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Utero-Placental Apoplexy, or Couvelaire Uterus, is a third-trimester major obstetrical complication, occurring especially during labor. It consists of placental abruption followed by an acute intradecidual hemorrhage produced by the rupture of the uterus-placental spiral arterioles leading to a retroplacental hematoma. This hemorrhage infiltrates the uterine wall up to intra- and retro-peritoneal areas. We provide a case report, on which no previous literature is available, of a utero-placental apoplexy during induction of therapeutic abortion.

BackgroundThe British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) published a revised framework for perinatal management of extremely preterm infants (EPIs) in 2019. We aimed to assess UK neonatal professionals’ interpretation of elements of this framework, as well as the consistency of their estimates of outcome for EPIs.MethodsAn online survey gave participants five cases involving anticipated extremely preterm birth with different favourable and unfavourable risk factors. Respondents were asked to assign a risk category and management option using the BAPM framework and to estimate the chance of survival if the baby received active resuscitation and the chance of severe disability if they survived.ResultsRespondents were consistent in interpretation of risk categories. The majority would follow parental wishes about management. Management decisions did not always correspond with risk assessment, with less inclination to recommend palliative (comfort) care. There were wide estimates of survival or severe disability (5%–90%) with consultants providing lower estimates of severe disability than other groups.ConclusionUK neonatal professionals deferred to parental wishes in the cases presented, indicating an emphasis on shared decision making. However, they did not necessarily use the risk stratification approach for management decisions. Variation in estimates of outcome raises questions about the accuracy of informed decision making and suggests support is needed for UK clinicians to incorporate risk factors into individualised counselling. There may be value in validating existing online risk calculators for UK infants or in developing a UK specific risk model.

To date, drugs that hit a single target are inadequate for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases. The development of multitarget ligands, able to interact with the different pathways involved in the progession of these disorders, represents a great challenge for medicinal chemists. In this context, we report here the synthesis and biological evaluation of phenol-lipoyl hybrids (SV1-13), obtained via a linking strategy, to take advantage of the synergistic effect due to the antioxidant portions and anti-amyloid properties of the single constituents present in the hybrid molecule. Biological results showed that SV5 and SV10 possessed the best protective activity against Aβ1-42 induced neurotoxicity in differentiated SH-SY5Y cells. SV9 and SV10 showed remarkable antioxidant properties due to their ability to counteract the damage caused by H2O2 in SHSY-5Y-treated cells. Hovewer, SV5, showing moderate antioxidant and good neuroprotective activities, resulted the best candidate for further experiments since it also resulted stable both simulated and plasma fluids. © 2019 Elsevier Masson SAS

Among the most straining trends that farmers have to face there are: on one side, to guarantee welfare and adequate life conditions for animals and to reduce the environmental footprint, on the other side, to develop new strategies to improve farm management reducing costs. The current conditions and the expected developments of the dairy sector highlight a strong need for more efficient and sustainable farming systems. Studying heat stress, herd management and housing and animals’ productive and reproductive performances is fundamental for the economic and environmental sustainability of the dairy chain. New and effective tools to cope with these challenges have been provided by Precision Livestock Farming (PLF), which is nowadays increasingly applied and makes possible to control quali-quantitative parameters related to production, health, behaviour, and real-time locomotion per animal. The research key challenge is to turn these data into knowledge to provide real-time support in farming optimisation. This research focuses specifically on different systems to collect, process and derive useful information from data on animal welfare and productivity. A multi-disciplinary approach has been adopted to generate a decision support system for farmers.

To describe a new inner-branched device used to treat two cases of chronic post-dissection aortic thoraco-abdominal aneurysms (PD-TAAAs) after ascending aortic surgery. A 67-year-old male who had undergone an ascending aorta and arch surgical replacement and a 70-year-old male with a previous Bentall procedure for acute type A aortic dissection were admitted at our department with a PD-TAAA diagnosis. Both patients were defined unfit for open surgery by a multidisciplinary team and a totally percutaneous endovascular repair was planned. A prophylactic cerebro-spinal fluid drainage was applied and at least one hypogastric artery was targeted for salvage in order to reduce the risk of spinal cord ischemia. A new inner branch device by Jotec® (GmbH/ Criolife; Hechingen, Germany/Kennesaw, Georgia) was implanted. A TEVAR and a standard EVAR completed the procedures and a double barrel technique was performed in order to achieve the preservation of the selected hypogastric artery. In both patients the complete technical success was achieved. The postoperative period was uneventful and the patients were discharged on the 6th and 7th postoperative day, respectively. The triple-phase angio-CT performed at 6 months showed the complete false lumen exclusion and the patency of the endografts and of the target visceral vessels. The total endovascular treatment of PD-TAAAs is a fascinating technique with encouraging results in experienced centers. Inner branched devices may expand the field of application of this new technology. More data are required to evaluate mid- and long-term results.

