Gabriele Valentini - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Gabriele Valentini
The Journal of rheumatology, 2001
To assess the efficacy and tolerability of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in patients with Raynaud's ... more To assess the efficacy and tolerability of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) secondary to systemic sclerosis (scleroderma; SSc). Twenty-two patients with RP secondary to SSc were enrolled in a multicenter, open clinical trial lasting 11 weeks and conducted in winter. Primary outcome measures were frequency and severity of RP attacks, and number of digital ulcers. Secondary outcome measure was improvement in digital cold challenge test assessed by photoelectric plethysmography. Patients received a continuous 5 day intravenous infusion of NAC starting with a 2 h loading dose of 150 mg/kg subsequently adjusted to 15 mg/kg/h. All 22 patients completed the 5 day infusion and 20 of them the posttreatment followup. Both frequency and severity of RP attacks decreased significantly compared to pretreatment values. Active ulcers were significantly less numerous at all followup visits (25.18% of baseline count on Day 33 from the beginning of infusion). In th...
Digestive diseases and sciences, 2001
Gastrointestinal involvement is frequent in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc); however, stud... more Gastrointestinal involvement is frequent in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc); however, studies on the proximal stomach and its regulation are lacking. It has been hypothesized that the primary event in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal involvement in SSc is an early neural lesion. This study investigates proximal stomach function and its relation to autonomic nerve function in SSc. Twenty SSc patients classified in to clinical subsets, underwent measurement of proximal stomach function with and without glucagon by electronic barostat and an assessment of autonomic nerve function. SSc patients were not significantly different from 11 controls for gastric compliance (59.5+/-5.0 vs 47.7+/-4.2 ml/mm Hg, P = 0.1). The pressure-volume curves in each participant with and without glucagon were significantly different (P < 0.001). A significant positive association was found between gastric compliance and autonomic nerve function (P < 0.05). The change in gastric compliance du...
Haematologica, 2000
Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) is a disorder caused by circulating antibodies reacting ... more Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) is a disorder caused by circulating antibodies reacting with biological membranes and characterized by recurrent thrombosis, chronic thrombocytopenia and miscarriages. It has been reported to occur either as a primary syndrome or secondary to systemic autoimmune disorders. We describe a case of primary APS in a young patient, in whom the clinical course was particularly severe and complicated by a respiratory distress syndrome. The patient was resistant to a number of treatments, and eventually responded to intravenous high dose corticosteroids.
Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, 2002
Patients: One hundred patients (91 women, 9 men; mean age, 51.9 ؎ 11 years) with SSc (mean diseas... more Patients: One hundred patients (91 women, 9 men; mean age, 51.9 ؎ 11 years) with SSc (mean disease duration, 17.4 ؎ 10.5 years) were retrospectively studied. Seventy-four subjects had limited scleroderma and 26 diffuse scleroderma.
Reumatismo, 2011
To evaluate the treatment duration with MTX monotherapy or in association with DMARDs or TNFalpha... more To evaluate the treatment duration with MTX monotherapy or in association with DMARDs or TNFalpha inhibitors and the incidence and typology of adverse events (AE) occurred in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. A retrospective large cohort study of RA outpatients, consecutively seen from January 2000 to June 2005 was performed. Study group were RA patients classified according to the 1984 ACR criteria for the classification of rheumatoid arthritis. The patients were divided in 3 groups according to the treatment regimen: MTX monotherapy, MTX in combination with DMARD or with anti TNFalpha agents. We analyzed 348 therapeutic cycles, 177 of whom using MTX monotherapy. The 224 RA patients accumulated 800 person-years of follow up. Follow up for each of the groups was: MTX monotherapy 479.4 person-years, MTX in combination with DMARDs 244.5, or with TNFalpha inhibitors, 75.7 person-years. From the Kaplan-Meier analysis, the probability of patients remaining on treatment 5 years was 58.5 after starting MTX. The incidence of any AE was 8.87 per 100 person-years. From all, 69 (97.2%) AE were no severe. Among those, more frequently were observed at gastrointestinal tract (31%), liver (19.7%), skin (15.5%). Incidence of severe AE (lung adenocarcinoma, 1 case; pancreatitis, 1 case) was 0.25 per 100 person-years, occurring in patients taking MTX monotherapy or MTX in combination with DMARDs, respectively. These data confirm that methotrexate is well tolerated in clinical practice in the medium-long term. Nevertheless, the occurrence of severe AE require an accurate vigilance for methotrexate toxicity.
Clinical and experimental rheumatology
To investigate whether the serological markers of autoimmunity and the clinical features of autoi... more To investigate whether the serological markers of autoimmunity and the clinical features of autoimmune disease which occur in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected subjects are correlated to each other and/or to the clinical pattern of the disease. Seventeen symptom-free, anti-HCV antibody positive subjects, 17 patients with chronic hepatitis C, 21 patients with mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC), and as controls 17 anti-HCV negative patients with dyspepsia were enrolled in a prospective study. A patient history, clinical examination, self-administered questionnaire and laboratory investigations (hepatic enzyme levels, serum HCV-RNA and anti-HCV antibody testing, and serum autoantibody profile) were performed to detect liver and/or autoimmune disease. Serological markers of autoimmunity and clinical findings of autoimmune disease were found to be more frequent in the HCV-infected patients considered as a whole than in controls. However, rheumatoid factor and clinical findings of autoimmune dise...
Recenti progressi in medicina, 1996
Cardiac involvement is quite frequent in systemic sclerosis (SSc). From a pathophysiologic point ... more Cardiac involvement is quite frequent in systemic sclerosis (SSc). From a pathophysiologic point of view, one must differentiate a primary scleroderma heart disease due to pericardial and/or myocardial and/or small coronary intramyocardial vessel involvement from heart disease secondary to either pulmonary interstitial or vascular involvement (pulmonal cor) or to kidney disease (hypertensive myocardial disease). A significant difference emerges when the prevalence of clinically and standard ECG detected cardiac involvement in SSc patients is compared with that registered at autopsy. In the last years, however, Holter ECG, echocardiography, perfusional scintigraphy and ventriculography have reduced such gap, a preclinical scleroderma heart disease being detected by such techniques in quite a high percentage of SSc patients. Asymptomatic SSc patients may be found to present small pericardial effusions and/or either fixed (fibrosis) or reversible (vascular disease) or both types thalli...
The Italian journal of gastroenterology
The case of autoimmune chronic active hepatitis in a 57-year-old female is reported. Onset was si... more The case of autoimmune chronic active hepatitis in a 57-year-old female is reported. Onset was signalled by an abrupt and dramatic thrombocytopenia, which was also the only laboratory parameter able to monitor treatment and progression of the disease. It is concluded that thrombocytopenia together with the presence of antiplatelet-antibodies might be useful markers to monitor the treatment and evolution of the disease.
Acta cardiologica, 1993
Cardiac involvement was noninvasively evaluated in 75 consecutive patients with systemic lupus er... more Cardiac involvement was noninvasively evaluated in 75 consecutive patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography. In 50/75 patients anticardiolipin antibodies (aCL) were also investigated. Major endocardial damage, characterized by the simultaneous presence of both anatomical and functional valvular involvement (AFVI), was observed in three patients with valvular vegetations and in five patients with combined valvular stenosis and/or regurgitation. Nine patients showed only an anatomic valvular involvement (AVI), expressed by a thickening of one or more valvular leaflets, without echo-Doppler findings of valvular dysfunction. Occurrence of major valvular involvement appears to be correlated with both longer disease duration (9.8 +/- 5.6 yrs in AFVI group vs 5.7 +/- 5.6 yrs in the remaining SLE patients; p < 0.001) and IgG aCL (chi-square = 5.546; p < 0.05). Left ventricular systolic function, evaluated by two-dimensional echoca...
The Journal of rheumatology, 1987
The Journal of rheumatology, 1986
Ninety patients who fulfilled the ARA criteria for systemic sclerosis were divided into 6 groups ... more Ninety patients who fulfilled the ARA criteria for systemic sclerosis were divided into 6 groups on the basis of cutaneous areas of sclerosis. Anticentromere antibody (ACA) was found in 14 of 28 patients of the first 2 groups, the first group being pure sclerodactyly, and the second sclerodactyly plus minimal sclerotic lesions (eyelids, neck, armpits). In the other 4 groups (62 patients) in whom skin sclerosis was more diffuse, ACA was found in one case. Fluorescent antinuclear antibodies (FANA) with a diffusely grainy pattern, those with a nucleolar pattern and the anti-Scl-70 antibody were present in all 6 groups, but were significantly more frequent in the last 4 groups than in Groups 1 and 2. The cumulative survival rate as well as disease duration were found to be significantly longer in the first 2 groups designated "limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis," than in the 5th and 6th groups, i.e., patients in whom the trunk also was involved: "diffuse cutaneous syste...
