Publications

Kinetic deflection is a planetary defense technique delivering spacecraft momentum to a small body to deviate its course from Earth. The deflection efficiency depends on the impactor and target. Among them, the contribution of global curvature was poorly understood. The ejecta plume created by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test impact on its target asteroid, Dimorphos, exhibited an elliptical shape almost aligned along its north-south direction. Here, we identify that this elliptical ejecta plume resulted from the target’s curvature, reducing the momentum transfer to 44 ± 10% along the orbit track compared to an equivalent impact on a flat target. We also find lower kinetic deflection of impacts on smaller near-Earth objects due to higher curvature. A solution to mitigate low deflection efficiency is to apply multiple low-energy impactors rather than a single high-energy impactor. Rapid reconnaissance to acquire a target’s properties before deflection enables determining the proper locations and timing of impacts.

On 2022 September 26 the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft collided with Dimorphos, the moon of the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, in a full-scale demonstration of a kinetic impactor concept. The companion Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) spacecraft documented the aftermath, capturing images of the expansion and evolution of the ejecta from 29 to 243 s after the impact. We present results from our analyses of these observations, including an improved reduction of the data and new absolute calibration, an updated LICIACube trajectory, and a detailed description of the events and phenomena that were recorded throughout the flyby. One notable aspect of the ejecta was the existence of clusters of boulders, up to 3.6 m in radius, that were ejected at speeds of up to 52 m s−1. Our analysis of the spatial distribution of 104 of these boulders suggests that they are likely the remnants of larger boulders shattered by the DART spacecraft in the first stages of the impact. The amount of momentum contained in these boulders is more than 3 times that of the DART spacecraft, and it is directed primarily to the south, almost perpendicular to the DART trajectory. Recoil of Dimorphos from the ejection of these boulders has the potential to change its orbital plane by up to a degree and to impart a non-principal-axis component to its rotation state. Damping timescales for these phenomena are such that the Hera spacecraft, arriving at the system in 2026, should be able to measure these effects.

Myofibrillar Myopathies (MFMs) are a growing group of muscular disorders genetically determined, whose diagnosis is based on histological features as myofibrillar degeneration, Z-disk disorganization and protein aggregates’ accumulation. Protein aggregates that do not fit the proteasome’s narrow pore are targeted for removal via a specialized form of autophagy, called aggrephagy. Our study aims to investigate the potential pathogenic role of aggrephagy in 52 muscle samples from an Italian MFM multicentric cohort. We measured, the percentage of positive areas of key aggrephagy proteins by immunofluorescence staining, of sequestosome 1 (p62/SQSTM1), Neighbor of BRCA1 Gene 1 (NBR1), and ubiquitinated proteins (FK2) in 11 DES-, 6 DNAJB6-, 5 FLNC-, 18 MYOT- and 12 TTN-mutated patients. We showed that all aggrephagy markers are increased in these patients, regardless of the mutated genes, suggesting a possible common pathomechanism; no positive signal was found in healthy, age-matched controls. We analyzed the association between positivity levels of these markers, measured as percentage of positive areas, and selected clinical features utilizing generalized linear mixed models with gamma distribution as the probability model and center-specific random effects to better capture possible heterogeneity across participating centers. Our findings indicate significant associations between levels of p62, NBR1, and FK2 with age at biopsy (p62 and NBR1 p-values < 0.001, FK2 p-value < 0.05), age of onset (p62 and NBR1 p-values < 0.001, FK2 p-value < 0.01) and disease severity through Walton & Gardner-Medwin (WGM) score at biopsy (all p-values < 0.001) and at the last visit (all p-values < 0.05). Noteworthy, the aggrephagic pathway is mostly activated in MYOT-mutated patients compared to the other subgroups. Moreover, the association between aggrephagy and WGM score at biopsy is stronger in this subgroup. Overall, our study emphasizes the role of aggrephagy in MFMs across all patients, and its association with specific clinical parameters.

Electroencephalography (EEG) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) offer a promising way for individuals with motor impairments to control prosthetic or rehabilitation devices. Accurately decoding movement intention (MI) is crucial for translating subjects’ motor execution plans into action. Common challenges in EEG-based BCIs include performance discrepancies, often requiring frequent recalibration of decoding algorithms. The objective of this study was enhancing BCI decoding performance of upper-limb MI identification by exploiting both machine and subjects’ learning and maintaining stable decoding algorithms. Significant performance improvements were observed across most subjects from the first to the last session of the experiment. Some subjects also demonstrated stable performance without requiring any model recalibration between sessions. All subjects achieved high efficacy in online decoding of movement intention, as reflected in improvement of the F1 score from 0.58±0.26 in the first session, to 0.84±0.13 in the final session. We emphasize the critical importance of allowing users sufficient time to improve their performance in BCIs for upper-limb MI decoding. Unlike existing studies, we specifically evaluate the effect of stable decoding strategies in online and longitudinal BCI sessions, which are key to achieving more reliable and effective BCIs.

