Sex and Gender Differences in Ischemic Heart Disease: Endocrine Vascular Disease Approach (EVA) Study Design

Improvements in ischemic heart disease (IHD) management have been unbalanced between sexes, with coronary microvascular dysfunction considered the likely underlying reason. The Endocrine Vascular disease Approach (EVA) is an observational study (Clinicaltrial.gov NCT02737982) aiming to assess sex and gender interactions between coronary circulation, sexual hormones, and platelet function. Consecutive patients with IHD undergoing coronary angiography will be recruited: (1) to assess sex and gender differences in angiographic reperfusion indexes; (2) to evaluate the effects of estrogen/androgen on sex-related differences in myocardial ischemia; (3) to investigate the platelet biology differences between men and women with IHD; (4) to verify sex- and gender-driven interplay between response to percutaneous coronary intervention, platelets, sex hormones, and myocardial damage at baseline and its impact on 12-month outcomes. The integration of sex and gender in this translational project on IHD will contribute to the identification of new targets for further innovative clinical interventions

Bilateral Teleoperation of Groups of Mobile Robots with Time-Varying Topology

In this paper, a novel decentralized control strategy for bilaterally teleoperating heterogeneous groups of mobile robots from different domains (aerial, ground, marine, and underwater) is proposed. By using a decentralized control architecture, the group of robots, which is treated as the slave side, is made able to navigate in a cluttered environment while avoiding obstacles, interrobot collisions, and following the human motion commands. Simultaneously, the human operator acting on the master side is provided with a suitable force feedback informative of the group response and of the interaction with the surrounding environment. Using passivity-based techniques, we allow the behavior of the group to be as flexible as possible with arbitrary split and join events (e.g., due to interrobot visibility/packet losses or specific task requirements) while guaranteeing the stability of the system. We provide a rigorous analysis of the system stability and steady-state characteristics and validate performance through human/hardware-in-the-loop simulations by considering a heterogeneous fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles as a case study. Finally, we also provide an experimental validation with four quadrotor UAVs

A Passivity-Based Decentralized Approach for the Bilateral Teleoperation of a Group of UAVs with Switching Topology

In this paper, a novel distributed control strategy for teleoperating a fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is proposed. Using passivity based techniques, we allow the behavior of the UAVs to be as flexible as possible with arbitrary split and join decisions while guaranteeing stability of the system. Furthermore, the overall teleoperation system is also made passive and, therefore, characterized by a stable behavior both in free motion and when interacting with unknown passive obstacles. The performance of the system is validated through semi-experiments

Human herpesvirus 7 induces CD4+ T-cell death by two distinct mechanisms: necrotic lysis in productively infected cells and apoptosis in unifected or nonproductively infected cells.

We have investigated the cytopathic effects induced by the T-lymphotropic human herpesvirus 7 (HHV-7) on the CD4(+) T-lymphoblastoid SupT1 cell line and primary CD4(+) T lymphocytes. Acute in vitro HHV-7 infection induced (1) the formation of giant multinucleated syncytia, which eventually underwent necrotic lysis, and (2) single-cell apoptosis. Both cytopathic effects increased with the progression of infection and were blocked by phosphonoformic acid, a specific inhibitor of herpetic DNA polymerase. Using electron microscopy analysis of various samples, we found that all syncytia contained large amounts of virions and that most of them exhibited clear evidence of necrosis, whereas apoptosis was predominantly observed in single cells. Although empty viral capsids could be identified in the cytoplasm of approximately 25% of single cells exhibiting an apoptotic morphology, mature virions were hardly observed in these cells. In both coculture and cell-free HHV-7 infection experiments, a significant correlation was observed between the degree of single-cell apoptosis, evaluated by quantitative flow cytometry after propidium iodide staining, and the decrease in the total number of viable cells. Moreover, in cell-free infection experiments, apoptosis showed a positive correlation also with the viral load, monitored by quantitative HHV-7 DNA polymerase chain reaction. Thus, it appears that apoptosis occurred predominantly in uninfected bystander cells but not in productively HHV-7-infected cells

Human-centered design and evaluation of haptic cueing for teleoperation of multiple mobile robots

In this paper, we investigate the effect of haptic cueing on a human operator's performance in the field of bilateral teleoperation of multiple mobile robots, particularly multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Two aspects of human performance are deemed important in this area, namely, the maneuverability of mobile robots and the perceptual sensitivity of the remote environment. We introduce metrics that allow us to address these aspects in two psychophysical studies, which are reported here. Three fundamental haptic cue types were evaluated. The Force cue conveys information on the proximity of the commanded trajectory to obstacles in the remote environment. The Velocity cue represents the mismatch between the commanded and actual velocities of the UAVs and can implicitly provide a rich amount of information regarding the actual behavior of the UAVs. Finally, the Velocity+Force cue is a linear combination of the two. Our experimental results show that, while maneuverability is best supported by the Force cue feedback, perceptual sensitivity is best served by the Velocity cue feedback. In addition, we show that large gains in the haptic feedbacks do not always guarantee an enhancement in the teleoperator's performance. © 2012 IEEE