A structured framework for optimizing high-intensity focused ultrasound ablative treatment in localized prostate cancer

Daniele Castellani,Alessandro Branchi,Redi Claudini,Luca Gasparri,Tiziana Pierangeli,Elena Ravasi,Marco Dellabella 대한비뇨의학회 2019 Investigative and Clinical Urology Vol.60 No.4

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment has recently been pursued to reduce radical treatment-related morbidity in low-to-intermediate-risk localized prostate cancer (PCa), especially in older men. The aim of this study was to develop a dedicated framework for HIFU therapy. All clinical data, such as risk categories, magnetic resonance with functional parametric imaging, and histopathology, are essential for driving proper HIFU treatment. All needed data can be added to the framework to localize areas that need to be treated. Once PCa areas have been featured, quantified, and located, planning can be adapted to drive accurate HIFU treatment. Our planning framework may be useful for all ablative therapies in order to standardize treatment for both clinical and scientific purposes.

In Vitro Anticollagenase and Antielastase Activities of Essential Oil of Helichrysum italicum subsp. italicum (Roth) G. Don

Daniele Fraternale,Guido Flamini,Roberta Ascrizzi 한국식품영양과학회 2019 Journal of medicinal food Vol.22 No.10

The chemical composition of the essential oil of flowering aerial parts of Helichrysum italicum subsp. italicum cultivated in central Italy, Marche region, was analyzed by means of gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Seventy-eight components, accounting for 98.71% of the whole essential oil composition, were identified and quantified. Neryl acetate showed the largest relative abundance in the composition, accounting for 15.75% of the oil, followed by α-pinene (8.21%); 4,6,9-trimethyl-8-decene-3,5-dione, (Italidione I), (7.34%); ar-curcumene and β-selinene (5.37%); γ-curcumene (4.83%); nerol (4.75%); α-selinene (4.68%); limonene (4.55%); linalool (4.42%), and 2,4,6,9-tetramethyl-8-decene-3,5-dione (Italidione II), (4.26%). The oil inhibited in vitro collagenase and elastase activities, with IC50 values of 36.99 ± 1.52 and 135.43 ± 6.32 μg/mL, respectively. Neryl acetate, nerol, and linalool, distinctive compounds of the oil obtained from this plant, tested alone or in mixture, at the same percentages shown in the essential oil, exhibited no activity against the two enzymes. On the contrary, α-pinene and limonene, tested alone and in mixture, showed inhibitory activity on both collagenase and elastase.

Lens culinaris: A New Biocatalyst for Reducing Carbonyl and Nitro Groups

Daniele Alves Ferreira,Robério Costa da Silva,João Carlos da Costa Assunção,Marcos Carlos de Mattos,Telma Leda Gomes de Lemos,Francisco José Queiroz Monte 한국생물공학회 2012 Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering Vol.17 No.2

A series of aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes and ketones, as well as some nitrocompounds were reduced using whole plant cells from Lens culinaris seeds. In addition, we also investigated the possibility of enzymatic ester hydrolysis to explore the potential of these seeds. The reduced ketones products were obtained in yields of 8 ~82% and enantiomeric excess of 39 ~ 75%. Aldehydes were more reactive than ketones with high chemical yield (95→99%), whereas the aromatic nitrocompounds showed low (2%) to high (> 99%) conversion depending upon the nature and position of the aromatic ring substituents. Ester hydrolysis by the Lens culinaris was quite effective with the ester p-nitrophenyl acetate (> 99% conversion).

On the Asymptotic Accuracy of Reduced–Order Models

Daniele Casagrande,Wiesław Krajewski,Umberto Viaro 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2017 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.15 No.5

Popular model reduction methods can easily be adapted to retain the asymptotic response to inputs withrational transform. To this purpose, the forced response of the high-order system is decomposed into a transientand a steady-state component. Then, the reduced-order model is obtained by combining the unaltered steady-statecomponent with an approximation of the transient component. Examples show that forcing the reduced-order modelto retain the steady-state component does not compromise the transient accuracy.

Essential Oil Composition and Antimicrobial Activity of Angelica archangelica L. (Apiaceae) Roots

Daniele Fraternale,Guido Flamini,Donata Ricci 한국식품영양과학회 2014 Journal of medicinal food Vol.17 No.9

In this paper, the chemical composition and the antimicrobial activity of the essential oil of Angelica archangelica L. (Apiaceae) roots from central Italy were analyzed. The major constituents of the oil were a-pinene (21.3%), d-3-carene (16.5%), limonene (16.4%) and a-phellandrene (8.7%). The oil shows a good antimicrobial activity against Clostridium difficile, Clostridium perfringens, Enterococcus faecalis, Eubacterium limosum, Peptostreptococcus anaerobius, and Candida albicans with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 0.25, 0.25, 0.13, 0.25, 2.25, and 0.50% v/v, respectively. A weaker antimicrobial activity against bifidobacteria and lactobacilli—very useful in the intestinal microflora—has also been shown with MIC values > 4.0% v/v.

