Pulse-duration dependence of the isotopic effect in simple molecular ions driven by strong laser fields

In this paper we discuss isotopic effects in simple molecular ions subjected to strong laser fields. We show that the intensity of the emitted spectra strongly depends upon both the nuclear mass of the molecular ions and the laser pulse duration. In particular, for short pulse duration [up to 8 optical cycles (o.c.)], we confirm the trend described in the most studied case in which the high-order harmonic generation is more efficient for heavier isotopes; in contrast, an interesting physical phenomenon is predicted for pulses longer than 16 o.c. characterized by an inverse effect in which lighter molecular species are responsible for higher-order harmonic emission

Hypoxia and Human Genome Stability: Downregulation of BRCA2 Expression in Breast Cancer Cell Lines

Previously, it has been reported that hypoxia causes increased mutagenesis and alteration in DNA repair mechanisms. In 2005, an interesting study showed that hypoxia-induced decreases in BRCA1 expression and the consequent suppression of homologous recombination may lead to genetic instability. However, nothing is yet known about the involvement of BRCA2 in hypoxic conditions in breast cancer. Initially, a cell proliferation assay allowed us to hypothesize that hypoxia could negatively regulate the breast cancer cell growth in short term in vitro studies. Subsequently, we analyzed gene expression in breast cancer cell lines exposed to hypoxic condition by microarray analysis. Interestingly, genes involved in DNA damage repair pathways such as mismatch repair, nucleotide excision repair, nonhomologous end-joining and homologous recombination repair were downregulated. In particular, we focused on the BRCA2 downregulation which was confirmed at mRNA and protein level. In addition, breast cancer cells were treated with dimethyloxalylglycine (DMOG), a cell-permeable inhibitor of both proline and asparaginyl hydroxylases able to induce HIF-1α stabilization in normoxia, providing results comparable to those previously described. These findings may provide new insights into the mechanisms underlying genetic instability mediated by hypoxia and BRCA involvement in sporadic breast cancers

Laser driven structured quantum rings

In this work we study harmonic emission from structured quantum rings (SQRs). In SQRs, electrons trapped in two-dimensional structures are further confined by an external potential composed of N scattering centers arranged on a circle. We build a suitable one-dimensional model Hamiltonian describing this class of systems and analytically solve the associated Schödinger equation. We find that the solution can be expressed in terms of Mathieu functions and focus on the specific case of N = 6. By exactly solving the time-dependent Schödinger equation, we then show how the harmonic response to linearly polarized lasers strongly depends on the ring physical parameters. The results illustrate how the additional degrees of freedom introduced by these parameters provide important handles to control the emitted spectrum that in some cases extends into the XUV region

Nanorings driven by a laser field

We present the dynamics of an electron constrained over an 1D ring with radius of 0.142 nm driven by a laser field. The temporal evolution of the system is evaluated by a semi-analytical solution of the full quantum time dependent Schr¨odinger equation. In our calculation the gap energy between the ground and the first excited state of the nanoring is three times the photon energy laser (0.63 eV) and the laser intensity is 4·1014 W/cm2 . Our analysis is performed by considering different polarization states of the incident laser. Our attention is mainly focused on the study of the High Harmonic Generation (HHG), the energy and the angular momentum absorbed by the driven system. We observe 1) that the harmonic yield is strongly dependent upon the pump polarization field and almost vanishes for circular polarization and 2) that the ring can be left in a state with average angular momentum different than zero. In figure we show the time average of the absorbed angular momentum (in atomic units) versus polarization angle (θ = 0◦ and θ = 90◦ correspond to linear polarization along x and y axes respectively; θ = 45◦ corresponds to circular polarization)

Angular harmonic dependence from a 3D-H2+ Molecular Ion

The time-dependent Schroedinger equation of a H2+ molecular ion in the presence of a linearly polarized laser field is numerically solved by means of a split-operator parallel code. The electron, driven by the laser electric field, emits electromagnetic radiation whose HHG spectrum (shown in Figure 1) can be finely controlled by changing the angle between the laser electric field and the molecular axis. The numerical results confirm that the structure of the spectra strongly depends on this angle. In particular the correlation between the laser orientation (with respect to the molecular axis) and the intensity of various harmonic peaks are displayed in Figure 2

Laser induced ultrafast H2+ dinamic and attosecond generation

We examine the possibility that a H2+ molecular ion driven by a linearly polarized laser field can be considered as a source of attosecond pulses. The emisseion is investigated taking into account the role of the internuclear distance and by changing the angle between the laser field and the molecular axis. We find that the attosecond pulses emission happens when the electron cloud is over one nucleus; on the contrary, when the elctron is travelling between the two nuclei the attosecond emission do not take place

