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The term frontotemporal dementia (FTD) refers to a group of progressive neurodegenerative disorders characterized mainly by atrophy of the frontal and anterior temporal lobes. Based on clinical presentation, three main clinical syndromes have traditionally been described: behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), non-fluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia (nfPPA), and semantic variant PPA (svPPA). However, over the last 20 years, it has been recognized that cognitive phenotypes often overlap with motor phenotypes, either motor neuron diseases or parkinsonian signs and/or syndromes like progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and cortico-basal syndrome (CBS). Furthermore, FTD-related genes are characterized by genetic pleiotropy and can cause, even in the same family, pure motor phenotypes, findings that underlie the clinical continuum of the spectrum, which has pure cognitive and pure motor phenotypes as the extremes. The genotype-phenotype correlation of the spectrum, FTD-motor neuron disease, has been well defined and extensively investigated, while the continuum, FTD-parkinsonism, lacks a comprehensive review. In this narrative review, we describe the current knowledge about the genotype-phenotype correlation of the spectrum, FTD-parkinsonism, focusing on the phenotypes that are less frequent than bvFTD, namely nfPPA, svPPA, PSP, CBS, and cognitive-motor overlapping phenotypes (i.e. PPA + PSP). From a pathological point of view, they are characterized mainly by the presence of phosphorylated-tau inclusions, either 4 R or 3 R. The genetic correlate of the spectrum can be heterogeneous, although some variants seem to lead preferentially to specific clinical syndromes. Furthermore, we critically review the contribution of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) in disentangling the complex heritability of the FTD-parkinsonism spectrum and in defining the genotype-phenotype correlation of the entire clinical scenario, owing to the ability of these techniques to test multiple genes, and so to allow detailed investigations of the overlapping phenotypes. Finally, we conclude with the importance of a detailed genetic characterization and we offer to patients and families the chance to be included in future randomized clinical trials focused on autosomal dominant forms of FTLD.

This work presents a comprehensive study, from an industrial perspective, of the process between the collection of raw data, and the generation of next-item recommendation, in the domain of Video-on-Demand (VoD). Most research papers focus their efforts on analyzing recommender systems on already-processed datasets, but they do not face the same challenges that occur naturally in industry, e.g., processing raw interactions logs to create datasets for testing. This paper describes the whole process between data collection and recommendation, including cleaning, processing, feature engineering, session inferring, and all the challenges that a dataset provided by an industrial player in the domain posed. Then, a comparison on the new dataset of several intent-based recommendation techniques in the next-item recommendation task follows, studying the impact of different factors like the session length, and the number of previous sessions available for a user. The results show that taking advantage of the sequential data available in the dataset benefits recommendation quality, since deep learning algorithms for session-aware recommendation are consistently the most accurate recommenders. Lastly, a summary of the different challenges in the VoD domain is proposed, discussing on the best algorithmic solutions found, and proposing future research directions to be conducted based on the results obtained.

Genetic testing for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer following genetic counseling is based on guidelines that take into account particular features of the personal and family history, and clinical criteria conferring a probability of having a BRCA mutation greater than 10% as a threshold for accessing the test. However, besides reducing mortality and social impact, the extension of screening programs also for healthy family members would allow a huge saving of the rising costs associated with these pathologies, supporting the choice of the “Test” strategy versus a “No Test” one. Analyses of different health care systems show that by applying the “Test” strategy on patients and their families, a decrease in breast and ovarian cancer cases is achieved, as well as a substantial decrease in costs of economic resources, including the costs of the clinical management of early detected tumors. In this review, we analyzed the most recent papers published on this topic and we summarized the findings on the economic evaluations related to breast and ovarian cancer population screenings. These results proved and validated that the population-wide testing approach is a more accurate screening and preventive intervention than traditional guidelines based on personal/family history and clinical criteria to reduce breast and ovarian cancer risk., Highlights • BRCA Population Screening programs, would allow a decrease in cancer cases and also savings in economic resources. • The use of guidelines alone can lead to a loss of individuals (30% of patients and 10% of unaffected) with BRCA mutations. • Current international guidelines for BRCA genetic testing, require further optimization and harmonization across countries. • The population-based BRCA screening approach is cost-saving and highly cost-effective compared to guidelines approach.

Bladder cancer is the 10th most common cancer type worldwide. Cystoscopy represents the gold standard for bladder cancer diagnosis, but this procedure is invasive and painful, hence the need to identify new biomarkers through noninvasive procedures. microRNAs (miRNAs) are considered to be promising diagnostic molecules, because they are very stable in biological fluids (including urine) and easily detectable. This systematic review analyses the power of urine miRNAs as bladder cancer diagnostic markers. We conducted this systematic review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. A total of 293 records related to miRNAs and their diagnostic significance in BC were retrieved from the PubMed and Embase databases. A systematic search of the literature was performed, and a total of 25 articles (N = 4054 participants) were identified and reviewed. Although many of the selected studies were of high scientific quality, the results proved to be quite heterogeneous, because we did not identify a univocal consensus for a specific miRNA signature but only isolated the signatures. We did not identify a univocal consensus for a specific diagnostic miRNA signature but only isolated the signatures, some of them with better diagnostic power compared to the others.