Soilless tomato grown under nutritional stress increases green biomass but not yield or quality in presence of biochar as growing medium

Daniele Massa,Alessandra Bonetti,Sonia Cacini,Cecilia Faraloni,Domenico Prisa,Lorenza Tuccio,Raff aella Petruccelli 한국원예학회 2019 Horticulture, Environment, and Biotechnology Vol.60 No.6

Biochar has been reported to improve soil fertility and growing medium performance. However, the role that biochar plays in plant nutrition is not completely understood, especially in plants grown under nutritional stress. Recent research indicates that the addition of biochar increases produce yield of tomato grown under salinity stress and drought; however, little information is available about the effects of biochar on fruit quality parameters. The use of biochar as a growth substrate in an intensive greenhouse cropping system may have the capacity of replacing non-renewable and less sustainable growing media like peat and in addition being a strategy to optimize chemical fertilisation. This work aimed to investigate the effects of biochar, as a potential candidate to replace peat, on tomato growing in soilless conditions under nutritional stress. Plant biomass accumulation, leaf fluorescence and chlorophyll, fruit yield and fruit quality parameters were measured as performance indicators. Biochar increased the green biomass, but it did not significantly affect yield or most quality parameters, apart from potassium content in ripe fruits. These results suggest that biochar has great potential as a peat alternative material and plant growth promoter, but no ability to improve tomato yield, under nutritional stress.

On site monitoring during nearby drilling operations toward a geothermal power system installation

Daniele Bortoluzzi,Sara Casciati,Lucia Faravelli,Matteo Francolini 국제구조공학회 2022 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.30 No.3

Among the approaches to the production of "green" energy, geothermal power systems are becoming quite popular in Europe. Their installation in existing buildings requires an extended, external pipes appendix and its laying operation needs a drilling activities nearby structural skeletons often designed to support static loads only, especially when ancient buildings are targeted. This contribution reports and discusses the experimental results achieved within a specific case study within the European project GEOFIT. In particular, standard accelerometric measurements in and nearby a single-story reinforced concrete building are collected and analysed in the absence of drilling (<i>pre-drilling</i>) and during drilling activities (<i>drilling phase</i>) to monitor the structure response to the external source of vibrations related to the excavations phase. The target is to outline automatic guidelines toward installations preventing from any sort of structural damage.

Irrelevant Endoleak after Multilayer Stent Treatment for an Iliac Artery Aneurysm

Daniele Bissacco,Fabio Massimo Calliari,Marco Piercarlo Viani 대한혈관외과학회 2020 Vascular Specialist International Vol.36 No.4

Space-Time Discretization of Hyperbolic Equations with Variable Collocation Points

Daniele Funaro 한국산업응용수학회 2005 한국산업응용수학회 학술대회 논문집 Vol.- No.-

In the field of scalar hyperbolic equations, we take into consideration the idea of building numerical schemes using two grids: the first one to represent the solution and the second one to collocate the equation. This approach is based on the experience already gained in the approximation of boundary-value elliptic-type problems (see for instance [1]), as well as in the field of functional or integral-type equations (see [2]). In order to show that the same approach can be used with success also for time-dependent problems, we study finite-difference approximations of first-order scalar hyperbolic equation in one space dimension. The representation grid is the usual uniform grid in the space-time plane. The discrete values of the solution are then assumed to be computed on a six-points stencil of such a representation grid. The approximating equations are deduced after collocation at a new point inside the stencil. It turns out that the possibility of varying the collocation point, gives a lot of freedom in the construction of the approximation method. First of all, this allows for the rediscovery of old methods and their critical analysis from a different point of view. Secondly, we have now the chance, by establishing a suitable relation between the representation and the collocation grids, to introduce new methods. Since the position of the collocation point (two degrees of freedom) characterizes the approximation scheme, we can come out with a wide family of finite-difference methods based on the six-points stencil. There will be actually three parameters after introducing another coefficient v related to numerical viscosity. This family includes most of the classical linear schemes (implicit or explicit) for hyperbolic equations, such as the Crank-Nicolson or the Lax-Wendroff methods. The results of a stability and consistency analysis are given and numerical examples show the performances of the different methods according to the choice of the parameters. We discuss experiments for some linear conservation laws. The problem of the determination of the parameters providing the best approximation is also addressed. In order to show that the idea can be adapted to more complicated problems, we also discuss some experiments for the non-linear Burgers equation. Generalizations to higher order methods (based on a larger stencil), or to different numerical techniques, can be, in principle, also taken into account. It is evident from the experiments that the qualitative behavior of the approximated solutions is quite sensitive to the choice of the parameters, so that, further theoretical improvements may concern with the detection of the "right way" to choose the parameters. This question has not unique answer, since it involves too many different aspects, such as the elimination of the oscillations, the preservation of the numerical accuracy far from the discontinuities, the minimization of the artificial viscosity, etc.

Redundancy Resolution Scheme for Manipulators Subject to Inequality Constraints

Daniele Proietti Pagnotta,Andrea Monteriù,Alessandro Freddi,Sauro Longhi,Anthony Maciejewski 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2023 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.21 No.2

The aim of this paper is the development of a redundancy resolution scheme for manipulators able to cope with kinematic constraints. In detail, the structure of the controller is of weighted least norm (WLN) type. The constraints are modeled as unilateral inequalities and can be general scalar functions (linear or nonlinear) of both the joint position and the joint velocity variables. In this work, a general procedure is proposed in order to include constraints of different types, namely functions of joint position or velocity only, functions of both joint position and velocity with a time dependent or time independent threshold. Simulations are performed in Matlab-Simulink environment and two tests are performed: the first employs a single 7-DOF arm, while in the second a dual-arm system composed of two 7-DOF manipulators is used. Results show that the proposed redundancy resolution scheme is capable of satisfying complex inequality constraints where other known methods fail.