Metabolic, pediatric, and systemic ophthalmology (New York, N.Y. : 1985), 1986
Anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (A.I.O.N.) may cause optic disc edema in type-I diabetes. A.I.... more Anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (A.I.O.N.) may cause optic disc edema in type-I diabetes. A.I.O.N. affects diabetic patients of all ages. Such optic neuropathy is more likely to become bilateral in diabetics than in the non-diabetic subjects. A 41-year-old diabetic insulin-dependent woman presented A.I.O.N. in RE; 5 years later, the same affection occurred in LE. The clinical course was relatively benign in both eyes, with good functional restitution. The patient was treated by high doses of Sodium Salicylate and Sulfinpyrazone. The pathogenesis of optic disc edema in type-I diabetes is, according to Hayreh (1981), ischemia of different grade in the district of the posterior ciliary arteries: microangiopathy, rheological anomalies and atherosclerotic added lesions produce a variability of clinical pictures of increasing seriousness. Our case has an intermediate position in such a continuous spectrum. The VEP supported the diagnosia of A.I.O.N.
The Journal of rheumatology, 1988
Annali italiani di medicina interna : organo ufficiale della Società italiana di medicina interna
Presse médicale (Paris, France : 1983), Jan 10, 1986
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2012
When the function to be optimized is characterized by a limited and unknown number of interaction... more When the function to be optimized is characterized by a limited and unknown number of interactions among variables, a context that applies to many real world scenario, it is possible to design optimization algorithms based on such information. Estimation of Distribution Algorithms learn a set of interactions from a sample of points and encode them in a probabilistic model. The latter is then used to sample new instances. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to estimate the Markov Fitness Model used in DEUM. We combine model selection and model fitting by solving an 1-constrained linear regression problem. Since candidate interactions grow exponentially in the size of the problem, we first reduce this set with a preliminary coarse selection criteria based on Mutual Information. Then, we employ 1-regularization to further enforce sparsity in the model, estimating its parameters at the same time. Our proposal is analyzed against the 3D Ising Spin Glass function, a problem known to be NP-hard, and it outperforms other popular black-box meta-heuristics.
IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2010
This paper presents Evolutionary Optimization Tool (Evoptool), an optimization toolkit that imple... more This paper presents Evolutionary Optimization Tool (Evoptool), an optimization toolkit that implements a set of meta-heuristics based on the Evolutionary Computation paradigm. Evoptool provides a common platform for the development and test of new algorithms, in order to facilitate the performance comparison activity. The toolkit offers a wide set of benchmark problems, from classical toy examples to complex tasks, and a collection of implementations of algorithms from the Genetic Algorithms and Estimation of Distribution Algorithms paradigms. Evoptool is flexible and easy to extend, also with algorithms based on other approaches that go beyond Evolutionary Computation.
SUMMARY Background: Hypocomplementemia has been detected in about 15% of unselected series of SSc... more SUMMARY Background: Hypocomplementemia has been detected in about 15% of unselected series of SSc patients. It constitutes one of the 10 parameters needed to evaluate the European Scleroderma Study Group (EScSG) activity index. A few studies have been so far devoted to investigate the clinical manifestations correlated with this finding. Objective: To investigate SSc patients for hypocomplementemia and point out
Reumatismo, 2011
lavoro premiato al XL Congresso SIR, Udine 2003 Aterosclerosi e artrite reumatoide 245
The Journal of rheumatology, 2007
To assess the prevalence of good clinical response and remission in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pat... more To assess the prevalence of good clinical response and remission in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients with longstanding disease treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) drugs at outpatient clinics. Retrospective national study of 14 academic tertiary referral rheumatology medical centers. RA patients with a Disease Activity Score (DAS28) > 3.2 were defined as having active disease and could start TNF-alpha blockers. All patients received one TNF-alpha blocker plus methotrexate (10-20 mg/wk). At the third month the patients were categorized as responders or nonresponders, based on improvement of at least 0.25 of the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ). Those who had improved by at least 0.25 HAQ were analyzed for possible predictors of DAS28 remission at the sixth month. A total of 1257 patients started TNF-alpha blockers. Of these, 591 (46.7%) reached the sixth month with an improvement of HAQ of 0.25 at the third month. In the cohort of patients reaching HAQ ...
