119 research outputs found
STUDY OF THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN ANALYTICAL CALCULATIONS AND THE OBSERVED BIOLOGICAL EFFECTIVENESS IN PROTON BORON CAPTURE THERAPY (PBCT)
No full textA work recently published experimentally demonstrates an increase in the radiobiological efficacy of clinical proton beams when a tumour is treated in the presence of a concentration of 11B. For the first time, this paper demonstrates the potential role of the p+11B —> 3α (for brevity, p-B) reaction in the biological enhancement of proton therapy effectiveness. The work reports robust experimental data in terms of clonogenic cell survival and chromosomal aberrations and unambiguously shows the presence of an enhancement when cells were exposed to a clinical proton beam subject to treatment with sodium boroncaptate (BSH). Moreover, the greater occurrence of complex-type chromosomal exchanges points to the effect in terms of radiation of a LET (Linear Energy Transfer) greater than that of protons alone, possibly the alpha particles generated by the reaction. At the same time, we emphasized that analytical calculations, performed on the basis of the well-known total production cross-section data, are not able to explain the effect in a macroscopic way, i.e., solely in terms of a trivial increase in the total dose released in the cells by the alpha-particles. In this paper, thanks to simulations and analytical calculations, we will
discuss the theoretically expected alpha-particle yield and the corresponding LET and RBE (Relative Biological Effectiveness) increase related to the 11B presence. We conclude that a mere calculation based on the classical concepts of integral dose and average LET and RBE cannot be used to justify the observed radiobiological phenomena. We therefore suggest that micro- and nano-dosimetric aspects must be taken into account
Agriculture:Monitoring the effects on humans and various agricultural plants of air pollution by particulate with trace metals.
No full textAgriculture:Monitoring the effects on humans and various agricultural plants of air pollution by particulate with trace metal
Spectrum data for calculation of biological effectiveness of proton beams
No full textDatasets used in Bellinzona, E.V.; Grzanka, L.; Attili, A.; Tommasino, F.; Friedrich, T.; Krämer, M.; Scholz, M.; Battistoni, G.; Embriaco, A.; Chiappara, D.; Cirrone, G.A.P.; Petringa, G.; Durante, M.; Scifoni, E. Biological Impact of Target Fragments on Proton Treatment Plans: An Analysis Based on the Current Cross-Section Data and a Full Mixed Field Approach. Cancers 2021, 13, 4768. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers1319476
Elettrodeposizione di bitiofene fulleropirrolidina per la realizzazione di sensori piezoresistivi
No full textUn nuovo sistema donatore-accettore bisaddotto bitiofene fulleropirrolidi na (bis-C60Bi) è stato elettropolimerizzato su ITO/PET(ossido di Indio-Sta gno)/PoliEtilene Tereftalato per cronoamperometria. E’ stato applicato un
potenziale anodico di 1.5V alla soluzione di monomero per un certo tempo
¿QR DOO¶RWWHQLPHQWR GL XQ ¿OP VRWWLOH SROLPHULFR VXO VXEVWUDWR &DUDWWHUL]]D zioni XPS, UV-vis hanno confermato la presenza del polimero sull’elettrodo. ..
Notch-1 decreased expression contributes to leptin receptor downregulation in nasal epithelium from allergic turbinates.
No full textAbstract
BACKGROUND:
Allergic rhinitis is characterized by a remodeling of nasal epithelium. Since the Notch and TGF-β signaling pathways are known to be involved in cell differentiation and remodeling processes and leptin adipokine has already been identified as a marker for homeostasis in human bronchial and nasal epithelial cells of asthmatics, roles played by these pathways have been investigated for chronic allergic rhinitis.
METHODS:
The leptin/leptin receptor expression has been investigated in a study with 40 biopsies from allergic (AR, n = 18) and non-allergic (C, n = 22) inferior turbinates, using immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence staining and RT-PCR. In addition, extracts from in vitro samples prepared from primary cells of inferior turbinates as well as in vitro cultured human nasal epithelial RPMI 2650 cells (ATCC-CCL-30) were also tested for leptin expression and activation of the Notch-1 pathway.
