1,980 research outputs found
Maria Grazia Pini
No full textVideo interview with Maria Grazia Pini as part of the Italian Cinema Audiences projec
Arquitetura, urbanismo, educação: o campus da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-graduação em Urbanismo, História e Arquitetura da Cidade, Florianópolis, 2009Este estudo tem por objetivo apreender o processo de formação da cidade de Santa Maria, a localização no estado do Rio Grande do Sul, o contexto social, político e econômico e as vinculações educacionais que permitiram a implantação da primeira universidade federal no interior do país. Visa também apresentar o Plano Piloto do Campus da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, sua elaboração, sua construção e seu desenvolvimento ao longo das décadas. O campus da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, projetado pelos arquitetos Oscar Valdetaro e Roberto Nadalutti em 1960, apresenta um partido de implantação axial e um princípio de composição elementar, caracterizado pela decomposição do programa de necessidades em unidades com funções repetidas, tratadas de maneira semelhante e unidades com funções especiais, tratadas de maneira individual. O Campus vem recebendo ao longo dos anos novas construções que por sua escala ou qualidade arquitetônica descaracterizam sua unidade inicial. Este estudo, em último caso, tem por objetivo divulgar o projeto referido e assim, contribuir para sua efetiva preservação.This study aims at understanding the process of forming the city of Santa Maria, the location in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the social, political and economic and educational ties that enabled the deployment of the first federal university in the country. It also seeks to make the Pilot Plan of the Campus of Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, its development, its construction and its development over the decades. The campus of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, designed by architects Oscar Valdetaro and Roberto Nadalutti in 1960, has a broken implementation of axial and a principle of elemental composition, characterized by the decomposition of the program needs in units with several functions, treated similarly and units with special functions, handled on a individual. The campus has received over the years as new construction on its scale and architectural quality weakened its initial drive. This study, in the case, aims to disseminate the project report and thus contribute to their effective preservation
The Influence of Environmental Factors on the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy
No full textThe aim of this work is to investigate possible relationships between air quality and the spread of the pandemic. We evaluate the performance of machine learning techniques in predicting new cases. Specifically, we describe a cross-correlation analysis on daily COVID-19 cases and environmental factors, such as temperature, relative humidity, and atmospheric pollutants. Our analysis confirms a significant association of some environmental parameters with the spread of the virus. This suggests that machine learning models trained using environmental parameters might provide accurate predictions about the number of infected cases. Our empirical evaluation shows that temperature and ozone are negatively correlated with confirmed cases (therefore, the higher the values of these parameters, the lower the number of infected cases), whereas atmospheric particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide are positively correlated. We developed and compared three different predictive models to test whether these technologies can be useful to estimate the evolution of the pandemic
Insights into the mechanism(s) of action and therapeutic applications of Esculentin-1a-derived antimicrobial peptides
No full textCationic α-helical antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) hold promise for treatment of the raising multi-drug resistant microbial infections, due to their broad spectrum of activity and membrane-perturbing mechanism of action. Compared to conventional antibiotics, these features make them newsworthy molecules that hardly induce microorganisms to acquire resistance to them. Among these pathogens, Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most clinically relevant Gram-negative bacterium known to cause serious human infections, e.g. pneumoniae, especially in immune-compromised patients, such as cystic fibrosis (CF) sufferers and keratitis, associated to contact lens (CL) wear. This is due to the unique ability of this pathogen to adhere to different types of inert materials or biological tissues, and to grow in a more resistant and dangerous sessile life form, called biofilm. Recently, two Esculentin-1a-derived antimicrobial peptides i.e. Esc(1-21) and its D-amino acids containing Esc(1-21)-1c, [Esc peptides], have been fully characterized for their powerful antipseudomonal activity against both planktonic and biofilm forms. The