1. |
- Burisch, Johan, et al.
(author)
-
Occurrence of anaemia in the first year of inflammatory bowel disease in a European population-based inception cohort : An ECCO-EpiCom study
- 2017
-
In: Journal of Crohn's & Colitis. - : Oxford University Press. - 1873-9946 .- 1876-4479. ; 11:10, s. 1213-1222
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background and aims: Anaemia is an important complication of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of anaemia and the practice of anaemia screening during the first year following diagnosis in a European prospective population-based inception cohort.Methods: Newly diagnosed IBD patients were included and followed prospectively for one year in 29 European and 1 Australian centre. Clinical data including demographics, medical therapy, surgery and blood samples were collected. Anaemia was defined according to the World Health Organization.Results: A total of 1,871 patients (CD: 686, 88%; UC: 1,021, 87%; IBDU 164. 81%) were included in the study. The prevalence of anaemia was higher in CD than in UC patients and overall, 49% of CD and 39% of UC patients had at least one instance of anaemia during the first 12 months after diagnosis. UC patients with more extensive disease and those from Eastern European countries, and CD patients with penetrating disease or colonic disease location, had higher risks of anaemia. CD and UC patients in need of none or only mild anti-inflammatory treatment had a lower risk of anaemia. In a significant proportion of patients, anaemia was not assessed until several months after diagnosis, and in almost half of all cases of anaemia a thorough work-up was not performed.Conclusions: Overall, 42% of patients had at least one instance of anaemia during the first year following diagnosis. Most patients were assessed for anaemia regularly; however, a full anaemia work-up was frequently neglected in this community setting.
|
|
2. |
- Castiglione, Luca Maria, et al.
(author)
-
Cooperative Intersection Crossing Over 5G
- 2021
-
In: IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. - 1558-2566 .- 1063-6692. ; 29:1, s. 303-317
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- IEEE Autonomous driving is a safety critical application of sensing and decision-making technologies. Communication technologies extend the awareness capabilities of vehicles, beyond what is achievable with the on-board systems only. Nonetheless, issues typically related to wireless networking must be taken into account when designing safe and reliable autonomous systems. The aim of this work is to present a control algorithm and a communication paradigm over 5G networks for negotiating traffic junctions in urban areas. The proposed control framework has been shown to converge in a finite time and the supporting communication software has been designed with the objective of minimizing communication delays. At the same time, the underlying network guarantees reliability of the communication. The proposed framework has been successfully deployed and tested, in partnership with Ericsson AB, at the AstaZero proving ground in Goteborg, Sweden. In our experiments, three heterogeneous autonomous vehicles successfully drove through a 4-way intersection of 235 square meters in an urban scenario.
|
|
3. |
- Flammini, Francesco, Senior Lecturer, 1978-, et al.
(author)
-
Towards Railway Virtual Coupling
- 2018
-
In: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Electrical Systems for Aircraft, Railway, Ship Propulsion and Road Vehicles & International Transportation Electrification Conference (ESARS-ITEC). - : IEEE. - 9781538641927
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)
|
|
4. |
- Flury, Sophia R., et al.
(author)
-
The Low-redshift Lyman Continuum Survey. I. New, Diverse Local Lyman Continuum Emitters
- 2022
-
In: Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0067-0049 .- 1538-4365. ; 260:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The origins of Lyman continuum (LyC) photons responsible for the reionization of the universe are as of yet unknown and highly contested. Detecting LyC photons from the Epoch of Reionization is not possible due to absorption by the intergalactic medium, which has prompted the development of several indirect diagnostics to infer the rate at which galaxies contribute LyC photons to reionize the universe by studying lower-redshift analogs. We present the Low-redshift Lyman Continuum Survey (LzLCS) comprising measurements made with the Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph for a z = 0.2-0.4 sample of 66 galaxies. After careful processing of the far-UV spectra, we obtain a total of 35 Lyman continuum emitters (LCEs) detected with 97.725% confidence, nearly tripling the number of known local LCEs. We estimate escape fractions from the detected LyC flux and upper limits on the undetected LyC flux, finding a range of LyC escape fractions up to 50%. Of the 35 LzLCS LCEs, 12 have LyC escape fractions greater than 5%, more than doubling the number of known local LCEs with cosmologically relevant LyC escape.
|
|
5. |
- Flury, Sophia R., et al.
(author)
-
The Low-redshift Lyman Continuum Survey. II. New Insights into LyC Diagnostics
- 2022
-
In: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 930:2
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Lyman continuum (LyC) cannot be observed at the epoch of reionization (z greater than or similar to 6) owing to intergalactic H i absorption. To identify LyC emitters (LCEs) and infer the fraction of escaping LyC, astronomers have developed various indirect diagnostics of LyC escape. Using measurements of the LyC from the Low-redshift Lyman Continuum Survey (LzLCS), we present the first statistical test of these diagnostics. While optical depth indicators based on Ly alpha, such as peak velocity separation and equivalent width, perform well, we also find that other diagnostics, such as the [O iii]/[O ii] flux ratio and star formation rate surface density, predict whether a galaxy is an LCE. The relationship between these galaxy properties and the fraction of escaping LyC flux suggests that LyC escape depends strongly on H i column density, ionization parameter, and stellar feedback. We find that LCEs occupy a range of stellar masses, metallicities, star formation histories, and ionization parameters, which may indicate episodic and/or different physical causes of LyC escape.
|
|
6. |
- Franic, Iva, et al.