RESULTS:
With regards to AR, in vivo expression levels of both leptin and its receptor significantly decreased in comparison to C. Furthermore, leptin receptor mRNA was significantly reduced in AR as compared to C. Immunofluorescence showed an apparent co-expression of leptin receptor with Notch-1, which was not seen with TGF-β. In vitro, in primary turbinate epithelial cells, the expression of leptin receptor and Notch-1 significantly decreased in AR as compared to C. Moreover, in RPMI 2650 cells, leptin receptor expression was shown to be induced by Notch-1 ligand signaling.
CONCLUSION:
Thus, both the leptin and Notch-1 pathways appear to represent markers for epithelial homeostasis in allergic rhinitis.
Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KEYWORDS:
Allergic rhinitis; Epithelium; Leptin; Notc
Transversal dose profile reconstruction for clinical proton beams: A detectors inter-comparison
No full textPurpose: The main purpose of this work is the inter-comparison between different devices devoted to the transversal dose profile recostruction for daily QA tests in proton therapy.Methods: The results obtained with the EBT3 radiochromic films, used as a reference, and other common quality control devices, have been compared with those obtained with a beam profiling system developed at the "Laboratori Nazionali del Sud" of Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN-LNS, Catania, Italy). It consists of a plastic scintillator screen (thickness 1 mm), mounted perpendicularly to the beam axis and coupled with a highly sensitive CCD detector in a light-tight box.Results and conclusion: The tests, carried out both at the INFN-LNS and Trento Proton Therapy Center facilities, show, in general, a good agreement between the different detectors. The beam profiling system, in particular, appears to be a promising quality control device for 2-D relative dosimetry, because of its linear response in a dose rate range useful for proton therapy treatments, its high spatial resolution and its short acquisition and processing time
Piezoresistive semi-transparent flexible sensors by bithiophene fulleropyrrolidine thin films
No full textPiezoresistive sensors are considered among the fundamental components of the future wearable electronic devices, given their potential applications in artificial skin, motion capture and personalized medicine.[1-5] Here, we present a cost-effective, viable fabrication approach to realize piezoresistive sensors using a novel polymeric biotiophene fulleropyrrolidine system (bis-C60Bi) synthesized on flexible ITO/PET supports by electrochemical chronoamperometry. By applying an anodic potential (1.5 V) to a solution containing the monomer, it is possible to obtain a homogeneous semi-transparent thin film on the ITO/PET surface (see Figure). AFM,
XPS, UV-vis have been employed to characterize the morphology and chemical composition of the new synthesized polymeric thin films, confirming the chemical structure and showing a nanoscale surface roughness of about 25 nm. The resulting polymer-based device shows good resistance variation on bending in the semi-static regime, outperforming current ITO/PET resistive sensors [6] and well matching commercial devices based on opaque amorphous carbon materials.[7] The durability of the sensor has been validated over almost one hundred cycles. This new class of polymeric piezoresistive sensors may open new applications in the field of kinematic acquisition or of sensor monitoring, with several potential applications as well as in medicine, robotics and physiotherapy.
Bibliography
1 M. Ricci, G. Di Lazzaro, A. Pisani, N. B. Mercuri, F. Giannini, G. Saggio, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 2019,
doi: 10.1109/JBHI.2019.2903627
2 G. Arrabito, V. Errico, Z. Zhang, W. Han, C. Falconi, Nano Energy, 2018, 46, 54. doi: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2018.01.029
3 G. Saggio, G. Orengo, A. Pallotti, V. Errico, M. Ricci, IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications
(MeMeA), 2018, doi: 10.1109/MeMeA.2018.8438767
4 N. Jasoon, M.D. Ho, W. Cheng, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2017, 5, 5845.
5 G. Saggio ; G. Orengo ; A. Pallotti ; V. Errico ; M. Ricci, International Symposium on Networks, Computers and Communications
(ISNCC) 2018 doi: 10.1109/ISNCC.2018.8531054
6 T. Lee, Y. W. Choi, G. Lee, P. V. Pikhita, D. Kang, S.M. Kim and M. Choi, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2016, 4, 9947.