The Journal of rheumatology, 2001
To assess the efficacy and tolerability of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in patients with Raynaud's ... more To assess the efficacy and tolerability of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) secondary to systemic sclerosis (scleroderma; SSc). Twenty-two patients with RP secondary to SSc were enrolled in a multicenter, open clinical trial lasting 11 weeks and conducted in winter. Primary outcome measures were frequency and severity of RP attacks, and number of digital ulcers. Secondary outcome measure was improvement in digital cold challenge test assessed by photoelectric plethysmography. Patients received a continuous 5 day intravenous infusion of NAC starting with a 2 h loading dose of 150 mg/kg subsequently adjusted to 15 mg/kg/h. All 22 patients completed the 5 day infusion and 20 of them the posttreatment followup. Both frequency and severity of RP attacks decreased significantly compared to pretreatment values. Active ulcers were significantly less numerous at all followup visits (25.18% of baseline count on Day 33 from the beginning of infusion). In th...
Digestive diseases and sciences, 2001
Gastrointestinal involvement is frequent in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc); however, stud... more Gastrointestinal involvement is frequent in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc); however, studies on the proximal stomach and its regulation are lacking. It has been hypothesized that the primary event in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal involvement in SSc is an early neural lesion. This study investigates proximal stomach function and its relation to autonomic nerve function in SSc. Twenty SSc patients classified in to clinical subsets, underwent measurement of proximal stomach function with and without glucagon by electronic barostat and an assessment of autonomic nerve function. SSc patients were not significantly different from 11 controls for gastric compliance (59.5+/-5.0 vs 47.7+/-4.2 ml/mm Hg, P = 0.1). The pressure-volume curves in each participant with and without glucagon were significantly different (P < 0.001). A significant positive association was found between gastric compliance and autonomic nerve function (P < 0.05). The change in gastric compliance du...
Haematologica, 2000
Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) is a disorder caused by circulating antibodies reacting ... more Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) is a disorder caused by circulating antibodies reacting with biological membranes and characterized by recurrent thrombosis, chronic thrombocytopenia and miscarriages. It has been reported to occur either as a primary syndrome or secondary to systemic autoimmune disorders. We describe a case of primary APS in a young patient, in whom the clinical course was particularly severe and complicated by a respiratory distress syndrome. The patient was resistant to a number of treatments, and eventually responded to intravenous high dose corticosteroids.
Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, 2002
Patients: One hundred patients (91 women, 9 men; mean age, 51.9 ؎ 11 years) with SSc (mean diseas... more Patients: One hundred patients (91 women, 9 men; mean age, 51.9 ؎ 11 years) with SSc (mean disease duration, 17.4 ؎ 10.5 years) were retrospectively studied. Seventy-four subjects had limited scleroderma and 26 diffuse scleroderma.
Reumatismo, 2011
To evaluate the treatment duration with MTX monotherapy or in association with DMARDs or TNFalpha... more To evaluate the treatment duration with MTX monotherapy or in association with DMARDs or TNFalpha inhibitors and the incidence and typology of adverse events (AE) occurred in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. A retrospective large cohort study of RA outpatients, consecutively seen from January 2000 to June 2005 was performed. Study group were RA patients classified according to the 1984 ACR criteria for the classification of rheumatoid arthritis. The patients were divided in 3 groups according to the treatment regimen: MTX monotherapy, MTX in combination with DMARD or with anti TNFalpha agents. We analyzed 348 therapeutic cycles, 177 of whom using MTX monotherapy. The 224 RA patients accumulated 800 person-years of follow up. Follow up for each of the groups was: MTX monotherapy 479.4 person-years, MTX in combination with DMARDs 244.5, or with TNFalpha inhibitors, 75.7 person-years. From the Kaplan-Meier analysis, the probability of patients remaining on treatment 5 years was 58.5 after starting MTX. The incidence of any AE was 8.87 per 100 person-years. From all, 69 (97.2%) AE were no severe. Among those, more frequently were observed at gastrointestinal tract (31%), liver (19.7%), skin (15.5%). Incidence of severe AE (lung adenocarcinoma, 1 case; pancreatitis, 1 case) was 0.25 per 100 person-years, occurring in patients taking MTX monotherapy or MTX in combination with DMARDs, respectively. These data confirm that methotrexate is well tolerated in clinical practice in the medium-long term. Nevertheless, the occurrence of severe AE require an accurate vigilance for methotrexate toxicity.
