Hsp Proteine da shock termico ed invecchiamento.

Le HSP (proteine da shock termico) rappresentano una nuova, importante frontiera della ricerca. Le HSP sono proteine con un’elevata attività biologica molto importanti che si trovano in tutti gli organismi, dai batteri all'uomo. Proteggono gli organi e i tessuti da tutti i tipi di stress. Nello specifico, “proteggono” altre proteine presenti nel corpo nelle condizioni di stress-attività fisica, stress chimico, esposizioni a prodotti chimici e farmaci tossici. Le HSP possono essere considerate un meccanismo di difesa del corpo contro lo stress. Le HSP proteggono le strutture proteiche intracellulari, inclusi gli enzimi, le proteine recettore ecc.. Assicurano la sintesi normale di strutture proteiche cellulari vitali, garantendone la produzione di proteine perfette. Per questo le Hsp sono anche associate all’invecchiamento in relazione ai cambiamenti caratteristici dell’espressione genica che avvengono in quest’ultimo

Testing Club Convergence in Female Smoking Prevalence

In this paper, we applied the concept of convergence to examine the evolution of smoking prevalence among women in 191 countries worldwide from 1990 to 2019. First, the non-linear time-varying factor model proposed by Phillips and Sul was adopted to identify potential clusters (clubs), wherein groups of countries converge to similar female smoking rates. Second, an ordered logit regression model was used to assess the impact of cigarette affordability on the probability of falling within a given cluster. The hypothesis of global convergence was rejected. However, the clustering algorithm successfully identified five and nine clubs, within countries with increasing and decreasing smoking prevalence, respectively. A higher relative income-price ratio (i.e., lower cigarette affordability) increased the likelihood of belonging to a club of countries with a low prevalence of female tobacco smoking

Does the Prevalence of Obesity Affect the Demand for Soft Drinks? Evidence from Cross-Country Panel Data

The impact of soft drinks on obesity has been widely investigated during the last decades. Conversely, the role of obesity as a factor influencing the demand for soft drinks remains largely unexplored. However, understanding potential changes in the demand for soft drinks, as a result of changes in the spread of obesity, may be useful to better design a comprehensive strategy to curb soft drink consumption. In this paper, we aim to answer the following research question: Does the prevalence of obesity affect the demand for soft drinks? For this purpose, we collected data in a sample of 97 countries worldwide for the period 2005–2019. To deal with problems of reverse causality, an instrumental variable approach and a two-stage least squares method were used to estimate the impact of the age-standardized obesity rate on the market demand for soft drinks. After controlling for several demographic and socio-economic confounding factors, we found that a one percent increase in the prevalence of obesity increases the consumption of soft drinks and carbonated soft drinks by about 2.37 and 1.11 L per person/year, respectively. Our findings corroborate the idea that the development of an obesogenic food environment is a self-sustaining process, in which obesity and unhealthy lifestyles reinforce each other, and further support the need for an integrated approach to curb soft drink consumption by combining sugar taxes with bans, regulations, and nutrition education programs

