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Le arti plastiche nell'Alto Medioevo italiano
No full textIl saggio tratta dell'evoluzione della scultura nella penisola italiana dall'epoca paleocristiana al X secolo.The essay deals with the evolution of sculpture in the Italian peninsula from the early Christian era to the 10th century.Cet essai traite de l'évolution de la sculpture dans la péninsule italienne depuis l'époque paléochrétienne jusqu'au Xe siècle.El ensayo trata sobre la evolución de la escultura en la península italiana desde la época paleocristiana hasta el siglo X.Der Aufsatz befasst sich mit der Entwicklung der Bildhauerei auf der italienischen Halbinsel von der frühchristlichen Zeit bis zum 10. Jahrhundert
Electrophysiological hemispheric asymmetries induced by parietal stimulation eliciting visual percepts
Get PDFObjective: We aimed to establish if the electrophysiological activity resulting from the direct stimulation of the intraparietal sulcus and eliciting visual percepts is hemispheric-specific. Methods: We tested nineteen participants. Each received 360 TMS pulses at phosphene threshold intensity over right and left IPS while recording EEG. After each pulse, participants had to report if they had seen a phosphene. Results: Parietal phosphene perception is associated with hemispheric-specific activations: phosphenes elicited by left TMS involve central and frontal electrodes at about 30 ms, and frontal, central and parieto-occipital electrodes from 120 to 250 ms; phosphenes elicited by right parietal TMS involve parietal and centro-parietal electrodes at about 60 ms, and frontal, central and parietal electrodes from 150 to 250 ms. Correlated Component Analysis shows that primary visual areas are not activated when phosphenes are produced by TMS over IPS. Conclusions: Our results show that direct stimulation of IPS gives rise to sustained patterns of activity specific to the stimulated hemisphere. Moreover, elicited parietal phosphenes are associated with evoked activity specific to the stimulated hemisphere and located outside early visual processing areas. Significance: This study highlights hemispheric differences in the electrophysiological dynamics related to parietal phosphenes, and shows that the dorsal pathway can give rise to visual conscious percepts
Spondyloarthritis and Risk of Malignancy: A Narrative Review on a Still Controversial Issue
No full textCurrent literature regarding cancer risk in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) is particularly poor and controversial, even though the incidence of malignancy in some patients with RMDs is considered to be increased compared with the general population. Malignancy may be a major comorbidity in subjects with spondyloarthritis (SpA) as the result of multifactorial mechanisms, from disease pathogenesis to the iatrogenic effect of immunomodulating drugs. Several recommendations for screening and management of cancer risk have been developed in recent years with the aim of improving the different outcomes in these patients. The goal of this narrative review is to provide an overview of the currently available evidence on the risk of malignancy connected with RMDs and examine the association of SpA with cancer and the potential impact of its treatment with biologic and targeted synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs on development of malignancy
Designing a flexible anaerobic biorefinery for the valorization of red grape marcs into biofuels and biochemicals
Get PDFGlobal grape production reaches 70 million tons annually, with Europe leading 61 % of global wine production, mainly from Italy, France, and Spain. This study examined red grape marc(RGM), a winemaking byproduct, in a laboratory-scale biorefinery to produce fatty acids, hydrogen, and methane. The effects of hydraulic retention time (HRT) and organic loading rate (OLR) were investigated. Short HRTs (2–6 days) inhibited production, yielding minimal fatty acids and biogas. Optimal conditions for short-chain fatty acids, caproic acid, and hydrogen occurred at 10 days HRT and 5 gCOD/L⋅d OLR, with yields of 30 %, 5 % w/w, and 25 LH2/kgVS, respectively. Trace heptanoic and octanoic acids indicated chain elongation onset. A downstream purification process using centrifugation and ultrafiltration produced a fatty acid stream exceeding 90 % purity, to be used for single cell oils in future studies. Methane production peaked at 20 days HRT and 2.5 gCOD/L⋅d OLR, yielding 160–170 LCH4/kgVS. The study also evaluated polyphenols’ impact, finding their removal reduced methane production by 30 %, attributed to the co-extraction of fermentable sugars essential for methane generation
Sustainable valorization of Agri-food industry byproducts for the development of functional foods
No full textThe economic system has traditionally operated according to the linear model,
which predicts that a product will reach its end of life, moving towards production,
consumption, and finally, disposal. However, this model has proven unsustainable
in the agri-food sector, leading to enormous food losses and waste and a cascade of
adverse environmental, economic, and social effects.
However, agri-food by-products are deemed as possible sources of bioactive
molecules with beneficial health properties like phenolic compounds or dietary
fiber. Indeed, polyphenols are crucial in preventing non-communicable diseases,
whereas dietary fiber helps prevent obesity, reduce blood cholesterol levels, and
improve intestinal stool transit. For this reason, an optimal and reasonable scope for
the food by-products could be their incorporation in different food matrices, thus
becoming functional food ingredients to improve economic systems sustainability
and foodstuff's nutritional profile.
Therefore, the main goal of the current PhD project was to upcycle different agrofood byproducts (AFBYs) (namely, grape, red chicory, and apple by-products) from
the agro-industry and study their incorporation into bakery or pasta formulations
and study how those AFBYs impact the final product's nutritional, physicalchemical, textural, rheological, and sensory properties. In addition, I characterized
phenolic compounds by HPLC-MS/MS method of some of the AFBYs and studied
their fate by performing an in vitro digestion.