diastereomer showed a higher bactericidal activity than the all-L isomer against the more dangerous Pseudomonas biofilm phenotype; a lower cytotoxicity and higher biostability. However, when tested in vitro against the free-living form of this pathogen, it displayed a weaker bactericidal effect. Here, to investigate the reason accounting for this discrepancy, mechanistic studies on intact bacterial cells were initially carried out. Then to further understand the effect of packing parameters, i.e. composition, charge, shape and negative intrinsic curvature of membrane phospholipids in the membrane-permeabilizing activity of Esc peptides, leakage assays and circular dichroism spectroscopy analysis were carried out. Our results have suggested that the weaker in vitro antibacterial activity of Esc(1-21)-1c on the planktonic phenotype of the Gram-negative bacterium P. aeruginosa is mainly correlated to a slighter ability in permeabilizing both outer and inner bacterial membranes. Notably, experiments with lipid vesicles have suggested that if electrostatic interactions between negatively-charged membrane phospholipids and positively-charged peptide molecules do play a crucial role in the peptides’ membrane perturbing activity, this latter is hampered by the bilayer structure packing parameters including hydrogen bonding and intrinsic curvature, associated to phosphatidylserine (PE), especially for the diastereomer compared to all-L parent peptide. In parallel, we explored the molecular mechanism underlying the biofilm inhibition activity of Esc peptides when used at dosages below the minimal growth inhibitory concentration (1/8 MIC), by studying the peptides’ effect on the expression of key genes involved in the bacterial virulence and motility, as well as the peptide’ interaction with the bacterial signaling nucleotide ppGpp. Our findings revealed that the two D-amino acids containing Esc(1-21)-1c, confer the peptide the ability to downregulate the expression of biofilm-associated genes, likely as a result of increased peptide stability and prolonged binding to ppGpp compared to the all-L peptide. Furthermore, we reported two different applicative strategies to ameliorate the biological properties of these two AMPs: (i) encapsulation in poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) nanoparticles; and (ii) covalent conjugation to soft CLs. In the first case, to enhance the peptides’ bioavailability and to optimize their translocation to the target infectious site, Esc peptides were loaded into PLGA nanoparticles (NPs) engineered with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). The peptides-loaded NPs were found to be more efficient in diffusing through artificial CF mucus and simulated bacterial extracellular matrix compared to the free peptides. Moreover, they were more efficient in inhibiting P. aeruginosa growth under both in vitro and in vivo conditions at long term. In the second case, Esc peptides were covalently immobilized to hydrogel soft CLs and tested for their ability to reduce bacterial colonization. The antimicrobial CLs were able to cause more than four log reduction in the number of bacterial cells within 20 min and to reduce bacterial adhesion to their surface in 24 hours. Finally, the ability of both peptides to limit the onset of microbial resistance was also evaluated by exposing Pseudomonas strains to multiple cycles of treatment at sub-MIC dosages. Interestingly, in contrast with conventional antibiotics, Esc peptides did not induce resistance in P. aeruginosa cells. Overall, besides providing knowledges on the molecular mode(s) of action the two esculentin-derived AMPs, our data suggest that Esc peptides, particularly Esc(1-21)-1c, have great potential to be developed as novel drugs for treatment and prevention of P. aeruginosa pneumonia and keratitis
Entropy generation in laminar boundary layers of non-ideal fluid flows
No full textThis paper documents a numerical study on entropy generation in zero-pressure gradient, laminar boundary layers of adiabatic non-ideal compressible fluid flows. The entropy generation is expressed in terms of dissipation coefficient and its dependency on free-stream Mach number, fluid molecular complexity, and flow non-ideality is investigated systematically by means of a boundary layer code extended to treat fluids modeled with arbitrary equations of state. The results of the study show that the trend of dissipation coefficient follows that of an incompressible flow for complex fluid molecules like siloxanes in all thermodynamic and flow conditions. For simpler fluids like CO the trend becomes inversely proportional to the free-stream Mach number and the value can significantly reduce in the non-ideal flow regime, where strong thermo-physical property gradients occur near the wall.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Flight Performance and Propulsio
Scheda bibliografica su Rosa Maria GRILLO, José Bergamín in Uruguay: una docenza eterodossa, Salerno, Edisud-Salerno, 1990
No full text- …