7 G. Saggio, G. Orengo, Sensors and Actuators A, 2018, 273, 221
Push-Pull copolymers in thin film for electronic application
No full textIn this work, push-pull copolymers have been synthesized by electrochemical and chemical methods in order to fabricate new devices on flexible substrates, for electronic applications in several areas as electrochromism, solar cells and sensors.
Electrochemical synthesis was employed to synthesize copolymers composed of acceptor (A) N,N -bis(2-octyldodecyl)-2,6-bis(5-(thioph-2-yl)thiophen-2-yl)naphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide) (s-NDI2ODT4) and donor (D) ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) units on (indium tin oxide/polyethylene terephtalate) ITO/PET substrates, allowing for the fabrication of electrochromic devices, featuring an optical contrast of 29%. In the same way, it was possible to fabricate novel electrochromic devices by combining NDI2ODT4 with the novel system bis-thiophene fulleropyrrolidine (bis-Th2P-C60). Moreover, it was also possible to demonstrate that P(NDI2ODT4), P(bis-Th2P-C60), co(NDI2ODT4-bis-Th2P-C60) are good electron acceptor in planar heterojunction(PHJ)-based Organic Solar Cells (OSCs) with poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT). Electrochromic devices and OSCs based on bis-Th2P-C60 combined with P(NDI2ODT4), do not show good results. This can be explained by the fact that bis-Th2P-C60 imposes a distortion of the main polymeric chain. In addition, the combination of fulleropyrrolidine (A) and thiophene (D) moieties in copolymers has shown to improve the morphology in thin film bulk heterojunctions (BHJs). In particular, the small percentages of a novel tetra-thiophene fulleropyrrolidine (Th4P-C60) copolymer acted as segregation modulators in BHJs based on P3HT mixed with Phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) allowing to improve the state-of-the-art power conversion efficiency of plastic P3HT/PCBM OSCs up to 4.46 %.
Finally, preliminary results are shown on the application of Th4P-C60 based systems electrochemically co-deposited with hemin molecules for the recognition of H2O2 in plastic electrochemical sensors. This gives interesting perspectives for the application of properly designed D-A copolymers and/or co-deposited systems for the recognition of those drugs developing H2O2 during their metabolism
“Leptin and leptin receptor expression in asthma”
No full textBackground: The adipokine leptin is a potential new mediator
for bronchial epithelial homeostasis. Asthma is a chronic
inflammatory disease characterized by airway remodeling that
might affect disease chronicity and severity. TGF-b is a tissue
growth factor the dysregulation of which is associated with
airway remodeling.
Objective: We sought to determine whether a bronchial
epithelial dysfunction of the leptin/leptin receptor pathway
contributes to asthma pathogenesis and severity.
Methods: We investigated in vitro the presence of leptin/leptin
receptor on human bronchial epithelial cells. Then we studied
the effect of TGF-b and fluticasone propionate on leptin
receptor expression. Finally, the role of leptin on TGF-b release
and cell proliferation was analyzed. Ex vivo we investigated the
presence of leptin/leptin receptor in the epithelium of bronchial
biopsy specimens from subjects with asthma of various
severities and from healthy volunteers, and some features of
airway remodeling, such as reticular basement membrane
(RBM) thickness and TGF-b expression in the epithelium, were
assessed.
Results: In vitro bronchial epithelial cells express leptin/leptin
receptor. TGF-b decreased and fluticasone propionate increased
leptin receptor expression, and leptin decreased the spontaneous
release of TGF-b and increased cell proliferation. Ex vivo the
bronchial epithelium of subjects with mild, uncontrolled,
untreated asthma showed a decrease expression of leptin and its
receptor and an increased RBM thickness and TGF-b
expression when compared with values seen in healthy
volunteers. Furthermore, severe asthma was associated with a
reduced expression of leptin and its receptor and an increased
RBM thickness with unaltered TGF-b expression.
Conclusions: Decreased expression of leptin/leptin receptor
characterizes severe asthma and is associated with airway
remodeling features
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