Feature selection is a common step in many ranking, classification, or prediction tasks and serves many purposes. By removing redundant or noisy features, the accuracy of ranking or classification can be improved and the computational cost of the subsequent learning steps can be reduced. However, feature selection can be itself a computationally expensive process. While for decades confined to theoretical algorithmic papers, quantum computing is now becoming a viable tool to tackle realistic problems, in particular special-purpose solvers based on the Quantum Annealing paradigm. This paper aims to explore the feasibility of using currently available quantum computing architectures to solve some quadratic feature selection algorithms for both ranking and classification. The experimental analysis includes 15 state-of-the-art datasets. The effectiveness obtained with quantum computing hardware is comparable to that of classical solvers, indicating that quantum computers are now reliable enough to tackle interesting problems. In terms of scalability, current generation quantum computers are able to provide a limited speedup over certain classical algorithms and hybrid quantum-classical strategies show lower computational cost for problems of more than a thousand features., Comment: Source code is available on Github https://github.com/qcpolimi/SIGIR22_QuantumFeatureSelection.git

Yttrium stabilized zirconia (YSZ) ceramics doped with Eu3+ ions have been successfully fabricated by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) technique. The influence of the europium concentration and post-annealing process on the structural, optical, and luminescent properties of the ceramics has been studied. It is shown that an increase in the europium concentration from 0.1 to 3 wt% does not lead to significant changes in the transmission spectra. However, annealing in air atmosphere at temperature from 700 °C to 1300 °C significantly affects the transmission spectrum, as a possible consequenceofthe formation of oxygen vacancy defects. The analysis of the photoexcitation and photoluminescence spectra showed that the main excitation bands are determined by direct excitation of the 7F0 ground state of Eu3+ions to the higher 4f energy levels with further radiation transitionsfrom these states. Moreover, the europium ion in the obtained ceramics occupy low-symmetry sites without inversion center.The luminescence decay kineticsare described by a doubleexponential function with decay time τ1 ~ 20 ns and τ2~ 90 ns for intrinsic emission centers and millisecond (τ ~ 1.4 ms) for Eu3+emission, for all investigated ceramics. The luminescence spectra in nanosecond time region are characteristic for yttrium-stabilized zirconia and are caused by oxygen vacancies in the presence of heavy cations (Y3+ and Eu3+).

For integrated photonics, waveguide structures based on rare-earth-activated glasses are potential candidates for implementing compact integrated light sources and amplifiers. However, rare-earth ions (REs) possess low absorption cross-section, and this limits the light emission and amplification efficiency. As long as the REs are involved, there are other phenomena detrimental to their luminescence quantum yield including ion-ion interactions and non-radiative relaxation processes. To solve such problems, photonic glass-ceramics can be strategic solutions. Transparent glass-ceramics combine interesting properties of both amorphous and crystalline phases and offer specific characteristics of capital importance in photonics. More important, photonic glass-ceramics can tailor and enhance the spectroscopic properties of the rare-earth ions depending on their compositions and nature. In this work, we studied SnO2-nanocrystal-based transparent glass-ceramic planar waveguides activated by rare-earths to give solutions for the problems mentioned above and enhance the rare-earth luminescence efficiency for integrated photonics. SiO2–SnO2:Er3+ planar waveguides containing 30 mol% SnO2 nanocrystals were fabricated by sol-gel method and dip-coating technique. The planar waveguides were assessed by various characterization techniques to ensure the applicability of such glass-ceramics for integrated photonics. The experimental assessment of the SiO2–SnO2:Er3+ planar waveguides focused on the key considered photonic characteristics including the structural, morphological, spectroscopic, and especially optical waveguiding properties. The photoluminescence measurements put in evidence the role of SnO2 nanocrystals as efficient Er3+ luminescence sensitizers. Moreover, the incorporation of Er3+ ions in SnO2 nanocrystals was demonstrated to reduce the effect of non-radiative relaxation processes on the luminescence of the Er3+ ions and thus led to higher luminescence efficiency. Majority of the Er3+ ions (97%) was confirmed to be imbedded in the SnO2 nanocrystals. The SiO2–SnO2:Er3+ glass-ceramic planar waveguides have confined propagation modes, step-index profile with high confinement of 82% at 1542 nm and especially, low losses of 0.6 ± 0.2 dB/cm at 1542 nm.

ContextMaturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) 8 is a rare form of monogenic diabetes characterized by a mutation in CEL (carboxyl ester lipase) gene, which leads to exocrine pancreas dysfunction, followed by β cell failure. Induced pluripotent stem cells can differentiate into functional β cells. Thus, β cells from MODY8 patients can be generated in vitro and used for disease modelling and cell replacement therapy.MethodsA genetic study was performed in a patient suspected of monogenic diabetes.ResultsA novel heterozygous pathogenic variant in CEL (c.1818delC) was identified in the proband, allowing diagnosis of MODY8. Three MODY8-iPSC (induced pluripotent stem cell) clones were reprogrammed from skin fibroblasts of the patient, and their pluripotency and genomic stability confirmed. All 3 MODY8-iPSC differentiated into β cells following developmental stages. MODY8-iPSC–derived β cells were able to secrete insulin upon glucose dynamic perifusion. The CEL gene was not expressed in iPSCs nor during any steps of endocrine differentiation.ConclusioniPSC lines from a MODY8 patient with a novel pathogenic variant in the CEL gene were generated; they are capable of differentiation into endocrine cells, and β cell function is preserved in mutated cells. These results set the basis for in vitro modelling of the disease and potentially for autologous β cell replacement.

In this review, we present a short overview of the development of sol–gel glasses for application in the field of photonics, with a focus on some of the most interesting results obtained by our group and collaborators in that area. Our main attention is devoted to silicate glasses of different compositions, which are characterized by specific optical and spectroscopic properties for various applications, ranging from luminescent systems to light-confining structures and memristors. In particular, the roles of rare-earth doping, matrix composition, the densification process and the fabrication protocol on the structural, optical and spectroscopic properties of the developed photonic systems are discussed through appropriate examples. Some achievements in the fabrication of oxide sol–gel optical waveguides and of micro- and nanostructures for the confinement of light are also briefly discussed.

Many video-on-demand and music streaming services provide the user with a page consisting of several recommendation lists, i.e., widgets or swipeable carousels, each built with specific criteria (e.g., most recent, TV series, etc.). Finding efficient strategies to select which carousels to display is an active research topic of great industrial interest. In this setting, the overall quality of the recommendations of a new algorithm cannot be assessed by measuring solely its individual recommendation quality. Rather, it should be evaluated in a context where other recommendation lists are already available, to account for how they complement each other. The traditional offline evaluation protocol however does not take this into account. To address this limitation, we propose an offline evaluation protocol for a carousel setting in which the recommendation quality of a model is measured by how much it improves upon that of an already available set of carousels. We also propose to extend ranking metrics to the two-dimensional carousel setting in order to account for a known position bias, i.e., users will not explore the lists sequentially, but rather concentrate on the top-left corner of the screen. Finally, we describe and evaluate two strategies for the ranking of carousels in a scenario where the technique used to generate the two-dimensional layout is agnostic on the algorithms used to generate each carousel. We report experiments on publicly available datasets in the movie domain to show how the relative effectiveness of several recommendation models compares. Our results indicate that under a carousel setting the ranking of the algorithms changes sometimes significantly. Furthermore, when selecting the optimal carousel layout accounting for the two dimensional layout of the user interface leads to very different selections.

The unique properties of the Eu

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the third coronavirus outbreak that has emerged in the past 20 years, after severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). One important aspect, highlighted by many global health organizations, is that this novel coronavirus outbreak may be especially hazardous to healthcare personnel, including laboratory professionals. Therefore, the aim of this document, prepared by the COVID-19 taskforce of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC), is to provide a set of recommendations, adapted from official documents of international and national health agencies, on biosafety measures for routine clinical chemistry laboratories that operate at biosafety levels 1 (BSL-1; work with agents posing minimal threat to laboratory workers) and 2 (BSL-2; work with agents associated with human disease which pose moderate hazard). We believe that the interim measures proposed in this document for best practice will help minimazing the risk of developing COVID-19 while working in clinical laboratories.

Objectives Lynch syndrome is characterized by pathogenetic variants in the mismatch repair genes and autosomal dominant inheritance with incomplete penetrance. Lynch syndrome is characterized by colorectal and, with lesser and variable extent, extracolonic cancers. We describe a family with MSH6-dependent Lynch syndrome and familial pancreatic cancer and other tumours (gastric and endometrial), in the absence of colorectal neoplasia. Methods Patients were analysed by sequencing, Next Generation or Sanger, to identify germinal pathogenic variants in hereditary cancer genes. Results We identified the MSH6 gene pathogenic variant c.2194C>T, p.(Arg732Ter) in a family with hereditary pancreatic cancer without diagnosed cases of colorectal adenocarcinoma. Seven family members were affected by the MSH6 pathogenic variant. Three had pancreatic adenocarcinoma at 65, 57 and 44 years; one had endometrial cancer at 36 years. None of the remaining three subjects (75, 45 and 17 years old) had developed any cancer yet. Conclusions Lynch syndrome should be suspected in families with familial pancreatic cancer, even in the absence of colon cancers. Specifically, our observation supports the association between the MSH6 c.2194C>T pathogenic variant and extracolonic tumours and it suggests that MSH6 pathogenic variants are associated with familial pancreatic cancer more frequently than assumed.