Clinical and experimental rheumatology
To investigate whether the serological markers of autoimmunity and the clinical features of autoi... more To investigate whether the serological markers of autoimmunity and the clinical features of autoimmune disease which occur in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected subjects are correlated to each other and/or to the clinical pattern of the disease. Seventeen symptom-free, anti-HCV antibody positive subjects, 17 patients with chronic hepatitis C, 21 patients with mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC), and as controls 17 anti-HCV negative patients with dyspepsia were enrolled in a prospective study. A patient history, clinical examination, self-administered questionnaire and laboratory investigations (hepatic enzyme levels, serum HCV-RNA and anti-HCV antibody testing, and serum autoantibody profile) were performed to detect liver and/or autoimmune disease. Serological markers of autoimmunity and clinical findings of autoimmune disease were found to be more frequent in the HCV-infected patients considered as a whole than in controls. However, rheumatoid factor and clinical findings of autoimmune dise...
Recenti progressi in medicina, 1996
Cardiac involvement is quite frequent in systemic sclerosis (SSc). From a pathophysiologic point ... more Cardiac involvement is quite frequent in systemic sclerosis (SSc). From a pathophysiologic point of view, one must differentiate a primary scleroderma heart disease due to pericardial and/or myocardial and/or small coronary intramyocardial vessel involvement from heart disease secondary to either pulmonary interstitial or vascular involvement (pulmonal cor) or to kidney disease (hypertensive myocardial disease). A significant difference emerges when the prevalence of clinically and standard ECG detected cardiac involvement in SSc patients is compared with that registered at autopsy. In the last years, however, Holter ECG, echocardiography, perfusional scintigraphy and ventriculography have reduced such gap, a preclinical scleroderma heart disease being detected by such techniques in quite a high percentage of SSc patients. Asymptomatic SSc patients may be found to present small pericardial effusions and/or either fixed (fibrosis) or reversible (vascular disease) or both types thalli...
The Italian journal of gastroenterology
The case of autoimmune chronic active hepatitis in a 57-year-old female is reported. Onset was si... more The case of autoimmune chronic active hepatitis in a 57-year-old female is reported. Onset was signalled by an abrupt and dramatic thrombocytopenia, which was also the only laboratory parameter able to monitor treatment and progression of the disease. It is concluded that thrombocytopenia together with the presence of antiplatelet-antibodies might be useful markers to monitor the treatment and evolution of the disease.
Acta cardiologica, 1993
Cardiac involvement was noninvasively evaluated in 75 consecutive patients with systemic lupus er... more Cardiac involvement was noninvasively evaluated in 75 consecutive patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography. In 50/75 patients anticardiolipin antibodies (aCL) were also investigated. Major endocardial damage, characterized by the simultaneous presence of both anatomical and functional valvular involvement (AFVI), was observed in three patients with valvular vegetations and in five patients with combined valvular stenosis and/or regurgitation. Nine patients showed only an anatomic valvular involvement (AVI), expressed by a thickening of one or more valvular leaflets, without echo-Doppler findings of valvular dysfunction. Occurrence of major valvular involvement appears to be correlated with both longer disease duration (9.8 +/- 5.6 yrs in AFVI group vs 5.7 +/- 5.6 yrs in the remaining SLE patients; p < 0.001) and IgG aCL (chi-square = 5.546; p < 0.05). Left ventricular systolic function, evaluated by two-dimensional echoca...
The Journal of rheumatology, 1987
The Journal of rheumatology, 1986
Ninety patients who fulfilled the ARA criteria for systemic sclerosis were divided into 6 groups ... more Ninety patients who fulfilled the ARA criteria for systemic sclerosis were divided into 6 groups on the basis of cutaneous areas of sclerosis. Anticentromere antibody (ACA) was found in 14 of 28 patients of the first 2 groups, the first group being pure sclerodactyly, and the second sclerodactyly plus minimal sclerotic lesions (eyelids, neck, armpits). In the other 4 groups (62 patients) in whom skin sclerosis was more diffuse, ACA was found in one case. Fluorescent antinuclear antibodies (FANA) with a diffusely grainy pattern, those with a nucleolar pattern and the anti-Scl-70 antibody were present in all 6 groups, but were significantly more frequent in the last 4 groups than in Groups 1 and 2. The cumulative survival rate as well as disease duration were found to be significantly longer in the first 2 groups designated "limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis," than in the 5th and 6th groups, i.e., patients in whom the trunk also was involved: "diffuse cutaneous syste...
