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Electric production data of a grid-connected hybrid system are presented. The system consists of a photovoltaic generator, a wind micro-generator in the presence (HPWBS) or absence (HPWS) of an electric storage system. In such a system, the power generated by RES (renewable energy sources) is sent directly to balance the load. A residential use has been analysed in warm climate.The analysis has been carried out by TRNSYS 17 (Transient System Simulation) software and the mathematical modelling and the energy balance of the system have been shown in Mazzeo et al. (2018).The annual energy performance has been evaluated, in terms of dimensionless balance of the generated energy and dimensionless balance of the energy required by the load, for 375 hybrid system configurations. These configurations were obtained by varying the photovoltaic power, the wind power and the battery storage capacity, considering different hourly average daily values of the load.

A numerical investigation of transonic and low-supersonic flows of dense gases of the Bethe?Zel'dovich?Thompson (BZT) type is presented. BZT gases exhibit, in a range of thermodynamic conditions close to the liquid/vapour coexistence curve, negative values of the fundamental derivative of gasdynamics. This can lead, in the transonic and supersonic regime, to non-classical gasdynamic behaviours, such as rarefaction shock waves, mixed shock/fan waves and shock splitting. In the present work, inviscid and viscous flows of a BZT fluid past an airfoil are investigated using accurate thermo-physical models for gases close to saturation conditions and a third-order centred numerical method. The influence of the upstream kinematic and thermodynamic conditions on the flow patterns and the airfoil aerodynamic performance is analysed, and possible advantages deriving from the use of a non-conventional working fluid are pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tinnitus, defined as the conscious awareness of a noise without any identifiable corresponding external acoustic source, can be modulated by various factors. Among these factors, tinnitus patients commonly report drastic increases of tinnitus loudness following nap sleep. Previous studies have suggested that this clinical pattern could be attributed to a somatosensory modulation of tinnitus. To our knowledge, no polysomnographic study has been carried out to assess this hypothesis., Methods: For this observational prospective study, 37 participants reporting frequent increases of tinnitus following naps were recruited. They participated to six full-polysomnography nap attempts over two days. Audiological and kinesiologic tests were conducted before and after each nap attempt., Results: 197 naps were collected. Each nap at each time of day elicited an overall significant increase in tinnitus minimum masking level (MML). Each inter nap period elicited an overall significant decrease. Tinnitus modulations were found significantly correlated with nap sleep duration (Visual numeric scale on tinnitus loudness, VNS-L, p < 0.05), with snoring duration (MML, p < 0.001), with snoring average sound level (VNS on tinnitus intrusiveness, VNS-I, p < 0.05) and with sleep apnea count (VNS-I, p < 0.001)., Conclusions: This study confirms objectively that tinnitus may increase following naps. No association was found between these modulations and somatosensory modulations involving the temporomandibular joint and cervical areas. However, it may be possible that nap-induced tinnitus modulations are a hidden form of somatosensory modulation as snoring and sleep apnea events are often related to tensor veli palatini muscle dysfunction., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest Damien Léger declares that in the past 5 years he has been employed as an investigator or a con-sultant by Actellion-Idorsia, the Agence Spatiale Européenne, Bioprojet, iSommeil, ESAI, Jan-senn, Jazz, Vanda, Merck, Philips, Rythm, Sanofi, Vitalaire, and Resmed. Robin Guillard declares that he is shareholder and president in Siopi SAS, and has a professional activity as independent as Robin Guillard EIRL. The other authors did not declare financial interests., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Psoriasis is a chronic, immune-mediated, inflammatory skin disease, associated with multiple comorbidities and psychological and psychiatric disorders. The quality of life of patients with this disease is severely compromised, especially in moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Secukinumab, a fully humanized monoclonal antibody, was the first anti-interleukin (IL)-17 biologic approved for treating psoriasis. Secukinumab demonstrated long-lasting efficacy and a good safety profile in individuals with plaque psoriasis, and it is associated with an improvement in health-related quality of life. While there is evidence that early treatment with systemic therapy can affect disease progression and improve long-term outcomes in other autoimmune diseases, evidence is limited in psoriasis, especially in real-world settings. This review provides an overview of studies describing the effectiveness of secukinumab in the treatment of psoriasis summarizing the literature and focusing on real-world evidence and early intervention., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The influence of naps on tinnitus was systematically assessed by exploring the frequency, clinical and demographic characteristics of this phenomenon. 9,724 data from two different tinnitus databases (Tinnitus Hub: n = 6115; Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI): n = 3627) were included. After separate analysis of the databases, these results were then compared with each other. In the Tinnitus Hub survey database, a total of 31.1% reported an influence on tinnitus by taking a nap (26.9% in the TRI database), with much more frequent worsening after a nap than improvement (23.0% a little or a lot worse; TRI: 17.7% worse; 8.1% a little or a lot better; TRI: 9.2% better). The influence of napping on tinnitus was associated in both databases with other clinical features, such as the dependence of tinnitus on night quality, stress and somatosensory maneuvers. The present study confirms the clinical observation that more tinnitus sufferers report worsening after a nap than tinnitus sufferers reporting an improvement. It was consistently shown that tinnitus sufferers reporting nap-induced modulation of tinnitus also report more frequently an influence of night sleep on their tinnitus. Further clinical and polysomnographic research is warranted to better understand the interaction between sleep and tinnitus., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Introduction: We present an unusual case of a 28-year-old rheumatologic male patient who developed eosinophilia while he was on etanercept therapy first and then on golimumab., Case Representation: Although eosinophilia is rarely reported in the literature as a side-effect of various Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha [TNF-alpha] antagonists, it represents a riddle about the future treatments of these patients since the persistence of therapy might lead to the onset of dermatologic or visceral eosinophilic complications in such patients., Conclusion: Furthermore, the pathogenesis of eosinophilia is still unknown, and all the proposed hypotheses do not explain the eosinophilic proliferation in certain subjects., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