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder and the most common and devastating form of dementia. It affects mainly older people, accounting for 50-80% of dementia cases. The age is the main associated risk factor and based on the onset age, early-onset (EOAD) or late-onset (LOAD) forms are distinguished. AD has a strong impact both on the life-style of patients and their families and on the society, due to the high costs related to social and medical care. So far, despite the great advances in understanding of the AD pathogenesis, there is no a cure for this form of dementia and current available treatments are limited to temporarily relieve symptoms. In this review, firstly we give an overview of the current knowledge of the genetic basis of both forms of AD with a particular emphasis on the insights in the understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms of this disorder. Then we discuss the promising relevance of "omics sciences" and the open challenges of the application of Big Data in promoting precision medicine for AD.

The impressive advances in dielectric photonics, integrated optics, and optical fiber-based systems are paving the way for increasingly challenging applications in wide research areas [...]

It has been long known that quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize the way we find solutions of problems that are difficult to solve on classical computers. It was only recently that small but functional quantum computers have become available on the cloud, allowing to test their potential. In this paper we propose to leverage their capabilities to address an important task for recommender systems providers, the optimal selection of recommendation carousels. In many video-on-demand and music streaming services the user is provided with a homepage containing several recommendation lists, i.e., carousels, each built with a certain criteria (e.g., artist, mood, Action movies etc.). Choosing which set of carousels to display is a difficult problem because it needs to account for how the different recommendation lists interact, e.g., avoiding duplicate recommendations, and how they help the user explore the catalogue. We focus in particular on the adiabatic computing paradigm and use the D-Wave quantum annealer, which is able to solve NP-hard optimization problems, can be programmed by classical operations research tools and is freely available on the cloud. We propose a formulation of the carousel selection problem for black box recommenders, that can be solved effectively on a quantum annealer and has the advantage of being simple. We discuss its effectiveness, limitations and possible future directions of development.

This paper describes PWLFIT+, an extension to the frequency domain of PWLFIT, a new paradigm in time-domain macromodeling for linear multiport systems, based on a piecewise-linear (PWL) behavioral representation of the S-parameters step response. While the impulse response of each S-parameter is approximated as sum of delayed rectangles (rect) functions, its spectrum is interpolated as sum of the corresponding delayed cardinal sine (sinc) functions. Exploiting this correspondence, the model building is performed by an iterative procedure where the PWL macromodels can be determined in order to meet defined accuracy goals on the spectrum. At runtime, waves at macromodels ports are calculated using the Segment Fast Convolution (SFC) algorithm within the Digital Wave Simulator (DWS) framework. The proposed method is characterized by its simplicity, stability, speed and scalability, all features that are emphasized when it is used in the DWS framework. After an analysis of the excellent numerical features of SFC in the Z-domain, clearly differentiated with respect conventional macromodeling methods based on poles and residues, two suitable application examples are presented to demonstrate the unique features of PWLFIT+.

As already done in electronics, photonic devices demand integration on flexible substrates for a broad spectrum of applications ranging from optical interconnection through sensors for civil infrastructures and environmental applications, to coherent and incoherent light sources and functionalized coatings for integration on biological tissue.

et al., Fast, high-throughput methods for measuring the level and duration of protective immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 are needed to anticipate the risk of breakthrough infections. Here we report the development of two quantitative PCR assays for SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell activation. The assays are rapid, internally normalized and probe-based: qTACT requires RNA extraction and dqTACT avoids sample preparation steps. Both assays rely on the quantification of CXCL10 messenger RNA, a chemokine whose expression is strongly correlated with activation of antigen-specific T cells. On restimulation of whole-blood cells with SARS-CoV-2 viral antigens, viral-specific T cells secrete IFN-γ, which stimulates monocytes to produce CXCL10. CXCL10 mRNA can thus serve as a proxy to quantify cellular immunity. Our assays may allow large-scale monitoring of the magnitude and duration of functional T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2, thus helping to prioritize revaccination strategies in vulnerable populations., Research reported in this publication was supported in part by an ISMMS seed fund to E.G. and a Dean’s office grant to E.G. and I.M. We gratefully acknowledge use of the services and facilities of the Tisch Cancer Institute supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Center Support grant (no. P30 CA196521), in particular the Hess sequencing core and the BiNGS shared facility. M.S. was supported by an NCI training grant (no. T32CA078207). J.S.Y.H. is supported by the Charles H. Revson Foundation. We acknowledge the technical contribution of D.A. Sánchez, J. Baranda, S. Baztan-Morales, M. Castillo de la Osa, A. Comins-Boo, C. del Álamo Mayo, S. Gil-Manso, B. Gonzalez, S. Hatem, J. Irure-Ventura, I. Miguens, S. Muñoz Martinez, M. Pereira, C. Rodrigues-Guerreiro, M. Rodriguez-Garcia, M.P. Rojo-Portolés and D. San Segundo. We also acknowledge Beckman Coulter for donating the equipment required for the determination of spike-specific IgG antibodies. W.M. was supported by grant no. NCI K00CA212474. This work was supported by ISMMS seed fund to J.O.; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, grant no. COV20-00668 to R.C.R.; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (COVID-19 Research Call grant no. COV20/00181) cofinanced by European Development Regional Fund ‘A way to achieve Europe’ to E.P.-A.; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain (grant no. COV20/00170); Government of Cantabria, Spain (grant no. 2020UIC22-PUB-0019) to M.L.H.; Instituto de Salud Carlos III (grant no. PI16CIII/00012) to P.P.; Fondo Social Europeo e Iniciativa de Empleo Juvenil YEI (grant no. PEJ2018-004557-A) to M.P.E. and grant no. REDInREN 016/009/009 ISCIII. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program VACCELERATE under grant agreement no. 101037867 to J.O. S.G. is supported by grant nos. U24CA224319, U01DK124165 and P30 CA196521.

