The adoption of electric vehicles in an organization's fleet can provide an emission-free urban transport, but such decision must be assessed from different perspectives (e.g. economic, ...environmental, social, etc.), particularly when there are multiple goals and stakeholders. The article presents a multiple criteria evaluation method which can be applied to support the decision on the adoption of electric cars by a public administration. The method has two main phases: analysis by indicators and multi-criteria analysis. The first phase can provide analytic results for each category of indicators, but the values are treated only in a disaggregate way and not summarized in a global indicator. Thus the multi-criteria methodology can provide an overall assessment of the alternatives based on the aggregation of the values obtained for all criteria (i.e. indicators). In summary, the goal of the method is to employ several indicators to measure the expected effects and synthesize them in an overall judgement, taking into consideration the different stakeholders points of view. The case study presented in the paper is an application of the structured evaluation method to the university fleet. The fleet consists of 24 cars with an average of only 5700 kilometres travelled. The indicators have been classified according to different impact areas: Economy, Energy, Environment, Society.
The sky at MeV energies is currently poorly explored. Here we present an innovative mission concept that builds on and improves past and currently proposed missions at such energies. We outline the ...motivations for combining a coded mask and a Compton telescope and we define the scientific goals of such a mission. The Galactic Explorer with a Coded Aperture Mask Compton Telescope (GECCO) is a novel concept for a next-generation telescope covering hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray energies. The potential and importance of this approach that bridges the observational gap in the MeV energy range are presented. With the unprecedented angular resolution of the coded mask telescope combined with the sensitive Compton telescope, a mission such as GECCO can disentangle the discrete sources from the truly diffuse emission. Individual Galactic and extragalactic sources are detected. This also allows to understand the gamma-ray Galactic center excess and the Fermi Bubbles, and to trace the low-energy cosmic rays, and their propagation in the Galaxy. Nuclear and annihilation lines are spatially and spectrally resolved from the continuum emission and from sources, addressing the role of low-energy cosmic rays in star formation and galaxy evolution, the origin of the 511 keV positron line, fundamental physics, and the chemical enrichment in the Galaxy. Such an instrument also detects explosive transient gamma-ray sources, which enable identifying and studying the astrophysical objects that produce gravitational waves and neutrinos in a multi-messenger context. By looking at a poorly explored energy band it also allows discoveries of new astrophysical phenomena.
Tumor of the follicular infundibulum: Dermoscopic and confocal features Pampena, Riccardo; Lai, Michela; Piana, Simonetta ...
Skin research and technology : official journal of International Society for Bioengineering and the Skin (ISBS) and International Society for Digital Imaging of Skin (ISDIS) and International Society for Skin Imaging (ISSI),
09/2019, Volume:
25, Issue:
5
Report
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background and aimsHypertriglyceridemia is a common feature of metabolic syndrome (MetS), as well as of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is considered the hepatic manifestation of ...MetS. Fat accumulation in hepatocytes may alter mitochondrial homeostasis predisposing to advanced liver disease. Here, we report a case of a 40-year-old woman with early aggressive NAFLD due to severe hypertriglyceridemia that ensued from a combination of genetic variants and additional metabolic risk factors. MethodsGenetic screening was performed by using whole-exome sequencing (WES), and mitochondrial structures were evaluated by TEM. ResultsAt presentation, the patient is reported to have hepatomegaly, hypertriglyceridemia, and raised transaminases. Genetic analysis revealed that the patient beard heritable alterations in genes implicated in lipid handling, among which APOB, APOE, CETP, and HSPG2, accompanied by missense mutations in genes involved in mitochondrial function, i.e., AK2, ALG6, ASPA, NDUFAF1, POLG, and TMEM70. Abdominal ultrasound (US) and transient elastography were suggestive of severe hepatic steatosis and fibrosis. A liver biopsy confirmed the diagnosis of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)-related fibrosis. Thus, to better outline whether mutations involved in lipid remodeling and mitochondrial function may also affect organelles' morphology, we exploited TEM. Along with multifaceted abnormalities of mitochondrial architecture that have been already observed in patients with NAFLD, astonishing ultrastructural defects, such as mitochondrial vacuolization, sub-compartmentalization, and onion-like mitochondria, were identified. ConclusionThe anomalies reported may expand the phenotypic spectrum of mitochondrial abnormalities observed in patients with NAFLD, which may contribute to the switching toward a progressive disease.
Indoor Navigation Services (INS), a branch of Location Based Services (LBS), are aiming at locating people inside a building and guiding them to their destinations by using various techniques, either ...individually or fused. INSs deal with the peculiarities of indoor environments (no GPS, navigation XYZ, etc.). This paper, based on a previous research, sketches an ideal profile of an INS, which should be as independent as possible from a pre-deployed infrastructure. We also present a use-case, i.e. a navigation in a big university library; such app, called NavApp, guides users in locating the books in the library shelves for picking or storing, by using Magnetic Fields, and fusing installed sensors, when available. NavApp covers the whole mobility lifecycle, namely mapping and positioning using, path planning, en-route assistance; its field-tests show an 86% success. Hence, NavApp looks attractive, because it is lightweight and does not require a pre-deployed infrastructure. However, it needs preparation phase, to create the map of magnetic fields and calibrate smartphones.
Multi-messenger astrophysics is becoming a major avenue to explore the Universe, with the potential to span a vast range of redshifts. The growing synergies between different probes is opening new ...frontiers, which promise profound insights into several aspects of fundamental physics and cosmology. In this context, THESEUS will play a central role during the 2030s in detecting and localizing the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave and neutrino sources that the unprecedented sensitivity of next generation detectors will discover at much higher rates than the present. Here, we review the most important target signals from multi-messenger sources that THESEUS will be able to detect and characterize, discussing detection rate expectations and scientific impact.
