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Psoriasis is a chronic, immune-mediated inflammatory disease for which no definitive cure exists and patients difficult to treat with moderate to severe psoriasis often require life-long therapy. In general, the use of any biologic agent as monotherapy allows a long-term efficacy, however survival response may progressively decrease over time. We report real-world long lasting response data in psoriatic patients on treatment with anti-TNFα evaluating those on the same anti-TNFα agent (infliximab, etanercept, adalimumab) from January 2011 and December 2013 to December 31, 2021 as monotherapy. On 210 treated patients, 69 were found to maintain the same anti-TNFα agent. The median survival rate for etanercept, infliximab and adalimumab was 10, 9.6, and 9.5 years respectively and the efficacy rate was similar (mean PASI96). Our results demonstrate that anti-TNFα agents are a long-term effective and safe therapeutic option for a satisfying proportion (33%) of patients with moderate-to-severe chronic plaque psoriasis. Further long-term real life studies are needed to better understand which are the causes of drug failure or persistent response and why these may occur at different time intervals in patients on the same drug.

A large variety of treatments for molluscum contagiosum (MC) are available, but none are Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved and there is no consensus on the optimal approach, mainly owing to a lack of high-level data. Physical modalities are widely used, but require repeated outpatient visits for administration, are painful and difficult to perform in children, and are associated with the possibility of residual scarring and post-inflammatory hypo- or hyperpigmentation. Two experimental topical drugs, a new standardized preparation of topical cantharidin, called VP-102, and a topical nitric oxide (NO)-releasing product containing berdazimer, called SB206, represent promising products that have been designed to overcome the limitations of current treatments. They have recently shown good results in terms of safety and efficacy in large cohorts of patients in phase III studies and have the potential to be the first FDA-approved therapies for the treatment of MC.

This paper is a strong critic to the classical procedure used for the prediction of failure occurrences for mechanical and electronic equipment. The present procedure is based on the concept of randomness that has the undoubted vantage of the easiness, moreover, it is traditionally used so it is well known by scientists, technicians and experts in the field, but it a priori renounces to the knowledge of the causes that lead to failure. The paper presents a new approach to face the problematic showing that it is possible to follow new and more accurate routes and presents a typical application.

A new acquisition system for remote control of wall paintings has been realized and tested in the field. The system measures temperature and atmospheric pressure in an archeological site where a fresco has been put under control. The measuring chain has been designed to be used in unfavorable environments where neither electric power nor telecommunication infrastructures are available. The environmental parameters obtained from the local monitoring are then transferred remotely allowing an easier management by experts in the field of conservation of cultural heritage. The local acquisition system uses an electronic card based on microcontrollers and sends the data to a central unit realized with a Raspberry-Pi. The latter manages a high quality camera to pick up pictures of the fresco. Finally, to realize the remote control at a site not reached by internet signals, a WiMAX connection based on different communication technologies such as WiMAX, Ethernet, GPRS and Satellite, has been set up.

Traditionally, prognostics has been performed by continuous monitoring of quantities that are empirically assumed to sum up the evolution of the observed phenomenon. Only recently, physics-based model simulations have been considered as a valid help to understand the evolution of the chemical-physical processes leading to failure. Nevertheless, physics-based models have always been paired with data driven models and that has led to the development of heavy hybrid approaches. It is opinion of the authors that in a wide range of situations, with the current knowledge of physics, it is possible to model processes and their evolution based only on the physics model simulations, using what's called “propagation of uncertainty technique” on every aspect, from components to system behavior. The authors developed such a technique valid for both Time-Independent and Time-Dependent phenomena. This approach allows probabilistic simulations to be carried out. The proposed methodology simultaneously uses the rated values of the involved parameter in the considered process and their uncertainties as inputs. As outputs it provides the expected values of the process with their standard deviations (std) and their probability distributions. The authors developed also the software tool RELYSOFT which allows to directly supply rated values and their uncertainties as inputs. The simulations can be performed by means of analytical equations in definite form, differential equations or by Finite Element approach. The Finite Element simulation will be the subject of a later work. In case of simulations by means of analytical equations in definite and differential form, a new pseudo algebra has been developed in order to perform assessments. Two examples are reported concerning aero-spatial field: a Time-Independent and a Time-Dependent.