Objective : Current efforts to build reliable brain-computer interfaces (BCI) span multiple axes from hardware, to software, to more sophisticated experimental protocols, and personalized approaches. However, despite these abundant efforts, there is still room for significant improvement. We argue that a rather overlooked direction lies in linking BCI protocols with recent advances in fundamental neuroscience. Approach : In light of these advances, and particularly the characterization of the burst-like nature of beta frequency band activity and the diversity of beta bursts, we revisit the role of beta activity in 'left vs. right hand' motor imagery (MI) tasks. Current decoding approaches for such tasks take advantage of the fact that MI generates time-locked changes in induced power in the sensorimotor cortex and rely on band-passed power changes in single or multiple channels. Although little is known about the dynamics of beta burst activity during MI, we hypothesized that beta bursts should be modulated in a way analogous to their activity during performance of real upper limb movements. Main results and Significance : We show that classification features based on patterns of beta burst modulations yield decoding results that are equivalent to or better than typically used beta power across multiple open electroencephalography datasets, thus providing insights into the specificity of these bio-markers., (© 2024 IOP Publishing Ltd.)

Background: Hereby, we describe the first case of latent mastocytosis triggered by mRNA-based vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection., Case Presentation: In a 42-year-old Arabian man affected by slight, undiagnosed mastocytosis, the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine made more blatant his latent disease. The postvaccination diagnostic iter is illustrated and the potential reasons causing the onset of the cutaneous mastocytosis are discussed., Conclusion: Clinicians should keep a longer follow-up of their patients after the COVID-19 vaccination, not related to few hours, for the risk of immediate-type adverse events only., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

Background and Objectives: Non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSCs) include basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous-cell carcinoma (SCC), as well as a wide range of rare skin tumors. NMSCs is the most frequently diagnosed type of tumor among Caucasians. We aimed at estimating the incidence and mortality of NMSCs in the Salento area (Lecce province, Southern Italy), whose population is assumed to experience heavy and frequent sun exposure due to climatic/environmental factors, both for working and leisure activities., Materials and Methods: We computed the incidence of NMSCs in the Province of Lecce by examining the comprehensive real-world data collected by the local cancer registry, which covers all the 830,000 inhabitants, over a period of fifteen years (from 2003 to 2017), with a focus on the latest 5 years (2013-2017) for the analysis of the different histologic morphologies of these tumors. The incidence of NMSCs has been described in terms of absolute frequencies, crude rates and age-adjusted direct standardized rates (DSR). Joinpoint analysis was used to examine temporal trends in the incidence of NMSCs and estimate annual percent changes (APCs)., Results: During the period of 2003-2017, the incidence of NMSCs reached a direct standardized rate (DSR) of 162.62 per 100,000 in men (mortality 1.57 per 100,000) and 89.36 per 100,000 in women (mortality 0.52 per 100,000), respectively. The incidence significantly increased among both men and women across the entire period. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC), with its different morphologies, represented about 67.6% of the NMSCs in men ( n = 2139 out of a total of 3161 tumors observed between 2013 and 2017) and about 75.8% of the NMSCs in women ( n = 1718 out of a total of 2264 tumors from 2013 to 2017), thus accounting for the vast majority of NMSCs. The results are consistent with the literature data carried out both at national and international level., Conclusions: Proper monitoring of this phenomenon through timely reporting and recording of all new NMSC cases is necessary to develop new preventive strategies.

This article presents a new transfer learning method named group learning, that jointly aligns multiple domains (many-to-many) and an extension named fast alignment that aligns any further domain to previously aligned group of domains (many-to-one). The proposed group alignment algorithm (GALIA) is evaluated on brain-computer interface (BCI) data and optimal hyper-parameter values of the algorithm are studied for classification performance and computational cost. Six publicly available P300 databases comprising 333 sessions from 177 subjects are used. As compared to the conventional subject-specific train/test pipeline, both group learning and fast alignment significantly improve the classification accuracy except for the database with clinical subjects (average improvement: 2.12±1.88%). GALIA utilizes cyclic approximate joint diagonalization (AJD) to find a set of linear transformations, one for each domain, jointly aligning the feature vectors of all domains. Group learning achieves a many-to-many transfer learning without compromising the classification performance on non-clinical BCI data. Fast alignment further extends the group learning for any unseen domains, allowing a many-to-one transfer learning with the same properties. The former method creates a single machine learning model using data from previous subjects and/or sessions, whereas the latter exploits the trained model for an unseen domain requiring no further training of the classifier.

Objectives: The heterogeneity of tinnitus in terms of etiology, presentation and sometimes severe impact on quality of life hinders treatment and clinical research. The European School for Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Research Screening Questionnaire (ESIT-SQ) collects standardized tinnitus characteristics for patient subtyping. A validated French translation of the ESIT-SQ is presented here., Method: On the initiative of the French Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Association (AFREPA), 3 translators (1 professional translator, 1 clinician and 1 researcher) were missioned to translate the English version of the ESIT-SQ into French, adhering to good practice guidelines. Nine patients were recruited with the help of the France-Acouphènes patient association, to test and validate the translation. Lastly, an exploratory survey of responses to the French questionnaire was conducted online via the Siopi mobile phone application., Results: The French translation of the ESIT-SQ was successfully validated. 105 patients responded to the exploratory survey, and their characteristics are presented here., Conclusion: This new validated French translation of the ESIT-SQ will enable epidemiological and clinical data to be collected in French-speaking populations, and thus compiled and compared with data collected with other versions of this questionnaire already published in other languages., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.. All rights reserved.)

