Development of a fiber optic health monitoring system for aerospace applications

This paper describes our research activity involved in the identification, development and test of a prototype SHM system constituted by optical sensing nodes to measure both temperature and strain on ultra high temperature ceramics （UHTC） materials up to 1000℃. Commercially available optic devices can operate up to 550℃. To raise temperature limit up to 1000℃, custom devices, mainly under development for scientific applications, have been identified. A prototype SHM system has been developed adopting a FBG sensor for temperature measurement and an EFPI sensor in sapphire fiber for strain measurement. The preliminary findings from thermo-mechanical tests indicate that former SHM system is capable of accurately measuring strain at elevated temperatures on UHTC materials.

Coexpression of CD163 and CD141 identifies human circulating IL-10-producing dendritic cells (DC-10)

Tolerogenic dendritic cells(DCs)are key players in maintaining immunological homeostasis,dampening immune responses,and promoting tolerance.DC-10,a tolerogenic population of human IL-10-producing DCs characterized by the expression of HLA-G and ILT4,play a pivotal role in promoting tolerance via T regulatory type 1(Tr1)cells.Thus far,the absence of markers that uniquely identify DC-10 has limited in vivo studies.By in vitro gene expression profiling of differentiated human DCs,we identified CD141 and CD163 as surface markers for DC-10.The coexpression of CD141 and CD163 in combination with CD14 and CD16 enables the ex vivo isolation of DC-10 from the peripheral blood.CD14+CD16+CD141+CD163+cells isolated from the peripheral blood of healthy subjects(ex vivo DC-10)produced spontaneously and upon activation of IL-10 and limited levels of IL-12.Moreover,in vitro stimulation of allogeneic naive CD4+T cells with ex vivo DC-10 induced the differentiation of alloantigen-specific CD49b+LAG-3+Tr1 cells.Finally,ex vivo DC-10 and in vitro generated DC-10 exhibited a similar transcriptional profile,which are characterized by an anti-inflammatory and pro-tolerogenic signature.These results provide new insights into the phenotype and molecular signature of DC-10 and highlight the tolerogenic properties of circulating DC-10.These findings open the opportunity to track DC-10 in vivo and to define their role in physiological and pathological settings.

Advances in medical decision support systems for diagnosis of acute graft-versus-host disease: molecular and computational intelligence joint approaches

Acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) is a serious systemic complication of allogeneic hematopoietic stemcell transplantation (HSCT) causing considerable morbidity and mortality. Acute GVHD occurs when alloreactivedonor-derived T cells recognize host-recipient antigens as foreign. These trigger a complex multiphase process thatultimately results in apoptotic injury in target organs. The early events leading to GVHD seem to occur very soon,presumably within hours from the graft infusion. Therefore, when the first signs of aGVHD clinically manifest, thedisease has been ongoing for several days at the cellular level, and the inflammatory cytokine cascade is fully activated.So, it comes as no surprise that progress in treatment based on clinical diagnosis of aGVHD has been limited in the past30 years. It is likely that a pre-emptive strategy using systemic high-dose corticosteroids as early as possible couldimprove the outcome of aGVHD. Due to the deleterious effects of such treatment particularly in terms of infection riskposed by systemic steroid administration in a population that is already immune-suppressed, it is critical to identifybiomarker signatures for approaching this very complex task. Some research groups have begun addressing this issuethrough molecular and proteomic analyses, combining these approaches with computational intelligence techniques,with the specific aim of facilitating the identification of diagnostic biomarkers in aGVHD. In this review, we focus on theaGVHD scenario and on the more recent state-of-the-art.We also attempt to give an overview of the classical and noveltechniques proposed as medical decision support system for the diagnosis of GVHD.