In the context of smart campuses, effective emergency management is crucial for ensuring the safety and well-being of students, staff, and visitors. This paper presents a comprehensive support tool designed to enhance emergency management on smart campuses, integrating a low-cost people-counting system based on cameras and Raspberry Pi devices. It introduces a newly designed architecture and user interfaces that enhance the functionality and user experience of a smart campus disaster management system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeadache is the most frequent neurological symptom in childhood and the main reason for admission to pediatric emergency departments. The aim of this consensus document is to define a shared clinical pathway between primary care pediatricians (PCP) and hospitals for the management of children presenting with headache. For the purposes of the study, a group of hospital pediatricians and a group of PCP from the Emilia Romagna's health districts were selected to achieve consensus using the RAND/UCLA appropriateness method.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Neurocutaneous melanosis (NCM) is a rare congenital syndrome characterized by giant melanocytic cutaneous nevi and melanosis within the central nervous system (CNS), often sparing leptomeninges and concentrated in the brain parenchyma. Epilepsy and neurodevelopmental abnormalities are the only complications reported in children with isolated parenchymal melanosis. A minority of patients experience drug-resistant epilepsy, and up to now, no predictors of epilepsy prognosis have been identified.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The aim of this retrospective cohort study was to identify some prognostic factors in anamnestic/clinical/instrumental data at the onset of epileptic encephalopathy (EE), for multiple outcome measures.
Methods: We recruited patients diagnosed as affected by EE at Sant'Anna University Hospital, with onset in the first 24 months of life, with follow-up lasting longer than 3 years.
Results: At the end of the follow-up, 6 patients (14%) died within 2 years of age; 20 patient (49%) had a drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE); 9 patients (22%) had a language development delay (LDD); 12 patients (30%) had an autism spectrum disorder (ASD); 20 patients (49%) had a global psychomotor impairment (GPI); 9 patients (22%) needed palliative care; and nobody had a normal psychomotor development.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a severe problem in underdeveloped countries. Cutaneous TB is rare and often goes unrecognized. We report a Pakistani child with multifocal cutaneous and pulmonary TB.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Over the last decades, TB has also emerged in the pediatric population. Epidemiologic data of childhood TB are still limited and there is an urgent need of more data on very large cohorts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOne of the main cause of ineffective cell therapy in repairing the damaged heart is the poor yield of grafted cells. To overcome this drawback, rats with 4-week-old myocardial infarction (MI) were injected in the border zone with human adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) conveyed by poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) microcarriers (PAMs) releasing hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) (GFsPAMs). According to treatments, animals were subdivided into different groups: MI_ADSC, MI_ADSC/PAM, MI_GFsPAM, MI_ADSC/GFsPAM, and untreated MI_V.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: It has been demonstrated that inflammation may contribute to epileptogenesis and cause neuronal injury in epilepsy. In this study, the prevalence of antibodies to simian virus 40 (SV40), a kidney and neurotropic polyomavirus, was investigated in serum samples from 88 epileptic children/adolescents/young adults.
