Altmetrics as new indicators of scientific impact

In recent years, researchers and academics in growing numbers are starting to move their everyday work onto the Web, exploring new ways to spread, discuss, share and retrieve information outside of the traditional channel of scholarly publishing. As scholarly communication moves increasingly online, there is a growing need to improve the ways in which the impact of scientific research output is evaluated. Altmetrics, even if they are still in an early stage, have the potential to develop as complements to traditional metrics and to provide a useful insight into new impact types not included in existing measures. This paper summarises the major trends, opportunities and challenges of these new metrics for both researchers and academic research libraries

The Bibliosan 2.0 project: online tools for librarians, researchers and health professionals

This article describes the approach used by the Bibliosan 2.0 team (in a project funded by the Italian Ministry of Health)in developing the Bibliosan 2.0 website (http://bibliosan20.wordpress.com/) aimed at offering guidance and advice toour users for the use of Web 2.0 tools and technologies. To complement the website, we decided to deliver filteredinformation through Web 2.0 tools such as our blog, Twitter, Delicious and Zotero. To do so, we adopted a very targeted,strategic approach in selecting which tools to present, keeping in mind that our audience is made up of librarians,researchers and health professionals

Chiral separation and analysis of antifungal drugs by chromatographic and electromigration techniques: Results achieved in 2010–2020

AbstractThe determination and separation of enantiomers is an interesting and important topic of research in various fields, e.g., biochemistry, food science, pharmaceutical industry, environment, etc. Although these compounds possess identical physicochemical properties, a pair of enantiomers often has different pharmacological, toxicological, and metabolic activities. For this reason, chiral discrimination by using chromatographic and electromigration techniques has become an urgent need in the pharmaceutical field. This review intends to offer the "state of the art" about the separation of chiral antifungal drugs and several related precursors by both liquid and gas chromatography, as well as electromigration methods. This overview is organized into two sections. The first one describes general considerations on chiral antifungal drugs. The second part deals with the main analytical methods for the enantiomeric discrimination of these drugs, including a brief description of chiral selectors and stationary phases. Moreover, many recent applications attesting the great interest of analytical chemists in the field of enantiomeric separation are presented

The rotation of white lupin (Lupinus albus L.) with metal-accumulating plant crops: A strategy to increase the benefits of soil phytoremediation

Most of the plants employed to remove metals from contaminated soils are annuals and have a seed-to- seed life cycle of a few months, usually over spring and summer. Consequently, for most of the year, fields are not actively cleaned but are completely bare and subject to erosion by water and wind. The objective of this study was to evaluate the benefits of using Lupinus albus as a winter crop in a rotation sequence with a summer crop ideally selected for phytoextraction, such as industrial hemp. Lupin plants were grown in two alkaline soil plots (heavy metal-contaminated and uncontaminated) of approximately 400 m 2 each after the cultivation and harvest of industrial hemp. A smaller-scale parallel pot experiment was also performed to better understand the lupin behavior in increasing concentrations of Cd, Cu, Ni and Zn. White lupin grew well in alkaline conditions, covering the soil during the winter season. In few months plants were approximately 40e50 cm high in both control and contaminated plots. In fields where the bioavailable fraction of metals was low (less than 12%), plants showed a high tolerance to these contaminants. However, their growth was affected in some pot treatments in which the concen- trations of assimilable Cu, Zn and Ni were higher, ranging from approximately 40e70% of the total concentrations. The lupin's ability to absorb heavy metals and translocate them to shoots was negligible with respect to the magnitude of contamination, suggesting that this plant is not suitable for extending the period of phytoextraction. However, it is entirely exploitable as green manure, avoiding the appli- cation of chemical amendments during phytoremediation. In addition, in polluted fields, white lupin cultivation increased the soil concentration of live bacteria and the bioavailable percentage of metals. On average live bacteria counts per gram of soil were 65 10 6 ± 18 10 6 and 99 10 6 ± 22*10 6 before and after cultivation, respectively. The percentages of bioavailable Cu, Pb, Ni, Zn and Cr, which were 5.7 ± 0.7, 5.3 ± 1.7, 1.2 ± 0.1, 12 ± 1.5 and 0.1 ± 0.02%, respectively, before lupin growth, increased to 9.6 ± 1.6, 7 ± 2, 2 ± 0.3, 14 ± 1.5 and 0.1 ± 0.02% after lupin harvest. On the whole, our results indicate that the winter cultivation of white lupin in sequence with a metal- accumulator summer crop can improve the recovery of soil quality during the phytoextraction period. It improves the safety of the area, limiting additional ecological and human health problems, and enhances soil health by avoiding the use of chemical amendments and by increasing the levels of viable microorganism

A role for microbial selection in frescoes' deterioration in Tomba degli Scudi in Tarquinia, Italy

Mural paintings in the hypogeal environment of the Tomba degli Scudi in Tarquinia, Italy, show a quite dramatic condition: the plaster mortar lost his cohesion and a white layer coating is spread over almost all the wall surfaces. The aim of this research is to verify if the activity of microorganisms could be one of the main causes of deterioration and if the adopted countermeasures (conventional biocide treatments) are sufficient to stop it. A biocide treatment of the whole environment has been carried out before the conservative intervention and the tomb has been closed for one month. When the tomb was opened again, we sampled the microorganisms present on the frescoes and we identified four Bacillus species and one mould survived to the biocide treatment. These organisms are able to produce spores, a highly resistant biological form, which has permitted the survival despite the biocide treatment. We show that these Bacillus strains are able to produce calcium carbonate and could be responsible for the white deposition that was damaging and covering the entire surface of the frescoes. Our results confirm that the sanitation intervention is non always resolutive and could even be deleterious in selecting harmful microbial communities

Encapsulation of human articular chondrocytes into 3D hydrogel : phenotype and genotype characterization

This chapter is intended to provide a summary of the current materials used in cell encapsulation technology as well as methods for evaluating the performance of cells encapsulated in a polymeric matrix. In particular, it describes the experimental procedure to prepare a hydrogel matrix based on natural polymers for encapsulating and culturing human articular chondrocytes with the interest in cartilage regeneration. Protocols to evaluate the viability, proliferation, differentiation, and matrix production of embedded cells are also described and include standard protocols such as the MTT and [3H] Thymidine assays, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique, histology, and immunohistochemistry analysis. The assessment of cell distribution within the 3D hydrogel construct is also described using APoTome analysis.(undefined