10,366 research outputs found
A reasonable Approach for the Treatment of HIV Infection in the Early Phase with Ozonetherapy (Autohaemotherapy). How ‘Inflammatory’ Cytokines may have A therapeutic Role
Immunoregulatory cytokines produced by the TH1 subset and by
CD8+ T lymphocytes appear to brake naturally and
sometimes arrest the progress of HIV infection in the early phase.
It appears reasonable to assume that a mild and equilibrated
stimulation of the immune system may prevent or delay the fatal
transition towards the prevalent production of TH2-type cytokines.
The problem is how to stimulate the immune system in a physiological
fashion. In the last 7 years we have clarified the main mechanisms
of action of an unorthodox immunotherapeutic method first used 40
years ago. Optimized autohaemotherapy after a brief exposure ofblood
to ozone may today afford the trick of reprogramming the immune
system to keep HIV at bay. The autohaemotherapeutic procedure is
simple, safe, inexpensive and most likely is more effective than
conventional approaches
Studies on the biological effects of ozone: 10. Release of factors from ozonated human platelets.
In a previous work we have shown that heparin, in the presence of ozone (O3), promotes a dose-dependent platelet aggregation, while after Ca2+ chelation with citrate, platelet aggregation is almost negligible. These results led us to think that aggregation may enhance the release of platelet components. We have here shown that indeed significantly higher amount of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1) and interleukin-8 (IL-8) are released in a dose-dependent manner after ozonation of heparinised platelet-rich plasma samples. These findings may explain the enhanced healing of torpid ulcers in patients with chronic limb ischemia treated with O3 autohaemoteraphy (O3-AHT)
Cultivating diversity and food quality. Proceedings of Diversifood EU Forum, Brussels, 11 April 2018
To tackle this issue, Diversifood team organised a forum with policy makers and stakeholders on the 11th of April 2018, in Brussels.
Diversifood’s aim is to share results and key lessons including new approaches for the management of cultivated biodiversity, for plant breeding for sustainable farming systems, and new relationships among actors of food systems.
In the afternoon, there was time for discussion, knowledge sharing, collecting feedback and extending current policies to include cultivating diversity and food quality (for FP9, CAP 2020, The outputs of this workshop will feed Diversifood’s final recommendations.
The forum was kindly hosted by the European Committee of the Regions (Rue Belliard/Belliardstraat 101, 1040 Brussels)
The dissimilarity map and representation theory of
We give another proof that -dissimilarity vectors of weighted trees are
points on the tropical Grassmanian, as conjectured by Cools, and proved by
Giraldo in response to a question of Sturmfels and Pachter. We accomplish this
by relating -dissimilarity vectors to the representation theory of Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure
Studies on the biological effects of ozone: 8. Effects on the total antioxidant status and on interleukin-8 production.
Ozone (O3) is a controversial gas because, owing to its potent oxidant properties, it exerts damaging effects on the respiratory tract and yet it has been used for four decades as a therapy. While the disinfectant activity of O3 is understandable, it is less clear how other biological effects can be elicited in human blood with practically no toxicity. On the other hand plasma and cells are endowed with a powerful antioxidant system so that a fairly wide range of O3 concentrations between 40 and 80 microg/ml per gram of blood (approximately 0.83-1.66 mM) are effective but not deleterious. After blood ozonation total antioxidant status (TAS) and plasma protein thiol groups (PTG) decrease by 20% and 25%, respectively, while thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) increases up to five-fold. The increase of haemolysis is negligible suggesting that the erythrocyte membrane is spared at the expense of other sacrificial substrates. While there is a clear relationship between the ozone dose and IL-8 levels, we have noticed that high TAS and PTG values inhibit the cytokine production. This is in line with the current idea that hydrogen peroxide, as a byproduct of O3 decomposition, acts as a messenger for the cytokine induction
First measurement of the cross section for top-quark pair production in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV
20 páginas, 3 figuras, 1 tabla.-- This article is published Open Access at sciencedirect.com. It
is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License 3.0.-- CMS Collaboration: et al.The first measurement of the cross section for top-quark pair production in pp collisions at the
Large Hadron Collider at center-of-mass energy √s = 7 TeV has been performed using a data sample
corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.1 ± 0.3 pb−1 recorded by the CMS detector. This result
utilizes the final state with two isolated, highly energetic charged leptons, large missing transverse
