Comparing tools for Service Quality Evaluation

Service quality evaluation is one of the main issues that have recently drawn managers' and researchers' attention. The definition of an evaluation standard not dependent on any particular service context has determined the popularity of many different quality tools. In this paper we show a comparative analysis of the affected tools that are widely used. These are summarized in an orientation map. Moreover we present some results of an experiment carried out with two of the major quality tools (SERVQUAL and QUALITOMETRO). The results identify good qualities as well as weaknesses for both tools. Possible improvement strategies are presente

Tailoring CD19xCD3-DART exposure enhances T-cells to eradication of B-cell neoplasms.

Many patients with B-cell malignancies can be successfully treated, although tumor eradication is rarely achieved. T-cell-directed killing of tumor cells using engineered T-cells or bispecific antibodies is a promising approach for the treatment of hematologic malignancies. We investigated the efficacy of CD19xCD3 DART bispecific antibody in a broad panel of human primary B-cell malignancies. The CD19xCD3 DART identified 2 distinct subsets of patients, in which the neoplastic lymphocytes were eliminated with rapid or slow kinetics. Delayed responses were always overcome by a prolonged or repeated DART exposure. Both CD4 and CD8 effector cytotoxic cells were generated, and DART-mediated killing of CD4+ cells into cytotoxic effectors required the presence of CD8+ cells. Serial exposures to DART led to the exponential expansion of CD4 + and CD8 + cells and to the sequential ablation of neoplastic cells in absence of a PD-L1-mediated exhaustion. Lastly, patient-derived neoplastic B-cells (B-Acute Lymphoblast Leukemia and Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma) could be proficiently eradicated in a xenograft mouse model by DART-armed cytokine induced killer (CIK) cells. Collectively, patient tailored DART exposures can result in the effective elimination of CD19 positive leukemia and B-cell lymphoma and the association of bispecific antibodies with unmatched CIK cells represents an effective modality for the treatment of CD19 positive leukemia/lymphoma

Sensitivity of the Wolf’s and Rosenstein’s Algorithms to Evaluate Local Dynamic Stability from Small Gait Data Sets: Response to Commentaries by Bruijn et al.

Assessing gait stability using the Largest Lyapunov Exponent (λ1) has become popular, especially because it may be a key measure in evaluating gait abnormalities in patient populations. However, clinical settings usually involve having small gait data sets and accurate determination of λ1 estimates from such sets is difficult. In an effort to address this issue, Cignetti et al.2 recently identified that λ1 estimates using the algorithm of Wolf et al.9 (W-algorithm) were more sensitive than those using the algorithm of Rosenstein et al.7 (R-algorithm) in order to capture age-related decline in gait stability from small data sets. Thus, they advocated the use of the former algorithm. Some concerns about the study were expressed afterwards by Bruijn et al.1 and we welcome the opportunity to discuss them in the present letter

Wearing a safety harness during treadmill walking influences lower extremity kinematics mainly through changes in ankle regularity and local stability

Background: Wearing a harness during treadmill walking ensures the subject’s safety and is common practice in biomedical engineering research. However, the extent to which such practice influences gait is unknown. This study investigated harness-related changes in gait patterns, as evaluated from lower extremity kinematics during treadmill walking. Findings: Healthy subjects (n = 10) walked on a treadmill at their preferred speed for 3 minutes with and without wearing a harness (LiteGait®, Mobility Research, Inc.). In the former condition, no weight support was provided to the subjects. Lower extremity kinematics was assessed in the sagittal plane from the mean (meanRoM), standard deviation (SDRoM) and coefficient of variation (CoVRoM) of the hip, knee, and ankle ranges of motion (RoM), as well as from the sample entropy (SampEn) and the largest Lyapunov exponent (LyE) of the joints’ angles. Wearing the harness increased the meanRoM of the hip, the SDRoM and the CoVRoM of the knee, and the SampEn and the LyE of the ankle. In particular, the harness effect sizes for both the SampEn and the LyE of the ankle were large, likely reflecting a meaningful decline in the neuromuscular stabilizing control of this joint. Conclusions: Wearing a harness during treadmill walking marginally influences lower extremity kinematics, resulting in more or less subtle changes in certain kinematic variables. However, in cases where differences in gait patterns would be expressed through modifications in these variables, having subjects walk with a harness may mask or reinforce such differences

