The Nutritional Content of Meal Images in Free-Living Conditions-Automatic Assessment with goFOOD.

A healthy diet can help to prevent or manage many important conditions and diseases, particularly obesity, malnutrition, and diabetes. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence and smartphone technologies have enabled applications to conduct automatic nutritional assessment from meal images, providing a convenient, efficient, and accurate method for continuous diet evaluation. We now extend the goFOOD automatic system to perform food segmentation, recognition, volume, as well as calorie and macro-nutrient estimation from single images that are captured by a smartphone.

Artificial Intelligence and Interstitial Lung Disease: Diagnosis and Prognosis.

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is now diagnosed by an ILD-board consisting of radiologists, pulmonologists, and pathologists. They discuss the combination of computed tomography (CT) images, pulmonary function tests, demographic information, and histology and then agree on one of the 200 ILD diagnoses. Recent approaches employ computer-aided diagnostic tools to improve detection of disease, monitoring, and accurate prognostication.

Analyzing the Trade-Off Between Training Session Time and Performance in Myoelectric Hand Gesture Recognition During Upper Limb Movement.

Although remarkable improvements have been made, the natural control of hand prostheses in everyday life is still challenging. Changes in limb position can considerably affect the robustness of pattern recognition-based myoelectric control systems, even if various strategies were proposed to mitigate this effect. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of selecting a set of training movements that is robust to limb position change, performing a trade-off between training time and accuracy.

Helicobacter pylori non-cytotoxic genotype enhances mucosal gastrin and mast cell tryptase.

Aims: To determine the association, if any, between H pylori genotype and the gastric mucosal variations in the levels of gastrin, somatostatin, tryptase, and histamine.

Methods: 49 patients affected by duodenal ulcer and 48 by non-ulcer dyspepsia were studied. To identify the H pylori genotype, the presence of the cagA gene and vacA alleles m1, m2, s1, and s2 were analysed by polymerase chain reaction.

Serum antibodies anti-H. pylori and anti-CagA: a comparison between four different assays.

The authors compare efficacy of two ELISA assays (one supplied by DIAMEDIX [Delta Biological s.r.l.

[Biochemical markers of gastric functioning].

The serum determination of pepsinogen A (PGA) and pepsinogen C (PGC) might indicate gastric mucosal inflammation and atrophy. Body gastric mucosa produces both PGA and PGC, while antral mucosa produces only PGC. Therefore, diseases involving mainly the antrum, such as H.

Polymorphonuclear oxidative burst after Helicobacter pylori water extract stimulation is not influenced by the cytotoxic genotype but indicates infection and gastritis grade.

H. pylori-associated gastric mucosal inflammation is characterized by the presence of polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocyte infiltrate, which is more severe when the infecting strain is cagA positive. After appropriate stimuli, such as bacterial products, PMN release large amounts of oxygen derived free radicals and proteases, to kill the bacterium.

Glucose metabolic alterations in isolated and perfused rat hepatocytes induced by pancreatic cancer conditioned medium: a low molecular weight factor possibly involved.

A serious insulin resistance characterizes pancreatic cancer-associated diabetes mellitus. Elsewhere, we demonstrated that MIA PaCa2 cultured cells secrete a soluble factor responsible for reduced glucose tolerance induced in SCID mice. The intracellular mechanism of insulin resistance was investigated in isolated and perfused rat hepatocytes incubated with MIA PaCa2 conditioned medium.

Analysis of Helicobacter pylori vacA and cagA genotypes and serum antibody profile in benign and malignant gastroduodenal diseases.

Background: Helicobacter pylori species comprise different strains, cytotoxic and non-cytotoxic, which can be identified on the basis of their genomic pattern.

Aims: (1) To evaluate the polymorphism of the vacA gene and to ascertain whether the cagA gene is present in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma. (2) To study the anti-H pylori antibody profile using western blotting.

[Premature membrane rupture. Comparison of diagnostic tests].

Background: Objective of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the vaginal pH-test, the Fern-test, the research of foetal cells and of foetal fibronectin in vaginal discharge, which are used to diagnose premature rupture of membranes.

Methods: To this aim 40 pregnant patients between 24th and 37th weeks gestation have been examined, considered at risk for sub-clinic loss of aminiotic fluid: 23 were affected by preterm labour and 17 by suspected rupture of membranes.

