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Biomedical subjects

Carlo Colombo

Publications and source records attributed to Carlo Colombo.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Impact of an outbreak of norovirus infection on hospital resources.

OBJECTIVE: To describe a nosocomial norovirus outbreak, its management, and its financial impact on hospital resources. DESIGN: A matched case-control study and microbiological investigation. METHODS: We compared 16 patients with norovirus infection with control-patients matched by age, gender, disease category, and length of stay. Bed occupancy-days during the peak incidence period of the outbreak were compared with the corresponding periods in 2001 and 2002. Expenses due to increased workload were calculated based on a measuring system that records time spent for nursing care per patient per day. RESULTS: The attack rates were 13.9% among patients and 29.5% among healthcare workers. The median number of occupied beds was significantly lower due to bed closure during the peak incidence in 2003 (29) compared with the median number of occupied beds in 2001 and 2002 combined (42.5). Based on this difference and a daily charge of 562.50 dollars per patient, we calculated a revenue loss of 37,968 dollars. Additional expenses totaled 10,300 dollars for increased nursing care. Extra costs for microbiological diagnosis totaled 2707 dollars. Lost productivity costs due to healthcare workers on sick leave totaled 12,807 dollars. The expenses for work by the infection control team totaled 1408 dollars. The financial impact of this outbreak on hospital resources comprising loss of revenue and extra costs for microbiological diagnosis but without lost productivity costs, increased nursing care, and expenses for the infection control team totaled 40,675 dollars. CONCLUSIONS: Nosocomial norovirus outbreaks result in significant loss of revenue and increased use of resources. Bed closures had a greater impact on hospital resources than increased need for nursing care

Caliciviridae Infections↗
PubMed2005

Metric 3D reconstruction and texture acquisition of surfaces of revolution from a single uncalibrated view.

Image analysis and computer vision can be effectively employed to recover the three-dimensional structure of imaged objects, together with their surface properties. In this paper, we address the problem of metric reconstruction and texture acquisition from a single uncalibrated view of a surface of revolution (SOR). Geometric constraints induced in the image by the symmetry properties of the SOR structure are exploited to perform self-calibration of a natural camera, 3D metric reconstruction, and texture acquisition. By exploiting the analogy with the geometry of single axis motion, we demonstrate that the imaged apparent contour and the visible segments of two imaged cross sections in a single SOR view provide enough information for these tasks. Original contributions of the paper are: single view self-calibration and reconstruction based on planar rectification, previously developed for planar surfaces, has been extended to deal also with the SOR class of curved surfaces; self-calibration is obtained by estimating both camera focal length (one parameter) and principal point (two parameters) from three independent linear constraints for the SOR fixed entities; the invariant-based description of the SOR scaling function has been extended from affine to perspective projection. The solution proposed exploits both the geometric and topological properties of the transformation that relates the apparent contour to the SOR scaling function. Therefore, with this method, a metric localization of the SOR occluded parts can be made, so as to cope with them correctly. For the reconstruction of textured SORs, texture acquisition is performed without requiring the estimation of external camera calibration parameters, but only using internal camera parameters obtained from self-calibration.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2004

Genetic background (C57BL/6J versus FVB/N) strongly influences the severity of diabetes and insulin resistance in ob/ob mice.

We studied the effects of genetic background on the phenotype of ob/ob mice, a model of severe obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes caused by leptin deficiency. Despite a comparable degree of obesity and hyperinsulinemia, C57BL/6J ob/ob mice had much milder hyperglycemia and, surprisingly, normal circulating adiponectin levels despite still-prominent signs of insulin resistance. Hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp revealed relatively less whole-body and muscle insulin resistance in C57BL/6J ob/ob mice, whereas liver insulin resistance tended to be more severe than in FVB/N ob/ob mice. C57BL/6J ob/ob mice had also more rapid clearance of circulating triglycerides and more severe hepatic steatosis. We suggest that strain-related distinction in lipid handling is the most important player in the differences in diabetic phenotype and insulin sensitivity, whereas the impact of circulating adiponectin levels on the overall phenotype of ob/ob mice is less important.

Adipose Tissue↗
PubMed2002

Opposite effects of background genotype on muscle and liver insulin sensitivity of lipoatrophic mice. Role of triglyceride clearance.

The metabolic phenotype of the A-ZIP/F-1 (AZIP) lipoatrophic mouse is different depending on its genetic background. On both the FVB/N (FVB) and C57BL/6J (B6) backgrounds, AZIP mice have a similarly severe lack of white adipose tissue and comparably increased insulin levels and triglyceride secretion rates. However, on the B6 background, the AZIP mice have less hyperglycemia, lower circulating triglyceride and fatty acid levels, and lower mortality. AZIP characteristics that are more severe on the B6 background include increased liver size and liver triglyceride content. A unifying hypothesis is that the B6 strain has higher triglyceride clearance into the liver, with lower triglyceride levels elsewhere. This may account for the observation that the B6 AZIP mice have less insulin-resistant muscles and more insulin-resistant livers, than do the FVB AZIP mice. B6 wild type, as well as B6 AZIP, mice have increased triglyceride clearance relative to FVB, which may be explained in part by higher serum lipase levels and liver CD36/fatty acid translocase mRNA levels. Thus, it is likely that increased triglyceride clearance in B6, as compared with FVB, mice contributes to the strain differences in insulin resistance and lipid metabolism.

Adipose Tissue↗
PubMed2002

Transplantation of adipose tissue lacking leptin is unable to reverse the metabolic abnormalities associated with lipoatrophy.

Severe adipose tissue deficiency (lipoatrophy) causes insulin-resistant diabetes, elevated serum triglyceride and fatty acid levels, and massive triglyceride deposition in the liver. In lipoatrophic A-ZIP/F-1 mice, transplantation of normal adipose tissue greatly improved these parameters, whereas 1 week of leptin infusion had more modest effects. In contrast, leptin infusion was strikingly more effective in the aP2-n sterol response element binding protein 1 lipoatrophic mouse. Here we show that a longer duration of leptin infusion further improves the metabolic status of the A-ZIP/F-1 mice and that genetic background does not make a major contribution to the effect of leptin on glucose and insulin levels. Adipose transplantation using leptin-deficient ob/ob fat had no effect on the phenotype of the A-ZIP/F-1 mice. Moreover, the presence of ob/ob adipose tissue did not enhance the effects of leptin infusion. Serum adiponectin levels were 2% of control levels in the A-ZIP/F-1 mouse and increased only twofold with adipose transplantation and not at all after leptin infusion, suggesting that adiponectin deficiency is not a major contributor to the diabetic phenotype. Taken together, these results suggest that sequestration of triglycerides into fat may not be enough to restore a nondiabetic phenotype and that leptin deficiency plays a major role in causing the metabolic complications of lipoatrophy.

Adiponectin↗