The application of microfluidics for largescale rapid analytics holds great promise in the pharmaceutical diagnostics and analytical chemistry. Here we report a paper based microfluidic substrate designed by the impregnation of Silver nanoparticles. This study demonstrates the achievement of a thousand-fold increase in the successful detection level up to 10 ppb (90.8 nM) by employing Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) for the detection of Catechol. The presented sensor exhibits the following main features: (i) high specificity of enzyme (Hemocyanin)-based sensing, (ii) effective SERS sensitivity, (iii) easiness and cost-effectiveness of a paper-based platform. We rationalize these findings using the ab initio DFT simulations using Gaussian 09 whose theoretical calculations reflect the observed experimental Raman peaks.

Study question Can whole exome sequencing (WES) reveal a novel pathogenic variant in asthenozoospermia in a multiplex family including multiple patients? Summary answer Patients were discovered to be homozygous for a rare 2-bp deletion in the ADCY10 coding region (c.1205_1206del, rs779944215). What is known already ADCY10 encodes for soluble adenylyl cyclase (sAC), which is the predominant adenylate cyclase in sperm. It is already established that proper sAC activity and a constant supply of cAMP are crucial to sperm motility regulation, and knockout mouse models have been reported as severely asthenozoospermic. ADCY10 is a susceptibility gene for dominant absorptive hypercalciuria (OMIM#143870); however, no ADCY10 variations have been confirmed to cause human asthenozoospermia to date. Study design, size, duration This was a retrospective genetics study of a highly consanguineous pedigree of asthenozoospermia. The subject family was recruited in Iran in 2016. Participants/materials, setting, methods The two patients were diagnosed as asthenozoospermic through careful clinical investigations. Both patients, respective parents, and an unaffected brother were subjected to WES. The discovered variant was validated by Sanger sequencing and segregated with the phenotype. To confirm the pathogenicity of the variant, sperm samples from both patients, 10 normozoospermic men and 10 asthenozoospermic patients not representing the variation, were treated with a cAMP analogue dissolved in human tubal fluid medium, followed by computer-assisted sperm analysis and statistical analyses. Main results and the role of chance The discovered homozygous variant occurs at 10 amino acids upstream of the ADCY10 nucleotide binding site leading to a premature termination (p.His402Argfs*41). Treatment of the patients' sperm samples with a cell-permeable cAMP analogue resulted in a significant increase in sperm motility, indicating the pathogenic role of the variant. Moreover, absorptive hypercalciuria, segregating within the family, was also associated with the same variant following a dominant inheritance. Limitations, reasons for caution Though nonsense-mediated decay is highly likely to occur in the mutated transcripts, we were not able to confirm this due to low RNA levels in mature sperm. Wider implications of the findings Our finding enlarges the phenotypic spectrum associated with the ADCY10 gene, previously described as a susceptibility gene for dominant absorptive hypercalciuria. Study funding/competing interest(s) This study was supported by grants from the Royan Institute, Tehran, Iran, and San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy. The authors have no conflict of interest. Trial registration number N/A.

1-D multilayer dielectric films consisting of seven pairs of SiO2 and TiO2 alternating layers are deposited on a SiO2 substrate using the radio frequency sputtering technique. The thicknesses of the film layers are chosen to reflect the visible radiation around 650 nm. An elastic microcavity layer made of Polydimethylsiloxane was sandwiched between two Bragg reflectors. A fabrication process was then developed for elastic microcavity in order to tailor the thickness, establish the surface planarity and to increase reproducibility of the samples. Optical transmittance of the single Bragg reflector and the microcavity were both simulated and measured. A comparison between measurement data and Transfer Matrix Method calculations shows a favourable correlation. Furthermore, in order to assess the suitability of the microcavity as a force sensor, transmittance measurements were carried out as a function of the applied forces. The change in the elastic microcavity thickness due to applied forces resulted in cavity resonance peak shifts proportional to the applied forces.