energy, and two or more jets. Backgrounds from Drell–Yan and non-W/Z boson production are estimated
from data. Eleven events are observed in the data with 2.1 ± 1.0 events expected from background. The
measured cross section is 194±72(stat.)±24(syst.)±21(lumi.) pb, consistent with next-to-leading order
predictions.Acknowledge support from: FMSR (Austria);
FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP
(Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China);
COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); Academy
of Sciences and NICPB (Estonia); Academy of Finland, ME, and
HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF
(Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and
DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU
(Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLPFAI
(Mexico); PAEC (Pakistan); SCSR (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR
(Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MST and MAE
(Russia); MSTD (Serbia); MICINN and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding
Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey);
STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA).Peer reviewe
The organic seed regulations framework in Europe – current status and recommendations for future development
Organic agriculture regulations, in particular European regulation EC 889/2008, prescribe the use of organically produced seed. For many cultivated plants, however, organic seed is often not available. This is mainly because investment in organic plant breeding and seed production has been low in the past. To bridge the gap between organic seed supply and demand, national and European regulations define certain circumstances under which organic producers are permitted to use non-organically produced seed. While the organic sector currently depends on these concessions, they also threaten to impede a further increase in the demand for organic seed, thereby potentially restraining present and future investment in organic seed production and plant breeding. We review the current status of the organic seed regulations framework by analysing key issues such as the role of the national derogation regimes, the role of expert groups, databases and seed prices. Key points are that (a) the situation of the organic seed sector has improved over the last few years; however, (b) reporting on organic seed to the EU by different countries needs to be harmonised; (c) the success of the organic seed sector depends critically on the implementation and improvement of national expert groups; and (d) to protect genetic diversity, the use of local varieties and landraces should not be impeded by organic seed regulations
ELMB Microcontroller Firmware and SCADA Integration for the LHCb Muon Detector Readout Control System
The LHCb system requires high efficiency muon detection into LHC bunch crossing: 95% into a 25 ns time window. To reach such efficiency many parameters of the detector readout apparatus have to be calibrated and adjusted and its channels must be aligned in time. In addition, essential characteristics must be monitored to guarantee a good working condition of the apparatus (to avoid loss of efficiency and to minimize systematic errors). As the number of the muon readout parameters is extremely high (∼700000 registers), a system able to process information in parallel is required: 122000 readout channels will be controlled by about 600 microcontrollers and 6 computers. The complexity of such an apparatus requires the use of a distributed system. For this a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) based system is being developed to control the entire detector readout equipment. Moreover, a Finite State Machine (FSM) implementation is being developed to integrate the Detector Readout Control (DRC) into the LHC Experiment Control System (ECS)
Use of bremsstrahlung radiation to identify hidden weak beta- sources: feasibility and possible use in radio-guided surgery
The recent interest in beta- radionuclides for radio-guided surgery derives
from the feature of the beta radiation to release energy in few millimeters of
tissue. Such feature can be used to locate residual tumors with a probe located
in its immediate vicinity, determining the resection margins with an accuracy
of millimeters. The drawback of this technique is that it does not allow to
identify tumors hidden in more than few mm of tissue. Conversely, the
bremsstrahlung X-rays emitted by the interaction of the beta- radiation with
the nuclei of the tissue are relatively penetrating. To complement the beta-
probes, we have therefore developed a detector based on cadmium telluride, an
X-ray detector with a high quantum efficiency working at room temperature. We
measured the secondary emission of bremsstrahlung photons in a target of
Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) with a density similar to living tissue. The
results show that this device allows to detect a 1 ml residual or lymph-node
with an activity of 1 kBq hidden under a layer of 10 mm of PMMA with a 3:1
signal to noise, i.e. with a five sigma discrimination in less than 5 s
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