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An artificial ground freezing (AGF) technique in the horizontal direction has been employed in Naples (Italy), in order to ensure the stability and waterproofing of soil during the excavation of two tunnels in a real underground station. The artificial freezing technique consists of letting a coolant fluid, with a temperature lower than the surrounding ground, circulate inside probes positioned along the perimeter of the gallery. In this paper, the authors propose an efficient numerical model to analyze heat transfer during the whole excavation process for which this AGF technique was used. The model takes into account the water phase change process, and has been employed to analyze phenomena occurring in three cross sections of the galleries. The aim of the work is to analyze the thermal behavior of the ground during the freezing phases, to optimize the freezing process, and to evaluate the thickness of frozen wall obtained. The steps to realize the entire excavation of the tunnels, and the evolution of the frozen wall during the working phases, have been considered. In particular, the present model has allowed us to calculate the thickness of the frozen wall equal to 2.1 m after fourteen days of nitrogen feeding.

Liquidity is usually defined as the easiness of trading an asset. Despite this fairly simple definition, many measures have been proposed throughout the years but none of them have ever received a general consensus, thus leading to different results regarding the effects of liquidity on stock returns. By adopting three commonly used proxies (the relative bid-ask spread, the proportion of daily zero returns and the turnover rate), this study attempts to identify how and if liquidity has any explanatory power of the cross-sectional variability of returns. Moreover, the study also analyzes different investment strategies based on liquidity, with the goal of understanding whether or not liquidity can also outperform market returns. Results confirm the idea that liquidity can, indeed, affect stock returns, but this is not true for all proxies. Additionally, liquidity appears to be a profitable investment style that allows investors to obtain extra-returns by also containing the riskiness of the portfolio and the transaction costs associated with the strategy.

The construction of energetically autonomous artificial protocells is one of the most ambitious goals in bottom-up synthetic biology. Here, we show an efficient manner to build adenosine 5′- triphosphate (ATP) synthesizing hybrid multicompartment protocells. Bacterial chromatophores from Rhodobacter sphaeroides accomplish the photophosphorylation of adenosine 5′-diphosphate (ADP) to ATP, functioning as nanosized photosynthetic organellae when encapsulated inside artificial giant phospholipid vesicles (ATP production rate up to ∼100 ATP·s−1 per ATP synthase). The chromatophore morphology and the orientation of the photophosphorylation proteins were characterized by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and time-resolved spectroscopy. The freshly synthesized ATP has been employed for sustaining the transcription of a DNA gene, following the RNA biosynthesis inside individual vesicles by confocal microscopy. The hybrid multicompartment approach here proposed is very promising for the construction of full-fledged artificial protocells because it relies on easy-to-obtain and ready-to-use chromatophores, paving the way for artificial simplified-autotroph protocells (ASAPs).

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury incidence is often underestimated in tennis players, who are considered as subjects conventionally less prone to knee injuries. However, evaluation of the preactivation of knee stabilizer muscles by surface electromyography (sEMG) showed to be a predictive value in the assessment of the risk of ACL injury. Therefore, this proof-of-concept study aimed at evaluating the role of visual input on the thigh muscle preactivation through sEMG to reduce ACL injury risk in tennis players. We recruited male, adult, semiprofessional tennis players from July to August 2020. They were asked to drop with the dominant lower limb from a step, to evaluate—based on dynamic valgus stress—the preactivation time of the rectus femoris (RF), vastus medialis, biceps femoris, and medial hamstrings (MH), through sEMG. To highlight the influence of visual inputs, the athletes performed the test blindfolded and not blindfolded on both clay and grass surfaces. We included 20 semiprofessional male players, with a mean age 20.3 ± 4.8 years; results showed significant early muscle activation when the subject lacked visual input, but also when faced with a less-safe surface such as clay over grass. Considering the posteromedial–anterolateral relationship (MH/RF ratio), tennis players showed a significant higher MH/RF ratio if blindfolded (22.0 vs. 17.0% not blindfolded; p < 0.01) and percentage of falling on clay (17.0% vs. 14.0% in grass; p < 0.01). This proof-of-principle study suggests that in case of absence of visual input or falling on a surface considered unsafe (clay), neuro-activation would tend to protect the anterior stress of the knee. Thus, the sEMG might play a crucial role in planning adequate athletic preparation for semiprofessional male athletes in terms of reduction of ACL injury risk.