As already done in electronics, passive and active photonic devices demand integration on flexible substrates for a broad spectrum of application ranging from optical interconnection to sensors for civil infrastructure and environments, to coherent and uncoherent light sources and functionalized coatings for integration on biological tissue. In this communication we will present some recent results concerning the fabrication of novel flexible optical layers by sol-gel and radio frequency sputtering deposition techniques. The perspective is to give a technological way to transform intrinsically rigid or brittle materials into a highly mechanically flexible and optically functional systems

This work reports on the fabrication and analysis of near-infrared and mid-infrared luminescence spectra and their decays in fluoroindate glasses co-doped with Yb3+/Ho3+. The attention has been paid to the analysis of the Yb3+ → Ho3+ energy transfer processed ions in fluoroindate glasses pumped by 976 nm laser diode. The most effective sensitization for 2 μm luminescence has been obtained in glass co-doped with 0.8YbF3/1.6HoF3. Further study in the mid-infrared spectral range (2.85 μm) showed that the maximum emission intensity has been obtained in fluoroindate glass co-doped with 0.1YbF3/1.4HoF3. The obtained efficiency of Yb3+ → Ho3+ energy transfer was calculated to be up to 61% (0.8YbF3/1.6HoF3), which confirms the possibility of obtaining an efficient glass or glass fiber infrared source for a MID-infrared (MID-IR) sensing application.

Many video-on-demand and music streaming services provide the user with a page consisting of several recommendation lists, i.e., widgets or swipeable carousels, each built with a specific criterion (e.g., most recent, TV series, etc.). Finding efficient strategies to select which carousels to display is an active research topic of great industrial interest. In this setting, the overall quality of the recommendations of a new algorithm cannot be assessed by measuring solely its individual recommendation quality. Rather, it should be evaluated in a context where other recommendation lists are already available, to account for how they complement each other. This is not considered by traditional offline evaluation protocols. Hence, we propose an offline evaluation protocol for a carousel setting in which the recommendation quality of a model is measured by how much it improves upon that of an already available set of carousels. We report experiments on publicly available datasets on the movie domain and notice that under a carousel setting the ranking of the algorithms change. In particular, when a SLIM carousel is available, matrix factorization models tend to be preferred, while item-based models are penalized. We also propose to extend ranking metrics to the two-dimensional carousel layout in order to account for a known position bias, i.e., users will not explore the lists sequentially, but rather concentrate on the top-left corner of the screen.

It is common for video-on-demand and music streaming services to adopt a user interface composed of several recommendation lists, i.e., widgets or swipeable carousels, each generated according to a specific criterion or algorithm (e.g., most recent, top popular, recommended for you, editors’ choice, etc.). Selecting the appropriate combination of carousel has significant impact on user satisfaction. A crucial aspect of this user interface is that to measure the relevance a new carousel for the user it is not sufficient to account solely for its individual quality. Instead, it should be considered that other carousels will already be present in the interface. This is not considered by traditional evaluation protocols for recommenders systems, in which each carousel is evaluated in isolation, regardless of (i) which other carousels are displayed to the user and (ii) the relative position of the carousel with respect to other carousels. Hence, we propose a two-dimensional evaluation protocol for a carousel setting that will measure the quality of a recommendation carousel based on how much it improves upon the quality of an already available set of carousels. Our evaluation protocol takes into account also the position bias, i.e., users do not explore the carousels sequentially, but rather concentrate on the top-left corner of the screen. We report experiments on the movie domain and notice that under a carousel setting the definition of which criteria has to be preferred to generate a list of recommended items changes with respect to what is commonly understood.

In this paper we provide an overview of the approach we used as team Trial&Error for the ACM RecSys Challenge 2021. The competition, organized by Twitter, addresses the problem of predicting different categories of user engagements (Like, Reply, Retweet and Retweet with Comment), given a dataset of previous interactions on the Twitter platform. Our proposed method relies on efficiently leveraging the massive amount of data, crafting a wide variety of features and designing a lightweight solution. This results in a significant reduction of computational resources requirements, both during the training and inference phase. The final model, an optimized LightGBM, allowed our team to reach the 4th position in the final leaderboard and to rank 1st among the academic teams.

Looking for upconverting biocompatible nanoparticles, we have prepared by the sol–gel method, silica–calcia glass nanopowders doped with different concentration of Tm3+ and Yb3+ ions (Tm3+ from 0.15 mol% up to 0.5 mol% and Yb3+ from 1 mol% up to 4 mol%) and characterized their structure, morphology, and optical properties. X-ray diffraction patterns indicated an amorphous phase of the silica-based glass with partial crystallization of samples with a higher content of lanthanides ions. Transmission electron microscopy images showed that the average size of particles decreased with increasing lanthanides content. The upconversion (UC) emission spectra and fluorescence lifetimes were registered under near infrared excitation (980 nm) at room temperature to study the energy transfer between Yb3+ and Tm3+ at various active ions concentrations. Characteristic emission bands of Tm3+ ions in the range of 350 nm to 850 nm were observed. To understand the mechanism of Yb3+–Tm3+ UC energy transfer in the SiO2–CaO powders, the kinetics of luminescence decays were studied.

