-definite grade patients were significantly higher than that in ALS-probable grade and ALS-possible grade patients (p < 0.001). Higher urine p75ECD concentrations were correlated with increased clinical stage (p = 0.0309); urine p75ECD concentrations and ALSFRS-r were negatively correlated (p = 0.022); and urine p75ECD concentration in the fast-progressing ALS group was significantly higher than that in slow-progression (p = 0.0026). Our finding indicates that urine p75ECD concentration provides additional evidence for patients with clinically suspected ALS, and can be employed to evaluate ALS-severity

Dual modulation VCSEL-based sustainable transceiver for SSB DMT signals transmission

Single sideband DMT signal performance is analyzed in order to achieve high capacity and high spectral efficiency over 50-km uncompensated SMF. A sustainable implementation of the SSB DMT-based transceiver is proposed by means of a VCSEL source and a dual-modulator scheme, providing SSB without optical filtering and Hilbert transform implementation. Moreover, Kramers-Kronig detection, made possible by SSB, is studied at the receiver to effectively compensate the chromatic dispersion with direct detection

VCSEL-based Single-Sideband Transmission for Sustainable Metro-Access Links

The increasing demand for traffic is piling up the throughput on the optical metro-acces network. Despite the well-known ensured high capacity and reach performances, coherent detection is not a feasible choice due to sustainability (cost and power consumption) requirements. Instead, the combination of intensity modulation (IM) and direct detection (DD) in IM-DD systems is a sustainable solution and represents the most used paradigm in the mentioned context. At the transmitter side, sustainability can be achieved using innovative commercially available light sources, such as vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), now also emitting in the C band, featuring a 17-GHz bandwidth, a few μms footprint, low-cost thanks to mass production, low-power consumption (the bias current is a few mAs) and a light quality comparable to the more used distributed feedback (DFB) lasers. To enhance the system performance, discrete multitone (DMT) modulation can be applied to optimize the transmission thanks to the bit and power loading operations, returning a throughput 2-4 times the signal bandwidth. In case of dual sideband (DSB) signals, IM-DD systems suffer from the power fading issue, deriving from the combination of the fiber chromatic dispersion (CD) and the DD square-law. Such phenomenon causes dips in the spectrum, inducing a loss of information and the reach and effective bandwidth reduction. Single sideband (SSB) signals represent a solution, removing one signal sideband, keeping the transmitted information unchanged with respect to DSB signals. In this way, the spectrum dips due to the bands interference at the detector are removed. In this paper, by means of simulations of an IM-DD system, we compare the capacity performance as a function of the distance of two methods to generate SSB DMT signals. On one hand, optical filtering (OF) is considered: a directly modulated VCSEL generates a DSB optical signal, then filtered by a super-gaussian OF (VCSEL-OF in Fig.1) to suppress one of the sidebands [1]. The other option is the use of an electro-optical (E/O) conversion of a signal and its Hilbert transform using a novel so-called dual modulator (DM) scheme [2], a sustainable solution consisting of a double light modulation, first by a directly modulated laser (acting as phase modulator owing to its chirp) and then by an IM, driven to produce SSB optical signals. The DM implementiation is based on the cascade of a VCSEL and a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) [3], named VCSEL-MZM DM in Fig.1. The performance of DSB signals obtained with a MZM external modulation of a VCSEL is also considered (VCSEL+MZM DSB in Fig.1). The results, shown in Fig.1, highlight the potential of the proposed VCSEL-MZM DM scheme to assure more than 50 Gb/s after 50 km with a very sustainalbe approach

Dysferlinopathy course and sportive activity: clues for possible treatment

LGMD2B is a frequent proximo-distal myopathy with rapid evolution after age 20. Exacerbating factors may be physical exercise and inflammation. There is very little information about the effect of sportive activity in LGMD2B, since eccentric exercise frequently results in muscle damage. LGMD2B has often an onset with myalgia and MRI imaging (STIR-sequences) shows myoedema. In a prolonged observational study of a series of 18 MM/LGMD2B patients we have studied the pattern of clinical and radiological evolution. The disease has an abrupt onset in the second decade and most patients perform sports before definite disease onset. On the basis of Gardner-Medwin and Walton scale, grade 4 is reached two years faster in patients who performed sports (over 1000 hours). Other considerations regarding pathogenetic mechanism and response to treatment show a poor response to immunosuppressive treatment of muscle inflammation. Preventing a strenuous physical activity should be recommended in patients with high CK and diagnosed or suspected to have dysferlin deficiency