Complexity and Human Gait

Recently, the complexity of the human gait has become a topic of major interest within the field of human movement sciences. Indeed, while the complex fluctuations of the gait patterns were, for a long time, considered as resulting from random processes, the development of new techniques of analysis, so-called nonlinear techniques, has open new vistas for the understanding of such fluctuations. In particular, by connecting the notion of complexity to the one of chaos, new insights about gait adaptability, unhealthy states in gait and neural control of locomotion were provided. Through methods of evaluation of the complexity, experimental results obtained both with healthy and unhealthy subjects and theoretical models of gait complexity, this review discusses the tremendous progresses made about the understanding of the complexity in the human gait variability. Recientemente, la complejidad de la marcha humana se está convirtiendo en un tema de gran interés en el campo de la ciencia del movimiento humano. De hecho, mientras las fluctuaciones complejas de los patrones de la marcha fueron, durante mucho tiempo, consideradas como resultado de procesos al azar, el desarrollo de nuevas técnicas de análisis, las llamadas técnicas no lineales, ha abierto nuevas vías para el entendimiento de tales fluctuaciones. En particular, mediante la conexión de la noción de complejidad con la de caos, se están obteniendo nuevos conocimientos sobre la adaptabilidad de la marcha, las condiciones patológicas en la marcha y el control neural de la locomoción. Mediante métodos de evaluación de la complejidad, los resultados experimentales obtenidos tanto con individuos sanos como no sanos y con modelos teóricos de la complejidad de la marcha, esta revisión habla de los enormes progresos efectuados sobre el entendimiento de la complejidad en la variabilidad de la marcha humana

Executive function orchestrates regulation of task-relevant gait fluctuations

Humans apply a minimum intervention principle to regulate treadmill walking, rapidly correcting fluctuations in the task-relevant variable (step speed: SS) while ignoring fluctuations in the task-irrelevant variables (step time: ST; step length: SL). We examined whether the regulation of fluctuations in SS and not in ST and SL depends on high-level, executive function, processes. Young adults walked on a treadmill without a cognitive requirement and while performing the cognitive task of dichotic listening. SS fluctuations became less anti-persistent when performing dichotic listening, meaning that taxing executive function impaired the ability to rapidly correct speed deviations on subsequent steps. Conversely, performing dichotic listening had no effect on SL and ST persistent fluctuations. Findings suggest that high-level brain processes are involved only in regulating gait task-relevant variables

Effects of aging on the relationship between cognitive demand and step variability during dual-task walking

A U-shaped relationship between cognitive demand and gait control may exist in dual-task situations, reflecting opposing effects of external focus of attention and attentional resource competition. The purpose of the study was twofold: to examine whether gait control, as evaluated from step-to-step variability, is related to cognitive task difficulty in a U-shaped manner and to determine whether age modifies this relationship. Young and older adults walked on a treadmill without attentional requirement and while performing a dichotic listening task under three attention conditions: non-forced (NF), forced-right (FR), and forced-left (FL). The conditions increased in their attentional demand and requirement for inhibitory control. Gait control was evaluated by the variability of step parameters related to balance control (step width) and rhythmic stepping pattern (step length and step time). A U-shaped relationship was found for step width variability in both young and older adults and for step time variability in older adults only. Cognitive performance during dual tasking was maintained in both young and older adults. The U-shaped relationship, which presumably results from a trade-off between an external focus of attention and competition for attentional resources, implies that higher-level cognitive processes are involved in walking in young and older adults. Specifically, while these processes are initially involved only in the control of (lateral) balance during gait, they become necessary for the control of (fore-aft) rhythmic stepping pattern in older adults, suggesting that attentional resources turn out to be needed in all facets of walking with aging. Finally, despite the cognitive resources required by walking, both young and older adults spontaneously adopted a “posture second” strategy, prioritizing the cognitive task over the gait task