Primary triple negative breast cancers (TNBC) are prone to dissemination but sub-clonal relationships between tumors and resulting metastases are poorly understood. Here we use cellular barcoding of two treatment-naïve TNBC patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) to track the spatio-temporal fate of thousands of barcoded clones in primary tumors, and their metastases. Tumor resection had a major impact on reducing clonal diversity in secondary sites, indicating that most disseminated tumor cells lacked the capacity to ‘seed’, hence originated from ‘shedders’ that did not persist. The few clones that continued to grow after resection i.e. ‘seeders’, did not correlate in frequency with their parental clones in primary tumors. Cisplatin treatment of one BRCA1-mutated PDX model to non-palpable levels had a surprisingly minor impact on clonal diversity in the relapsed tumor yet purged 50% of distal clones. Therefore, clonal features of shedding, seeding and drug resistance are important factors to consider for the design of therapeutic strategies., Triple negative breast cancers (TNBC) disseminate and metastasise, but the clonal relationship of metastases to primary tumours is poorly understood. Here, the authors use cellular barcoding of TNBC patient-derived xenografts and track the fate of barcoded clones in primary tumours and their metastases, including after resection or chemotherapy.

Background and purpose Patients with a history of brain radiotherapy can experience acute stroke-like syndromes related to the delayed effects of brain radiation, including stroke-like migraine attacks after radiation therapy syndrome, peri-ictal pseudoprogression and acute late-onset encephalopathy after radiation therapy syndrome. The aim of this study was to collect evidence on the long-term outcome and treatment of these conditions, whose knowledge is undermined by their rarity and fragmented description. Methods Cases were collected, both prospectively and retrospectively, amongst six neuro-oncology departments. Inclusion criteria were as follows: (i) history of brain radiotherapy (completed at least 6 months before the acute episode); (ii) new onset of acute/subacute neurological symptoms; (iii) exclusion of all etiologies unrelated to brain irradiation. A review of current literature on stroke-like syndromes was performed to corroborate our findings. Results Thirty-two patients with acute neurological conditions attributed to the delayed effects of radiation were identified, including 26 patients with stroke-like syndromes. Patients with stroke-like syndromes commonly presented with a mosaic of symptoms, including focal deficits (77%), encephalopathy (50%), seizures (35%) and headache (35%). Seventy-three percent of them had acute consistent magnetic resonance imaging alterations. Treatment included high-dose steroids in 65% of cases. Twenty-two patients recovered completely (85%). Sixteen patients (62%) experienced relapses (median follow-up 3.5 years). A literature review identified 87 additional stroke-like cases with similar characteristics. Conclusions Stroke-like events related to brain irradiation may be associated with permanent sequelae. Steroids are often administered on empirical grounds, as they are thought to accelerate recovery. Relapses are common, highlighting the need to elaborate adequate prevention strategies.

Primary triple negative breast cancers (TNBC) are prone to dissemination but sub-clonal relationships between tumors and resulting metastases are poorly understood. Here we use cellular barcoding of two treatment-naïve TNBC patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) to track the spatio-temporal fate of thousands of barcoded clones in primary tumors, and their metastases. Tumor resection had a major impact on reducing clonal diversity in secondary sites, indicating that most disseminated tumor cells lacked the capacity to 'seed', hence originated from 'shedders' that did not persist. The few clones that continued to grow after resection i.e. 'seeders', did not correlate in frequency with their parental clones in primary tumors. Cisplatin treatment of one BRCA1-mutated PDX model to non-palpable levels had a surprisingly minor impact on clonal diversity in the relapsed tumor yet purged 50% of distal clones. Therefore, clonal features of shedding, seeding and drug resistance are important factors to consider for the design of therapeutic strategies.

Long--term video tracking is of great importance for many applications in real-world scenarios. A key component for achieving long--term tracking is the tracker's capability of updating its internal representation of targets (the appearance model) to changing conditions. Given the rapid but fragmented development of this research area, we propose a unified conceptual framework for appearance model adaptation that enables a principled comparison of different approaches. Moreover, we introduce a novel evaluation methodology that enables simultaneous analysis of tracking accuracy and tracking success, without the need of setting application-dependent thresholds. Based on the proposed framework and this novel evaluation methodology, we conduct an extensive experimental comparison of trackers that perform appearance model adaptation. Theoretical and experimental analyses allow us to identify the most effective approaches as well as to highlight design choices that favor resilience to errors during the update process. We conclude the paper with a list of key open research challenges that have been singled out by means of our experimental comparison.