Methods: Serum antibodies reacting to specific SV40 peptides were analysed by indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
Tuberous sclerosis complex is an autosomal dominant disorder that can cause nonmalignant hamartomas in any organ. Angiofibromas are the most disturbing marker of the disease because they are conspicuously present on the face. We report the case of a 15-year-old girl affected by tuberous sclerosis, whose facial angiofibromas were satisfactorily treated by a green light vascular laser (532 nm).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to evaluate how the management of children admitted with headache to a Pediatric Emergency Department, was modified by the introduction of the Second International Classification of Headache Disorders ( ICHD-II) published in 2004. The complexity and average costs of the services provided to patients in 2002 and 2011 were compared. The results revealed a decrease in the number of tests performed and in-hospital admissions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study is to investigate the blood perfusion and the inflammatory response of the myocardial infarct area after transplanting a hyaluronan-based scaffold (HYAFF(®) 11) with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Nine-week-old female pigs were subjected to a permanent left anterior descending coronary artery ligation for 4 weeks. According to the kind of the graft, the swine subjected to myocardial infarction were divided into the HYAFF(®) 11, MSCs, HYAFF(®) 11/MSCs and untreated groups.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdipose-derived stem cells (ASC) are usually isolated from lipoaspirates, but it is not known if the anesthetic solution injected into adipose tissue affects cell yield and functions. Two different samples were drawn from the abdominal region of female subjects. In the first, a physiological solution containing lidocaine/adrenaline was injected (wet liposuction, WL), while in the contralateral area, the sample was collected without injecting any solution (dry liposuction, DL).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCongential hemifacial spasm is a rare condition that is characterized by the occurrence of paroxysmal hemifacial contractions in neonates. We review the clinical, neurophysiological, neuroimaging, and histopathological findings, as well as the differential diagnosis, therapeutic approach, and outcome of all the described cases. Moreover, we report two new cases including the ictal video-electroencephalography recordings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Permanence of grafted stem cells in the infarcted myocardial area has been suggested to be favored by tissue engineering strategies, including the application of a scaffold as a cell support. However, an estimation of how many cells remain localized in the site of transplantation has never been done. The aim of this work was to investigate the localization of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) grafted with a well cell-adhesive polymer in the scar region of the infarcted heart.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIschemic heart disease is characterized chronically by a healed infarct, foci of myocardial scarring, cavitary dilation, and impaired ventricular performance. These alterations can only be reversed by replacement of scarred tissue with functionally competent myocardium. We tested whether cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) implanted in proximity of healed infarcts or resident CPCs stimulated locally by hepatocyte growth factor and insulin-like growth factor-1 invade the scarred myocardium and generate myocytes and coronary vessels improving the hemodynamics of the infarcted heart.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol
November 2007
Objective: This study aims to investigate the clinical features and outcomes of acute mastoiditis in children referred to the ENT/Audiology Department of the University of Ferrara from January 1994 to December 2005. It also aims to discuss risk factors and to find predictors for surgery.
Methods: A retrospective study on case sheets of children with an acute mastoiditis diagnosis was carried out.
Objective of this study was to provide data on hospitalizations for rotavirus gastroenteritis (RVGE) in Ferrara, Italy. The study was conducted analyzing the hospital discharge forms of all children admitted to the Pediatric Department of the University of Ferrara, Arcispedale Sant'Anna, from January 2001 through December 2005. The database was searched for all gastrointestinal diseases and in particular RVGE.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObject: To investigate the rhythmicity of migraine episodes without aura in a pediatric population.
Methods: Time of occurrence of 2517 migraine attacks in 115 children was recorded, by means of a diary, both by hourly and monthly intervals.
Results: A significant circadian variation, characterized by a peak in the afternoon (P < .
Apoptotic cell death of cardiomyocytes is involved in several cardiovascular diseases including ischemia, hypertrophy, and heart failure. The polyamines putrescine, spermidine, and spermine are polycations absolutely required for cell growth and division. However, increasing evidence indicates that polyamines, cell growth, and cell death can be tightly connected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough headache frequency is increasing in preschool age children, an extensive evaluation of the clinical features in affected patients has yet to be achieved. This retrospective study examined 243 patients who were separately analysed in two distinct groups according to the age of onset and the age of first clinical evaluation. Group 1 included preschool age children, while Group 2 consisted of pubertal age patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOsteoporosis and osteopenia are frequent complications of thalassemia major (TM) and intermedia (TI). Osteoporosis was found in 23/25 patients with TI and in 115/239 patients with TM. In TM, no association was found with specific polymorphisms in candidate genes (vitamin D receptor, estrogen receptor, calcitonin receptor, and collagen type 1 alpha 1).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is characterized by vasoconstriction and by obstructive changes of the pulmonary vasculature including smooth muscle cell proliferation which leads to medial hypertrophy and subsequent luminal narrowing. Sildenafil, an orally active inhibitor of cGMP phosphodiesterase-type-5, exerts pulmonary vasodilator activity in PAH patients. We evaluated the effects of sildenafil on growth of cultured human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMC).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF