227 research outputs found
Esiste un’equazione che quantifichi lo stress? Un metodo analitico rapido per identificare lo stress lavoro correlato.
No full text
Is Mercury a carcinogen? What is its mechanism of action? A hypothesis beyond genotoxic effects, beyond inhibition of intercellular communication, through epigenetic effects.
No full textWe studied mercury toxicity and, in particular, we evaluated that it inhibited the intercellular communication via gap junctions; the latter might explain its carcinogen effect.
It is known that a promoter effect occurs by the inhibition of intercellular communication. However, this mechanism cannot, alone, permit to classify mercury as carcinogen. We retain that the increment of reactive oxygen species is associated with the inhibition of the pro-inflammatory cytokines and it may tamper the immune system defences: checkmate the whole organism.
Summing up our studies, we propose that the carcinogenic effect of mercury might ensue from: 1) inhibition of gap junctions-mediated intercellular communication linked to increased production of reactive oxygen species [6]; 2) reduction of the pro-inflammatory interleukins IL1 Beta and TNF alpha causing alteration of the earlier immune response [7]. These two mercury-induced key events might act synergically to turn a group of proliferating cells in a war machine highly capable of invading the host tissues.
May we call all that as epigenetic effects? If all depends on genes, and the genes can be expressed or not expressed and these events depend on environment, then Mercury is an evident example of epigenetic carcinogen. We would like to conclude with a question “What’s beyond the epigenetic effect?
The Epigenetic effects of Metals: how the action of mercury goes beyond them.
No full textEpigenetic is the study of modification of the genes leading to the control and regulation of their expression without the involvement of mutagenic events. Epigenetic modifications include DNA methylation, histone modification, RNA regulation, DNA repair, miRNAs-controlled transcription, RNA stability, alternative RNA splicing, protein degradation, gene copy number, and transposon activation; all these processes contribute to the control of gene expression. Primary human keratinocytes (HK), provided by the "Istituto Zooprofilattico di Brescia", were cultured in Epilife Medium supplemented with Keratinocytes supplement, Penicillin and Streptomycin (Sigma). Cells were plated at a density of 1 x 106 in Petri dishes, incubated in a humidified atmosphere of 95% air and 5% CO2 at 37°C and used when 95% confluent. Cells were treated with Mercury Chloride at 10 nM final concentration for 24 hours. In our studies we found that Mercury (HgCl2) was able to inhibit at sub-cytotoxic nanomolar concentrations the gap junction-mediated intercellular communication (GJIC) in cultured Human Keratinocytes determining also reduction of pro-inflammatory interleukins release [3,4]. Furthermore we demonstrated that the Mercury-induced alterations of GJIC were mediated by increased cellular ROS production and reversed by all trans retinoic acid (ATRA) or Lycopene. To note all the Mercury-induced events did not result from any mutagenic effect strengthening the notion that epigenetics is a complex, reversible and multi-faceted/level phenomen
The Role of Fraudulent Transfer Rules in Corporate Insolvency
No full textThe author goes beyond the well-known topic of US-type fraudulent transfer rules as an alternative to the European legal capital rules and deals with the role played in company law by fraudulent transfer provisions and, more generally, by insolvency law rules that work in a functionally comparable way. After an analysis of some tendencies at work especially in Europe the writer puts forward the idea that avoidance is not simply enforcement but expresses - as a substantive law device - an evaluation, not so much of the result of the debtor's behaviour as the debtor's behaviour in itself (and on its "correctness" and/or on its "reasonability"), in order to counterbalance - by virtue of its compulsory nature - company law that is becoming increasingly less mandatory
La revocatoria fallimentare delle attribuzioni indirette
No full textIl libro muove dalla premessa che, al giorno d''oggi, la maggior parte dei pagamenti è mediata da un intermediario, per poi mettere a fuoco la disciplina della revocatoria fallimentare applicabile per il caso in cui il debitore principale o, rispettivamente, l''intermediario fallisca e domandarsi, in ultima analisi: a) chi deve essere il legittimato passivo; b) come si deve atteggiare la prova del danno, e c)
fino a che punto la curatela possa imputare la conoscenza dell''intermediario al destinatario finale della prestazione.