The Summits of Modern Man: Mountaineering After the Enlightenment, by Peter H. Hansen. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2013. x, 380 pp. $35.00 US (cloth). Peter H. Hansen writes the "modem self is haunted by mountains," (p. 148) and he lures readers into his text with the seemingly simple question of who was first to climb such famous peaks as Mont Ventoux, Mont Blanc, and Mount Everest. The answer, however, turns out to be anything but straightforward. His careful dissection yields complex insights into the history of mountain climbing and the identity making of modem man, not to mention debunking the myth of solo ascents in the process. The majority of Hansen's book focuses on the place of Mount Blanc in the Western European imagination and the debate over who could claim first ascent. He argues that understanding political contexts helps explain Mount Blanc's symbolic and contested meanings over "who was first," a question that is linked to notions of the sovereign individual. Was it mountain guide Jacques Balmat who scouted the route in the summer of 1787? Or local doctor Michel-Gabriel Paccard who raced Balmat to the top, later that same summer? Or should the accolades go to Horace-Benedict de Saussure, a wealthy and well-connected intellectual, who wrote about his scientific experiments on the mountain after his ascent on August 3, 1787? Hansen persuasively explains that the debate is more interesting than the answer because shifting notions of agency and citizenship influence the response. For instance, does a poor mountain guide possess the faculties to process the importance of what he does? If not, he can't truly claim the title, for the title only has legitimacy when rightly understood. Take Henriette D'Angeville for instance, the "first" woman to climb Mount Blanc in 1838. In fact, D'Angeville was the second woman to do so, but the first, peasant Marie Paradis, climbed the mountain for the wrong reasons (notoriety). As D'Angeville put it, Mount Blanc "had not been ascended by any woman capable of remembering her impressions" (p. 172). D'Angeville's ability to communicate "the force of will!" (p. 173) required to get to the top and what she felt once there was what made the experience matter. In other words, one needed the mental capacity, cultured background, and publications to own the summit. Later, however, with the democratization of Europe, and the reclamation of local culture in the twentieth century, both mountain guide and simple peasant would be celebrated as the first man and woman to summit. Mount Everest serves as another example of the debates that arose. …

Purpose of review This review summarizes recent studies on the predictive value of molecular markers in adult gliomas, including 1p/19q codeletion, MGMT methylation, IDH mutation and markers identified using omics and next-generation sequencing studies. Recent findings The long-term results of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group and European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer trials in anaplastic oligodendroglial glioma have shown that the 1p/19q codeletion predicts an overall survival benefit from early PCV (procarbazine CCNU vincristine) chemotherapy. This benefit can also be predicted using gene expression-based molecular subtypes of gliomas while the predictive value of the IDH mutation in this context requires further study. In elderly patients with glioblastoma, the analysis of MGMT methylation status in two phase III trials suggests that this alteration may guide treatment decisions; however, this finding still needs confirmation in prospective studies. Omics and next-generation sequencing studies have identified additional potential predictive markers. In particular, IDH mutations, BRAF V600E mutations and FGFR gene fusions might predict efficacy of therapies targeted against these alterations. Summary Currently, the 1p/19q codeletion is the only well established predictive marker with clinical utility. However, it is likely that other molecular markers such as MGMT methylation, IDH mutation and those identified using omics and next-generation sequencing studies will further guide treatment decisions in adult gliomas.

In this paper we show that a well-known model of genetic regulatory networks, namely that of Random Boolean Networks (RBNs), allows one to study in depth the relationship between two important properties of complex systems, i.e. dynamical criticality and power-law distributions. The study is based upon an analysis of the response of a RBN to permanent perturbations, that may lead to avalanches of changes in activation levels, whose statistical properties are determined by the same parameter that characterizes the dynamical state of the network (ordered, critical or disordered). Under suitable approximations, in the case of large sparse random networks an analytical expression for the probability density of avalanches of different sizes is proposed, and it is shown that for not-too-small avalanches of critical systems it may be approximated by a power law. In the case of small networks the above-mentioned formula does not maintain its validity, because of the phenomenon of self-interference of avalanches, which is also explored by numerical simulations.

In both 3,5,3-triiodothyronine (T(3))-induced hyperthyroidism and cold-induced functional hyperthyroidism, the heart displays an increased susceptibility to oxidative challenge in vitro. Hearts from T(3)-treated rats also exhibit an increased susceptibility to ischaemia-reperfusion, a condition that raises free radical production. The present study was designed to establish whether cold-exposed rats exhibit an increased cardiac susceptibility to ischaemia-reperfusion which can be attenuated by vitamin E. The following four groups of animals were used: C, control rats (n = 8, temperature 24°C); C+VE, vitamin E-treated rats (n = 8, temperature 24°C); CE, cold-exposed rats (n = 8, temperature 4°C); and CE+VE, cold-exposed vitamin E-treated rats (n = 8, temperature 4°C). Langendorff preparations from these animals were submitted to 20 min ischaemia followed by 25 min reperfusion. At the end of the ischaemia-reperfusion protocol, homogenates and mitochondria were prepared and used for analytical procedures. With respect to control hearts, cold hearts showed a lower inotropic recovery and a higher oxidative stress, as inferred by higher levels of oxidized proteins and lipids and lower reduced glutathione levels. These changes were prevented when cold rats were treated with vitamin E. Evidence was also obtained that mitochondria are involved in the tissue derangement of cold hearts. Indeed, they display a faster production of reactive oxygen species, which causes mitochondrial oxidative damage and functional decline that parallel the tissue dysfunction. Moreover, vitamin E-linked improvement of tissue function was associated with a lower oxidative damage and a restored function of mitochondria. Finally, the mitochondrial population composition and Ca(2+)-induced swelling data indicate that the decline in mitochondrial function is in part due to a decrease in the amount of the highly functional heavy mitochondria linked to their higher susceptibility to oxidative damage and swelling. In conclusion, our work shows that vitamin E treatment attenuates harmful side-effects of the cardiac response to cold, such as oxidative damage and susceptibility to oxidants, thus preserving mitochondrial function and tissue recovery from ischaemia-reperfusion.

