A research has been carried out for the evaluation of D-dimer serum levels by the ELISA technique at 1:200 and 1:500 dilution in 30 male patients suffering from chronic obliterating arteriopathy of ...the lower limbs at second and third stage of the disease and in a homogeneous control group for number, sex and age. The value difference between the two groups, for both dilutions, seems to be highly significant with higher levels in the arteriopathic patients. The extent of D-dimer levels has shown an obvious correlation in respect to the entity of the arteriopathy. It has been also observed a significant correlation between the D-dimer and LDL levels in the arteriopathic patients. The usefulness of such a parameter in order to prevent trophic lesions in the obliterating arteriopathy is emphasized for the possibility of establishing an early and prolonged thrombolytic therapy.
Clinical and epidemiological data on 15 subjects with Tinea capitis are reported. The patients, aged between 19 and 74, were observed from 1.1.1980 to 30.6.1990; 14 of them were females. The evidence ...of different clinical pictures is stressed. Microsporum canis was isolated in 7 cases, Trichophyton violaceum in 6 cases, and Trichophyton schoenleinii in 2 cases.
In this study the data on 200 patients affected by various features of lichen planus (LP) are reported. All subjects were in-patients of the Department of Dermatology, Bari, from 1973 to 1988. In 87% ...of cases the disease appeared as lichen tuber planus, and in 9% there was involvement of mucous membranes. Equal involvement of sex incidence has been found, and the patients were middle-aged (mean, 47 years). The lesion were not subsided in about 10% of cases. Associated fortuitous skin conditions were mainly alopecia areata and vitiligo. In addition, LP has been observed in association with diabetes (8%) and hepatic diseases (10%). These last values could appear relevant, but in our region, Apulia, both diabetes and hepatitis, and especially B-hepatitis, are very frequent diseases. Our clinical follow-up did not allow to consider LP as a symptom of other subsequent organic diseases.
In autumn 2013, the presence of Xylella fastidiosa, a xylem-limited Gram-negative bacterium, was detected in olive stands of an area of the Ionian coast of the Salento peninsula (Apulia, southern ...Italy), that were severely affected by a disease denoted olive quick decline syndrome (OQDS). Studies were carried out for determining the involvement of this bacterium in the genesis of OQDS and of the leaf scorching shown by a number of naturally infected plants other than olive. Isolation in axenic culture was attempted and assays were carried out for determining its pathogenicity to olive, oleander and myrtle-leaf milkwort. The bacterium was readily detected by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) in all diseased olive trees sampled in different and geographically separated infection foci, and culturing of 51 isolates, each from a distinct OQDS focus, was accomplished. Needle-inoculation experiments under different environmental conditions proved that the Salentinian isolate De Donno belonging to the subspecies pauca is able to multiply and systemically invade artificially inoculated hosts, reproducing symptoms observed in the field. Bacterial colonization occurred in prick-inoculated olives of all tested cultivars. However, the severity of and timing of symptoms appearance differed with the cultivar, confirming their differential reaction.
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•A procedure for convex polygon fitting is described as an optimization problem.•A Genetic Algorithm is implemented to solve the optimization problem.•A novel metrics is proposed and ...used as the fitting function.•The efficiency of the method is proved by a validation experiment.•The algorithm is applied in a rehabilitation therapy to assess patient’s performance.
Fitting a polygon to a set of points is a task that finds application in many scientific fields. In particular, in robot-based neurorehabilitation, it would be interesting to retrieve the shape that best fits with the path followed by a patient, and evaluate the performance based on the accuracy of the drawing. However, when dealing with a dataset sampled by a drawn trajectory, the methods proposed by the literature may not be exhaustive.
In this work we propose a method to define the distance between a set of points and a polygon, which is used as cost function of a Genetic Algorithm to solve the polygon fitting problem. This method involves a novel space separation metrics to retrieve the correct polygon edge to be compared with each point of the set, featuring linear time complexity.
We compared the proposed approach with the metrics known in the literature, finding that our method performs significantly better in retrieving the original polygon. Finally, we present a robot-based rehabilitation application in which the proposed method is used to evaluate the performance of a group of subjects. The achievements of twenty healthy subjects were compared with three stroke patients. Results emphasize significant differences between the two categories of subjects, proving that the proposed algorithm can quantitatively determine the degree of impairment of a stroke survivor and be used in the future as reference for monitoring and enhancing the efficiency of robot-based therapies.
The isolation in pure culture of the Xylella fastidiosa strain associated with the quick decline syndrome of olive, recently observed in Apulia (Salento peninsula, southern Italy) was attempted from ...symptomatic, naturally infected olive and oleander plants, and a periwinkle seedling that had been exposed to, and was infected by Xylella-positive spittlebugs. Prior to isolation, the presence of Xylella was ascertained in all donor hosts by PCR, indirect immunofluorescence and electron microscopy. Isolations from olive failed because of the heavy contamination by bacteria other than Xylella. By contrast, pure bacterial cultures were obtained from oleander and periwinkle extracts plated in periwinkle wilt gelrite (PWG) and buffered cysteine-yeast extract (BCYE) media. In both media, colonies were slow-growing, small-sized (less than 1 mm 25 days from plating), non pigmented, opalescent and exhibited the same morphology, except for the margin that was entire in BCYE and somewhat irregular in PWG. Bacterial cells were rod-shaped with rounded ends, had a thick and rippled cell wall, an average width of 0.35 μm, and a maximum length of ca. 5 μm. They gave a positive reaction in immunofluorence assays and were clearly decorated by colloidal gold in immunogold labelling tests. Sequenced PCR products amplified from periwinkle and oleander colonies shared 97-99% sequence identity with known X. fastidiosa strains from database and were 100% identical to one another and to comparable sequences obtained from infected olive trees. These sequences grouped in a distinct cluster of a branch comprising X. fastidiosa isolates belonging to the subspecies pauca.
Late in 2020, two genetically-distinct clusters of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) with mutations of biological concern were reported, one in the United Kingdom and one ...in South Africa. Using a combination of data from routine surveillance, genomic sequencing and international travel we track the international dispersal of lineages B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 (variant 501Y-V2). We account for potential biases in genomic surveillance efforts by including passenger volumes from location of where the lineage was first reported, London and South Africa respectively. Using the software tool grinch (global report investigating novel coronavirus haplotypes), we track the international spread of lineages of concern with automated daily reports, Further, we have built a custom tracking website (cov-lineages.org/global_report.html) which hosts this daily report and will continue to include novel SARS-CoV-2 lineages of concern as they are detected.
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