(author)
-
Climate, host and geography shape insect and fungal communities of trees
- 2023
-
In: Scientific Reports. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2045-2322. ; 13:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Non-native pests, climate change, and their interactions are likely to alter relationships between trees and tree-associated organisms with consequences for forest health. To understand and predict such changes, factors structuring tree-associated communities need to be determined. Here, we analysed the data consisting of records of insects and fungi collected from dormant twigs from 155 tree species at 51 botanical gardens or arboreta in 32 countries. Generalized dissimilarity models revealed similar relative importance of studied climatic, host-related and geographic factors on differences in tree-associated communities. Mean annual temperature, phylogenetic distance between hosts and geographic distance between locations were the major drivers of dissimilarities. The increasing importance of high temperatures on differences in studied communities indicate that climate change could affect tree-associated organisms directly and indirectly through host range shifts. Insect and fungal communities were more similar between closely related vs. distant hosts suggesting that host range shifts may facilitate the emergence of new pests. Moreover, dissimilarities among tree-associated communities increased with geographic distance indicating that human-mediated transport may serve as a pathway of the introductions of new pests. The results of this study highlight the need to limit the establishment of tree pests and increase the resilience of forest ecosystems to changes in climate.
|
|
7. |
- Ji, Boyang, 1983, et al.
(author)
-
The chimeric nature of the genomes of marine magnetotactic coccoid-ovoid bacteria defines a novel group of Proteobacteria
- 2017
-
In: Environmental Microbiology. - : Wiley. - 1462-2920 .- 1462-2912. ; 19:3, s. 1103-1119
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are a group of phylogenetically and physiologically diverse Gram-negative bacteria that synthesize intracellular magnetic crystals named magnetosomes. MTB are affiliated with three classes of Proteobacteria phylum, Nitrospirae phylum, Omnitrophica phylum and probably with the candidate phylum Latescibacteria. The evolutionary origin and physiological diversity of MTB compared with other bacterial taxonomic groups remain to be illustrated. Here, we analysed the genome of the marine magneto-ovoid strain MO-1 and found that it is closely related to Magnetococcus marinus MC-1. Detailed analyses of the ribosomal proteins and whole proteomes of 390 genomes reveal that, among the Proteobacteria analysed, only MO-1 and MC-1 have coding sequences (CDSs) with a similarly high proportion of origins from Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria. Interestingly, a comparative metabolic network analysis with anoxic network enzymes from sequenced MTB and non-MTB successfully allows the eventual prediction of an organism with a metabolic profile compatible for magnetosome production. Altogether, our genomic analysis reveals multiple origins of MO-1 and M. marinus MC-1 genomes and suggests a metabolism-restriction model for explaining whether a bacterium could become an MTB upon acquisition of magnetosome encoding genes.
|
|
8. |
- Muller, Elodie, et al.
(author)
-
Conditions of emergence of the Sooty Bark Disease and aerobiology of Cryptostroma corticale in Europe
- 2023
-
In: NeoBiota. - 1619-0033 .- 1314-2488. ; 84, s. 319-347
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The sooty bark disease (SBD) is an emerging disease affecting sycamore maple trees (Acer pseudoplatanus) in Europe. Cryptostroma corticale, the causal agent, putatively native to eastern North America, can be also pathogenic for humans causing pneumonitis. It was first detected in 1945 in Europe, with markedly increasing reports since 2000. Pathogen development appears to be linked to heat waves and drought episodes. Here, we analyse the conditions of the SBD emergence in Europe based on a three-decadal time-series data set. We also assess the suitability of aerobiological samples using a species-specific quantitative PCR assay to inform the epidemiology of C. corticale, through a regional study in France comparing two-year aerobiological and epidemiological data, and a continental study including 12 air samplers from six countries (Czechia, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland).We found that an accumulated water deficit in spring and summer lower than -132 mm correlates with SBD outbreaks. Our results suggest that C. corticale is an efficient airborne pathogen which can disperse its conidia as far as 310 km from the site of the closest disease outbreak. Aerobiology of C. corticale followed the SBD distribution in Europe. Pathogen detection was high in countries within the host native area and with longer disease presence, such as France, Switzerland and Czech Republic, and sporadic in Italy, where the pathogen was reported just once. The pathogen was absent in samples from Portugal and Sweden, where the disease has not been reported yet. We conclude that aerobiological surveillance can inform the spatial distribution of the SBD, and contribute to early detection in pathogen-free countries.
|
|
9. |
- Vaio, Marco Di, et al.
(author)
-
Design and Experimental Validation of a Distributed Interaction Protocol for Connected Autonomous Vehicles at a Road Intersection
- 2019
-
In: IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. - 0018-9545 .- 1939-9359. ; 68:10, s. 9451-9465
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents a fully distributed interaction protocol for connected self-driving cars negotiating the access a traffic junction. The vehicles coordination has been reformulated as an equivalent virtual platoon control problem. The desired vehicles spacing within the platoon is chosen so to avoid the side and rear-end collisions and is controlled by a cooperative non-linear control algorithm, based on potential functions. The asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system has been analytically proved by leveraging the LaSalle's Invariance Principle. The analysis of the convergence rate has resulted in an effective tuning tool ensuring that the desired formation is achieved before vehicles reach the intersection. Most notably, results from an in-vehicle experimental validation are presented. The experiments were carried out on three self-driving cars connected through a V2V communication infrastructure based on the IEEE 802.11p protocol. The experimental results confirm the theoretical analysis and reveal the effectiveness of the control approach for autonomously and safely negotiating a generic traffic junction.
|
|