In particular, I focused on different agrifood-derived by-products added to various
food matrices as reported below:
- Grape pomace from vinification processes and Breadsticks;
- Grape pomace from the distillery process and Muffins;
- Amarone wine lees as a fat substitute in Muffins;
- Red chicory by-product in durum wheat semolina Pasta;
- Red chicory by-product in Bread;
- Apple cider by-product (apple pomace) in Cracke
Linearized Virtual Energy Tank for Passivity-Based Bilateral Teleoperation Using Linear MPC
No full textBilateral teleoperation systems are often used in safety-critical scenarios where human operators may interact with the environment remotely, as in robotic-assisted surgery or nuclear plant maintenance. Teleoperation's stability and transparency are the two most important properties to be satisfied, but they cannot be optimized independently since they are in contrast. This article presents a passive linear MPC control scheme to implement bilateral teleoperation that optimizes the tradeoff between stability and transparency (a.k.a. performance). First, we introduce a linear virtual energy tank with a novel energy-sharing policy, allowing us to define a passive linear model predictive control (MPC). Second, we provide conditions to guarantee the stability of the nonlinear closed-loop system. We validate the proposed approach in a teleoperation scheme using two 7-degree of freedom manipulators while performing an assembly task. This novel passivity-based bilateral teleoperation using linear MPC and linearized energy tank reduces the computational effort of existing passive nonlinear MPC controllers
Selected cell receptor genotypes differentially modulate the ABO blood group influence on Factor VIII levels in severe aortic stenosis
No full textBackground: Altered blood flow, which characterizes aortic stenosis (AS), influences von Willebrand factor (VWF) conformation and enhances ADAMTS13 cleavage, potentially influencing factor VIII (FVIII) clearance and plasma levels. Aim: To investigate whether ABO blood group and genetic variants of cellular receptors involved in VWF/FVIII clearance may interact with AS in determining genotype-driven FVIII levels. Patients/methods: FVIII:c levels were analyzed in patients with severe AS (SAS, n = 115), with coronary artery disease and without valvular heart disease (CAD, n = 300), and healthy subjects (HS, n = 172), clustered according to ABO and receptor genotypes. Variants with functional association with receptor mRNA and/or FVIII levels, localized in 5 receptors (LDLR, STAB2, SCARA5, ASGR2, CLEC4M) with different VWF/FVIII binding properties, were selected. Results: In SAS group, a significant interaction between ABO and receptor genotypes in modulating FVIII:c levels was observed with positive B values for lectins (ASGR2 and CLEC4M) and negative for LDLR and STAB2. The lectin variants, as well as their combinations, showed significantly lower FVIII levels in the non-O group with high glycan expression and potentially improved FVIII binding and increased clearance. Differently, the non-lectin LDLR and STAB2 variants, and their combinations, were associated with genotype-driven high FVIII levels, particularly in the O group. All these patterns were not observed in CAD or HS groups. Conclusion: These observations suggest that differential interaction between genotypes of specific cellular receptors and ABO blood group may contribute to high/low FVIII:c levels in O/non-O blood group subjects, respectively, and to the large inter-individual variability of FVIII levels in SAS
Reflecting on the Essence and Learning Virtues: Explorative Activities in Primary School
No full textAmong the activities proposed by the MelArete programme are the explorative activities, designed to explore the children’s ethical thinking at the beginning of the educational path. The chapter presents a game and a written activity realized with the primary school children in order to collect their ideas about courage, generosity, respect and justice, and their answers to the questions “What are virtues?” and “How can virtues be learned?”; then it describes the method used to analyze these answers and the emerged findings
Grzegorz Ochała, Life and Death at a Nubian Monastery. The Collected Funerary Epigraphy from Ghazali, Turnhout, Brepols (Nubia, 2), 2022
No full textRecensione del libro Life and Death at a Nubian Monastery. The Collected Funerary Epigraphy from Ghazali di Grzegorz Ochała
Molecular Phylogenetic and Chemistry Characterization, and In Vitro Evaluation of Antioxidant and Cytotoxicity Potential of Cyclocybe cylindracea strain TMES42 (Agaricomycetes) from Algeria
No full textThe current study is a first report on the phylogenetic and the medicinal properties of an Algerian mushroom Cyclocybe cylindracea strain TMES42. Different extracts were obtained from sequential liquid-liquid extraction using three solvents of increasing polarity (chloroform, ethyl acetate and butanol). Antioxidant potential was evaluated using different methods (DPPH, ABTS, FRAP, and phenanthroline assays). The phenolic composition of acetate-ethyl-extract (AcEt-Ext) was characterized under LC-ESI-MS-MS analysis, and the antiproliferative effect was determined against the breast-maligned cell line MCF-7. Results demonstrated that the studied mushroom has a promising cytotoxic activity. Its AcEt-Ext fraction showed significant antioxidant activities as well as high phenolic acid and total phenolic content compared with other fractions. This fraction induced breast malignant cell cytotoxicity, exhibiting an IC50 value of 59.84 ± 4.06 μg/ml, and demonstrated a significant selectivity index; these findings suggest that C. cylindracea could be regarded as a promising natural therapeutic agent