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Background Computed tomography (CT) of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease depicts the extent of lung involvement in COVID-19 pneumonia. Purpose The aim of the study was to determine the value of quantification of the well-aerated lung obtained at baseline chest CT for determining prognosis in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. Materials and Methods Patients who underwent chest CT suspected for COVID-19 pneumonia at the emergency department admission between February 17 to March 10, 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients with negative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2 in nasal-pharyngeal swabs, negative chest CT, and incomplete clinical data were excluded. CT was analyzed for quantification of well aerated lung visually (%V-WAL) and by open-source software (%S-WAL and absolute volume, VOL-WAL). Clinical parameters included demographics, comorbidities, symptoms and symptom duration, oxygen saturation and laboratory values. Logistic regression was used to evaluate relationship between clinical parameters and CT metrics versus patient outcome (ICU admission/death vs. no ICU admission/ death). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was calculated to determine model performance. Results The study included 236 patients (females 59/123, 25%; median age, 68 years). A %V-WAL

Robotic structures that couple autonomous surface vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles in integrated systems with various levels of cooperation provide interesting solutions to the problem of developing efficient, versatile and cost effective tools for exploration, monitoring and exploitation of the underwater environment. In this paper we describe the development and preliminary field testing of an autonomous surface vehichle that can automatically track, deploy and recover a small remotely operated vehicle, which is guided from a shore-ground station. This goal is achieved by exploiting two-ways transmission of data and commands through the umbilical and a wireless link with a shore-ground station. In this way, pilots can experiment telepresence in the underwater environment, avoiding the need of expensive and logistically demanding manned supply vessel. The vehicle is a small aluminum hull boat, equipped with a steering outboard electric motor. A multi-agent system in the ROS framework is proposed for the robotic structure. The use of commercial-off-the-shelf components and the choice of a multi-agent ROS architecture are a mean to reduce costs and to assure performances, modularity and versatility. Field tests in both supervised and autonomous guidance mode have been performed in order to assess the basic functionalities of the system and their results are illustrated and discussed.

The following paper presents the design and fabrication of an ostraciiform swimming robot and its navigation control and guidance system. Compared to other biomimetic vehicles, the chosen architecture has a lower propulsive efficiency but is easier to waterproof and capable to withstand greater pressures. To generate the alternating motion of the robot bio-inspired thruster, namely a plane fin, a transmission system was designed to replace the direct drive widely adopted in underwater biomimetic vehicles. The mechanical efficiency of two alternative mechanisms capable to actuate the fin were computed according to a preliminary sizing of the robot and its targeted swimming performances. Therefore, the more suitable solution was manufactured and installed aboard. At the same time, a proper navigation, guidance and control architecture (NGC) was designed and then integrated in the robot main controller. The proposed solution allows the vehicle to perform different missions autonomously once their profiles are received from the base station. Preliminary tests results and future works are discussed in the final conclusions.

In the last decade, the underwater activities performed by archaeologists and biologists have benefited from scientific research on the guidance, control, and sensory systems of unmanned vehicles. In fact, because underwater sites of interest are often difficult for divers to access, the use of unmanned vehicle technology to conduct surveys could be quite advantageous. In this paper, a novel and partially-biomimetic underwater robot, referred to as BRAVe (Biomimetic Research Autonomous Vehicle), is presented. For documentation purposes, it is equipped with a hybrid propulsion system, which consists of two different types of thrusters. The thrusters are designed to compensate for their reciprocal flaws in order to achieve a more efficient overall system. Specifically, the biomimetic thruster is employed for its superior energetic efficiency, and the horizontal propellers are exploited for accurate maneuvering. While the documentation and 3D reconstruction of the underwater seabed is a consolidated aspect for the authors, the hybrid propulsion system represents the main innovation of the present work. The increase in efficiency achieved by this propulsion system allows the vehicle to perform a thorough and precise documentation of underwater remains within short distances, while exploiting the maximum possible autonomy. This article discusses the details of the development of all the vehicle compartments and their associated characteristics, focusing on the significance of this technology. In addition, the results of 3D reconstructions extrapolated from images taken during real field missions are presented.

Major adverse events, like an earthquake, trigger different kinds of emotional dysfunctions or psychiatric disorders in the exposed subjects. Recent literature has also shown that exposure to natural disasters can increase threat detection. In particular, we previously found a selective enhancement in the ability to read emotional facial expressions in L’Aquila earthquake witnesses, suggesting hypervigilance to stimuli signaling a threat. In light of previous neuroimaging data showing that trauma exposure is related to derangement of resting-state brain activity, in the present study we investigated the neurofunctional changes related to the recognition of emotional faces in L’Aquila earthquake witnesses. Specifically, we tested the relationships between accuracy in recognizing facial expressions and activity of the visual network (VN) and of the default-mode network (DMN). Resting-state functional connectivity (FC) with the main hub of the VN (primary, ventral, right-dorsal, and left-dorsal visual cortices) and DMN (posterior cingulate/precuneus, medial prefrontal, and right and left inferior parietal cortices) was investigated through a seed-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis in both earthquake-exposed subjects and non-exposed persons who did not live in an earthquake-affected area. The results showed that, in earthquake-exposed subjects, there is a significant reduction in the correlation between accuracy in recognizing facial expressions and the FC of the dorsal seed of the VN with the right inferior occipito-temporal cortex and the left lateral temporal cortex, and of two parietal seeds of DMN, i.e., lower parietal and medial prefrontal cortex, with the precuneus bilaterally. These findings suggest that a functional modification of brain systems involved in detecting and interpreting emotional faces may represent the neurophysiological basis of the specific “emotional expertise” observed in the earthquake witnesses.

