Biomedical subjects

Carmelina Ruggiero

Publications and source records attributed to Carmelina Ruggiero.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

Elastic scattering and light transport in three-dimensional collagen gel constructs: a mathematical model and computer simulation approach.

A mathematical modeling approach for elastic scattering and light propagation is presented, which can be used to obtain the scattering coefficient, the index of refraction, and the distribution of the collagen fibrils in a gel. Collagen fibrils can be realistically represented by small cylindrical particles. The analysis of the scattering of light by such particles provides the scattering coefficient. Light transport in multilayered tissues has been modeled and the collagen fibrils scattering coefficient has been considered as main input parameters. Assuming that a gel is composed of fibrils with the same diameter, it is possible to obtain all the input parameters of the model and, therefore, a simulated spectrum. This can be repeated for several diameters. Considering a gel composed of fibrils with different diameters, it is possible to obtain a best-fitting simulated spectrum as a weighted sum (least-square-error based) of the spectra corresponding to several fibril diameters, and, therefore, obtain an estimate of the percentages of fibrils of each diameter in the gel. Moreover, the scattering coefficient and refractive index, which are also provided by the model, are relevant parameters as they relate to tissue properties in their own right.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2003

A decision support system to detect morphologic changes of chromatin arrangement in normal-appearing cells.

Several studies have described malignancy-associated changes (MACs) of chromatin arrangement in the nuclei of apparently normal cells adjacent to and distant from an invasive cancer area. MAC assessment is a hard task, since it requires a deep knowledge of morphologic features of chromatin arrangement. The aim of this work is to verify the reproducibility of the subjective evaluation of the expert on the basis of a decision support system (DSS) that automatically and objectively reproduces MAC diagnosis. A set of 61 patients with suspected clinical diagnosis for lung cancer has been taken into account. The scientist who first described MAC defined each patient as MAC positive or negative on the basis of the MAC diagnosis performed on all cells of the related cytologic sample. A DSS based on an artificial neural network has been set up to learn the relation between 14 morphometric and texture parameters, computed on each nucleus by image processing techniques, with the MAC diagnosis of the expert on each cell. The results show that an objective automatic assessment on MAC by the DSS can effectively support the MAC diagnosis. The method adopted in this approach may be also appropriate for other problems, where an automatic classification of visually inspected patterns of biological micro- and submicrostructure is needed.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2002

Knowledge engineering for a database between botany and art.

We present the knowledge organisation of a database, which aims to collect information for the project "Plants in European Masterpieces". This project is financed by the European Union within the Culture 2000 program. The project is aimed to link art with plants within the frame of a common European history and to make it accessible to a wide public. The informatics aspect of this project is focused on the creation of a data base which collects detailed information on selected plants and masterpieces in which these plants are presented. The main efforts in the design phase have been devoted to knowledge organisation in order to retain the taxonomic structure of the botanical knowledge, and to minimise data structure redundancies by linking some features which can be applied to the plants at different levels of their taxonomy to the correct level without repeating it. At present the database is installed in the Pc of all the experts that in the 5 involved countries collaborate to collect data for this project. This data is weekly merged in a central database, using a specific automatic procedure that avoids possible duplications of data inserted and checks for possible inconsistencies among data inserted in different temporal databases. The multi-language and easy to use features of this data base make it an interesting prototype for the spreading of scientific information to common public

Art↗

PubMed2002

Breath Multi Analysis: a database to collect data on gastric related non invasive analysis.

The diagnosis of dyspepsia is very difficult because the symptoms are clinically aspecific and the gastric emptying time tests are of complex interpretation. An integrated and automated analysis of clinical and instrumental data may improve the diagnostic process. We present a system to collect data on dyspeptic patients from different sources which have been set up to assist the clinician in the diagnosis of dyspepsia. The data base integrates a wide set of symptoms with data coming from non invasive laboratory tests. Moreover, we assess the feasibility of considering the same methods for collecting data also for adsorption problems and for hepatic problems.

Breath Tests↗

PubMed2002

The impact of the introduction of Euro and other legislation changes on EU funded prototype for social and health care: the experience of EPIC in Savona.

We present the knowledge organisation of a database which aims to collect information for the optimisation of the social and heath care delivery in a limited territory within the guidelines set up by a EU funded project EPIC. The local implementation reflects the specificity of the social and health care delivery in the validation site: Savona. The paper discusses the features of the new rules which make compulsory an update of the first version of the software.

Delivery of Health Care↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Mathematical model of retinal mosaic formation.

The retina is one of the best examples of modular organisation in neural circuitry. This modular structure enables it to perform parallel processing. A mathematical model of the retina has been set up, focusing on mechanical features of retinal neurons and on the interaction and dendritic overlapping among retinal cells. The model focuses on the actions of local mechanical forces on the neuron's cytoskeleton. The cytoskeleton is regarded as a structure in which elastic and rigid elements are combined according to the tensegrity concept. We have assumed that dendritic overlap takes place in such a way as to favour uniform retinal neurons' distribution and that dendritic overlap is the only cause of neuron's motion on the retinal surface. This overlap depends on the growth of the dendrites due to the cytoskeletic deformation. The results obtained are in agreement with experimental results that support the notion that local mechanical interaction and dendritic overlapping are capable to transform random cell distributions into regular mosaics.

Animals↗