Summary Exposure of homeothermic animals to low environmental temperature is associated with oxidative stress in several body tissues. Because cold exposure induces a condition of functional hyperthyroidism, the observation that tissue oxidative stress also happens in experimental hyperthyroidism, induced by 3,5,3′-triiodothyronine (T3) treatment, suggests that this hormone is responsible for the oxidative damage found in tissues from cold-exposed animals. Examination of T3-responsive tissues, such as brown adipose tissue (BAT) and liver, shows that changes in factors favoring oxidative modifications are similar in experimental and functional hyperthyroidism. However, differences are also apparent, likely due to the action of physiological regulators, such as noradrenaline and thyroxine, whose levels are different in cold-exposed and T3-treated animals. To date, there is evidence that biochemical changes underlying the thermogenic response to cold as well as those leading to oxidative stress require a synergism between T3- and noradrenaline-generated signals. Conversely, available results suggest that thyroxine (T4) supplies a direct contribution to cold-induced BAT oxidative damage, but contributes to the liver response only as a T3 precursor.

Specific tissue responses to thyroid hormone are mediated by the hormone binding to two subtypes of nuclear receptors, TRα and TRβ. We investigated the relationship between TRβ activation and liver oxidative metabolism in hypothyroid rats treated with equimolar doses of triiodothyronine (T3) and GC-1, a TRβ agonist. T3 treatment produces increases in O2 consumption and H2O2 production higher than those elicited by GC-1. The greater effects of T3 on oxidative processes are linked to the higher hormonal stimulation of the content of respiratory chain components including autoxidizable electron carriers as demonstrated by the measurement of activities of respiratory complexes and H2O2 generation in the presence of respiratory inhibitors. It is conceivable that these differential effects are dependent on the inability of GC-1 to stimulate TRα receptors that are likely involved in the expression of some components of the respiratory chain. The greater increases in reactive oxygen species production and susceptibility to oxidants exhibited by mitochondria from T3-treated rats are consistent with their higher lipid and protein oxidative damage and lower resistance to Ca2+ load. The T3 and GC-1 effects on the expression levels of nuclear respiratory factor-1 and -2 and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α suggest the involvement of respiratory factors in the agonist-linked changes in mitochondrial respiratory capacities and H2O2 production.

SUMMARYWe compared the changes in tissue aerobic metabolism and oxidative damage elicited by hypothyroid rat treatment with T3 and its analog GC-1. Aerobic capacities, evaluated by cytochrome oxidase activities, were increased more by T3 than by GC-1. Furthermore, the response of the tissues to T3 was similar, whereas the response to GC-1 was high in liver,low in muscle and scarce in heart. Both treatments induced increases in ADP-stimulated O2 consumption, which were consistent with those in aerobic capacities. However, unlike T3, GC-1 differentially affected pyruvate/malate- and succinate-supported respiration, suggesting that respiratory chain components do not respond as a unit to GC-1 stimulation. According to the positive relationship between electron carrier levels and rates of mitochondrial generation of oxidative species, the most extensive damage to lipids and proteins was found in T3-treated rats. Examination of antioxidant enzyme activities and scavenger levels did not clarify whether oxidative damage extent also depended on different antioxidant system effectiveness. Conversely, the analysis of parameters determining tissue susceptibility to oxidants showed that pro-oxidant capacity was lower in GC-1- than in T3-treated rats, while antioxidant capacity was similar in treatment groups. Interestingly, both agonists decreased serum cholesterol levels, but only GC-1 restored euthyroid values of heart rate and indices of tissue oxidative damage, indicating that GC-1 is able to lower cholesterolemia, bypassing detrimental effects of T3.

This paper proposes an effective algorithm for recognizing objects and accurately estimating their 6DOF pose in scenes acquired by a RGB-D sensor. The proposed method is based on a combination of different recognition pipelines, each exploiting the data in a diverse manner and generating object hypotheses that are ultimately fused together in an Hypothesis Verification stage that globally enforces geometrical consistency between model hypotheses and the scene. Such a scheme boosts the overall recognition performance as it enhances the strength of the different recognition pipelines while diminishing the impact of their specific weaknesses. The proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art on two challenging benchmark datasets for object recognition comprising 35 object models and, respectively, 176 and 353 scenes.

Pattern matching is widely used in signal processing, computer vision, and image and video processing. Full search equivalent algorithms accelerate the pattern matching process and, in the meantime, yield exactly the same result as the full search. This paper proposes an analysis and comparison of state-of-the-art algorithms for full search equivalent pattern matching. Our intention is that the data sets and tests used in our evaluation will be a benchmark for testing future pattern matching algorithms, and that the analysis concerning state-of-the-art algorithms could inspire new fast algorithms. We also propose extensions of the evaluated algorithms and show that they outperform the original formulations.

