Spectroscopic characterization of Phoenician-Punic coins

Sardinia hosted many Phoenician and Punic communities, as integrated forms of pacific cohabitation with the Lebanese merchants or actual colonies for the exploitation of the rich mines and wealthy coastal emporia under the Carthaginians (750-250 B.C.). One of their most important settlements is that of Mount Sirai, in the south west of the island, whose excavation revealed a complex structure of the site and allowed the discovery of excellent finds, as steles, everyday-life objects and tools, grave goods, amulets and coins. Punic coins were made by gold, electrum or, more commonly, by bronze. The first coin mintage from Carthage dates back to the IV century B.C. Whether the mintage was exclusive to Carthage or permitted outside the city too is still a matter of debate. There is the possibility that mintages were allowed in Sardinia (320-238 B.C. as well as in 216), in Spain (237-209 B.C.) and Southern Italy (216-203 B.C.). We have analyzed ten of these bronze coins (Fig. 1) to unveil the secrets of their mintage, origins and inner structure. Some traditional spectroscopic techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) and fluorescence (XRF) have been used for this purpose, allowing us to learn about their mineral content (XRD) and elemental composition (XRF) [1,2]. Here we report about these findings

Microstructural features of human bones and funerary practices in Mount Sirai (Sardinia)

In the attempt to set up a useful methodology for the investigation of burned human remains in archaeological, anthropological and forensic fields, we decided to compare the most common protocols for the study of bone bioapatites (Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy, FT-IR, and X-ray Diffraction, XRD) to those deriving from the application of X-ray scattering techniques using synchrotron light. In this way, we expect to take advantage of the wider and more dynamic qualities of such a valuable tool in order to examine a higher number of samples in a very short time compared to the “traditional” techniques, meanwhile assessing its applicability in the archaeological field

Adducts and cyclometallated derivatives of palladium(II) with some 1,4-benzodiazepin-2-ones: crystal and molecular structure of <i>trans</i>-dichlorobis[7-chloro-1-(cyclopropylmethyl)-1,3-dihydro-5-phenyl-2H-1,4-benzodiazepin-2-one] palladium(II)

The adducts trans-L2PdCl2 (1, L = Diazepam = 7- chloro-1,3-dihydro-1-methyl-5-phenyl-2H-1,4-benzodiazepin -2-one; 5, L = Prazepam = 7-chloro-1-(cyclopropylmethyl)- 1,3-dihydro-5-phenyl-2H-1,4-benzodiazepin-2-one) were prepared by reaction of PdCl2 or (PhCN)2PdCl2 with Diazepam and Prazepam, respectively. In the adducts, the benzodiazepines act as monodentate ligands through the 4-nitrogen atom, as shown by the structure of compound 5, determined by X-ray diffraction. Two crystalline modifications have been characterized: 5a, trans-(Prazepam)2PdCl2/CHCl3 1/1, monoclinic, space group P21/n, a = 11.996(4), b = 13.678(5), c = 12.717(3) Å, β = 98.83(2), Z = 2, R = 0.032; 5b, trans-(Prazepam)2PdCl2/CH2Cl2 1/1, monoclinic, space group P21/c, a = 14.074(3), b = 14.622(7), c = 19.360(10) Å, β = 100.04(3), Z = 4, R = 0.076. Cyclometallated derivatives [(L---H)PdCl]2, 2, L = Diazepam and 6, L = Prazepam, involving both C- and N-intramolecular coordination of the deprotonated ligands, have been obtained by reaction with Na2[PdCl4] in ethanol solution. In the dimeric species 2 and 6, the halide-bridge is easily split by reaction with Ph3P or Tl(acac), to give [(L---H)•(Ph3P)PdCl], (3, 7) and [(L---H)Pd(acac)] (4, 8) respectively

Structural perturbation of alphaB-crystallin by zinc and temperature related to its <i>chaperone-like</i> activity

αB-crystallin is a small heat shock protein that shows chaperone-like activity, as it protects the aggregation of denatured proteins. In this work, the possible relationships between structural characteristics and the biological activity of αB-crystallin were investigated on the native protein and on the protein undergoing the separate effects of metal ligation and temperature. The chaperone-like activity of αB-crystallin increased in the presence of zinc and when temperature was increased. By using fluorescent probes to monitor hydrophobic surfaces on αB-crystallin, it was found that exposed hydrophobic patches on the protein surface increased significantly both in the presence of zinc and when the temperature was raised from 25 to 37°C. The zinc-induced increased exposure of lipophilic residues is in agreement with theoretical calculations performed on 3D-models of monomeric αB-crystallin, and may be significant to its increased biological activity

A Comparative study of k-nearest neighbour, support vector machine and multi-layer perceptron for thalassemia screening

In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of two typical techniques of Pattern Recognition in the classification for Thalassemia screening. They are the Support Vector Machine (SVM) and the K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN). We compare SVM and KNN with a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) classifier. We propose a two-classifier system based on SVM. The first layer is used to differentiate between pathological and non-pathological cases while the second layer is used to discriminate between two different pathologies (α-thalassemia carrier against β-thalassemia carrier) from the first output layer (pathological cases). Using the parameters sensitivity (percentage of pathologic cases correctly classified) and specificity (percentage of non-pathologic cases correctly classified), the results obtained with this analysis show that the MLP classifier gives slightly better results than SVM although the amount of data available is limited. Both techniques enable thalassemia carriers to be discriminated from healthy subjects with 95% specificity, although the sensitivity of MLP is 92% while that of SVM is 83%

Temperature dependence of chaperone-like activity and oligomeric state of alphaB-crystallin

The chaperone-like activity and the oligomeric state of αB-crystallin were studied at different temperatures and in the presence of urea and thiocyanate. The activity, assessed measuring the ability of αB-crystallin to prevent the aggregation of denatured insulin, strongly depends on temperature. While a significant activity increase was detected at 42°C, the presence of urea and thiocyanate does not affect the protein activity in an irreversible way. In-solution SAXS measurements performed in the same experimental conditions showed that αB-crystallin forms near-spherical, hollowed, polydisperse oligomers, whose dimensions change above 42°C. Moreover, in the presence of urea and thiocyanate, a global fit analysis confirms the high stability of αB-crystallin assemblies in relationship with their variable quaternary structure. In particular, the changes in the inner radius as well as the thickness and dispersion of the protein shell, account for the preservation of the chaperone-like activity

A Real-time classification system of thalassemic pathologies based on artificial neural networks

Thalassemias are pathologies that derive from genetic defects of the globin genes. The most common defects among the population affect the genes that are involved in the synthesis of and β chains. The main aspects of these pathologies are well explained from a biochemical and genetic point of view. The diagnosis is fundamentally based on hematologic and genetic tests. A genetic analysis is particularly important to determine the carriers of α-thalassemia, whose identification by means of the hematologic parameters is more difficult in comparison with heterozygotes for β-thalassemia. This work investigates the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) for the classification of thalassemic pathologies using the hematologic parameters resulting from hemochromocytometric analysis only. Different combinations of ANNs are reported, which allow thalassemia carriers to be discriminated from normals with 94% classification accuracy, 92% sensitivity, and 95% specificity. On the basis of these results, an automated system that allows real-time support for diagnoses is proposed. The automated system interfaces a hemochromo analyzer to a simple PC