Vision Engineering (Italy)

Mindfulness practices have been shown to improve human emotional regulation and attentional accuracy, yet their impact on the perception of companion animal behavior remains largely unexplored. This study investigates whether a mindfulness program for owners influences their evaluation of dog behavior and the dog-owner relationship. Participants were assigned to either an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Human-Animal Relationship (MBHAR) program (n = 102) or a control group (n = 51). The MBHAR protocol included formal meditation and informal daily exercises practiced in the presence of the dog. Evaluation was conducted at baseline (T0) and post-intervention (T1) using the Italian validated versions of the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ) and the Monash Dog-Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS). Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) to control for age and sex. While initial non-parametric analyses suggested improvements across several C-BARQ factors, after Bonferroni correction and GLMM validation, only "Stranger-directed aggression/fear" showed a robust and significant decrease in owner-reported scores in the mindfulness group compared to the control group. No significant changes were found in MDORS scores, indicating that the perceived quality of the relationship remained stable. The results suggest that mindfulness practice specifically influences how owners perceive and report their dog's fearful or aggressive responses toward strangers. These findings highlight the potential of mindfulness as a tool to modify owner perception, which may influence the management of canine behavioral challenges, although its impact on the structural dimensions of the dog-owner bond appears limited in the short term.

This review explores established risk factors for keratoconus and current insights into tear film immune biomarkers, with a focus on the role of chronic low-grade inflammation in disease pathogenesis and emerging targeted therapies. Growing evidence supports immune dysregulation as a key driver in the onset and progression of keratoconus. Genetics establish a foundation for a dysregulated inflammatory response in the ocular surface and corneal microenvironment, which sustains and accelerates disease progression. Elevated tear levels of IL-1, IL-6, TNF-α, HMGB1, and MMP9 reflect these inflammatory changes. Chronic inflammation and repeated mechanical trauma from eye rubbing, especially in adolescents and young adults, are major risk factors for disease progression. Timely screening and regular corneal topography in adolescents with allergic or atopic disorders are essential for early diagnosis and prevention of vision loss. The tear film and corneal microenvironment contain valuable immune markers that shed light on keratoconus pathophysiology. Advances in precision and predictive medicine hold promise for safer, more effective strategies to halt disease progression.

This study investigated the effect of a theranostic-guided UV-A light corneal photo-reshaping technique on corneal elevation and wavefront aberration (WA) in human donor eyes. A specialized platform, combining UV-A light with corneal iontophoresis for controlled, patterned, riboflavin delivery, was used for both distribution assessment and concentration-driven photopolymerization of corneal proteins. In all cases, a consistent riboflavin concentration gradient, with lower levels in the central prepupillary zone, was recorded. Corneal topography and WA measurements showed significant corneal steepening and smooth wavefront shaping, respectively, with a delay in the central 2.0 mm of the WA and advancement in the surrounding zone, as well as a 50% reduction in corneal spherical aberration over a 5.0 mm pupil size. Notably, the corneal optical quality, measured via modulation transfer function (MTF), remained stable. This incision-free approach demonstrated the potential to extend focal range without compromising distance vision, presenting a new solution for presbyopia correction.

This study introduces the Smart Road Stud (SRS), an innovative Anisotropic Magneto-Resistive (AMR) detector strategically placed on lane markings for advanced traffic monitoring. Unlike traditional detectors, the SRS, when deployed in pairs or more, facilitates simultaneous vehicle detection. Analysis reveals that single AMR detectors often face challenges, such as interference signals and misidentification of double-vehicle signals. To address these issues, a method leveraging multiple AMR detectors is proposed. Experimental results demonstrate over 95% accuracy in identifying interference signals and distinguishing double-vehicle signals. The approach achieves a remarkable 98.7% accuracy in lane-level traffic volume estimation. The SRS outperforms conventional detectors, showcasing its potential to enhance accuracy and versatility in traffic monitoring.