(1) Background: Poor sleep and fragmented sleep are associated with several chronic conditions. Tinnitus is an auditory symptom that often negatively combines with poor sleep and has been associated with sleep impairment and sleep apnea. The relationship between tinnitus psychoacoustic characteristics and sleep is still poorly explored, notably for a particular subgroup of patients, for whom the perceived loudness of their tinnitus is highly modulated by sleep. (2) Methods: For this observational prospective study, 30 subjects with tinnitus were recruited, including 15 "sleep intermittent tinnitus" subjects, who had reported significant modulations of tinnitus loudness related to night sleep and naps, and a control group of 15 subjects displaying constant non-sleep-modulated tinnitus. The control group had matching age, gender, self-reported hearing loss grade and tinnitus impact on quality of life with the study group. All patients underwent a polysomnography (PSG) assessment for one complete night and then were asked to fill in a case report form, as well as a report of tinnitus loudness before and after the PSG. (3) Results: "Sleep Intermittent tinnitus" subjects had less Stage 3 sleep ( p < 0.01), less Rapid-Eye Movement (REM) Sleep ( p < 0.05) and more Stage 2 sleep ( p < 0.05) in proportion and duration than subjects from the control group. In addition, in the "sleep Intermittent tinnitus" sample, a correlation was found between REM sleep duration and tinnitus overnight modulation ( p < 0.05), as well as tinnitus impact on quality of life ( p < 0.05). These correlations were not present in the control group. (4) Conclusions: This study suggests that among the tinnitus population, patients displaying sleep-modulated tinnitus have deteriorated sleep quality. Furthermore, REM sleep characteristics may play a role in overnight tinnitus modulation. Potential pathophysiological explanations accounting for this observation are hypothesized and discussed.

The understanding of tinnitus has always been elusive and is largely prevented by its intrinsic heterogeneity. To address this issue, scientific research has aimed at defining stable and easily identifiable subphenotypes of tinnitus. This would allow better disentangling the multiple underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of tinnitus. In this study, three-dimensionality reduction techniques and two clustering methods were benchmarked on a database of 2772 tinnitus patients in order to obtain a reliable segmentation of subphenotypes. In this database, tinnitus patients' endotypes (i.e., parts of a population with a condition with distinct underlying mechanisms) are reported when diagnosed by an ENT expert in tinnitus management. This partial labeling of the dataset enabled the design of an original semi-supervised framework. The objective was to perform a benchmark of different clustering methods to get as close as possible to the initial ENT expert endotypes. To do so, two metrics were used: a primary one, the quality of the separation of the endotypes already identified in the database, as well as a secondary one, the stability of the obtained clusterings. The relevance of the results was finally reviewed by two ENT experts in tinnitus management. A 20-cluster clustering was selected as the best-performing, the most-clinically relevant, and the most-stable through bootstrapping. This clustering used a T-SNE method as the dimensionality reduction technique and a k-means algorithm as the clustering method. The characteristics of this clustering are presented in this article.

Worldwide, adrenaline is considered the first choice therapy in the international guidelines for the management of anaphylaxis. However, the heart and cardiovascular apparatus are strongly involved in anaphylaxis; for that reason, there are some cardiac conditions and certain anaphylaxis patterns that make epinephrine use problematic without adequate heart monitoring. The onset of Kounis syndrome, takotsubo cardiopathy, or the paradoxical anaphylaxis require great attention in the management of anaphylaxis and adrenaline administration by clinicians, who should be aware of the undervalued evolution of anaphylaxis and the potential cardiologic complications of epinephrine administration. Numerous case reports and studies describe the unexpected onset of cardiac diseases following epinephrine treatment, despite the latter being the recommended therapy for anaphylaxis. Our review suggests that future anaphylaxis guidelines should incorporate cardiovascular specialists since the treatment of Kounis syndrome or takotsubo cardiopathy requires cardiologist skills., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