A multi-technology platform is considered to interact and cooperate with complex heterogeneous domestic or industrial environments. This way an automatic set up of the digital representation of such spaces is possible, that we shall call smart spaces, in which identifying, localizing, monitoring and updating different real objects is carried out in real time. Natural interaction with tagged and untagged items may then be carried by different users' categories having various needs. This may be accomplished by augmenting the RFID technology with a) direction finding capabilities of a monopulse radar, to remotely discover and select items; b) gesture recognition, to enable the user to interact with the Smart Space and the devices in a natural way; c) computer vision based item recognition, to allow objects themselves to act as natural tags. Interoperability of all these technologies is made possible by a suitable software infrastructure.

In this paper, we present a statistical change detection approach aimed at being robust with respect to the main disturbance factors acting in real-world applications such as illumination changes, camera gain and exposure variations, noise. We rely on modeling the effects of disturbance factors on images as locally order-preserving transformations of pixel intensities plus additive noise. This allows us to identify within the space of all of the possible image change patterns the subspace corresponding to disturbance factors effects. Hence, scene changes can be detected by a-contrario testing the hypothesis that the measured pattern is due to disturbance factors, that is, by computing a distance between the pattern and the subspace. By assuming additive Gaussian noise, the distance can be computed within a maximum likelihood nonparametric isotonic regression framework. In particular, the projection of the pattern onto the subspace is computed by an O(N) iterative procedure known as Pool Adjacent Violators algorithm.

Alaska’s Skyboys: Cowboy Pilots and the Myth of the Last Frontier . By Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. xiii + 267 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.) As the title implies, Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth’s Alaska’s Skyboys grapples with entrenched stereotypes that equate bush pilots with cowboys and other heroes of frontier mythology. Focusing on the history of aviation in eastern Alaska—primarily the Copper River Basin/Wrangell Mountains—she challenges the notion that the history of bush pilots follows the well-worn grooves of Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier. Instead, she argues that bush pilots were at the leading edge of modern aviation and essential to the incorporation of Alaska into global pathways. Ringsmuth provides a detailed history of flying in eastern Alaska. … dldistefano{at}alaska.edu

The results of two trawl surveys carried out in the Strait of Sicily (Central Mediterranean Sea) aiming at evaluating the retention coefficients and the selectivity of the commercial gear used in the fishery of the deepwater giant red shrimp, Aristaeomorpha foliacea, are presented and discussed. The study is based on the covered cod-end method (cover of 14 mm mesh) and illustrates the selectivity of three different cod-ends, with mesh of 20, 24 and 28 mm (nominal side dimension). Data were collected in spring and summer 1993, from about 2 weeks of experimental trawling in each season on three fishing grounds. The total number of valid hauls (3 h each) was 31 and 42 in the first and second period, respectively. The two chosen periods allowed the whole dimensional span of the red shrimp (from 12 to 70 mm of carapace length, CL) to be covered. The 20 mm mesh cod-end (the minimum legal size by Italian by-laws) catches all the adult red shrimps ( CL >35–40 mm ) , with only a minimal fraction of the juveniles passing through (CL 50 =18–19 mm; SF =0.9) . The 24 mm mesh cod-end permits the greater fraction of the juvenile component (CL 50 =21 mm; SF =0.9) to escape, whereas the 28 mm mesh cod-end still captures the greatest majority of the adults, while allowing a substantial part of the juveniles (CL 50 =23–24 mm; SF =0.83–0.87) to escape. The main conclusions are: (1) neither the mesh presently in use in the Strait of Sicily (16–18 mm) nor the legal mesh (20 mm) are satisfactory in the biological sense; (2) the introduction of a cod-end with a mesh of 28 mm (side) is strongly recommended; (3) management interventions other than mesh regulation are required, given that not even the 28 mm cod-end achieves a CL50 near the size at onset of maturity estimated for the red shrimp of the Strait of Sicily (about 40 mm CL).

This paper proposes a novel method for fast pattern matching based on dissimilarity functions derived from the Lp norm, such as the Sum of Squared Differences (SSD) and the Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD). The proposed method is full-search equivalent, i.e. it yields the same results as the Full Search (FS) algorithm. In order to pursue computational savings the method deploys a succession of increasingly tighter lower bounds of the adopted Lp norm-based dissimilarity function. Such bounding functions allow for establishing a hierarchy of pruning conditions aimed at skipping rapidly those candidates that cannot satisfy the matching criterion. The paper includes an experimental comparison between the proposed method and other full-search equivalent approaches known in literature, which proves the remarkable computational efficiency of our proposal.