ABSTRACT Machine vision systems for automatic defect detection commonly adopt 2D image-based systems or 3D laser triangulation systems. 2D and 3D systems present opposite advantages and disadvantages depending on the typology and position of defects to be detected. When the variety of defects is large, none of them performs defect detection accurately. To overcome this limitation, this paper illustrates a hybrid Deep Learning-supported system where the 2D- and 3D-generated data are juxtaposed and analyzed contextually. Anomaly scores are subsequently determined to distinguish suitable and uncompliant parts. The implementation of the hybrid system allowed the identification of defective parts in an aluminium die-cast component with an accuracy concerning true positives of over 95% by comparing the system outputs with human defect detection. The inspection time was reduced by approximately 20% if compared, once again, with the same activities performed by humans.

Seven human donor eye globes underwent corneal cross-linking using theranostic UV-A device with accessory corneal iontophoresis system for patterned delivery of a 0.22% riboflavin solution. Theranostic-guided UV-A light illumination assessed riboflavin distribution and treated corneas at 10 mW/cm2 for 9 min with a 5.0-mm beam size. Corneal topography maps were taken at baseline and 2-h post-treatment. Analysis utilized corneal topography elevation data, with results showing controlled riboflavin delivery led to a consistent gradient, with 40% higher levels centrally (248 ± 79 μg/cm3) than peripherally (180 ± 72 μg/cm3 at ±2.5 mm from the center). Theranostic-guided UV-A light irradiation resulted in significant changes in corneal topography, with a decrease in best-fit sphere value (-0.7 ± 0.2 D; p < 0.001) and consistent downward shift in corneal elevation map (-11.7 ± 3.7 μm). The coefficient of variation was 2.5%, indicating high procedure performance in achieving significant and reliable corneal flattening.

Near-field measurements of antennas with integrated sources is a current challenge. The lack of a reference channel forces to apply phaseless techniques with high levels of oversampling and poor recovery guarantees. On this line, multi-probe systems bring numerous advantage. Not only they provide measurement time savings, but also enable the measurement of the relative phases between probes. This paper proposes a fast planar phaseless technique based on an optimized grid designed to minimize measurement time. The optimized grid is scanned by a probe array which extracts the magnitude and relative phase between the neighboring samples. This partial phase information is fed to a state-of-the-art phase retrieval technique which reconstructs the complete phase signal and the antenna far-field. To demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed technique, a simulation example with the VAST12 antenna is presented, where the total number of samples is reduced by a factor of 100 using a <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$4\times 4$</tex> probe array.

We present an implicit-explicit finite volume scheme for the compressible two-phase model in all-Mach number regimes. In order to solve model equations efficiently and accurately in the low Mach regime, the convective term is split in a stiff part associated to fast acoustic waves, and a non-stiff part corresponding to mean flow advection. A Implicit-Explicit Runge-Kutta (IMEX-RK) method is used to integrate the stiff part implicitly, while non-stiff terms are treated explicitly. This leads to a predictor-corrector scheme, where the contribution of pressure waves is accounted for by solving a system of non-linear elliptic equations for the phasic pressures. The resulting numerical scheme is well-balanced and stable under a CFL condition based on the macroscopic velocity only and is capable of simulating two-phase flows in both the incompressible limit and in the highly compressible regime. The asymptotic preserving property of the scheme is also proven.

At the lower VHF frequencies, the measurement of low gain antennas in a controlled anechoic environment including the space platform can be challenging. Often, the reflectivity of the anechoic environment is insufficient for a traditional single probe approach using near or far field techniques. This was the case in the testing of the 50-70MHz dipole antenna and cubesat satellite that is part of the ESA HERA-JUVENTAS mission. In this paper we discuss the measurement solution for the testing of this satellite in the ESA-HERTZ testing facility. The solution is based on an array of virtual probes generated by moving a physical single probe within the measurement setup. By a suitable optimization of the complex weight of the virtual array elements a plane wave and thus far field condition can be approximated in the satellite test volume while chamber wall reflections are minimized.