Adsorption properties of particles for environmental applications

The contaminants of emerging concerns (CECs) are defined by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as: “any synthetic or naturally occurring chemical or any microorganism that is not commonly monitored in the environment but has the potential to enter the environment and cause known or suspected adverse ecological and/or human health effects.” In other words, CECs are any substances that can be suspected to cause harm. Basically, they are substances used in human activities every day for all kinds of purposes. Because they are so numerous, ubiquitous and chemically different, they are frequently divided into categories that describe their purpose, use or other characteristics. Some common categories are: pharmaceuticals, personal care products, agricultural runoff (pesticides, pathogens and fertilizers), fuel-based-compounds, chlorinated solvents, flame retardants (perfluorinatedalkyl compounds), plasticizers, dyes and endocrine disruptors. CECs are continuously entering water sources throughout the world because of their widespread use. Conventional wastewater and recycled water treatments are only partially effective in their removal or degradation, so they are discharged into the environment with treated wastewater effluent, recycled water and wastewater plant sludge. Other sources of CECs include industrial wastewater effluents, untreated wastewater from manufacturing facilities, landfill leachates, effluents from poultry farms and animal feeding facilities where veterinary drugs may be used. Effects of CECs on human and ecosystem health are largely unknown and relatively little is known about the ways they travel through the environment or how they may be transformed or degraded during their residence time in the environment. Some studies have shown that even very low exposure to certain CECs can have impacts on biological systems. CECs are generally present at very low concentration in natural waters. Therefore, it is important on one hand to develop analytical methods able to detect these molecules in accurate way to better evaluate their impact on the environment, and on the other hand to enhance the efficiency of water remediation technologies in order to decrease their potential adverse effects on biota. Several methods have been reported to be suitable for both of these purposes; sorption based technologies were demonstrated to be efficient and economical methods both for the enrichment of trace pollutants and for their removal from water. Among the large number of inorganic adsorbents, zeolites were proven to be efficient in removing organic compounds from environmental matrixes. Recently, mesoporous silica materials have also received increasing interest because their properties (high surface area, high pore volume, controlled pore size) make them promising as adsorbents in contaminant removal processes. Moreover, due to the thermal and chemical stability of these siliceous adsorbents, they can be considered environmentally compatible. The aim of the present work is to study the adsorption properties of microporous (Beta, ZSM-5, Y and ferrierite zeolites) and mesoporous (MCM-41 and HMS) siliceous materials towards various organic compounds in aqueous solutions. This investigation has the dual purpose of evaluating the application of the selected adsorbents both in remediation technologies of natural waters and as medium for solid phase extraction systems of pre-concentration. For what concerns the studied contaminants, four compounds (ketoprofen, hydrochlorothiazide, atenolol, erythromycin) have been selected as members of CECs. These four drugs belong to different therapeutic classes and have been detected in natural waters of several countries because they are not efficiently removed by conventional wastewaters treatments plants. Moreover they are characterized by different physico-chemical properties as molecular dimensions, acid/base behaviour, hydrophobicity, ecc. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was selected because, due to its high water-solubility, it has been frequently found in aquatic environment; moreover it is extremely persistent and toxic. The selected organic pollutants were toluene and methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE): they were chosen as representative of BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene) and fuel oxygenate compounds, respectively. Because of its high water solubility and hence high bioavailability, MTBE belongs to the class of emerging contaminants too. In this thesis, chromatographic, thermogravimetric and diffractometric techniques were employed to study the adsorption process in order to: 1) investigate the adsorptive properties of the siliceous materials; 2) characterise their structures after the adsorption of the selected contaminants; 3) localise the organic species in the zeolites channel systems; 4) probe the interactions between organic molecules and framework oxygen atoms; 5) characterize the kinetic of the adsorption process. In particular, the thermodynamics and kinetics of the adsorption process of contaminants on hydrophobic zeolites were studied by using complementary techniques: chromatography and thermogravimetry. Chromatography was mainly used to measure the adsorption isotherms of the studied compounds. The adsorption isotherm is useful for representing the capacity of a zeolite for adsorbing organics from water, and in providing description of the functional dependence of capacity on the concentration of pollutants. Experimental determination of the isotherm allows for evaluating the feasibility of adsorption for treatment, in selecting a zeolite and in estimating adsorbent dosage requirements. Moreover, from isotherm parameters it is possible to evaluate the adsorption energy distribution of the process. The abovementioned techniques were also employed to investigate the kinetics of the adsorption. Kinetics deals with changes in chemical properties in time and is concerned especially with rates of changes: hence it plays a fundamental role in determine the proper contact time for the removal of pollutant components from wastewater. To investigate the adsorption mechanism, diffraction techniques were employed to localize the organic adsorbed into the zeolite structure. The information gathered by this last investigation – in cooperation with the Earth Science Department UNIFE - allow to define the interactions between organic molecules and zeolite framework. The experimental data revealed that the amount of the organic pollutant embedded inside the framework was influenced by the lattice structure, the hydrophobicity (SiO2/Al2O3 ratio: SAR) and the thermal treatments of the adsorbent. For mesoporous silica materials, an important role is also played by the procedure of template removal (thermal treatment or solvent extraction). Both hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions were demonstrated to contribute to the adsorption process: in fact, hydrophobicity and dissociation constant of the solute strongly affect the adsorption. In many cases the selected molecule was proved to be adsorbed inside the framework of the siliceous materials. Generally, it was also proved that the adsorption process was very fast in all the studied zeolites towards several classes of pollutants. Also the adsorption kinetic of PFOA on mesoporous silica materials was satisfying if compared with literature data dealing with other types of adsorbents. To investigate the possible competition of natural organic matter towards contaminants adsorption, the effect of two lignin-derived phenolic monomers (caffeic acid and parahydroxybenzaldheyde) with molecular dimensions comparable to those of the pores of the adsorbent material on the adsorption properties of zeolites was considered. This last part of the work of thesis is a fraction of a wider project whose purpose is to study the interaction and mobility of groundwater pollutants adsorbed in zeolite pores in order to improve the efficiency of permeable reactive barriers. This project involves Ferrara, Bologna and Piemonte Orientale Universities with the financial and scientific support of ENI Research Center of San Donato Milanese. The results revealed that zeolites are selective adsorbents for organic pollutants. In fact, it was demonstrated that toluene is preferentially and almost exclusively adsorbed from mixtures of toluene and humic acid monomers in aqueous solutions. In conclusion, favourable adsorption kinetics along with the effective and selective adsorption of contaminants into zeolites and mesoporous siliceous materials make these cheap and environmentally-friendly materials a tool with interesting applications for the removal or enrichment of organic pollutants from contaminated waters

