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The present study aimed to evaluate surgical site infections' clinical and economic impact after distal pancreatectomy.The study was a prospective, monocentric, observational study, including all adult patients who underwent distal pancreatectomy. According to the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition, the surgical site infection assessment was prospectively performed by trained personnel. The Accordion Severity Grading System was used to evaluate the clinical burden of surgical site infection. The hospitalization's total costs were calculated using the hospital expenditure report, excluding the intraoperative costs.During the study period, 414 distal pancreatectomies were performed. The overall incidence of surgical site infection was 26% (106 patients). Surgical site infections were associated with a higher body mass index (P = .022, odds ratio 1.2), positive preoperative rectal swab for multidrug resistant bacteria (P = .010, odds ratio 4.2), and increased operative time (P = .037, odds ratio 1.1). Using the Accordion Severity Grading System, surgical site infections contributed significantly to the total clinical burden (25.5%) and prolonged hospitalization (P.001). Furthermore, surgical site infection doubled the costs (12.915 vs 6.888 euros, P.001).Surgical site infection has a high clinical burden, negatively impacting the postoperative course. The costs and length of stay proportionally increased with the surgical site infection severity, doubling the hospitalization expenses.

We describe our approach and experiments to tackle Task A of the second edition of HaSpeeDe, within the Evalita 2020 evaluation campaign. The proposed model consists in an ensemble of classifiers built from three variants of a common neural architecture. Each classifier uses contextual representations from transformers trained on Italian texts, fine tuned on the training set of the challenge. We tested the proposed model on the two official test sets, the in-domain test set containing just tweets and the out-of-domain one including also news headlines. Our submissions ranked 4th on the tweets test set and 17th on the second test set.

Background: The most appropriate nodal staging system for non-functioning pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (NF-PanNETs) remains unclear. Despite some evidence is available for pancreaticoduodenectomy, the adequate nodal staging is still unknown for distal pancreatectomy (DP). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic impact of the number of positive lymph nodes (PLNs) after DP for NF-PanNETs and to define the minimal number of lymph nodes to be harvested for an appropriate nodal staging. Methods: Data were retrospectively collected from patients who underwent DP with curative intent (R0-R1) for sporadic well-differentiated NF-PanNETs in 4 European high-volume centres. NF-PanNETs with nodal involvement (N+) were subclassified into N1 (1–3 PLNs) and N2 (4 or more PLNs). Univariate and multivariate analyses of disease-free survival (DFS) were performed. Results: Of 271 patients in the study, 62 (23%) had nodal involvement (N+). A higher probability of N+ was associated with the following factors: grading, resection margin status, perineural and microvascular invasion, and the number of examined lymph nodes. Three-year DFS rate for N0, N1, and N2 patients was 92, 72, and 50%, respectively (p < 0.001). At multivariate analysis, independent predictors of DFS were grading, T stage, presence of necrosis, and nodal status. For patients with ≥12 examined/resected lymph nodes, the N status remained a significant predictor of disease recurrence (p < 0.001), while it failed to predict recurrence in patients with p = 0.116). Conclusions: A minimal number of 12 nodes should be harvested in case of DP for NF-PanNET for an appropriate nodal staging. The number of positive lymph nodes is an independent predictor of DFS after DP for NF-PanNET, and the N0/N1/N2 nodal classification seems to be more relevant than the current N0/N+ staging.

This paper deals with the design of a normal saliency Interior Permanent Magnet motor, also referred as flux-intensifying PM motor. A multi-barrier rotor geometry is adopted and studied using an analytical model in order to obtain an almost sinusoidal air gap flux density waveform. The motor performance improvement has been evaluated by Finite Element Analysis and experimental validation has been carried out on a motor prototype.

The susceptibility of controller area network (CAN) communications to electrical fast transients (EFTs) applied to the signal ports of transceivers is investigated. The impact of EFT stress is evaluated referring to IC level (IEC 62228) CAN standards. The main factors contributing to noise rejection in CAN signaling are analyzed and communication failures are highlighted. The effectiveness of measures to prevent failures during an EFT event is experimentally evaluated on several transceivers and design guidelines are proposed to improve immunity to transient noise.