The unique properties of the Eu3+ ion make it a powerful spectroscopic tool to investigate structure or follow processes and mechanisms in several high-tech application areas such as biology and health, structural engineering, environment monitoring systems and quantum technology, mainly concerning photonics. The traditional method is to exploit the unique photoluminescent properties of Eu3+ ions to understand complex dynamical processes and obtain information useful to develop materials with specific characteristics. The objective of this review is to focus on the use of Eu3+ optical spectroscopy in some condensed matter issues. After a short presentation of the more significant properties of the Eu3+ ion, some examples regarding its use as a probe of the local structure in sol–gel systems are presented. Another section is devoted to dynamical processes such as the important technological role of nanocrystals as rare-earth sensitizers. The appealing effect of the site-selection memory, observed when exciting different sites into the 5D1 state, which the 5D0 → 7F0 emission band reflects following the sites’ distribution, is also mentioned. Finally, a section is devoted to the use of Eu3+ in the development of a rare-earth-based platform for quantum technologies.

Flexible SiO2/HfO2 1D photonic crystals and active SiO2–HfO2:Er3+ all-glass flexible planar waveguides fabricated by radio frequency sputtering, are presented. The 1D photonic crystals show a strong dependence of the optical features on the light incident angle: i) blue-shift of the stopband and ii) narrowing of the reflectance window. Nevertheless, the most interesting result is the experimental evidence that, even after the 1D photonic crystals breakage, where the flexible glass shows naked-eye visible cracks, the multilayer structures generally maintain their integrity, resulting to be promising systems for flexible photonic applications thanks to their optical, thermal and mechanical stability. The flexible planar waveguides, fabricated on ultrathin flexible glass substrate, showed an attenuation coefficient lower than 0.2 dB/cm at 1.54 μm, and exibits emission in the NIR region, resulting particularly suitable as waveguide amplifier in the C band of telecommunications.

The evaluation of recommender systems is frequently focused on accuracy metrics, but this is only part of the picture. The diversity of recommendations is another important dimension that has received renewed interest in recent years. It is known that accuracy and diversity can be conflicting goals and finding appropriate ways to combine them is still an open research question. Several ways have been proposed to measure the diversity of recommendations and to include its optimization in the loss function used to train the model. Methods optimizing list based diversity suffer from two drawbacks: the high computational cost of the loss function and the lack of an efficient way to optimize them. In this paper we show the equivalence of the list based diversity metrics Hamming and Mean Inter-List diversity to the aggregate diversity metric measured with the Herfindahl index, providing a formulation that allows to compute and optimize them easily.

Routine biochemical and hematological tests have been reported to be useful in the stratification and prognostication of pediatric and adult patients with diagnosed coronavirus disease (COVID-19), correlating with poor outcomes such as the need for mechanical ventilation or intensive care, progression to multisystem organ failure, and/or death. While these tests are already well established in most clinical laboratories, there is still debate regarding their clinical value in the management of COVID-19, particularly in pediatrics, as well as the value of composite clinical risk scores in COVID-19 prognostication. This document by the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) Task Force on COVID-19 provides interim guidance on: (A) clinical indications for testing, (B) recommendations for test selection and interpretation, (C) considerations in test interpretation, and (D) current limitations of biochemical/hematological monitoring of COVID-19 patients. These evidence-based recommendations will provide practical guidance to clinical laboratories worldwide, underscoring the contribution of biochemical and hematological testing to our collective pandemic response.

The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has presented major challenges for clinical laboratories, from initial diagnosis to patient monitoring and treatment. Initial response to this pandemic involved the development, production, and distribution of diagnostic molecular assays at an unprecedented rate, leading to minimal validation requirements and concerns regarding their diagnostic accuracy in clinical settings. In addition to molecular testing, serological assays to detect antibodies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are now becoming available from numerous diagnostic manufacturers. In both cases, the lack of peer-reviewed data and regulatory oversight, combined with general misconceptions regarding their appropriate use, have highlighted the importance of laboratory professionals in robustly validating and evaluating these assays for appropriate clinical use. The International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) Task Force on COVID-19 has been established to synthesize up-to-date information on the epidemiology, pathogenesis, and laboratory diagnosis and monitoring of COVID-19, as well as to develop practical recommendations on the use of molecular, serological, and biochemical tests in disease diagnosis and management. This review summarizes the latest evidence and status of molecular, serological, and biochemical testing in COVID-19 and highlights some key considerations for clinical laboratories operating to support the global fight against this ongoing pandemic. Confidently this consolidated information provides a useful resource to laboratories and a reminder of the laboratory’s critical role as the world battles this unprecedented crisis.