Statistical variability of electroencephalography (EEG) between subjects and between sessions is a common problem faced in the field of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). Such variability prevents the usage of pre-trained machine learning models and requires the use of a calibration for every new session. This paper presents a new transfer learning (TL) method that deals with this variability. This method aims to reduce calibration time and even improve accuracy of BCI systems by aligning EEG data from one subject to the other in the tangent space of the positive definite matrices Riemannian manifold. We tested the method on 18 BCI databases comprising a total of 349 subjects pertaining to three BCI paradigms, namely, event related potentials (ERP), motor imagery (MI), and steady state visually evoked potentials (SSVEP). We employ a support vector classifier for feature classification. The results demonstrate a significant improvement of classification accuracy, as compared to a classical training-test pipeline, in the case of the ERP paradigm, whereas for both the MI and SSVEP paradigm no deterioration of performance is observed. A global 2.7% accuracy improvement is obtained compared to a previously published Riemannian method, Riemannian Procrustes Analysis (RPA). Interestingly, tangent space alignment has an intrinsic ability to deal with transfer learning for sets of data that have different number of channels, naturally applying to inter-dataset transfer learning., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Bleuzé, Mattout and Congedo.)

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common inflammatory skin disease often associated with a significant impairment in the quality of life of affected patients. The Italian Society of Dermatology and Venereology (SIDeMaST) planned a national information campaign, providing direct access to 27 dermatologic centers dedicated to the management of AD. The aim of this study aimed was to outline critical aspects related to AD in the general population. Overall, 643 adult subjects were included in this study, and in 44.2% (284/643) of cases, a diagnosis of AD was confirmed, whereas about 55% of subjects were affected by other pruritic cutaneous diseases. Higher intensity of pruritus and sleep disturbance, as well as an increased interference in sport, work, and social confidence was reported in the AD group compared to the non-AD group. In the AD subgroup, the mean duration of disease was of 15.3 years, with a mean eczema area and severity index (EASI) score of 11.2, and investigator global assessment (IGA) score of 1.9 and an itch numeric rating scale (NRS) of 6.9. Almost 32% of patients were untreated, either with topical or systemic agents, whereas 44.3% used routine topical compounds (topical corticosteroids and calcineurin inhibitors), and only 7.0% of patients were systemically treated. Only 2.8% of patients reported complete satisfaction with the treatment received for AD to date. This study reveals a profound unmet need in AD, showing a poorly managed and undertreated patient population despite a high reported burden of disease. This suggests the usefulness of information campaigns with the goal of improving patient awareness regarding AD and facilitating early diagnosis and access to dedicated healthcare institutions., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest related to this study.

Background: COVID-19 is a worldwide infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 and infects humans by binding to the ACE2 receptor. Blood group ABO glycoproteins can influence the binding of the virus to ACE2. The role of ABO blood system in the susceptibility to infection as well as in the clinical outcome of infected patients is still controversial and needs to be clarified., Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of 167 patients positive for SARS-CoV-2 who underwent nasopharyngeal swab, and of a control group represented by 891 subjects negative for SARS-CoV-2, to assess the association between ABO and Rh blood system and occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, clinical presentation, and outcome of disease., Results: In the cohort of patients positive for SARS-CoV-2, no statistically significant difference in the distribution of ABO blood types compared with controls was observed. Patients with blood type A had a higher risk of developing symptomatic disease (p = 0.002; odds ratio [OR = 3.592]; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.576-8.187) compared to patients with blood types B, AB, and O. Patients with blood types B (p = 0.021; OR = 0.293; 95%CI = 0.099-0.869) and O (p = 0.018; OR = 0.417; 95%CI = 0.199-0.871) showed a lower risk in comparison to the other groups. The clinical progression to mild/moderate and severe/critical disease and the mortality showed no association. Moreover, no relationship with Rh blood type was found., Conclusions: Our findings support a role of ABO blood type in the development of symptomatic disease with a higher risk in subjects with blood type A and a protective effect of blood types B and O. Blood types do not seem, however, to play a role in susceptibility, progression to severe disease, and death., (© 2021 British Blood Transfusion Society.)