Background and Objectives: a “vicious vortex” model was proposed to explain the pathophysiology of bronchiectasis, incorporating abnormal mucus, altered mucociliary clearance and chronic inflammation. Evidently, airway clearance needs to be implemented in the patient’s daily routine for a protracted period in order to ameliorate the clinical outcomes. High Flow therapy (HFT) has several physiologic effects and represents a valid therapy for various respiratory diseases. The aim of this study is to assess clinical and radiologic effects of long-term HFT in adult non-CF bronchiectasis. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective observational cohort study including adult patients affected by bronchiectasis and frequent exacerbations and hospitalizations. A chest HRCT was performed, and a quantitative evaluation of the scans was conducted applying a modified Bhalla score of five items. A total of 44 patients completed the follow up, 23 in the HF-group and 21 in the controls (No-HF group). Results: The median follow up was 41 months (range 36–48 months). The mean age was 65 years, 45% were females. After treatment the annual rate of exacerbations was significantly lower in the HF group (1.2 ± 0.95 versus 3.5 ± 1.0 per year, p < 0.0001). The annual rate of hospitalizations was significantly lower in the HF group (0.4 ± 0.52 versus 1 ± 0.93 per year, p = 0.01). The total score of the modified Bhalla improved after treatment in the HF group with a mean score of 5.32 versus 8.38, p = 0.034. The difference was substantially due to the lower score of mucoid impactions in the HF group. Conclusions: Bronchiectasis is an evolutive disease. Long-term HFT reduces the annual rate of exacerbation and hospitalization. In addition, HFT prevents mucoid impaction and potentially influences the radiological evolution of the disease.

Background. Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is frequent in childhood and may have long-term sequelae. By employing an evidence-based approach, this scoping review aims at identifying (a) early predictors of DLD; (b) the optimal age range for the use of screening and diagnostic tools; (c) effective diagnostic tools in preschool children. Methods. We considered systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and primary observational studies with control groups on predictive, sensitivity and specificity values of screening and diagnostic tools and psycholinguistic measures for the assessment of DLD in preschool children. We identified 37 studies, consisting of 10 systematic reviews and 27 primary studies. Results. Delay in gesture production, receptive and/or expressive vocabulary, syntactic comprehension, or word combination up to 30 months emerged as early predictors of DLD, a family history of DLD appeared to be a major risk factor, and low socioeconomic status and environmental input were reported as risk factors with lower predictive power. Optimal time for screening is suggested between age 2 and 3, for diagnosis around age 4. Because of the high variability of sensitivity and specificity values, joint use of standardized and psycholinguistic measures is suggested to increase diagnostic accuracy. Conclusions. Monitoring risk situations and employing caregivers’ reports, clinical assessment and multiple linguistic measures are fundamental for an early identification of DLD and timely interventions.