Influence of Different Filler Metals on the Mechanical and Microstructural Characteristics of Arc-Welded Joints Made of Dissimilar Titanium Alloys

In the motorsport industry, the choice of material for manufacturing the heat resistant components often falls on titanium alloys. In most cases, the production flow for this kind of part involves CNC machining and subsequent assembly by welding process, to other parts obtained by cold plastic forming and possibly made using different titanium alloys. Hence, the alloying element-content in the joint area can be extremely heterogeneous and variable point-by-point. To investigate this topic further, dissimilar welding of the alpha/beta alloy Ti6Al4V and of the oxidation-resistant alpha alloy KS-Ti 1.2 ASN-EX was made by GTAW technology and using different filler metals. Chemical and mechanical properties of the welds were investigated by XRD, SEM-EDS, microhardness maps, and tensile and bending tests. Results show that, despite the different alloying elements present in the two filler wires investigated, static properties of the welds are similar. Results also show that the local V/Al content ratio affects the microhardness as it is responsible for the creation of supersaturated alpha phases during the cooling of the weld beads

Epithelial to mesenchymal transition: A challenging playground for translational research. current models and focus on TWIST1 relevance and gastrointestinal cancers

Resembling the development of cancer by multistep carcinogenesis, the evolution towards metastasis involves several passages, from local invasion and intravasation, encompassing surviving anoikis into the circulation, landing at distant sites and therein establishing colonization, possibly followed by the outgrowth of macroscopic lesions. Within this cascade, epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) works as a pleiotropic program enabling cancer cells to overcome local, systemic, and distant barriers against diffusion by replacing traits and functions of the epithelial signature with mesenchymal‐like ones. Along the transition, a full‐blown mesenchymal phenotype may not be accomplished. Rather, the plasticity of the program and its dependency on heterotopic signals implies a pendulum with oscillations towards its reversal, that is mesenchymal to epithelial transition. Cells in intermixed E⇔M states can also display stemness, enabling their replication together with the epithelial reversion next to successful distant colonization. If we aim to include the EMT among the hallmarks of cancer that could modify clinical practice, the gap between the results pursued in basic research by animal models and those achieved in translational research by surrogate biomarkers needs to be filled. We review the knowledge on EMT, derived from models and mechanistic studies as well as from translational studies, with an emphasis on gastrointestinal cancers (GI)

Joint Transmission and Sensing in Few-Mode Fibre

We experimentally demonstrate the coexistence of transmission and sensing using an innovative commercial 15-mode few-mode fibre system. With respect to previous works where the cascade of single-few-single mode fibres has been used, our system features a mode multiplexer and demultiplexer. By transmitting a telecommunication signal over the fibre fundamental mode, the sensing capabilities of the few-mode fibre are demonstrated analysing the power variation of the higher-order modes directly excited by the fundamental mode itself owing to the intermodal crosstalk perturbation

Journey through crohn’s disease complication: From fistula formation to future therapies

Crohn’s Disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory disorder in which up to 50% of patients develop fistula within 20 years after the initial diagnosis, and half of these patients suffer perianal fistulizing disease. The etiopathogenesis of CD-related perianal fistula is still unclear, and its phe-notypical and molecular characteristics are even more indefinite. A better understanding would be crucial to develop targeted and more effective therapeutic strategies. At present, the most accredited theory for the formation of CD-related fistula identifies the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) as the driving force. It has been well recognized that CD carries an increased risk of malig-nancy, particularly mucinous adenocarcinoma is often associated with long-standing fistula in CD patients. Despite the availability of multiple treatment options, perianal fistulizing CD represents a therapeutic challenge and is associated with an important impact on patients’ quality of life. To date, the most effective management is multidisciplinary with the cooperation of gastroenterologists, surgeons, radiologists, and nutritionists and the best recommended treatment is a combination of medical and surgical approaches