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We discuss the capabilities of ferromagnetic (F) Josephson junctions (JJs) in a variety of layouts and configurations. The main goal is to demonstrate the potential of these hybrid JJs to disclose new physics and the possibility to integrate them in superconducting classical and quantum electronics for various applications. The feasible path towards the use of ferromagnetic Josephson junctions in quantum circuits starts from experiments demonstrating macroscopic quantum tunneling in NbN/GdN/NbN junctions with ferro-insulator barriers and with triplet components of the supercurrent, supported by a self-consistent electrodynamic characterization as a function of the barrier thickness. This has inspired further studies on tunnel ferromagnetic junctions with a different layout and promoted the first generation of ferromagnetic Al-based JJs, specifically Al/AlOx/Al/Py/Al. This layout takes advantage of the capability to integrate the ferromagnetic layer in the junction without affecting the quality of the superconducting electrodes and of the tunnel barrier. The high quality of the devices paves the way for the possible implementation of Al tunnel-ferromagnetic JJs in superconducting quantum circuits. These achievements have promoted the notion of a novel type of qubit incorporating ferromagnetic JJs. This qubit is based on a transmon design featuring a tunnel JJ in parallel with a ferromagnetic JJ inside a SQUID loop capacitively coupled to a superconducting readout resonator. The effect of an external RF field on the magnetic switching processes of ferromagnetic JJs has been also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The dropout rate from the treatment of patients with substance use disorders (SUD) negatively affects overall treatment outcomes. Little is known about the specific role of various psychiatric and psychosocial factors in the individual patients. Limited data is available in regards to mindset and addiction treatment, giving the opportunity of testing such interventions in the future. AIM: To identify the key psychological, psychosocial, and other treatment related factors in the patients from the inpatient substance use treatment with addiction who have dropped out of the program based on correlations with the patients' mindset. SETTING: Men's ward for treatment of SUD at the Department of Addictology, General University Hospital in Prague, the Czech Republic. SAMPLE: 120 male patients aged between 18 and 70 years sampled by convenience sampling in the Department of Addictology at the General University Hospital in Prague, Czech Republic. METHODS: The prospective study with the follow-up will be based on correlation analysis of self-reports questionnaires which are completed on the first week and the last week of the treatment, followed up by a short phone interview 6 months after the beginning of the treatment for the patients that have completed the treatment. The following is a protocol for the study that began in 2020 and will end at the end of 2023. Data will be stored according to the guidelines and treatment confidentially. DISCUSSION: Findings will be disseminated in peer reviewed scientific journals, national and international conferences, and in briefings to inform clinical decision making. It will provide information which will help to personalize treatment to meet unique needs of each patient and serve as dropout prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices are ideal solutions for high-speed processing applications, given their flexibility, parallel processing capability, and power efficiency. In this review paper, at first, an overview of the key applications of FPGA-based platforms in 5G networks/systems is presented, exploiting the improved performances offered by such devices. FPGA-based implementations of cloud radio access network (C-RAN) accelerators, network function virtualization (NFV)-based network slicers, cognitive radio systems, and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channel characterizers are the main considered applications that can benefit from the high processing rate, power efficiency and flexibility of FPGAs. Furthermore, the implementations of encryption/decryption algorithms by employing the Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+MPSoC ZCU102 FPGA platform are discussed, and then we introduce our high-speed and lightweight implementation of the wellknown AES-128 algorithm, developed on the same FPGA platform, and comparing it with similar solutions already published in the literature. The comparison results indicate that our AES-128 implementation enables efficient hardware usage for a given data-rate (up to 28.16 Gbit/s), resulting in higher efficiency (8.64 Mbps/slice) than other considered solutions. Finally, the applications of the ZCU102 platform for high-speed processing are explored, such as image and signal processing, visual recognition, and hardware resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: The aim was to identify the clinical and diagnostic investigations that may help to support a diagnosis of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) in patients not fulfilling the European Federation of Neurological Societies and Peripheral Nerve Society (EFNS/PNS) electrodiagnostic criteria. Methods: The data from patients with a clinical diagnosis of CIDP included in a national database were retrospectively reviewed. Results: In all, 535 patients with a diagnosis of CIDP were included. This diagnosis fulfilled the EFNS/PNS