Results: Subsequently amniotic sac was confirmed to be ripped in 10 cases (25%): 2 (8.

Portal but not peripheral serum levels of interleukin 6 could interfere with glucose metabolism in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Unlabelled: Interleukin 6 (IL-6), an autocrine growth factor for many tumors, seems to favour tumor spread to the liver. Our aims were first to evaluate the pattern of portal and systemic IL-6 levels in patients with pancreatic cancer (PC, n = 18) and chronic pancreatitis (CP, n = 22) compared with controls (CS, n = 20); and second, to ascertain whether there was any relation between IL-6 levels and tumor spread or PC-associated Diabetes mellitus. For all subjects, a fasting serum sample was obtained from a cubital vein; a portal serum sample was obtained from nine PC and three CP patients.

Helicobacter pylori cytotoxic genotype is associated with peptic ulcer and influences serology.

Objective: We studied 146 patients with peptic ulcer disease (n = 72), antral gastritis (n = 58), or duodenitis (n = 16) to ascertain whether the cytotoxic genotype of Helicobacter pylori (Hp) is associated with peptic ulcer disease and/or antral gastritis and whether it influences the circulating levels of total anti-Hp antibodies, anti-cagA antibodies, and pepsinogens.

Methods: A gastric juice sample was obtained from each patient. After DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction was used to amplify the genes urease A (ureA), cagA, and vacA of Hp.

An unidentified pancreatic cancer cell product alters some intracellular pathways of glucose metabolism in isolated rat hepatocytes.

In this study we assessed whether conditioned media from a human pancreatic cancer cell line (MIA PaCa 2) can interfere with some intracellular pathways involved in glucose metabolism in isolated rat hepatocytes. The hepatocytes, isolated from Male Wistar rats, were incubated with MIA PaCa 2-conditioned or nonconditioned media. Conditioned and nonconditioned hepatocytes were run for 120 min in the presence or absence of insulin (100 mM) and were sampled at fixed time intervals.

[Silent celiac disease: results of a study in secondary schools of Padua].

Aim of this study was the assessment of the prevalence of coeliac disease (CD) in children attending the secondary school in the city of Padua. 939 students, aged 10-15 years (mean age: 12 years, 7 months), 35% eligible population, were accepted to undergo a study process which included three stages: a) in all students venous sample was taken for measurement of the IgG and IgA anti-gliadin antibodies (AGA); b) measurement of serum immunoglobulins and anti-endomysium antibodies (AEA) if AGA IgA was resulted positive; c) intestinal biopsy was performed in 3 students; two of them had pathologic levels of AGA IgG and IgA and AEA. These patients were females and had decreased rates of statural growth, anemia with iron deficiency, anorexia, abdominal pain, asthenia.

Helicobacter pylori serology in patients with chronic gastritis.

Objectives: Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection is known to cause several gastroduodenal diseases. In patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia, we assessed the link between Hp infection and gastric mucosal inflammation, as well as the influence of Hp and inflammation on the serum levels of anti-Hp antibodies (IgG), pepsinogen A (PGA), pepsinogen C (PGC), and gastrin.

Methods: Entering the study were 221 patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia, all of whom underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy.

The pancreatic cancer cell line MIA PaCa2 produces one or more factors able to induce hyperglycemia in SCID mice.

A reduced glucose tolerance or frank diabetes mellitus is a frequent finding in patients with pancreatic cancer. The aim of this study was to verify whether the pancreatic cancer cell line MIA PaCa2 was able to produce any factor which could induce hyperglycemia in SCID (severe complete immunodeficient) mice. MIA PaCa2 cells were cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) for 7 days.

Gastrin stimulates gastric mast cells in rabbits.

In a previous study we demonstrated that in human gastric mucosa tryptase was localized only in mast cells and that its levels were correlated with serum gastrin, suggesting a link between gastrin action and mucosal mast cell function. The aim of the present study was to discover whether pentagastrin injection could stimulate gastric mucosal mast cells in rabbits. Ten female rabbits (group S) were injected s.

A new method for detecting anti Helicobacter pylori antibodies: an analytical and clinical evaluation.

The diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection is an important goal in clinical practice. In this paper we evaluated 1. the analytical reliability of a new second-generation antigen based enzyme immunoassay (Cobas Core Anti Helicobacter pylori EIA) in detecting anti-Hp IgG antibodies, and 2.