Marche Polytechnic University

About: Marche Polytechnic University is a education organization based out in Ancona, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Prostate cancer. The organization has 5905 authors who have published 15769 publications receiving 382286 citations. The organization is also known as: Universitá Politecnica delle Marche & Universita Politecnica delle Marche.

Distinct effects of climate warming on populations of silver fir (Abies alba) across Europe

Abstract: Most of this dataset was obtained through funding from the following research projects: CGL2011-26654 (Spanish Commission of Science and Technology and Fondos Europeos de Desarrollo Rural – FEDER), 387/2011−1012S (Organismo Autonomo de Parques Nacionales – OAPN, Spain), and FORMAT (European Union funded ENV4-CT97-0641 project). J.J.C. also acknowledges the support of Fundacion Agencia Aragonesa para la Investigacion y el Desarrollo (ARAID). We would also like to thank the Spanish Meteorological State Agency (AEMET) and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) for providing the climatic databases used in this study. We thank the FPS COST Action FP1106 STReESS for facilitating collaborative work.

Twenty-five years in the making: flecainide is safe and effective for the management of atrial fibrillation

Abstract: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in clinical practise and its prevalence is increasing. Over the last 25 years, flecainide has been used extensively worldwide, and its capacity to reduce AF symptoms and provide long-term restoration of sinus rhythm (SR) has been well documented. The increased mortality seen in patients treated with flecainide in the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST) study, published in 1991, still deters many clinicians from using flecainide, denying many new AF patients a valuable treatment option. There is now a body of evidence that clearly demonstrates that flecainide has a favourable safety profile in AF patients without significant left ventricular disease or coronary heart disease. As a result of this evidence, flecainide is now recommended as one of the first-line treatment options for restoring and maintaining SR in patients with AF under current treatment guidelines. The objective of this article is to review the literature pertaining to the pharmacological characteristics, safety and efficacy of flecainide, and to place this drug in the context of current therapeutic management strategies for AF.

Rapid prototyping of semantic mash-ups through semantic web pipes

Abstract: The use of RDF data published on the Web for applications is still a cumbersome and resource-intensive task due to the limited software support and the lack of standard programming paradigms to deal with everyday problems such as combination of RDF data from dierent sources, object identifier consolidation, ontology alignment and mediation, or plain querying and filtering tasks. In this paper we present a framework, Semantic Web Pipes, that supports fast implementation of Semantic data mash-ups while preserving desirable properties such as abstraction, encapsulation, component-orientation, code re-usability and maintainability which are common and well supported in other application areas.

Direct and indirect costs of osteoarthritis of the knee.

Abstract: Background Rheumatic diseases have an economic impact of 1-2.5% of GDP in industrialized countries and osteoarthritis is the most common joint disorder. Osteoarthritis of the knee is especially common and is a major cause of disability requiring extensive utilization of health care resources. Objective To estimate the burden of osteoarthritis of the knee in Italy, we studied retrospectively a cohort of 254 patients over a period of 12 months in 2000-2001. Methods Twenty-nine rheumatology institutes took part in the study. A bottom-up approach was used, analytically measuring pro capita consumption. We considered medical (hospitalization, diagnosis, and therapies) and non-medical costs (transport, temporary caregivers, and auxiliary devices) as direct costs. We calculated losses of productivity borne by patients and caregivers, and informal care provided by caregivers as indirect costs. Results Direct costs came to Euros 934 per patient per year: Euros 233 were spent on hospitalization, Euros 209 on diagnostic procedures (56% on visits and 44% on instrumental and laboratory tests), Euros 146 on therapy (58% on physiotherapy and 42% on drugs), and Euros 346 on non-medical costs (73% on salaries to temporary caregivers, 14% on transport, and 13% on auxiliary devices). It is interesting to point out that at least 37% of costs were charged directly to patients. Indirect costs were almost 30% higher and came to Euros 1236 per patient per year: 31% was due to loss of productivity of patients, 60% due to informal care provided by primary caregivers, and 9% by other caregivers. Conclusions This study confirms that the direct and indirect costs attributable to osteoarthritis of the knee are substantial.