Metabolic, pediatric, and systemic ophthalmology (New York, N.Y. : 1985), 1986
Anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (A.I.O.N.) may cause optic disc edema in type-I diabetes. A.I.... more Anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (A.I.O.N.) may cause optic disc edema in type-I diabetes. A.I.O.N. affects diabetic patients of all ages. Such optic neuropathy is more likely to become bilateral in diabetics than in the non-diabetic subjects. A 41-year-old diabetic insulin-dependent woman presented A.I.O.N. in RE; 5 years later, the same affection occurred in LE. The clinical course was relatively benign in both eyes, with good functional restitution. The patient was treated by high doses of Sodium Salicylate and Sulfinpyrazone. The pathogenesis of optic disc edema in type-I diabetes is, according to Hayreh (1981), ischemia of different grade in the district of the posterior ciliary arteries: microangiopathy, rheological anomalies and atherosclerotic added lesions produce a variability of clinical pictures of increasing seriousness. Our case has an intermediate position in such a continuous spectrum. The VEP supported the diagnosia of A.I.O.N.
The Journal of rheumatology, 1988
Annali italiani di medicina interna : organo ufficiale della Società italiana di medicina interna
Presse médicale (Paris, France : 1983), Jan 10, 1986
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2012
When the function to be optimized is characterized by a limited and unknown number of interaction... more When the function to be optimized is characterized by a limited and unknown number of interactions among variables, a context that applies to many real world scenario, it is possible to design optimization algorithms based on such information. Estimation of Distribution Algorithms learn a set of interactions from a sample of points and encode them in a probabilistic model. The latter is then used to sample new instances. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to estimate the Markov Fitness Model used in DEUM. We combine model selection and model fitting by solving an 1-constrained linear regression problem. Since candidate interactions grow exponentially in the size of the problem, we first reduce this set with a preliminary coarse selection criteria based on Mutual Information. Then, we employ 1-regularization to further enforce sparsity in the model, estimating its parameters at the same time. Our proposal is analyzed against the 3D Ising Spin Glass function, a problem known to be NP-hard, and it outperforms other popular black-box meta-heuristics.
IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2010
This paper presents Evolutionary Optimization Tool (Evoptool), an optimization toolkit that imple... more This paper presents Evolutionary Optimization Tool (Evoptool), an optimization toolkit that implements a set of meta-heuristics based on the Evolutionary Computation paradigm. Evoptool provides a common platform for the development and test of new algorithms, in order to facilitate the performance comparison activity. The toolkit offers a wide set of benchmark problems, from classical toy examples to complex tasks, and a collection of implementations of algorithms from the Genetic Algorithms and Estimation of Distribution Algorithms paradigms. Evoptool is flexible and easy to extend, also with algorithms based on other approaches that go beyond Evolutionary Computation.
SUMMARY Background: Hypocomplementemia has been detected in about 15% of unselected series of SSc... more SUMMARY Background: Hypocomplementemia has been detected in about 15% of unselected series of SSc patients. It constitutes one of the 10 parameters needed to evaluate the European Scleroderma Study Group (EScSG) activity index. A few studies have been so far devoted to investigate the clinical manifestations correlated with this finding. Objective: To investigate SSc patients for hypocomplementemia and point out
Reumatismo, 2011
lavoro premiato al XL Congresso SIR, Udine 2003 Aterosclerosi e artrite reumatoide 245
The Journal of rheumatology, 2007
To assess the prevalence of good clinical response and remission in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pat... more To assess the prevalence of good clinical response and remission in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients with longstanding disease treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) drugs at outpatient clinics. Retrospective national study of 14 academic tertiary referral rheumatology medical centers. RA patients with a Disease Activity Score (DAS28) > 3.2 were defined as having active disease and could start TNF-alpha blockers. All patients received one TNF-alpha blocker plus methotrexate (10-20 mg/wk). At the third month the patients were categorized as responders or nonresponders, based on improvement of at least 0.25 of the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ). Those who had improved by at least 0.25 HAQ were analyzed for possible predictors of DAS28 remission at the sixth month. A total of 1257 patients started TNF-alpha blockers. Of these, 591 (46.7%) reached the sixth month with an improvement of HAQ of 0.25 at the third month. In the cohort of patients reaching HAQ ...