Open vocabulary 3D object detection (OV3D) allows precise and extensible object recognition crucial for adapting to diverse environments encountered in assistive robotics. This paper presents OpenNav, a zero-shot 3D object detection pipeline based on RGB-D images for smart wheelchairs. Our pipeline integrates an open-vocabulary 2D object detector with a mask generator for semantic segmentation, followed by depth isolation and point cloud construction to create 3D bounding boxes. The smart wheelchair exploits these 3D bounding boxes to identify potential targets and navigate safely. We demonstrate OpenNav’s performance through experiments on the Replica dataset and we report preliminary results with a real wheelchair. OpenNav improves state-of-the-art significantly on the Replica dataset at mAP25 (+9pts) and mAP50 (+5pts) with marginal improvement at mAP. The code is publicly available at this link https://github.com/EasyWalk-PRIN/OpenNav.

Background and objectives: Late-onset Pompe disease (LOPD) is the first genetic neuromuscular disease treated with enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) in 2006, with variable results over time. This study aimed to assess therapeutic efficacy and safety in a large national cohort of patients after 10 and 15 years of treatment with alglucosidase alfa, all of them regularly evaluated in expert Centers. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed data from 15 Italian Centers, examining clinical-genetic features and motor and respiratory outcomes at baseline, 10 years (T10, n = 85), and 15 years (T15, n = 42) after ERT initiation. Patients were categorized by baseline 6-min walk test (6MWT: 1: < 150 m, 2: 150-299 m, 3: 300–449 m, 4: ≥ 450 m) or forced vital capacity (FVC: 0: < 80%, 1: ≥ 80%) to assess outcome differences based on initial functional status. Results: All patients were ambulant at baseline. Motor performance, assessed by 6MWT, declined across all functional groups, but even the lowest-performing patients at baseline (Groups 1–2) were mostly ambulant by T15 (50% and 71% respectively). In the best performing patients at baseline (Group 4), subjects maintained quite high performance values also at T15, with a statistically significant decrement observed at T10, and a stabilization at T15; none of them lost ambulation at T15. Despite an overall FVC% reduction, 21/42 patients (50%) remained ventilator-free at T15. No ERT discontinuations or significant adverse events were reported. Conclusion: Alglucosidase alfa therapy showed variable results in a long-term perspective, confirming a reduction in mortality in all functional groups, and stabilization in several patients, without relevant safety concerns. Motor and respiratory function responses varied by functional groups and in single patients, underscoring the need for additional outcome measures. These long-term results will be useful for comparing the possible prolonged efficacy of the new therapies for Pompe disease.

Apraxia is a neuropsychological disorder that impairs voluntary, purposeful movements, with “Gait apraxia” specifically affecting walking. Because of the lack of standardized diagnostic tools, in Italian, we translated and adapted the “Assessment of Walking Skills” (AWS) scale, originally developed for identifying gait apraxia in Alzheimer’s patients. The AWS includes 42 items that evaluate trunk and leg movements, useful for comparing the performance between patients and healthy controls. This translation and adaptation represent a critical step toward standardizing the AWS scale for the Italian population.

Background: Facioscapolohumeral muscular dystrophy is characterized by a wide clinical variability; the underlying reasons and the relation between them and the genetic markers are still not clear. In fact, the different phenotypes could show a different disease progression and/or imply distinct genetic mechanisms. As clinical trials are approaching also for FSHD, the correct description and stratification of patients becomes mandatory. To address these matters, in 2016 the Italian Clinical Group for FSHD developed the Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Form (CCEF), aimed at describing the different observed phenotypes in FSHD. Methods: A working group composed by the former developers of the CCEF and other expert clinicians re-evaluated the whole structure of the CCEF, to develop a simplified version for use in clinical practice; also, other expert clinicians not referring to the Italian Clinical Group for FSHD read and approved the CCEF revised version for its international use. Results: We present the CCEF-R, a revised and simplified version of the CCEF, that while maintaining all the core structure and items of the previous validated version, has been modified with new friendlier graphics, focused on the key anamnestic and neurological examination findings, to facilitate its understanding and use in clinical practice. Conclusions: The phenotypical classification combined with the genetic signature should be considered during the diagnostic work out for guiding genetic analysis and for genotype–phenotype correlations and genetic counseling. The CCEF could have a significant role in the clinical stratification process of patients for clinical trials and in laying the groundwork for evidence-based medical decision making.

Motor imagery (MI) is a fundamental brain-machine interface (BMI) paradigm in which users learn how to modulate their brain signals to voluntarily and selectively activate specific areas of the sensorimotor cortex. The self-paced nature of this kinesthetic imagination makes MI well-suited for several human-robot interaction (HRI) scenarios. However, the performance of MI decoding is highly dependent on both the user’s expertise and the quality of the decoding algorithm. To address these challenges, we propose a method that integrates environmental data from robotic sensors to enhance the MI decoding process. Preliminary experiments indicate that this approach improves decoding accuracy and the overall performance of the brain-driven system, opening new opportunities for research on how machines can enhance the usability of BMIs systems.