Novel chromosomal rearrangements involving tyrosine-kinase receptors FGFR3 and EGFR and resulting in actionable fusion proteins with strong oncogenic activity have been recently described in glioblastoma (GBM). 602 gliomas [380 grade IV (GBM), 116 grade III, 106 grade II] from the Pitie-Salpetriere brain tumor bank “Onconeurotheque” were analyzed for the presence of FGFR3-TACC3 and EGFR-SEPT14 by RT-PCR and sequencing . We identified 30 patients with fusion transcripts: 11 (8 GBM, one grade III, two grade II) with FGFR3-TACC3 and 19 (18 GBM and one grade III) with EGFR-SEPT14 fusion, including a GBM patient recurring after standard treatment. None of the 144 IDH1 mutated and 12 IDH2 mutated gliomas (including 28 GBM) had FGFR3-TACC3 or EGFR-SEPT14 fusions (P < 0.0002). EGFR-SEPT14 was associated with EGFR amplification 13/16 cases (81%) (12/14 in GBM EGFR-SEPT14+ vs 79/207 in GBM EGFR-SEPT14-, P = 0.001) and with EGFR vIII variant in 8/15 (53%), whereas none of the FGFR3-TACC3 fusions had EGFR abnormalities (0/8 in GBM FGFR3-TACC3+ vs 79/207 in GBM FGFR3-TACC3-, P = 0.027). Of particular interest, FGFR3-TACC3 positive tumors showed a very strong, diffuse and homogeneous FGFR3 expression by immunostaining, in contrast to fusion negative tumors, suggesting that FGFR3-TACC3 protein is expressed in nearly all tumor cells. In GBM patients, median overall survival was 32.80 months for FGFR3-TACC3+ patients, 25.50 months for EGFR-SEPT14+ patients compared to 17.20 for the other GBM patients (P = 0.60; NS). In conclusion we found that these gene fusions are not restricted to GBM but involve also grade II and III IDH wild-type tumors. Due to their oncogenic activity these genes fusions define a subset of patients that could benefit from specific molecular targeting at recurrence. We are now planning anti-FGFR and anti-EGFR treatment in this preselected population.

Editors' Note: In reference to “White matter hyperintensities on MRI in high-altitude U-2 pilots,” Hellmann-Regen et al. identify potentially confounding factors, in addition to hypobaria, that are seen in military pilots, including high Gz stress and radiation exposure, and suggest a “regular pilot” control group. Author McGuire responds by sharing unpublished findings on a group of altitude-chamber technicians. —Megan Alcauskas, MD, and Robert C. Griggs, MD Di Stefano et al.1 reported 5 patients who developed steroid-responsive encephalopathy 9 months to 17 years after whole-brain radiotherapy for brain tumors. MRI, CSF, EEG, and other laboratory tests excluded almost all …

In the last decades several cost aggregation methods aimed at improving the robustness of stereo correspondence within local and global algorithms have been proposed. Given the recent developments and the lack of an appropriate comparison, in this paper we survey, classify and compare experimentally on a standard data set the main cost aggregation approaches proposed in literature. The experimental evaluation addresses both accuracy and computational requirements, so as to outline the best performing methods under these two criteria.

We propose a novel algorithm, referred to as enhanced bounded correlation (EBC), that significantly reduces the number of computations required to carry out template matching based on normalized cross correlation (NCC) and yields exactly the same result as the full search algorithm. The algorithm relies on the concept of bounding the matching function: finding an efficiently computable upper bound of the NCC rapidly prunes those candidates that cannot provide a better NCC score with respect to the current best match. In this framework, we apply a succession of increasingly tighter upper bounding functions based on Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Moreover, by including an online parameter prediction step into EBC, we obtain a parameter free algorithm that, in most cases, affords computational advantages very similar to those attainable by optimal offline parameter tuning. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly accelerate a full-search equivalent template matching process and outperforms state-of-the-art methods.

We present a method aimed at monitoring access to interlocks and secured entrance areas, which deploys two views in order to robustly perform intrusion detection and singularization. The main contributions are represented by an original approach to perform background subtraction, which is particularly robust against sudden illumination changes, shadows and photometric distortions, and by the use of a feature extraction and classification approach which allows to reliably determine an estimation of the number of people currently occupying the monitored area. Our system is designed to operate in very small interlocks and can work in a substantially unstructured environment.

This paper presents a method that reduces the computational cost of template matching based on the zero-mean normalized cross-correlation (ZNCC) without compromising the accuracy of the results. A very effective condition is determined at a small and fixed cost that allow to rapidly detect a large number of mismatching candidates with no need to compute the ZNCC score. Then, thanks to the use of an additional set of conditions, the computation of the whole ZNCC function is typically required only for a very small number of candidates. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.

This paper describes the mapping of a recently introduced template matching algorithm based on the Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC) on a general purpose processor endowed with SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) multimedia instructions. The algorithm relies on the Bounded Partial Correlation (BPC) technique, which consists in deploying a sufficient condition to detect unsatisfactory matching candidates at a reduced computational cost. First, we briefly describe the BPC technique and highlight the related expensive computations. Then, based on the analysis of the major SIMD multimedia instruction set extensions available nowadays, we define a processor-independent multimedia instruction set and show how to carry out the most expensive BPC calculations using these pseudo-instructions. Finally, we provide experimental results obtained mapping the proposed algorithm on a mainstream multimedia SIMD instruction set (i.e. MMX). We compare these results with those obtained with the brute force NCC algorithm. The results show that the BPC technique is suited for a parallel SIMD-style mapping and that its effectiveness can be significantly improved using the multimedia instructions available nowadays in most general purpose CPUs.