Semi-automatic mapping of shallow landslides using free Sentinel-2 images and Google Earth Engine

The global availability of Sentinel-2 data and the widespread coverage of cost-free and high-resolution images nowadays give opportunities to map, at a low cost, shallow landslides triggered by extreme events (e.g. rainfall, earthquakes). Rapid and low-cost shallow landslide mapping could improve damage estimations, susceptibility models and land management. This work presents a two-phase procedure to detect and map shallow landslides. The first is a semi-automatic methodology allowing for mapping potential shallow landslides (PLs) using Sentinel-2 images. The PL aims to detect the most affected areas and to focus on them an high-resolution mapping and further investigations. We create a GIS-based and user-friendly methodology to extract PL based on pre- and post-event normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) variation and geomorphological filtering. In the second phase, the semi-automatic inventory was compared with a benchmark landslide inventory drawn on high-resolution images. We also used Google Earth Engine scripts to extract the NDVI time series and to make a multi-temporal analysis. We apply this procedure to two study areas in NW Italy, hit in 2016 and 2019 by extreme rainfall events. The results show that the semi-automatic mapping based on Sentinel-2 allows for detecting the majority of shallow landslides larger than satellite ground pixel (100 m2). PL density and distribution match well with the benchmark. However, the false positives (30 % to 50 % of cases) are challenging to filter, especially when they correspond to riverbank erosions or cultivated land.</p

Use of Motor Abundance in Young and Older Adults during Dual-Task Treadmill Walking

Contains fulltext : 110120.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Motor abundance allows individuals to perform any task reliably while being variable in movement's particulars. The study investigated age-related differences in this feature when young adults (YA) and older adults (OA) performed challenging tasks, namely treadmill walking alone and while performing a cognitive task. A goal function for treadmill walking was first defined, i.e., maintain constant speed at each step, which led to a goal equivalent manifold (GEM) containing all combinations of step time and step length that equally satisfied the function. Given the GEM, amounts of goal-equivalent and non-goal-equivalent variability were afterwards determined and used to define an index providing information about the set of effective motor solutions relative to the GEM. The set was limited in OA compared to YA in treadmill walking alone, indicating that OA made less flexible use of motor abundance than YA. However, this differentiation between YA and OA disappeared when concurrently performing the cognitive task. It is proposed that OA might have benefited from cognitive compensation

The tumor suppressor semaphorin 3B triggers a prometastatic program mediated by interleukin 8 and the tumor microenvironment

Semaphorins are a large family of evolutionarily conserved morphogenetic molecules originally identified for their repelling role in axonal guidance. Intriguingly, semaphorins have recently been implicated in cancer progression (Neufeld, G., T. Lange, A. Varshavsky, and O. Kessler. 2007. Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 600:118–131). In particular, semaphorin 3B (SEMA3B) is considered a putative tumor suppressor, and yet we found that it is expressed at high levels in many invasive and metastatic human cancers. By investigating experimental tumor models, we confirmed that SEMA3B expression inhibited tumor growth, whereas metastatic dissemination was surprisingly increased. We found that SEMA3B induced the production of interleukin (IL) 8 by tumor cells by activating the p38–mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway in a neuropilin 1–dependent manner. Silencing the expression of endogenous SEMA3B in tumor cells impaired IL-8 transcription. The release of IL-8, in turn, induced the recruitment of tumor-associated macrophages and metastatic dissemination to the lung, which could be rescued by blocking IL-8 with neutralizing antibodies. In conclusion, we report that SEMA3B exerts unexpected functions in cancer progression by fostering a prometastatic environment through elevated IL-8 secretion and recruitment of macrophages coupled to the suppression of tumor growth