Il lavoro, dopo un ampio capitolo dedicato all''evoluzione della revocatoria fallimentare, si occupa nel cap. II delle intermediazioni realizzate mediante la delegazione, l''espromissione e l''accollo, con riferimento alle quali, non solo si preoccupa di precisare - con la dottrina prevalente - che la prova del danno nella revocatoria si atteggia in maniera molto diversa da quella disciplinata dalla normativa sull''illecito, ma anche - e questa volta in contrasto con la posizione assunta dalla giurisprudenza prevalente - che un conto è provare che
l''atto è pregiudizievole per i creditori ed un altro conto è dimostrare che esso è imputabile al debitore: con importanti conseguenze applicative.
La monografia si sforza di dimostrare poi che una vicenda di intermediazione nei pagamenti si realizza anche mediante talune forme di cessione del credito (cap. V) ed in particolare tutte le volte in cui un intermediario professionale acquista un credito pro-solvendo, dal momento che - quando il cessionario paga nelle mani del cedente il corrispettivo della cessione - è come se si interponesse tra il debitore ceduto ed il cedente; non importa poi se, da un punto di vista strutturale, possa esistere uno scarto temporale o/e quantitativo tra la prestazione del ceduto al cessionario e quella del cessionario al cedente. Con la conseguenza che, sempre secondo questa linea di pensiero, in caso di fallimento del debitore ceduto, la revocatoria fallimentare del pagamento andrebbe indirizzata nei confronti del cedente, come è previsto nell''art. 6 della legge sul factoring (l. 21 febbraio 1991, n. 52) e nell''art. 70, comma 1, della legge fallimentare riformata."The book deals with the regulation concerning preferences in insolvency law
and the effects of these rules on the ever increasing cases where a payment is
mediated by an agent and the debtor or the agent fall into bankruptcy. The work
considers the following questions: a) Who has the action to be brought against?
b) How has the harm to creditors to be demonstrated? c) Can the trustee of the
insolvency proceeding demonstrate that the defendant is knowing the [UTF-8?]debtorâ€TMs
insolvency by demonstrating that the agent is having knowledge of the [UTF-8?]debtorâ€TMs
insolvency? The book containts two chapters devoted to the development of the
regulation concerning preferences in Italy, in the U.S.A. and in Germany. In
chapter 4 it deals with the cases where payments are mediated through a
delegation or an other form of intemediation constitued from the [UTF-8?]debtorâ€TMs side.
Here the work affirms that the demonstration of the harm to creditors has to be
performed differently than in tort law. The work contests also the judiciary
which overlaps the issue of demonstrating the harm to creditors with the
problem concerning the attribuition to the debtor of the payment performed by
the agent. In chapter 5 the book deals with assigments. Here it puts forward
the thesis that, if the assignor gives the assignee the warranty that the
payment will be fulfilled (assignment pro-solvendo) and if the assignee is a
bank or another financial institution, such operation could be regarded
functionally as a form of intermediation. In fact, the debtor transfers the
money to the assignee and the assignee transfers the money to the assignor,
even if such transfers are unlike in consideration, time and ammount.
Consequently, if the debtor falls into bankruptcy, the trustee of the
insolvency proceeding can bring the action against the assignor, as it is laid
down by article 6 of the Italian legge 21 february 1991, n. 52. And as it is
laid down by article 70 (1) of the reformed insolvency law, which was drafted
later than the author had written his doctoral thesis and published the
provisional edition of the present book.