criteria in 468 patients (87.2%) (definite in 430, probable in 33, possible in three, while two had chronic immune sensory polyradiculopathy). Sixty‐seven patients had a medical history and clinical signs compatible with CIDP but electrodiagnostic studies did not fulfill the EFNS/PNS criteria for CIDP. These patients had similar clinical features and frequency of abnormal supportive criteria for the diagnosis of CIDP compared to patients fulfilling EFNS/PNS criteria. Two or more abnormal supportive criteria were present in 40 (61.2%) patients rising to 54 (80.6%) if a history of a relapsing course as a possible supportive criterion was also included. Increased cerebrospinal fluid proteins and response to immune therapy most frequently helped in supporting the diagnosis of CIDP. Response to therapy was similarly frequent in patients fulfilling or not EFNS/PNS criteria (87.3% vs. 85.9%). Conclusions: Patients with a clinical diagnosis of CIDP had similar clinical findings, frequency of abnormal supportive criteria and response to therapy compared to patients fulfilling EFNS/PNS criteria. The presence of abnormal supportive criteria may help in supporting the diagnosis of CIDP in patients with a medical history and clinical signs compatible with this diagnosis but non‐diagnostic nerve conduction studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the technological innovations affect all human activities; also the agriculture field heavily benefits of technologies as informatics, electronic, telecommunication, allowing huge improvements of productivity and resources exploitation. This manuscript presents an innovative low cost fertigation system for assisting the cultures by using dataprocessing electronic boards and wireless sensors network (WSN) connected to a remote software platform. The proposed system receives information related to air and soil parameters, by a custom solar-powered WSN. A control unit elaborates the acquired data by using dynamic agronomic models implemented on a cloud platform, for optimizing the amount and typology of fertilizers as well as the irrigations frequency, as function also of weather forecasts got by on-line weather service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: The role of lifestyle and dietary habits and antecedent events has not been clearly identified in chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP). Methods: Information was collected about modifiable environmental factors and antecedent infections and vaccinations in patients with CIDP included in an Italian CIDP Database. Only patients who reported not having changed their diet or the lifestyle habits investigated in the study after the appearance of CIDP were included. The partners of patients with CIDP were chosen as controls. Gender‐matched analysis was performed with randomly selected controls with a 1:1 ratio of patients and controls. Results: Dietary and lifestyle data of 323 patients and 266 controls were available. A total of 195 cases and 195 sex‐matched controls were used in the analysis. Patients eating rice at least three times per week or eating fish at least once per week appeared to be at decreased risk of acquiring CIDP. Data on antecedent events were collected in 411 patients. Antecedent events within 1–42 days before CIDP onset were reported by 15.5% of the patients, including infections in 12% and vaccinations in 1.5%. Patients with CIDP and antecedent infections more often had an acute onset of CIDP and cranial nerve involvement than those without these antecedent events. Conclusions: The results of this preliminary study seem to indicate that some dietary habits may influence the risk of CIDP and that antecedent infections may have an impact on the onset and clinical presentation of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript deals with V2V/V2I (Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure) communication systems developed for smart city applications, with the aim to provide new services and tools for making driving safer and improving the human lifestyle. The considered systems can be supported by suitable software applications for making the services more accessible. In this context, research groups and automotive companies are currently developing systems against children abandonment in unattended vehicles and are installing them on new car models. In this paper, an innovative Arduino-based control system against children abandonment in cars is described. It introduces new functionalities respect to systems reported in literature or already on the market, in order to improve safety and reliability. The proposed system integrates a mobile app, which gives the possibilities of receiving alert or status messages, along with images directly acquired from car cockpit. In addition, the app allows to remotely control several car functionalities, such as horn activation, windows lowering and doors locking/unlocking. The wide set of employed sensors allows to solve some shortcomings of detectability presented by similar detection systems, thanks to a proper cross-checking of the acquired information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim of this paper is the design of an absorption spectrophotometer based on LED technology presenting several advantages such as high luminous efficiency, reliability, long operating duration, low maintenance and low power consumption besides the reduction of analyte temperature variations which occur if Xenon light source is used. An optical filtering system was realized to detect analyte