Niccolo' Isouard

L-awtur jagħti tagħrif bijografiku dwar il-mużiċist u l-kompożistur Nicolò Isouard.N/

Microstructural Characterization of Silver Nanoparticles for Bioimaging Applications

Junta de Andalucía FQM-6615, PI0070, FQM31

Solunto archaeological park in Sicily: life under mosaic tesserae

Biodeterioration is a complex process induced by the growing and metabolic activity of a wide range of macro and microorganisms, becoming a revelling problem also for the mosaic tesserae of “Casa di Leda” in the Greco - Roman site of Solunto in Sicily. In this case-study, a thick biofilm inducing a deep alteration of mortar and consequently the mosaic tesserae detachment has been highlighted during the restoration plan. The biofilm microbial consortium has been investigated by an integrate approach based on Microscopy analysis (O.M., C.L.S.M.), in vitro culture (Nutrien and Saboraud media) and molecular biology investigation (DNA target sequence amplification, sequencing, sequence analysis). A microbial diversity has been revealed belonging to bacteria (Bacillus) and fungi (Alternaria, Aspergillus), besides cyanobacteria (Chroococcus) and green algae (Chlorella). In order to control the biofilm colonization two essential oils (EO), Thymus vulgaris and Origanum vulgare, have been utilized and their antimicrobial activity, preliminarily in vitro (agar disc diffusion methods) and after ex situ and in situ evaluated. This experimentation is aimed at identifying and implementing green biocides for the control of microbial colonization, a promising technology with a reduced impact on human health and environment, able to replace traditional biocide action

Nature-Inspired Interconnects for Self-Assembled Large-Scale Network-on-Chip Designs

Future nano-scale electronics built up from an Avogadro number of components needs efficient, highly scalable, and robust means of communication in order to be competitive with traditional silicon approaches. In recent years, the Networks-on-Chip (NoC) paradigm emerged as a promising solution to interconnect challenges in silicon-based electronics. Current NoC architectures are either highly regular or fully customized, both of which represent implausible assumptions for emerging bottom-up self-assembled molecular electronics that are generally assumed to have a high degree of irregularity and imperfection. Here, we pragmatically and experimentally investigate important design trade-offs and properties of an irregular, abstract, yet physically plausible 3D small-world interconnect fabric that is inspired by modern network-on-chip paradigms. We vary the framework's key parameters, such as the connectivity, the number of switch nodes, the distribution of long- versus short-range connections, and measure the network's relevant communication characteristics. We further explore the robustness against link failures and the ability and efficiency to solve a simple toy problem, the synchronization task. The results confirm that (1) computation in irregular assemblies is a promising and disruptive computing paradigm for self-assembled nano-scale electronics and (2) that 3D small-world interconnect fabrics with a power-law decaying distribution of shortcut lengths are physically plausible and have major advantages over local 2D and 3D regular topologies

Foreign Trip Report MATGEN-IV Sep 24- Oct 26, 2007

Gen-IV activities in France, Japan and US focus on the development of new structural materials for Gen-IV nuclear reactors. Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) F/M steels have raised considerable interest in nuclear applications. Promising collaborations can be established seeking fundamental knowledge of relevant Gen-IV ODS steel properties (see attached travel report on MATGEN- IV 'Materials for Generation IV Nuclear Reactors'). Major highlights refer to results on future Ferritic/Martensitic steel cladding candidates (relevant to Gen-IV materials properties for LFR Materials Program) and on thermodynamic and mechanic behavior of metallic FeCr binary alloys, base matrix for future candidate steels (for the LLNL-LDRD project on Critical Issues on Materials for Gen-IV Reactors)

FPGA Implementation of Gaussian Mixture Model Algorithm for 47 fps Segmentation of 1080p Video

Circuits and systems able to process high quality video in real time are fundamental in nowadays imaging systems. The circuit proposed in the paper, aimed at the robust identification of the background in video streams, implements the improved formulation of the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) algorithm that is included in the OpenCV library. An innovative, hardware oriented, formulation of the GMM equations, the use of truncated binary multipliers, and ROM compression techniques allow reduced hardware complexity and increased processing capability. The proposed circuit has been designed having commercial FPGA devices as target and provides speed and logic resources occupation that overcome previously proposed implementations. The circuit, when implemented on Virtex6 or StratixIV, processes more than 45 frame per second in 1080p format and uses few percent of FPGA logic resources

pPKCα mediated-HIF-1α activation related to the morphological modifications occurring in neonatal myocardial tissue in response to severe and mild hyperoxia