We report the first successful field trial of a real-time alien superchannel over a 410-km DCM-less optical fiber link using only EDFA amplification. We have demonstrated a record 1.4-Tb/s alien superchannel transported alongside native 40G and 100G wavelengths over a third party optical infrastructure using software reconfigurable DP-16 QAM/QPSK production hardware, achieving spectral efficiency of up to 5.7 bit/s/Hz. Stable long term error-free performance was measured in a real network environment for subchannel spacing as narrow as 36 GHz, giving a spectral efficiency improvement of ∼40% compared with standard 50 GHz grid. We have also demonstrated, for the first time, software reconfigurable modulation and capacity of an optical superchannel with subminute switching time. The subchannels can be flexibly and independently reconfigured to enable variable capacity in future flexible optical networks. In addition, robust PMD tolerance of the DP-16 QAM superchannel is measured, which allows network operators to make use of their old, high PMD fibers without the requirement of fiber measurement and selection.

Climate change communication in Aotearoa New Zealand occurs through multiple channels, including public communication by experts; formal and informal science-policy dialogues; and publication of popular books, documentaries, and media reports. There is, in addition, a wide array of climate change communication activities that are less well documented, such as those that utilize the education system, social media, art, community events and festivals, and co-production processes related to adaptation and mitigation choices. Although research into the communication of climate change is in its infancy in the country, data on public attitudes toward climate change over the past decade indicate that most New Zealanders believe climate change is occurring, is anthropogenic, and is a serious concern. This is mirrored by research into media coverage on climate change, which shows that mainstream news reports are largely consistent with the scientific consensus and reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and do not give much coverage to skeptical or catastrophic viewpoints.

This article deals with the design of a normal saliency interior permanent magnet (PM) motor, also referred as flux-intensifying PM motor. A multibarrier rotor geometry is adopted and studied through an analytical model to obtain an almost sinusoidal airgap flux density waveform, so as to improve the performance and reduce the torque ripple. The developed analytical model is generic and applicable for any number of rotor flux barriers and for any number of poles. The motor performance improvement has been evaluated by finite-element analysis. Experimental validation has been carried out on a motor prototype.

Equipment dealing with extremely sour or acid gas presents significant challenges from safety and reliability standpoint. Process gas containment under any possible operation scenario has to be granted in order to prevent serious hazard to people and environment. Extremely aggressive gas associated with corrosion and stress corrosion cracking phenomenon requires special focus on reliability and robustness of design to assure machinery integrity and gas containment over the entire life of the equipment. Specific design features of acid gas compressors are discussed in the present work, with reference to existing projects and solutions implemented in OEM installed fleet: – Material selection of rotor and stator components based on operating conditions, gas composition (including contaminants such as chlorides and mercury) and site environment. Base materials and protective coatings for severe sour and acid gas applications are presented, with reference to recent applications. – Design of rotating components for extended and reliable operation, preventing mechanical failure modes and the associated risk of process gas leak: peak stress limitation, removal of key fitting, shrinkage optimization. – Design of interfaces between compressor casing and head flanges, as critical point for compressor sealing: gasket selection and system design to prevent gas leakage to ambient even in case of failure. Specific focus is put on the interface layout and surface coating. – Design of dry gas seals and seal gas system: specific solutions in terms of layout, design characteristics and material selection, adopted to increase safety and reliability of DGS dealing with acid seal gas. Backup features and control actions used to mitigate possible failure scenarios are presented as well.

This paper addresses an integrated circuit (IC) modeling procedure for mixed-signal immunity simulations of communication networks. The procedure is based on a gray-box approach, modeling (IC) ports with a physical circuit and the internal links with a behavioral block. The parameters are estimated from time and frequency domain measurements, allowing accurate and efficient reproduction of nonlinear device switching behaviors. The effectiveness of the modeling process is verified by applying the proposed technique to a controller area network (CAN) transceiver, involved in a direct power injection (DPI) immunity test on a data communication link. The obtained model is successfully implemented in a VHDL-analog mixed-signal (AMS) solver to predict both the functional signals and the RF noise immunity at component level.

Mixed signal communication networks are used in electromagnetically noisy environment to establish a stable link between local systems. The ability to predict their EMC compliance to standard immunity tests in design phase is required. The paper focuses on an AMS modeling procedure allowing to describe the CAN bus behaviour when affected by disturbances. The network is simulated combining mixed-signal models of CAN transceiver, cables and noise injection circuits, correctly assessing at system level the relationship between analog and digital signals. The obtained model efficiently predicts the influence of a continuous wave disturbance and estimates the immunity graph obtained through standard testing in a design phase. An application example on a real CAN network concludes the paper and confirms its ability to assess EMC problems.