Augmented reality for dental implantology: A pilot clinical report of two cases
No full text© 2019 The Author(s). Background: Despite the limited number of articles dedicated to its use, augmented reality (AR) is an emerging technology that has shown to have increasing applications in multiple different medical sectors. These include, but are not limited to, the Maxillo-facial and Dentistry disciplines of medicine. In these medical specialties, the focus of AR technology is to achieve a more visible surgical field during an operation. Currently, this goal is brought about by an accurate display of either static or dynamic diagnostic images via the use of a visor or specific glasses. The objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of using a virtual display for dynamic navigation via AR. The secondary outcome is to evaluate if the use of this technology could affect the accuracy of dynamic navigation. Case presentation: Two patients, both needing implant rehabilitation in the upper premolar area, were treated with flapless surgery. Prior to the procedure itself, the position of the implant was virtually planned and placed for each of the patients using their previous scans. This placement preparation contributed to a dynamic navigation system that was displayed on AR glasses. This, in turn, allowed for the use of a computer-aided/image-guided procedure to occur. Dedicated software for surface superimposition was then used to match the planned position of the implant and the real one obtained from the postoperative scan. Accuracies, using this procedure were evaluated by way of measuring the deviation between real and planned positions of the implants. For both surgeries it was possible to proceed using the AR technology as planned. The deviations for the first implant were 0.53 mm at the entry point and 0.50 mm at the apical point and for the second implant were 0.46 mm at the entry point and 0.48 mm at the apical point. The angular deviations were respectively 3.05° and 2.19°. Conclusions: From the results of this pilot study, it seems that AR can be useful in dental implantology for displaying dynamic navigation systems. While this technology did not seem to noticeably affect the accuracy of the procedure, specific software applications should further optimize the results
Multi-point aerodynamic shape optimization for airfoils and wings at supersonic and subsonic regimes
No full textThe second-generation of supersonic civil transport has to match ambitious targets in terms of noise reduction and efficiency to become economically and environmentally viable. High-fidelity numerical optimization offers a powerful approach to address the complex trade-offs intrinsic to this novel configuration. Past and current research however, despite proving the potential of such design strategy, lacks in deeper insight on final layouts and optimization workflow challenges. Stemming from the necessity to quantify and exploit the potential of modern design tools applied to supersonic aircraft design, this work partially fills the gap in previous research by investigating RANS-based aerodynamicoptimization for both supersonic, transonic and subsonic conditions. The investigation is carried out with the state-of-the-art, gradient-based MDO framework \textit{MACH}, developed at University of Michigan's MDO Lab - which hosted the author for the 14-month research stint. Details of the tool and a brief overview of supersonic aircraft design and modern aerodynamic optimization strategies are reported in the first part of this manuscript.After circumscribing the research niche, I perform single and multi-point optimization to minimize the drag over an ideal supersonic aircraft flight envelope and assess the influence of physical and numerical parameters on optimization accuracy and reliability. Leading and trailing edge morphing capabilities are introduced to improve the efficiency at transonic and subsonic flight speed by relaxing the trade-offs on clean shape optimization. Benefits in terms of drag reduction are quantified and benchmarked with fixed-edges results. It is observed how the optimized airfoils outperform baseline reference shapes from a minimum of 4\% up to 86\% for different design cases and flightconditions. The study is then extended to the optimization of a planar, low-aspect-ratio, and low-sweep wing, using the same schematic approach of 2D analysis. I investigate the influence of wing twist alone and twist and shape on cruise performance, obtaining a drag reduction of 6\% and 25\% respectively as the optimizer copes with both viscosity and compressibility effects over the wing. Results for 3D multi-point optimization suggest that the proposed strategy enables a fast and effective design of highly-efficient wings, with drag reduction ranging from a minimum of 24\% up to 74\% for cruise at different speeds and altitudes, including edge deflection. Ultimately, this work provides an extensive and, to the best of author knowledge, unprecedented insight on the optimal design solutions for this specific aircraft configuration and the challenges of the optimization framework. The benefits of RANS-based aerodynamic shape optimization to capture non-intuitive design trade-offs and offer deeper physical insight are ultimately discussed and quantified. Given the promising results in terms of performance improvements and design efficiency, it is hoped that this work will foster the implementation of this method for more comprehensive full-configuration, multidisciplinary supersonic aircraft optimization studies.Aerospace Engineerin
Cameras: Forms of Interaction
No full textThis essay examines the material design of cameras. The author argues that design plays a central role in the interaction between Operator and Spectator (R. Barthes) and, furthermore, that it entails significant effects on photographic aesthetics. Finally, the author also considers some of the design differences between traditional emulsion cameras and digital cameras.Cet article s’intéresse au design des appareils photo. L’auteur explique que le design joue un rôle prépondérant dans l’interaction entre l’Operator et le Spectator (R. Barthes) et qu’il détermine même certains effets esthétiques. Les différences physiques et ergonomiques entre les appareils analogiques et numériques y sont également pris en considération
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