This “Work In Progress” paper, reports on a novel approach to pedestrian tracking in confined areas which is based on a combined use of a stereo vision tracking system and a set of sensors available on a mobile platform. This platform is a hands-free, sensory augmented, wearable computer, designed to support visits to museums and to archaeological sites. The system is going to be demonstrated within the framework of a Cultural Heritage application at the “Musei Universitari di Palazzo Poggi” in Bologna”.

Nowadays, many visual surveillance systems exploit pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) cameras to increase the field of view of a surveyed area. The background subtraction technique is widespread to detect moving objects with a high accuracy using one stationary camera. Extending such algorithms to work with moving cameras requires to have a background mosaic at one's disposal. Many solutions using mosaic background subtraction have been proposed, which offer real time capabilities or high quality of the detected objects. However, most of them rely on prior assumptions which limit the camera motion or the algorithm to work with a depth field of view only. In this work we propose some innovative solutions to achieve a real time mosaic background apt to work with existing background subtraction algorithms to yield excellent foreground object masks. Extensive experiments accomplished on challenging indoor and outdoor scenes permit to assess the quality of the mosaic as well as of the detected moving masks.

In this paper we present a new background generation algorithm and show experimental results aimed at assessing its performance comparatively with respect to two other representative approaches. The algorithm is able to extract a stationary background from a short bootstrap sequence in which moving objects can also be present. The method works with pixel-wise temporal statistics and consists of three subsequent stages. The first two try to isolate for each pixel the stationary background process from the possible foreground processes due to the moving objects covering the pixel, thus voting the background process temporal median as the good background value. The third stage completes the background generation by means of a non-parametric statistical model of the temporal camera noise, inferred from the statistics computed in the previous stage.

We present a novel approach to the change detection problem based on a coarse-to-fine strategy. The basic idea consists in assigning to an efficient preliminary coarse-level detection the task to filter out the well known possible false changes (e.g., those due to camera noise and small displacements, or to scene illumination changes). This provides the subsequent fine-level detection with reliable supermasks of the true changed areas in the scene. In this way, the fine-level detection can "focus the attention" on limited parts of the frames, thus yielding remarkable advantages in terms of computational efficiency. Here, just a coarse-level detection algorithm based on background subtraction and on the concept of structure is presented, to stress that any pixel-level algorithm can be used afterwards and benefit in terms of robustness as well as of computational efficiency.

In this paper we present a change detection algorithm for grey level sequences based on the background subtraction technique, which achieves a good trade-off between time performance and detection quality. The basic idea consists in separating the background process into a deterministic background process and a stochastic camera noise process. The assumption that statistics of the camera noise for a pixel only depends on its current grey level allows to infer a nonparametric statistical camera noise model once and for all arising from a short bootstrap sequence. Hence, 256 couples of lower and upper deterministic thresholds are extracted, to be used in the background subtraction step. While the deterministic nature of the background model as well as of the thresholds lead to an efficient algorithm, utilising 256 couples of different thresholds results in a very sensitive detection. Experimental results allow to assess both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the method we devised.

Placenta accreta refers to any abnormally invasive placental implantation. Diagnosis is suspected postpartum with failed delivery of a retained placenta. Massive obstetrical hemorrhage is a known complication, often requiring peripartum hysterectomy. The authors report a case of placenta accreta in a primiparous patient with multinodular leiofibromyomatosis of the uterus following failed manual removals of a retained placenta. They describe a conservative management in a stable patient desiring future fertility with a unilateral prophylactic uterine artery embolization, a multidose regimen of methotrexate, and a subsequent abdominal myomectomy.

Surveillance is one of the most promising applications for wireless sensor networks, stimulated by a confluence of simultaneous advances in key disciplines: computer vision, image sensors, embedded computing, energy harvesting, and sensor networks. However, computer vision typically requires notable amounts of computing performance, a considerable memory footprint and high power consumption. Thus, wireless smart cameras pose a challenge to current hardware capabilities in terms of low-power consumption and high imaging performance. For this reason, wireless surveillance systems still require considerable amount of research in different areas such as mote architectures, video processing algorithms, power management, energy harvesting and distributed engine. In this paper, we introduce a multimodal wireless smart camera equipped with a pyroelectric infrared sensor and solar energy harvester. The aim of this work is to achieve the following goals: 1) combining local processing, low power hardware design, power management and energy harvesting to develop a low-power, low-cost, power-aware, and self-sustainable wireless video sensor node for video processing on board; 2) develop an energy efficient smart camera with high accuracy abandoned/removed object detection capability. The efficiency of our approach is demonstrated by experimental results in terms of power consumption and video processing accuracy as well as in terms of self-sustainability. Finally, simulation results show how perpetual work can be achieved in an outdoor scenario within a typical video surveillance application dealing with abandoned/removed object detection.