The development of versatile and cost effective robotic tools for exploration and intervention in the underwater environment is presently a topic of interest in marine engineering. A viable, efficient solution is given by robotic platform that couple autonomous surface vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles in integrated structures with various levels of cooperation. In this paper, we describe a number of field tests on the surface component of a robotic platform consisting of an autonomous surface vehicle that can automatically deploy and recover a small remotely operated vehicle. The aim of the tests are to assess the main functionality of the navigation, guidance and control system of the vehicle in relation to basic navigation tasks, both in supervised and in fully autonomous mode. In particular, in order to assure cooperation with the deployed remotely operated vehicle, the ability to track a target is considered.

Cardiovascular disease is still one of the main causes of death and an early identification of coronary artery disease (CAD) remains the primary step in clinical management of patients with cardiovascular risk factor. Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) has shown high sensitivity in CAD detection and could be helpful as screening method. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of coronary artery disease detected by CCTA in asymptomatic patients with an intermediate risk of CAD. We retrospectively selected 185 asymptomatic patients with an intermediate Framingan Risk Score (mean age was 62.3 ± 12.4 years); all patients underwent CCTA, using 640-slice CT. Atherosclerotic plaques were present in 112 out of 185 patients (60.5%); 56 subjects (30.2%) had mild stenosis, 49 (26.5%) moderate stenosis, only 3 patients (1.6%) had severe stenosis and in 4 cases (2.2%) the “blooming effect” did not allow for evaluation of the degree of stenosis. Among the positive cases, a high number of patients (44.6%) [50] showed coronary artery disease in one vessel, 33 patients (29.4%) in two vessels, 22 patients (19.6%) in three vessels and 5 patients in four vessels or more (4.5%). Patients with moderate stenosis were older, had hypertension in most cases, higher total cholesterol levels and more often were smokers. The radiation dose (mSv) dispensed to the patients was 3.7 ± 1.6 mSv. High prevalence of coronary stenosis detected by low-dose CCTA in patients not properly classified by the traditional methods of risk stratification commonly used in clinical practice emphasizes the need to extend the risk stratification to other diagnostic tools with higher capability to detect CAD.

Marine researchers need consistent historical and georeferenced data from the marine environment in order to constantly monitor the biological condition of the habitat or to document delicate archeological sites. To overcome the difficulties related to the acquisition of high quantity of worthy data and to the accurate estimation of the position, the development of easy-to-use IT tools could certainly help. This article aims to present a tool that can equip different type of underwater vehicles capable of estimating its position during his surveys using its on-board sensors and with the aid of an external buoy. The estimation algorithm is based on the UKF technique and some preliminary simulation results of its performances are presented.

In order to obtain robust and measurable data from the marine environment citizen science projects need user friendly tools that during dives autonomously gather information in an easy low cost and integrated way Data collected from different devices and by different untrained divers must have good estimation of the position where the information has been acquired With this goal in the context of the Green Bubbles project a novel platform called DocuScooter has been designed and developed DocuScooter implements all the algorithms to filter and merge data with correct timestamp and position preparing the complete mission report After the mission the diver can upload the report on an appropriate web service to produce a D documentation In order to obtain the underwater position during the dive a tailored device compatible with the platform is also presented Result of the prototype of the platform and the first results of the position estimation algorithm are presented and discussed

To evaluate the pathological changes of the lumbar spine and the instability of the lumbar intervertebral joints observed in patients with low back pain, with the study of the transition from supine to orthostatic position through the use of dedicated MRI-G-scan machine. Within 10 years, 4305 patients, aged between 21 and 80 years old, with history of low back pain with or without sciatica, underwent MRI examinations in upright and in supine position. The open MRI-scanner used is Esaote G-scan, which enables the acquisition of images in supine and standing positions. The used sequences were sagittal T2-weighted FSE, T1-weighted SE and axial 3D HYCE. Patients were divided into two groups: “negatives”, with no changes in the two positions (supine and upright), and “positives”, with MRI modifications of imaging in upright position. Orthostatic examination showed MRI changes in 2870 out of 4305 (66.6 %) patients, including 1252 males and 1618 females. The G-scan is useful to assess instability of the lumbar spine detecting hidden modifications of protrusions and/or herniated discs already present in the supine position. It is also helpful in assessing the presence or modification of spondylolisthesis and lumbar canal stenosis.

This work describes a multi-agent Navigation Guidance and Control system that is designed to equipping a low-cost ASV. Beside facilitating design, construction and maintenance, the multi-agent structure gives modularity and it increases reliability against partial failures. Individual agents are implemented using ROS and a dedicated, custom developed hardware board that couples an ARM processor and a microcontroller. This hybrid hardware architecture has the advantage of providing high computational capability and easy interfacing with sensors and actuators. Some results about testing and validating the NGC system are presented and discussed.