14,495 research outputs found

    The HCV Sicily Network: a web-based model for the management of HCV chronic liver diseases

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    Epidemiological studies report that in Sicily reside about 30,000 citizens with a diagnosis of chronic hepatitis due to HCV. The availability of direct antiviral action (DAA) is a real therapeutic breakthrough, but the high cost of the therapeutic regimes limits their use and forced the National Health System to establish clinical priority for the treatment

    Metal chelation therapy and Parkinson\u2019s disease: A critical review on the thermodynamics of complex formation between relevant metal ions and promising or established drugs

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    The present review reports a list of approximately 800 compounds which have been used, tested or proposed for Parkinson\u2019s disease (PD) therapy in the year range 2014\u20132019 (April): name(s), chemical structure and references are given. Among these compounds, approximately 250 have possible or established metal-chelating properties towards Cu(II), Cu(I), Fe(III), Fe(II), Mn(II), and Zn(II), which are considered to be involved in metal dyshomeostasis during PD. Speciation information regarding the complexes formed by these ions and the 250 compounds has been collected or, if not experimentally available, has been estimated from similar molecules. Stoichiometries and stability constants of the complexes have been reported; values of the cologarithm of the concentration of free metal ion at equilibrium (pM), and of the dissociation constant Kd (both computed at pH = 7.4 and at total metal and ligand concentrations of 106 and 105 mol/L, respectively), charge and stoichiometry of the most abundant metal\u2013ligand complexes existing at physiological conditions, have been obtained. A rigorous definition of the reported amounts is given, the possible usefulness of this data is described, and the need to characterize the metal\u2013ligand speciation of PD drugs is underlined

    Numerical study on Schramm-Loewner Evolution in nonminimal conformal field theories

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    The Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE) is a powerful tool to describe fractal interfaces in 2D critical statistical systems. Yet the application of SLE is well established for statistical systems described by quantum field theories satisfying only conformal invariance, the so called minimal conformal field theories (CFTs). We consider interfaces in Z(N) spin models at their self-dual critical point for N=4 and N=5. These lattice models are described in the continuum limit by non-minimal CFTs where the role of a Z_N symmetry, in addition to the conformal one, should be taken into account. We provide numerical results on the fractal dimension of the interfaces which are SLE candidates for non-minimal CFTs. Our results are in excellent agreement with some recent theoretical predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, v2: typos corrected, published versio

    Evolution of Large Scale Curvature Fluctuations During the Perturbative Decay of the Inflaton

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    We study the evolution of cosmological fluctuations during and after inflation driven by a scalar field coupled to a perfect fluid through afriction term. During the slow-roll regime for the scalar field, the perfect fluid is also frozen and isocurvature perturbations are generated. After the end of inflation, during the decay of the inflaton, we find that a change in the observationally relevant large scale curvature fluctuations is possible.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures; v2: version published in PR

    Investigation of rare nuclear decays with BaF2_2 crystal scintillator contaminated by radium

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    The radioactive contamination of a BaF2_2 scintillation crystal with mass of 1.714 kg was measured over 101 hours in the low-background DAMA/R&D set-up deep underground (3600 m w.e.) at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories of INFN (LNGS, Italy). The half-life of 212^{212}Po (present in the crystal scintillator due to contamination by radium) was measured as T1/2(212T_{1/2}(^{212}Po) = 298.8±\pm0.8(stat.)±\pm1.4(syst.) ns by analysis of the events' pulse profiles. The 222^{222}Rn nuclide is known as 100% decaying via emission of α\alpha particle with T1/2T_{1/2} = 3.82 d; however, its β\beta decay is also energetically allowed with Qβ=24±21Q_\beta = 24\pm21 keV. Search for decay chains of events with specific pulse shapes characteristic for α\alpha or for β/γ\beta/\gamma signals and with known energies and time differences allowed us to set, for the first time, the limit on the branching ratio of 222^{222}Rn relatively to β\beta decay as Bβ<0.13B_\beta < 0.13% at 90% C.L. (equivalent to limit on partial half-life T1/2β>8.0T_{1/2}^\beta > 8.0 y). Half-life limits of 212^{212}Pb, 222^{222}Rn and 226^{226}Ra relatively to 2β2\beta decays are also improved in comparison with the earlier results.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 2 table

    Carbon nanotubes as target for directional detection of light WIMP

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    In this paper I will briefly introduce the idea of using Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) as target for the detection of low mass WIMPs with the additional information of directionality. I will also present the experimental efforts of developing a Time Projection Chamber with a CNT target inside and the results of a test beam at the Beam Test Facility of INFN-LNF.Comment: 3 figures, IFAE2017 poster session proceeding

    MORPH: A Reference Architecture for Configuration and Behaviour Self-Adaptation

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    An architectural approach to self-adaptive systems involves runtime change of system configuration (i.e., the system's components, their bindings and operational parameters) and behaviour update (i.e., component orchestration). Thus, dynamic reconfiguration and discrete event control theory are at the heart of architectural adaptation. Although controlling configuration and behaviour at runtime has been discussed and applied to architectural adaptation, architectures for self-adaptive systems often compound these two aspects reducing the potential for adaptability. In this paper we propose a reference architecture that allows for coordinated yet transparent and independent adaptation of system configuration and behaviour
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