There are no data on the effects of fingolimod, an immunomodulatory drug used in treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS), on circulating tight-junction (TJ) protein levels as well as on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) migration. Serum TJ protein [occludin (OCLN), claudin-5 (CLN-5) and zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1)] levels, sphingosine-1 phosphate 1 (S1P 1 ) receptor expression on circulating leukocyte populations as well as in vitro PBMC migration were longitudinally assessed in 20 MS patients under 12-months fingolimod treatment and correlated with clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) parameters. After 12 months of treatment, a significant reduction of mean relapse rate as well as number of active lesions at MRI was found. TJ protein levels significantly decreased and were associated with reduction of S1P 1 expression as well as of PBMC in vitro migratory activity. A significant correlation of CLN-5/OCLN ratio with new T 2 MRI lesions and a significant inverse correlation of CLN-5/ZO-1 ratio with disability scores were found. These findings support possible in vivo effects of fingolimod on the blood-brain barrier (BBB) functional activity as well as on peripheral cell trafficking that could result in avoiding passage of circulating autoreactive cells into brain parenchyma. Circulating TJ protein levels and respective ratios could be further studied as a novel candidate biomarker of BBB functional status to be monitored in course of fingolimod as well as of other immunomodulatory treatments in MS.

Thermal camera use is becoming ever more widespread in volcanic and environmental research and monitoring activities. Depending on the scope of an investigation and on the type of thermal camera used, different software for thermal infrared (IR) images analysis is employed. The Osservatorio Vesuviano Sezione in Napoli of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV-OV) processes the images acquired during thermal monitoring activities acquired in the Neapolitan areas (Vesuvio, Ischia and Campi Flegrei) with different FLIR software that returns for each image, or for each selected area within the image, a series of parameters (maximum temperature, average temperature, standard deviation, etc.). An operator selects the area of interest and later “manually” inserts the relevant parameters in Excel sheets to generate graphs. Such a tedious, time- and resource-consuming procedure gave reason to implement a software able to automatically analyze sets of thermal images taken with a handheld thermal camera without any manual action. This paper describes the method and the software implemented to “automate” and refine the extrapolation process and the analysis of the relevant information. The employed method clusters thermal images by applying K-MEANS and DBSCAN techniques. After clustering a series of images, the software displays the necessary statistics to highlight possible fluctuations in temperature values. The software, “StaTistical Analysis clusteRed ThErmal Data” (STARTED), is already available. Although it has been developed mostly to support monitoring of the volcanoes in Campania, it is quite versatile and can be used for any activity that implies thermal data analysis. In this paper, we describe the workflow and the dataset used to develop the software, as well as the first result obtained from it.

The College granted him special permission to defer his entrance until the end of the autumn of 1914, so that he could fulfill his agreement to coach the Princeton Varsity football team. Before moving to Oxford, he also managed the baseball team, excelled at wrestling, and worked his way up to first string tackle in the football team, all while maintaining outstanding academic qualifications. In collaboration with his colleague Herbert Jasper, Penfield also created what is now known as “the Montreal procedure”, by which patients with drug-resistant epilepsy were treated while conscious, so that the relevant brain areas could be targeted accurately during surgery, thus reducing side effects and complications.

The aim of this study is to analyse problems related to thermal mapping obtained from thermal data acquired from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) equipped with thermal cameras. We focused on an accurate analysis of uncertainties introduced by the PIX4D Mapper software version 4.4.12 used to obtain the surface temperature maps of thermal images acquired using the UAS. To achieve this aim, we used artificial thermal references during the surveys, as well as natural hot targets, i.e., thermal anomalies in the Pisciarelli hydrothermal system in Campi Flegrei caldera (CFc). Artificial thermal targets, expressly created and designed for this goal, are a prototype here called “developed thermal target” (DTT) created by the drone laboratory at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia—Osservatorio Vesuviano (INGV-OV). We show the results obtained through three surveys, and during the last two, thermal targets were positioned on land at different flight heights of the UAS. Different heights were also necessary to test the spatial resolution of the DTT with the used thermal camera as well as possible temperature differences between the raw images acquired via UAS with the thermal mapping obtained from the PIX4D Mapper software. In this work, we estimate the uncertainty that may be introduced by the mosaic procedure, and furthermore we find an attenuation of the measured temperatures introduced by the different distances between the thermal anomaly and sensor. These results appear to be of great importance for the subsequent calibration phase of the thermal maps, especially in cases where these methodologies are applied for the purposes of monitoring volcanic/geothermal areas.