The development of smart electricity grids represents one of the most important topics in the European energy strategy. Enel Distribuzione designed a high performance, reliable and secure smart grid that will be carried out in the south of Italy and tested under real operating conditions within the Isernia Project, which aims at implementing innovative solutions to optimally regulate the bi-directional energy flow on the Medium Voltage distribution networks while integrating Distributed Energy Resources. In this context, consumers will be involved in “Enel Info+”, a large scale trial of the “Enel smart info” device, that sets out to increase understanding and control of their own usage of energy as a first step towards “Active Demand”: providing electricity consumers with information on their consumption and the ability to actively manage it in line with the network conditions, such that modifications in consumer demand become a viable option for addressing challenges of electricity systems like the increase of efficiency and reliability, infrastructure planning and investments deferral. Most of the times, end users are not really aware of the actual power consumption of their home appliances and how effective it would be to change the way they make use of electricity for their domestic activities towards sustainable lifestyle. Integrating energy monitoring technologies and easy to use interfaces in the consumers' houses can lead to economic benefits helping them to improve their knowledge and control over their energy use. Enel smart info has been designed to provide end users with the certified information on electricity consumptions managed by the electronic smart meter, addressing more efficient behaviors while enabling further integration of smart home appliances and the participation to demand response programs. It can be plugged in every domestic socket to start data collection from the smart meter through powerline. End devices (e.g. display or pc) can be connected using two dedicated USB plugs in order to enable consumers to view how much electricity is currently being used and to process the preceding load curves. Moreover, the use of a wireless (e.g. ZigBee) USB dongle makes communication with domestic appliances easier. A monitoring kit including Enel smart info, a dedicated display and two software applications (to monitor, collect and analyze consumption data by pc and Smartphone) will be supplied to a representative sample of families of Low Voltage end users participating to the trial “Enel Info+”, whose consumes will be observed for the whole duration of the project and compared with the previous ones. Besides, a “control group” of consumers who will not receive the kit will be selected and monitored, to verify that to the use of Enel smart info is actually responsible for any change in the load curves. In-depth qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys will be carried out among an appropriate representative sample of families participating to the trial and among the control group likewise. The collected data will be used to analyze the actual awareness, understanding and attitude towards energy and its use, while estimating the effect of the proposed monitoring technologies.. (4 pages)

Background: Most of the heritable risk of glioma is presently unaccounted for by mutations in known genes. In addition to rare inactivating germline mutations in TP53 causing glioma in the context of the Li-Fraumeni syndrome, polymorphic variation in TP53 may also contribute to the risk of developing glioma. Methods: To comprehensively evaluate the impact of variation in TP53 on risk, we analysed 23 tagSNPs and imputed 2377 unobserved genotypes in four series totaling 4147 glioma cases and 7435 controls. Results: The strongest validated association signal was shown by the imputed single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs78378222 (P = 6.86 x 10(-24), minor allele frequency similar to 0.013). Confirmatory genotyping confirmed the high quality of the imputation. The association between rs78378222 and risk was seen for both glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and non- GBM tumours. We comprehensively examined the relationship between rs78378222 and overall survival in two of the case series totaling 1699 individuals. Despite employing statistical tests sensitive to the detection of differences in early survival, no association was shown. Conclusion: Our data provided strong validation of rs78378222 as a risk factor for glioma but do not support the tenet that the polymorphism being a clinically useful prognostic marker. Acquired TP53 inactivation is a common feature of glioma. As rs78378222 changes the polyadenylation signal of TP53 leading to impaired 3'-end processing of TP53 mRNA, the SNP has strong plausibility for being directly functional contributing to the aetiological basis of glioma.

A model for the solution structure of horse heart ferrocytochrome c has been determined by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy combined with hybrid distance geometry-simulated annealing calculations. Forty-four highly refined structures were obtained using a total of 1940 distance constraints based on the observed magnitude of nuclear Overhauser effects and 85 torsional angle restraints based on the magnitude of determined J-coupling constants. The all-residue root mean square deviation about the average structure is 0.47 +/- 0.09 A for the backbone N, C alpha, and C' atoms and 0.91 +/- 0.07 A for all heavy atoms. The overall topology of the model for solution structure is very similar to that seen in previously reported models for crystal structures of homologous c-type cytochromes. However, a detailed comparison between the model for the solution structure and the available model for the crystal structure of tuna ferrocytochrome c indicates significant differences in a number of secondary and tertiary structural features. For example, two of the three main helices display 3(10) to alpha-helical transitions resulting in bifurcation of main-chain hydrogen bond acceptor carbonyls. The N- and C-terminal helices are tightly packed and display several interhelical interactions not seen in previously reported models. The geometry of heme ligation is well-defined and completely consistent with the crystal structures of homologous cytochromes c as are the locations of four of six structural water molecules. Though the total solvent-accessible surface area of the protoporphyrin ring is similar to that seen in crystal studies of tuna ferrocytochrome c, the distribution is somewhat different. This is mainly due to a difference in packing of residues Phe-82 and Ile-81 such that Ile-81 crosses the edge of the heme in the solution structure. These and other observations help to explain a range of physical and biological data spanning the redox properties, folding, molecular recognition, and stability of the protein.