State-of-the-art of the <i>Jatropha curcas</i> productive chain: from sowing to biodiesel and by-products

In the forthcoming years, 1–2 million hectares of Jatropha curcas L. are expected to be annually planted, reaching 12.8 million hectares worldwide by 2015. This considerable expansion is due to its products and byproducts multiple uses and its amazing adaptability. J. curcas oil extracted by seeds is a promising renewable feedstock for biodiesel production and, together with the oil extraction by-products, it can be used as cooking/lighting fuel, bio-pesticide, organic fertilizer, combustible fuel, and for soap making. The capability to grow on poor quality soils not suitable for food crop makes J. curcas a possible solution of all the controversies related to biodiesel production. Furthermore, J. curcas contributes to mitigate environmental problems, such as marginal land or abandoned farmland reclamation. Nevertheless, J. curcas is not a “miracle tree”: (i) the full potential of J. curcas is far from being achieved and its talents are still to be supported by scientific evidences; (ii) J. curcas capabilities are not easily exploitable and applicable simultaneously; (iii) its use is controversial and potentially unsustainable due to the current knowledge gaps about the impacts and potentials of J. curcas plantations. The aims of this review are to detail each phase of J. curcas productive chain from sowing to biodiesel and by-products, in order to logically organize the knowledge around J. curcas system, and to compare potentialities and criticalities of J. curcas, highlighting the agronomical, management, and environmental issues which should be still investigated

Integrated Reconfigurable Silicon Photonics Switch Matrix in IRIS Project: Technological Achievements and Experimental Results

This paper reports the performances of a silicon photonics optical switch matrix fabricated by using large scale 3D integration. The wavelength selective optical switch consists of a photonic integrated circuit (PIC), with 1398 circuit elements, interconnected in a 3D stack with its control electronic integrated circuit (EIC). Each PIC element can be trimmed or reconfigured by using metallic heaters. The EIC is designed to drive the heaters and to read the signal of monitor photodiodes integrated into the PIC. Small footprint and high energy efficiency are achieved in the PIC and the EIC. Automatic wavelength alignment of the optical circuits in the PIC to the ITU grid and fine temperature tuning of each photonic element to optimize the switch insertion losses are obtained by an optimization routine. A fully packaged switch with input/output fibers is tested both for optical and electrical characteristics as well as for the system performances. Fiber to fiber insertion losses of about 20 dB and channel isolation of -35 dB are achieved. BER characteristics at 25 Gbps are evaluated. Perspective applications of the optical switch in optical transport and intra-data center networks are discussed

Design and Implementation of an Integrated Reconfigurable Silicon Photonics Switch Matrix in IRIS Project

This paper aims to present the design and the achieved results on a CMOS electronic and photonic integrated device for low cost, low power, transparent, mass-manufacturable optical switching. An unprecedented number of integrated photonic components (more than 1000), each individually electronically controlled, allows for the realization of a transponder aggregator device which interconnects up to eight transponders to a four direction colorless-directionless-contentionless ROADM. Each direction supports 12 200-GHz spaced wavelengths, which can be independently added or dropped from the network. An electronic ASIC, 3-D integrated on top of the photonic chip, controls the switch fabrics to allow a complete and microsecond fast reconfigurability

IER-SICH Nomogram to Predict Symptomatic Intracerebral Hemorrhage After Thrombectomy for Stroke

Background and Purpose - As a reliable scoring system to detect the risk of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage after thrombectomy for ischemic stroke is not yet available, we developed a nomogram for predicting symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage in patients with large vessel occlusion in the anterior circulation who received bridging of thrombectomy with intravenous thrombolysis (training set), and to validate the model by using a cohort of patients treated with direct thrombectomy (test set). Methods - We conducted a cohort study on prospectively collected data from 3714 patients enrolled in the IER (Italian Registry of Endovascular Stroke Treatment in Acute Stroke). Symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage was defined as any type of intracerebral hemorrhage with increase of 654 National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score points from baseline 6424 hours or death. Based on multivariate logistic models, the nomogram was generated. We assessed the discriminative performance by using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Results - National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score, onset-to-end procedure time, age, unsuccessful recanalization, and Careggi collateral score composed the IER-SICH nomogram. After removing Careggi collateral score from the first model, a second model including Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score was developed. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the IER-SICH nomogram was 0.778 in the training set (n=492) and 0.709 in the test set (n=399). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the second model was 0.733 in the training set (n=988) and 0.685 in the test set (n=779). Conclusions - The IER-SICH nomogram is the first model developed and validated for predicting symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage after thrombectomy. It may provide indications on early identification of patients for more or less postprocedural intensive management