RELAP5 simulation of two-phase flow experiments in vertical helical tubes

In the framework of the studies concerning the thermalfluid dynamic phenomena in helicoidal pipes of the innovative nuclear reactor IRIS steam generators, the Department of Nuclear Engineering of the University of Palermo in collaboration with the Politecnico di Torino Department of Energetics has been engaged in a work aimed to adapt, by implementing new suitable models, RELAP5/mod3.2.2β code to simulate the thermalfluid-dynamics and geometries such as the ones involved in helicoidal pipes. In fact this code is based on one-dimensional thermal-hydraulic relationships and presents limitations to model complicated geometry such as helicoidal pipes. Therefore the code was improved with additional correlations that are valid for two-phase flow and allow to overcome the drawbacks. The validation work of the models that were added is based on the experimental data carried out at the Politecnico di Torino Department of Energetics. In this paper it will be shown that the so modified RELAP5 code allows to represent adequately the experimental data

Covid-19. Diffusione spaziale e aspetti ambientali del caso italiano

La ricerca è partita da una domanda geografica di base, riguardante la diffusione del Covid-19 al di fuori dalla Cina in Europa. Perché l’Italia per prima? Il nostro paese è stato colpito seriamente, il primo tra i/dei paesi industrializzati e occidentali, e con i casi più alti a inizio della pandemia, subito dopo la provincia di Hubei, in Cina, rendendolo, di fatto, un paese ‘pioniere’ nella concentrazione della pandemia e nella sua diffusione, con una progressione che ha presto, tra la fine di febbraio e marzo 2020, superato la Cina e la sua ‘vicina’ Corea del Sud. Tale posizione di ‘pioniere’ o di prima linea nell’affrontare la diffusione del Sars-Cov2 e della malattia ha causato, inizialmente, un’ampia e generalizzata chiusura del paese da parte dei paesi confinanti, unita a una generalizzata accusa di non aver affrontato correttamente l’evento. Ciò ha dato spazio a un’ampia serie di domande di tipo geografico riguardanti la diffusione, la sua concentrazione e la trama disegnata dal contagio alle differenti scale, e riguardanti le diverse regioni e province d’Italia. Le questioni geografiche si presentano come centrali, e il recente dibattito nel nostro paese ha toccato vari aspetti, che si trovano richiamati nel presente contributo, legati agli aspetti globali / locali (Bozzato, 2020; Casti, 2020), a quelli di carattere più concettuale e di respiro generale (De Vecchis, 2020; Turco, 2020), quelli riferiti ad aspetti specifici, quali le relazioni tra aree urbane e interne (De Falco, 2020), alla mobilità (Tadini e Piva, 2020), alle sfide ai sistemi sanitari (Celata, 2020) e alla questione, centrale quanto sottovalutata, dei riferimenti amministrativi (Dini e Zilli, 2020). Di seguito, nel presente contributo, vengono presentate alcune riflessioni, collegate agli aspetti globali e locali del fenomeno, sviluppati in particolare dopo l’avvio dell’epidemia e la sua diffusione nei paesi occidentali, in particolare in Italia, legati ad aspetti di carattere climatico-ambientale e socio-economico e demografico

Dietary restriction: could it be considered as speed bump on tumor progression road?

Dietary restrictions, including fasting (or long-term starvation), calorie restriction (CR), and short-term starvation (STS), are considered a strong rationale that may protect against various diseases, including age-related diseases and cancer. Among dietary approaches, STS, in which food is not consumed during designed fasting periods but is typically not restricted during designated feeding periods, seems to be more suitable, because other dietary regimens involving prolonged fasting periods could worsen the health conditions of cancer patients, being they already naturally prone to weight loss. Until now, the limited amount of available data does not point to a single gene, pathway, or molecular mechanism underlying the benefits to the different dietary approaches. It is well known that the healthy effect is mediated in part by the reduction of nutrient-related pathways. The calorie restriction and starvation (long- and short-term) also suppress the inflammatory response reducing the expression, for example, of IL-10 and TNF-α, mitigating pro-inflammatory gene expression and increasing anti-inflammatory gene expression. The dietary restriction may regulate both genes involved in cellular proliferation and factors associated to apoptosis in normal and cancer cells. Finally, dietary restriction is an important tool that may influence the response to chemotherapy in preclinical models. However, further data are needed to correlate dietary approaches with chemotherapeutic treatments in human models. The aim of this review is to discuss the effects of various dietary approaches on the cancer progression and therapy response, mainly in preclinical models, describing some signaling pathways involved in these processes