The Dark Side of the Salad: Salmonella typhimurium Overcomes the Innate Immune Response of Arabidopsis thaliana and Shows an Endopathogenic Lifestyle

Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium contaminated vegetables and fruits are considerable sources of human infections. Bacteria present in raw plant-derived nutrients cause salmonellosis, the world wide most spread food poisoning. This facultative endopathogen enters and replicates in host cells and actively suppresses host immune responses. Although Salmonella survives on plants, the underlying bacterial infection mechanisms are only poorly understood. In this report we investigated the possibility to use Arabidopsis thaliana as a genetically tractable host system to study Salmonella-plant interactions. Using green fluorescent protein (GFP) marked bacteria, we show here that Salmonella can infect various Arabidopsis tissues and proliferate in intracelullar cellular compartments. Salmonella infection of Arabidopsis cells can occur via intact shoot or root tissues resulting in wilting, chlorosis and eventually death of the infected organs. Arabidopsis reacts to Salmonella by inducing the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades and enhanced expression of pathogenesis related (PR) genes. The induction of defense responses fails in plants that are compromised in ethylene or jasmonic acid signaling or in the MKK3-MPK6 MAPK pathway. These findings demonstrate that Arabidopsis represents a true host system for Salmonella, offering unique possibilities to study the interaction of this human pathogen with plants at the molecular level for developing novel drug targets and addressing current safety issues in human nutrition

La pianura campana come grande giardino

Il contributo del gruppo di lavoro, coeso all'inteno della giovane Facoltà di Aversa, si concentra sui caratteri del territorio dell'antica Capua, tentando un ridisegno funzionale della regolarissima trama centuriale che lo pervade. Il testo conferma il lavoro grafico, in due tavole (pagg.8-9), fatto dallo stesso gruppo di studio e inviato alla mostra internazionale UIA 1996.The contribution of the working group, cohesive all'inteno Young Faculty of Aversa, focuses on the characteristics of the territory of ancient Capua, attempting a redesign functional centurial very regular plot that pervades it. The report confirms the graphic work, two tables (pages 8-9), made ​​from the same study group and sent to the international exhibition UIA 1996

Direct metallization of PMMA with aluminum films using HIPIMS

Metallization of plastic parts today is mainly realized using electroplating. Within the European Union the use of chromium VI will be restricted by 2017 following the REACH directive. This besides other aspects like environmental friendliness is driving the development of alternatives. Evaporation as representative of physical vapor deposition PVD processing is the primarily used alternative. Nevertheless there are restrictions with respect to part size and throughput. The major challenge in evaporation is the realization of satisfying adhesion. In many cases chromate (Cr VI) based etch solutions, additional lacquers, or adhesion improving interface coatings have to be applied before metallization. Using ionized sputtering like high power impulse magnetron sputtering HIPIMS opens new horizons for cost effective, environmental friendly plastic metallization with excellent adhesion. First investigation using titanium as metal on different untreated plastics (PPSU, PEI, PEEK, PESU, PSU) showed significant adhesion improvement using a simple tape test for evaluation when comparing mid-frequency sputtering and HIPIMS. Further investigation on aluminum deposition on Plexiglas PMMA showed exciting results. Since PMMA is very sensitive to the UV radiation of technical plasmas, direct metallization of the surface by sputtering is conventionally not possible. Using ionized sputtering it is shown that the adhesion can be enhanced to excellent level passing a combined cross cut and tape test without any failure. The study of the interface reveals some insight in the responsible mechanisms. With increasing peak current in the HIPIMS discharge, i.e. increasing degree of ionized species forming the film, the adhesion is significantly improved. The failure mechanism changes from adhesive failure and poor adhesion to a cohesive failure and excellent adhesion. Furthermore a surface modification of the polymer is observed with increasing ionization. The PMMA surface reorganizes and roughens due to ions forming the film and additionally electrons providing local thermal annealing by recombination

The adoption of local hygiene and building regulations and their update in a sample of 338 Italian municipalities

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Highly insulating alumina films by a bipolar reactive MF sputtering process with special arc handling

Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) thin films are used in microelectronics and sensor applications due to their good insulating properties. Usually, RF sputtering processes are used to produce insulating coatings for sensors, but this process has major drawbacks, mainly, a very low deposition rate which leads to higher production costs. AC reactive sputtering processes present higher deposition rates, but issues regarding arcing and creation of defects in the films need to be addressed. In this work, an AC power supply with a new concept for fast arc handling and limited current output was investigated. Alumina films were produced by means of a bipolar reactive sputtering process, using large area double rotatable cathodes. The process was very stable and arc counts are as low as 3–10 arcs/h in the best deposition conditions. High deposition rates were also observed, reaching 2–3 μm/h. The films obtained excellent insulating properties with breakdown voltages higher than 3 kV for films with thicknesses between 2 and 3 μm and a corresponding breakdown strength of 1.5 kV/μm (15 MV/cm)