In premature babies birth an high oxygen level exposure can occur and newborn hyperoxia exposure can be associated with free radical oxygen release with impairment of myocardial function, while in adult animal models short exposure to hyperoxia seems to protect heart against ischemic injury. Thus, the mechanisms and consequences which take place after hyperoxia exposure are different and related to animals age. The aim of our work has been to analyze the role played by HIF-1α in the occurrence of the morphological modifications upon hyperoxia exposure in neonatal rat heart. Hyperoxia exposure induces connective compartment increase which seems to allow enhanced blood vessels growth. An increased hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) translocation and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression has been found upon 95% oxygen exposure to induce morphological modifications. Upstream pPKC-α expression increase in newborn rats exposed to 95% oxygen can suggest PKC involvement in HIF-1α activation. Since nitric oxide synthase (NOS) are involved in heart vascular regulation, endothelial NOS (e-NOS) and inducible NOS (i-NOS) expression has been investigated: a lower eNOS and an higher iNOS expression has been found in newborn rats exposed to 95% oxygen related to the evidence that hyperoxia provokes a systemic vasoconstriction and to the iNOS pro-apoptotic action, respectively. The occurrence of apoptotic events, evaluated by TUNEL and Bax expression analyses, seems more evident in sample exposed to severe hyperoxia. All in all such results suggest that in newborn rats hyperoxia can trigger oxygen free radical mediated membrane injury through a pPKCα mediated HIF-1α signalling system, even though specificity of such response could be obtained by in vivo administration to the rats of specific inhibitors of PKCα. This intracellular signalling can switch molecular events leading to blood vessels development in parallel to pro-apoptotic events due to an immature anti-oxidant defensive system in newborn rat hearts

Development and characterization of an amorphous solid dispersion of furosemide in the form of a sublingual bioadhesive film to enhance bioavailability

Administered by an oral route, Furosemide (FUR), a diuretic used in several edematous states and hypertension, presents bioavailability problems, reported as a consequence of an erratic gastrointestinal absorption due to various existing polymorphic forms and low and pH-dependent solubility. A mucoadhesive sublingual fast-dissolving FUR based film has been developed and evaluated in order to optimize the bioavailability of FUR by increasing solubility and guaranteeing a good dissolution reproducibility. The Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) analyses confirmed that the film prepared using the solvent casting method entrapped FUR in the amorphous state. As a solid dispersion, FUR increases its solubility up to 28.36 mg/mL. Drug content, thickness, and weight uniformity of film were also evaluated. The measured Young\ue2\u80\u99s Modulus, yield strength, and relative elongation of break percentage (EB%) allowed for the classification of the drug-loaded film as an elastomer. Mucoadhesive strength tests showed that the force to detach film from mucosa grew exponentially with increasing contact time up to 7667 N/m2. FUR was quickly discharged from the film following a trend well fitted with the Weibull kinetic model. When applied on sublingual mucosa, the new formulation produced a massive drug flux in the systemic compartment. Overall, the proposed sublingual film enhances drug solubility and absorption, allowing for the prediction of a rapid onset of action and reproducible bioavailability in its clinical application

Phasing diffuse scattering. Application of the SIR2002 algorithm to the non-crystallographic phase problem

A new phasing algorithm has been used to determine the phases of diffuse elastic X-ray scattering from a non-periodic array of gold balls of 50 nm diameter. Two-dimensional real-space images, showing the charge-density distribution of the balls, have been reconstructed at 50 nm resolution from transmission diffraction patterns recorded at 550 eV energy. The reconstructed image fits well with scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of the same sample. The algorithm, which uses only the density modification portion of the SIR2002 program, is compared with the results obtained via the Gerchberg-Saxton-Fienup HIO algorithm. In this way the relationship between density modification in crystallography and the HiO algorithm used in signal and image processing is elucidated.Comment: 7 pages, 12 figure

New experimental test of Bell inequalities by the use of a non-maximally entangled photon state

We report on the first realisation of a test of Bell inequalities using non-maximally entangled states. It is based on the superposition of type I parametric down conversion produced in two different non-linear crystals pumped by the same laser, but with different polarisations. We discuss the advantages and the possible developments of this configuration.Comment: accepted for publicatio