absorption for each wavelength range selected by proper optical filters; also to characterize filtered light beam in terms of its coherence length, thus correlating measured absorption spectrum with light source characteristics, the Michelson interferometer was used. Realized white LED-based spectrophotometer can be used to monitor air quality in hospital rooms or to detect atmospheric pollution deriving from vehicular traffic and different typology of pollutants (e.g., heavy metals deriving by industrial activities). A PC-interfaced control unit acquires and processes raw data provided by sensors (pressure, temperature, humidity, luminosity) and manages the optical filtering system motion by actuating a stepper motor. Whole system operation was tested and obtained results confirm the proper functioning and correct interaction, through PC terminal, between user and control unit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report a detailed description of developed Flex-SPI firmware structure together with experimental tests carried out by using ad-hoc instrumental setups based on TI MSPEXP430F5438 experimenter boards. Developed framework, aimed to provide a solid base to test the possibility of performing a shared SPI communication with a fixed number of wires without renouncing to push-pull output stage advantages, has been implemented and successfully validated. Also, FlexSPI energy consumption has been evaluated and then compared with the I2C one, by proper experimental setups and related data processing: the two protocols, in fact, share several features, although they rely on a different hardware configuration. The energy/bit metric was chosen so that the two output stages can be compared regardless the effective quantity of exchanged packets; thus, this measure provides an indication of necessary energy amount to move a single bit to guarantee the correct firmware functionality. Despite larger quantity of exchanged data due to channel reservation needs (with a 35% traffic overhead, in the performed tests), the FlexSPI total energy consumption is comparable with the I2C one, at the same communication speed; thus a lower energy/bit requirement is required for FlexSPI protocol, decreasing with the negotiated speed, in this way proving FlexSPI protocol as a suited and valid choice for high-speed low-consumption communications inside embedded systems with a developed architecture capable of great flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report on hardware structure, operation mode and software development for a new advanced communication protocol whose aim is obtaining a fully shared SPI bus with a fixed amount of wires, without renouncing to advantages of a push-pull output stage and obtaining an architecture capable of great flexibility. All four signals of a classic SPI protocol are entirely shared by the slaves on bus: when a master wants to communicate with a particular device, it will perform an addressing at packet level: starting from its main characteristics, various adopted solutions to realize a shared SPI bus will be analyzed, explaining how a communication session is performed. The firmware structure was designed as a software stack composed by interacting layers, tracing model of similar protocols that share with FlexSPI some features. Some of the advanced procedures that can be performed thanks to this protocol will be discussed, highlighting the suitability of FlexSPI for dynamic smart objects; in fact, by adding these features to developed framework, it is possible to explore and appreciate expandability of this communication protocol, making it suitable to meet advanced IoT requirements of smart objects. FlexSPI can be built like a MAC layer above the SPI bus, to process all necessary pieces of information to perform the packet level addressing, using a stack having a layered architecture. This is idea followed in the firmware development, to implement this communication protocol, experimentally verified in the performed and reported communication tests, confirming that it is possible to obtain a shared push-pull bus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research work regards the design and realization of an absorption spectrophotometer based on a LED light source in place of the usually employed Xenon lamp. The advantage of the use of LED technology resides in several factors such as the reducing of the analyte temperature variations and thus noise generation, which occur if a Xenon light source is used, beside of the high luminous efficiency, reliability, operating duration, lower maintenance and a lower power consumption. This last factor allows to supply the entire designed apparatus using a solar panel thus making the system easly portable for use even in places where the electricity network is absent. An optical filtering system was realized in order to detect the analyte absorption for each wavelength range selected by the optical filters. A PC-interfaced PIC-based control unit used to manage the different functionalities required by the spectophotometer was realized and tested. The control unit acquires and processes, via the developed firmware, the raw data provided by different sensors employed in the system. The sensors are used to monitor analyte temperature and humidity values, to control the analyte pressure and to acquire the luminous intensity value of the light beam before and after passing through the analyte. Finally, the realized electronic control unit actuates different mechanical sections (stepper motor, solenoid valve), sincronyzing and controlling the data exchange between hardware sections, microcontroller and the PC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the long-term benefit-risk profile of repeated courses of rituximab in Caucasian patients affected by neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and related disorders, in everyday clinical practice. Methods: This is a prospective observational study performed at San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy. From February 2006, we recruited 21 patients affected by NMO and NMO spectrum of disorders (NMOSD) whom underwent at least one cycle of intravenous (i.v.) rituximab and then were followed for at least 2 years. Results: At a mean follow-up time of 48 months, we observed a significant reduction of the annualized relapse rate (ARR), from 2.0 to 0.16 (p < 0.01); and of the median Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), from 5.5 to 4.0 (p < 0.013). There were 12 patients (57%) who remained disease free during the follow-up period. Five patients (24%) reported mild hematological adverse events. Serious infectious adverse events were reported by another four patients: These were all wheelchair bound at the beginning of their rituximab treatment. Conclusions: A fixed treatment scheme of rituximab, with re-treatment every 6 months, was efficacious for NMO and NMOSD, with a good safety profile; however, to obtain an even better benefit-risk ratio, close monitoring of CD19+ B cells should be performed before the re-treatment of patients with high-level disability, concomitant leukopenia and hypogammaglobulinemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a superconductor-two dimensional topological insulator–superconductor junction and study how the 2π- and 4π-periodic Josephson currents are affected by the electron–electron interaction. In the long-junction limit the supercurrent can be evaluated by modeling the system as a helical Luttinger liquid coupled to superconducting reservoirs. After having introduced bosonization in the presence of the parity constraint we turn to consider the limit of perfect and poor interfaces. For transparent interfaces, where perfect Andreev reflections occur at the boundaries, the Josephson current is marginally affected by the interaction. However, if strong magnetic scatterers are present in the weak link, the situation changes dramatically. Here Coulomb interaction plays a crucial role both in low and high temperature regimes. Furthermore, a phase-shift of Josephson current can be induced by changing the direction of the magnetization of the impurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 64-year-old woman, with asthma and sinusal polyposis in her history, suddenly developed a painful polyneuropathy with diplopia. Nerve conduction studies, performed at the very onset of the neuropathy, could not definitely rule out a Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and high-dose i.v. immunoglobulins were administered. Clinical and laboratory findings subsequently supported the diagnosis of Churg-Strauss syndrome; corticosteroid therapy was started and clinical stabilisation of neuropathy was apparently achieved. No indicators of unfavourable outcome were present at that time. Nevertheless, 30 days after the onset the patient acutely worsened with severe polyneuropathy relapse and fatal systemic diffusion to heart, kidney and mesenteric district, which a single cyclophosphamide pulse failed to control. This case highlights the possibility that a GBS-like onset of Churg-Strauss syndrome neuropathy should be regarded as a part of multiorgan, severe or even life-threatening vasculitic involvement, requiring the most aggressive treatments, regardless of the presence of recognised factors of poor outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Antibodies against aquaporin-4 (AQP4), a water channel particularly expressed on perivascular astrocytic podocytes, are proposed as a marker for the diagnosis of neuromyelitis optica (NMO). However, a consensus on seroprevalence and optimal detection method has not yet been reached. Objectives: To investigate the performance of different assays to detect anti-AQP4 antibodies. Methods:We set up five different assays. Two of them were capable to detect perivascular IgG reactivity on brain tissue by immunofluorescence (NMO-IgG). Other three assays have been set to detect anti-AQP4 antibodies: immunofluorescence and flow cytometry on AQP4-expressing cells, and a radioimmunoprecipitation assay. We assessed sensitivity and specificity of these assays by interrogating sera of 33 NMO patients, 13 patients at high risk to develop NMO (hrNMO), 6 patients affected by acute partial transverse myelitis (APTM), 20 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), and 67 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Results: We found that the presence of serum NMO-IgG and anti-AQP4 reactivity is almost exclusively restricted to patients with NMO and hrNMO. Seroprevalence and sensitivity ranged from 30 to 47%, depending on the assay. Specificity ranged from 95 to 100%. Comparing results obtained in the five assays, we noticed lack of concordance in some samples. Conclusions: Detection of NMO-IgG or anti-AQP4 antibodies may represent a valuable tool to assist neurologists in the differential diagnosis between patients with NMO, hrNMO, APTM, or MS. The current lack of a gold standard to detect anti-AQP4 antibodies implies the necessity to standardize the detection of these antibodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]