Enhancing Traditional Product Brand Equity through the Mountain Product label: a Consumer-Based Brand Equity approach

Promoting traditional mountain food products guarantees consumers of products’ quality, supports local economies and promotes farm sustainability in mountain regions. The EU Commission has introduced the “Mountain Product” (MP) denomination to this aim. However, the MP label strives to be used by producers and has low awareness among consumers. Our study aims to assess the contribution of the MP label to the brand equity of products farmed in mountain regions. This is performed by assessing the brand equity antecedents of the MP label brand equity and verifying the latter effect on a traditional product brand equity: a potato cultivated in the Modena Apennines named the “Montese potato”. A survey through a structured questionnaire was administered in-store to a sample of 317 consumers and analysed with the CB-SEM method to assess the validity of the hypotheses underpinning our study. Results confirm that MP brand awareness, perceived brand quality and brand associations are all positive and significant drivers of the MP label brand equity. Moreover, the MP label brand equity positively and significantly influences the specific product's brand equity. Our findings provide implications for producers and retailers interested in using the MP label but doubtful of its value creation

Self-reported unemployment status and recession: An analysis on the Italian population with and without mental health problems

During economic recession people with mental health problems have higher risk of losing their job. This paper analyses the issue by considering the Italian rates of unemployment amongst individuals with and without mental health problems in 2005 and 2013, that is prior and during the economic crisis. We used data from the National surveys on Health conditions and use of health services carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for the years 2005 and 2013. The surveys collected information on the health status and socioeconomic conditions of the Italian population. Self-reported unemployment status was analysed amongst individuals with and without reported mental health problems. In addition, descriptive statistics were performed in order to detect possible differences in the risk of unemployment within different regional contexts characterised by different socio-economic conditions. The recession determined increased disparities in unemployment rates between people with and without mental health problems. The analyses confirm that in periods of economic crisis people with mental health problems are at risk of experiencing exclusion from labour market. In addition, the impact is even worse within the group with low education and younger age. These findings emphasise the importance of specific interventions aimed at promoting labour market participation and reintegration for people with mental health problems

Nitric oxide, cytochrome c oxidase and myoglobin: Competition and reaction pathways

AbstractIt is relevant to cell physiology that nitric oxide (NO) reacts with both cytochrome oxidase (CcOX) and oxygenated myoglobin (MbO2). In this respect, it has been proposed [Pearce, L.L., et al. (2002) J. Biol. Chem. 277, 13556–13562] that (i) CcOX in turnover out-competes MbO2 for NO, and (ii) NO bound to reduced CcOX is “metabolized” in the active site to nitrite by reacting with O2. In contrast, rapid kinetics experiments reported in this study show that (i) upon mixing NO with MbO2 and CcOX in turnover, MbO2 out-competes the oxidase for NO and (ii) after mixing nitrosylated CcOX with O2 in the presence of MbO2, NO (and not nitrite) dissociates from the enzyme causing myoglobin oxidation