From 1985 to 1996, we observed 38 cases of isolated atrophy of the infraspinatus muscle in athletes; all were involved in volleyball at a competitive level. There were 20 men and 18 women with a mean age of 26 years (range, 15 to 27). At the time of the first examination, 35 of these athletes had no pain and were treated with exercises to strengthen the external rotators. The remaining three patients underwent surgery because of pain at the posterior aspect of the shoulder. Sixteen of the 35 players treated nonoperatively were reviewed at a mean follow-up of 5.5 years (range, 3 to 10). Thirteen were still involved in volleyball and three had retired symptom-free at the end of their careers. On physical examination, atrophy of the infraspinatus muscle was unchanged in all cases. The patients treated surgically were reviewed at a mean follow-up of 2 years. All of them were able to play volleyball at their preinjury levels, but one had pain at the anterior aspect of the shoulder after strenuous activity. Physical examination showed a notable reduction of the atrophy in one patient. Entrapment of the suprascapular nerve at the spinoglenoid notch is a usually painless syndrome that is frequently observed in volleyball players. Surgical treatment is indicated in the rare cases of painful neuropathies after careful patient selection.

We successfully demonstrated, for the first time, 1.4Tb/s real-time Alien Superchannel over a 410km EDFA-only field fiber link using software reconfigurable DP-16QAM/QPSK production hardware, achieving spectral efficiency up to 5.7bit/s/Hz and long term error-free performance.

Disasters related to natural hazards have increased in the last few decades. This increment makes it necessary to develop non-structural risk prevention and mitigation measures to improve people’s safety. An effective non-structural measure that can improve the preparedness of the population is a locally adapted communication campaign that is focused on natural hazards. We have developed a hypothetical communication campaign for a specific area in the north of Italy, in which hydro-geological risk is of considerable importance. The content of the campaign is defined by the combination of the requirements of the law with the results of a survey conducted in the study area. The aim of the survey is to evaluate the level of risk perception among the residents, and their attitudes towards prevention activities. The operative procedure of the campaign is modeled on advertising strategies. The campaign is designed to reach each family, and it is aimed at affecting people’s everyday life through a horizontal communication strategy that involves flyers, billboards, umbrellas and a website. The use of umbrellas as a medium for the campaign is the key. People mostly use umbrellas when it rains. Rain is linked with hydrogeological risk. As the content of the campaign is printed on the umbrellas, each time people use these umbrellas, they remember the campaign. The campaign is integrated into a broader communication program that includes meetings with stakeholders, activities in schools, and public conferences. The final goal is to foster the creation of a shared knowledge about risk in the whole population.

[1] This paper provides and compares two alternative solutions for the simulation of cables and interconnects with the inclusion of the effects of parameter uncertainties, namely the Polynomial Chaos (PC) method and the Response Surface Modeling (RSM). The problem formulation applies to the telegraphers equations with stochastic coefficients. According to PC, the solution requires an expansion of the unknown parameters in terms of orthogonal polynomials of random variables. On the contrary, RSM is based on a least-square polynomial fitting of the system response. The proposed methods offer accuracy and improved efficiency in computing the parameter variability effects on system responses with respect to the conventional Monte Carlo approach. These approaches are validated by means of the application to the stochastic analysis of a commercial multiconductor flat cable. This analysis allows us to highlight the respective advantages and disadvantages of the presented methods.

This paper provides and compares two alternative solutions for the simulation of cables and interconnects with the inclusion of the effects of parameter uncertainties, namely the Polynomial Chaos (PC) method and the Response Surface Modeling (RSM). The problem formulation applies to the telegraphers equations with stochastic coefficients. According to PC, the solution requires an expansion of the unknown parameters in terms of orthogonal polynomials of random variables. On the contrary, RSM is based on a least-square polynomial fitting of the system response. The proposed methods offer accuracy and improved efficiency in computing the parameter variability effects on system responses with respect to the conventional Monte Carlo approach. These approaches are validated by means of the application to the stochastic analysis of a commercial multiconductor flat cable. This analysis allows us to highlight the respective advantages and disadvantages of the presented methods.