Game of neutrophils: modeling the balance between apoptosis and necrosis

Background: Neutrophils are one of the key players in the human innate immune system (HIIS). In the event of an insult where the body is exposed to inflammation triggering moieties (ITMs), neutrophils are mobilized towards the site of insult and antagonize the inflammation. If the inflammation is cleared, neutrophils go into a programmed death called apoptosis.

Characterization of a vertical crack using Laser Spot Thermography

This paper deals with the solution of an inverse problem for the heat equation aimed at nondestructive evaluation of fractures, emerging on the accessible surface of a slab, by means of Active Thermography. In real life, this surface is heated with a laser and its temperature is measured for a time interval by means of an infrared camera. A fundamental step in iterative inversion methods is the numerical solution of the underlying direct mathematical model.

Analysis of the Transient Behaviour in the Numerical Solution of Volterra Integral Equations

In this paper, the asymptotic behaviour of the numerical solution to the Volterra integral equations is studied. In particular, a technique based on an appropriate splitting of the kernel is introduced, which allows one to obtain vanishing asymptotic (transient) behaviour in the numerical solution, consistently with the properties of the analytical solution, without having to operate restrictions on the integration steplength

The impact of MEG source reconstruction method on source-space connectivity estimation: A comparison between minimum-norm solution and beamforming

Despite numerous important contributions, the investigation of brain connectivity with magnetoencephalography (MEG) still faces multiple challenges. One critical aspect of source-level connectivity, largely overlooked in the literature, is the putative effect of the choice of the inverse method on the subsequent cortico-cortical coupling analysis. We set out to investigate the impact of three inverse methods on source coherence detection using simulated MEG data. To this end, thousands of randomly located pairs of sources were created.

Information disorders during the COVID-19 infodemic: The case of Italian Facebook

The recent COVID-19 pandemic came alongside with an "infodemic", with online social media flooded by often unreliable information associating the medical emergency with popular subjects of disinformation. In Italy, one of the first European countries suffering a rise in new cases and dealing with a total lockdown, controversial topics such as migrant flows and the 5G technology were often associated online with the origin and diffusion of the virus.

Security in wireless ad-hoc networks - A survey

Pervasive mobile and low-end wireless technologies, such as radio-frequency identification (RFID), wireless sensor networks and the impending vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs), make the wireless scenario exciting and in full transformation. For all the above (and similar) technologies to fully unleash their potential in the industry and society, there are two pillars that cannot be overlooked: security and privacy. Both properties are especially relevant if we focus on ad-hoc wireless networks, where devices are required to cooperate - e.g.