Anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) allows the explore not only the anterior chamber but also the front part of the vitreous cavity. Our cross-sectional single-centre study ...investigated whether AS-OCT can distinguish between vitreous involvement due to vitreoretinal lymphoma (VRL) and vitritis in uveitis. We studied AS-OCT images from 28 patients (11 with biopsy-proven VRL and 17 with differential diagnosis uveitis) using publicly available radiomics software written in MATLAB. Patients were divided into two balanced groups: training and testing. Overall, 3260/3705 (88%) AS-OCT images met our defined quality criteria, making them eligible for analysis. We studied five different sets of grey-level samplings (16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 levels), finding that 128 grey levels performed the best. We selected the five most effective radiomic features ranked by the ability to predict the class (VRL or uveitis). We built a classification model using the xgboost python function; through our model, 87% of eyes were correctly diagnosed as VRL or uveitis, regardless of exam technique or lens status. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) in the 128 grey-level model were 0.95 CI 0.94, 0.96 and 0.84 for training and testing datasets, respectively. This preliminary retrospective study highlights how AS-OCT can support ophthalmologists when there is clinical suspicion of VRL.
Interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) release assays (IGRAs) were designed to detect latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). However, discrepancies were found between the tuberculin skin test (TST) and IGRAs ...results that cannot be attributed to prior Bacille Calmètte Guerin vaccinations. The aim of this study was to evaluate tools for improving LTBI diagnosis by analyzing the IFN-gamma response to RD1 proteins in prolonged (long-term response) whole blood tests in those subjects resulting negative to assays such as QuantiFERON-TB Gold In tube (QFT-IT).
The study population included 106 healthy TST+ individuals with suspected LTBI (recent contact of smear-positive TB and homeless) consecutively enrolled. As controls, 13 healthy subjects unexposed to M. tuberculosis (TST-, QFT-IT-) and 29 subjects with cured pulmonary TB were enrolled. IFN-gamma whole blood response to RD1 proteins and QFT-IT were evaluated at day 1 post-culture. A prolonged test evaluating long-term IFN-gamma response (7-day) to RD1 proteins in diluted whole blood was performed.
Among the enrolled TST+ subjects with suspected LTBI, 70/106 (66.0%) responded to QFT-IT and 64/106 (60.3%) to RD1 proteins at day 1. To evaluate whether a prolonged test could improve the detection of LTBI, we set up the test using cured TB patients (with a microbiologically diagnosed past pulmonary disease) who resulted QFT-IT-negative and healthy controls as comparator groups. Using this assay, a statistically significant difference was found between IFN-gamma levels in cured TB patients compared to healthy controls (p < 0.006). Based on these data, we constructed a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and we calculated a cut-off. Based on the cut-off value, we found that among the 36 enrolled TST+ subjects with suspected LTBI not responding to QFT-IT, a long term response to RD1 proteins was detected in 11 subjects (30.6%).
These results indicate that IFN-gamma long-term response to M. tuberculosis RD1 antigens may be used to detect past infection with M. tuberculosis and may help to identify additional individuals with LTBI who resulted negative in the short-term tests. These data may provide useful information for improving immunodiagnostic tests for tuberculosis infection, especially in individuals at high risk for active TB.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, with currently over three billion fans. There are various reasons for this success, but a unique feature of soccer stands out: every match has a high ...level of unpredictability. For instance, it is not uncommon for a less skilled team to sometimes defeat a better team. Moreover, a match that is apparently decided in favor of a team can suddenly change course, even with few minutes left, ending with a completely opposite result. These highly dramatic effects have brought popularity to this sport, making every match a complex event where the outcome is far from granted. This same complexity has however challenged all attempts of data analysis: the “secrets of soccer”, that is to say the recipes for success, are still an unknown realm, defying all common statistical approaches. In this study we try to shed some light on these secrets by introducing a novel approach that uses neural network flows. We transform a team play into a corresponding brain-like structure, an abstraction that we analyze using measures of efficiency, assessing the “quality of thinking” of the brain. This way, we can view any soccer match as an alternate battle of minds and explore how far this parallelism can help to solve some fundamental open problems, like finding an effective recipe for success, and establishing the best field control strategies.
The study assessed the role of equids at slaughter as faecal carriers of Salmonella enterica and the occurrence of contaminated equid carcasses during the slaughter process in Northern Italy ...(Emilia-Romagna Region). From June to November 2021, 152 equids (146 horses, 5 donkeys and 1 mule) were tested for Salmonella both in caecal contents and through carcass swabs. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) of recovered strains was tested against 15 antimicrobials. Salmonella was detected in 3/152 of the caecal contents (2.0 %), while all carcass samples were negative. S. enterica serovars Enteriditis, Typhimurium and Stanleyville were identified. The only AMR isolate was S. Typhimurium with AMR profile AmCStxT.