Objectives The International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) Task Force on COVID-19 conducted a global survey to understand how biochemistry laboratories manage the operational challenges during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Materials and methods An electronic survey was distributed globally to record the operational considerations to mitigate biosafety risks in the laboratory. Additionally, the laboratories were asked to indicate the operational challenges they faced. Results A total of 1210 valid submissions were included in this analysis. Most of the survey participants worked in hospital laboratories. Around 15% of laboratories restricted certain tests on patients with clinically suspected or confirmed COVID-19 over biosafety concerns. Just over 10% of the laboratories had to restrict their test menu or services due to resource constraints. Approximately a third of laboratories performed temperature monitoring, while two thirds of laboratories increased the frequency of disinfection. Just less than 50% of the laboratories split their teams. The greatest reported challenge faced by laboratories during the COVID-19 pandemic is securing sufficient supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), analytical equipment, including those used at the point of care, as well as reagents, consumables and other laboratory materials. This was followed by having inadequate staff, managing their morale, anxiety and deployment. Conclusions The restriction of tests and services may have undesirable clinical consequences as clinicians are deprived of important information to deliver appropriate care to their patients. Staff rostering and biosafety concerns require longer-term solutions as they are crucial for the continued operation of the laboratory during what may well be a prolonged pandemic.

Objectives A global survey was conducted by the IFCC Task Force on COVID-19 to better understand how general biochemistry laboratories manage the pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical processes to mitigate biohazard risks during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods An electronic survey was developed to record the general characteristics of the laboratory, as well as the pre-analytical, analytical, post-analytical and operational practices of biochemistry laboratories that are managing clinical samples of patients with COVID-19. Results A total of 1210 submissions were included in the analysis. The majority of responses came from hospital central/core laboratories that serve hospital patient groups and handle moderate daily sample volumes. There has been a decrease in the use of pneumatic tube transport, increase in hand delivery and increase in number of layers of plastic bags for samples of patients with clinically suspected or confirmed COVID-19. Surgical face masks and gloves are the most commonly used personal protective equipment (PPE). Just >50% of the laboratories did not perform an additional decontamination step on the instrument after analysis of samples from patients with clinically suspected or confirmed COVID-19. A fifth of laboratories disallowed add-on testing on these samples. Less than a quarter of laboratories autoclaved their samples prior to disposal. Conclusions The survey responses showed wide variation in pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical practices in terms of PPE adoption and biosafety processes. It is likely that many of the suboptimal biosafety practices are related to practical local factors, such as limited PPE availability and lack of automated instrumentation.

Er3+-doped Na-Al-K-Ba phosphate glasses were prepared by conventional melt quenching technique. The structure was studied using XRD and it showed that all the samples were in amorphous form. Physical properties such as density and refractive index have been measured. While the dielectric studies were carried out using (KEYSIGHT-E4991B, NOVOCONTROL) over a wide range of frequency extending from 1 MHz up to 1GHz (106 up to 109 Hz) at room temperature (RT). The absorbance spectra were measured and The Judd–Ofelt analysis has been carried out, hence the radiative properties of 4I13/2 → 4I15/2 transition were obtained. High radiative and experimental lifetime for the Er3+ ions has been detected. The experimental lifetime and quantum efficiency found to be decreased with increasing Er3+ content. These results obviously indicate that the present glasses may be promising for optical amplifiers as well as laser applications around 1522 nm.

One of the current forefront in the field of photonic are flexible photonic research and development. The desired deliverable is to adjust the mechanical properties of materials to fabricate flexible photonic systems with various applications, e.g. gratings, channel waveguides, solar cells, protective coatings. It is well known that sol-gel metal oxide coatings may find applications as flexible coatings in photonics. Moreover, these materials can be easily functionalized to obtain materials with additional special, desired, properties like easy-to-clean, anti-fingerprint, anti-fogging and others, what is attractive for the potential of future commercialization of flexible photonic materials. In this work, we present the first step of research aimed to obtain silica-based coatings with appropriate adhesion on flexible substrates as poorly wettable surface - polymer PET and Ti-6Al-4V and 316L metallic thin foil as active oxide surface. The use of various types of substrates was aimed at presenting diversity in the possibilities of using the proposed coating materials. Nanoindentation, tensile test and scratch test of the investigated samples were studied. Measuring the mechanical properties of thin oxide films is difficult because it is usually impossible to detach of coating, not destroying its, from substrates. The thickness of coatings can range from a dozen to a few hundred nanometres, so complete methodology to determine a full set of mechanical properties is still lacking. In literature, the surface of samples is measured without a clear indication on coating properties, but on features which are the results of substrate-coating combinations.