Considering the consumption of raw horse meat (i.e., minced raw meat named “pesto di cavallo” and dried and smoked strips named “sfilacci di cavallo”) in different areas of Northern Italy, we also investigated the possible link between horse meat eating and salmonellosis cases in the human population in the same area. Specifically, we compared the Salmonella strains collected during the study with those routinely processed in the laboratory surveillance system for human salmonellosis in Emilia-Romagna (a region with about 4.5 million inhabitants). The comparison was based on whole genome sequencing data through core genome multi-locus sequence typing (cgMLST) used in routine surveillance. A genomic match in cgMLST was found between the strain of S. enterica serovar Enteritidis isolated from a horse caecal content and an enduring outbreak of 17 human cases in Emilia-Romagna during the study period. The consequent epidemiological investigation highlighted that a number of cases with known food history reported the consumption of horse meat and traced different batches of the consumed meat, released weeks apart from each other, to the slaughter investigated in the study. The results of the epidemiological investigation suggested the role of horses in the S. enterica serovar Enteritidis outbreak affecting raw horse meat consumers.
This study shows that, despite the low prevalence on equid carcasses, S. enterica in horse meat can represent a risk to consumers. From the perspective of the slaughter activities, this highlights the need to maintain a high level of hygiene during the entire process, starting from the hygiene at lairage up to the slaughtering phase and dressing of carcasses.
•Salmonella enterica was isolated from horses at slaughter in northern Italy.•S. enterica was detected in cecal contents, but not on carcasses.•S. enterica serovars Enteritidis, Typhimurium and Stanleyville were typed.•Genomics and epidemiology of S. Enteritidis linked the strain to a human outbreak
Purpose: To determine whether an iridotomy can prevent an increase in intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with pigment dispersion syndrome.
Methods: Consecutive subjects (n = 21) recruited into ...this randomized, controlled clinical trial in a hospital-based outpatient referral center, had pigment dispersion syndrome in both eyes, and underwent a YAG laser iridotomy in one eye randomly chosen); no intervention was performed in the fellow eye. A significant elevation of IOP was arbitrarily defined as an increase of more than 5 mmHg.
Results: Eleven (52.3%) untreated eyes versus 1 (4.7%) treated eye showed a significant elevation of IOP during the 2-year follow-up. The IOP difference between the untreated and the fellow treated eye at the end of the 2-year follow-up period is inversely related to the age of each patient.
Conclusion: YAG laser iridotomy may reduce the incidence of ocular hypertension in eyes affected by pigment dispersion syndrome. This effect, being less pronounced after 40 years of age, may be of clinical relevance in young subjects.
In Italy the proportion of cases of tuberculosis in persons originating from high-prevalence countries has been increasing in the last decade. We designed a study to assess adherence to and yield of ...a tuberculosis screening programme based on symptom screening conducted at primary care centres for regular and irregular immigrants and refugees/asylum seekers.
Presence of symptoms suggestive of active tuberculosis was investigated by verbal screening in migrants presenting for any medical condition to 3 free primary care centres in the province of Rome. Individuals reporting at least one symptom were referred to a tuberculosis clinic for diagnostic workup.
Among 2142 migrants enrolled, 254 (11.9%) reported at least one symptom suggestive of active tuberculosis and 176 were referred to the tuberculosis clinic. Of them, 80 (45.4%) did not present for diagnostic evaluation. Tuberculosis was diagnosed in 7 individuals representing 0.33% of those screened and 7.3% of those evaluated for tuberculosis.
The overall yield of this intervention was in the range reported for other tuberculosis screening programmes for migrants, although we recorded an unsatisfactory adherence to diagnostic workup. Possible advantages of this intervention include low cost and reduced burden of medical procedures for the screened population. Further evaluation of this approach appears to be warranted.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The Team Brain: Soccer Analysis and Battles of Minds Marchiori, Massimo; de Vecchi, Marco
2018 IEEE 16th Intl Conf on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing, 16th Intl Conf on Pervasive Intelligence and Computing, 4th Intl Conf on Big Data Intelligence and Computing and Cyber Science and Technology Congress(DASC/PiCom/DataCom/CyberSciTech)
Conference Proceeding
Soccer is one of the most successful sports of our times, and for various reasons. One such reason is its level of unpredictability: surprising results can occur, and it is still unclear what are the ...secrets that make a team winning or losing within a single game. In this paper we tackle the problem of soccer analysis from a different perspective: we transform every team, together with the playfield, into a network structure (the Team Brain), and we shift perspective, turning soccer games into battles of minds. We show how this approach proves to be successful, allowing to better understand what the recipes for the success of a team can be, and also getting a new, somehow surprising, view of what are the really important critical areas of a soccer field.
The report describes the case of an adult patient presenting a severe, serologically proven,
Toxocara endophthalmitis, unresponsive to the common surgical and medical approach (vitrectomy, ...anti-parasitic treatment followed by high-dose corticosteroids). The association of oral cyclosporin A to a lower dose of prednisone was successful in achieving a long-term control of the ocular inflammation without systemic side effects.
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