A high resolution wind&wave forecast model chain for the Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea

DHI (Danish Hydraulic Institute) and HyMOLab (Hydrodynamics and Met-Ocean Laboratory of the Dept. of Engineering and Architecture of the University of Trieste) have undertaken a joint applied research project with the aim to develop a state-of-art wind-wave forecast service at mid resolution for the Mediterranean Sea and at very high resolution for the Adriatic Sea. Weather routing, civil protection, coastal engineering, oil&gas and renewable energy fields, the planning of operations at sea, ... are just few among the multiple potential applications of this service. The meteorological model used in this study is WRF-ARW, one of the most widely used state-of-the-art open-source non-hydrostatic model. Global Forecast System (GFS) dataset provides the boundary and initial conditions. MIKE21-Spectral Waves is used as wave model with resolution ranging from 0.1 to 0.03 approximately. The use of a local area meteorological model guarantees higher levels of resolution and accuracy in an area such as the Mediterranean Sea where the complex orography and coastline induce short-time/small-space weather scales. The model chain runs daily (or twice a day on demand) on the High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure of HyMOLab. The validation of the entire model chain and specifically the forecast data obtained for the sea state is continuously updated according to new available data from satellites and buoys. Anyway, a major verification of the performance of the model chain against historic data (hindcast) is almost mandatory. For this aim, we performed a multi-decade test obtaining very good statistical parameters for the entire model chain performance. In this context the hindcast dataset developed by DHI and HyMOLab consists of 35 years of hourly data for the period 1979-2013, with the same model chain. The CFSR d093.0 hourly dataset with a spatial resolution of 0.5 provides the boundary and initial conditions. The atmospheric and wave models performance is checked against six satellite datasets, missions Envisat, ERS-2, Geosat FO, Jason-1, Jason-2, Topex-Poseidon, using a moving window technique procedure. Wave data close to coast are compared with available data from more than 20 buoys. The paper describes the validation procedure adopted for the hindcasted data. Furthermore the forecast service is described too, with specific emphasis to the very high resolution adopted in the Adriatic Sea

Factors precipitating the risk of aspiration in hospitalized patients: findings from a multicentre critical incident technique study

Objective: To elucidate factors, other than those clinical, precipitating the risk of aspiration in hospitalized patients. Design: The Critical Incident Technique was adopted for this study in 2015. Setting: Three departments located in two academic hospitals in the northeast of Italy, equipped with 800 and 1500 beds, respectively. Participants: A purposeful sample of 12 registered nurses (RN), all of whom (i) had reported one or more episodes of aspiration during the longitudinal survey, (ii) had worked 653 years in the department, and (iii) were willing to participate, were included. Main Outcome Measure(s): Antecedent factors involved in episodes of aspiration as experienced by RNs were collected through an open-ended interview, and qualitatively analysed. Results: In addition to clinical factors, other factors interacting with each other may precipitate the risk of aspiration episodes during hospitalization: at the nursing care level (misclassifying patients, transferring tasks to other healthcare professionals and standardizing processes to remove potential threats); at the family level (misclassifying patients, dealing with the cultural relevance of eating) and at the environmental level (positioning the patient, managing time pressures, distracting patient while eating, dealing with food consistency and irritating oral medication). Conclusions: At the hospital level, an adequate nursing workforce and models of care delivery, as well as time for initial and continuing patient and family assessment are required. At the unit level, patient-centred models of care aimed at reducing care standardization are also recommended; in addition, nursing, family and environmental factors should be recorded in the incident reports documenting episodes of aspiratio

A new class of glycomimetic drugs to prevent free fatty acid-induced endothelial dysfunction

Background: Carbohydrates play a major role in cell signaling in many biological processes. We have developed a set of glycomimetic drugs that mimic the structure of carbohydrates and represent a novel source of therapeutics for endothelial dysfunction, a key initiating factor in cardiovascular complications. Purpose: Our objective was to determine the protective effects of small molecule glycomimetics against free fatty acid­induced endothelial dysfunction, focusing on nitric oxide (NO) and oxidative stress pathways. Methods: Four glycomimetics were synthesized by the stepwise transformation of 2,5­dihydroxybenzoic acid to a range of 2,5­substituted benzoic acid derivatives, incorporating the key sulfate groups to mimic the interactions of heparan sulfate. Endothelial function was assessed using acetylcholine­induced, endotheliumdependent relaxation in mouse thoracic aortic rings using wire myography. Human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) behavior was evaluated in the presence or absence of the free fatty acid, palmitate, with or without glycomimetics (1µM). DAF­2 and H2DCF­DA assays were used to determine nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, respectively. Lipid peroxidation colorimetric and antioxidant enzyme activity assays were also carried out. RT­PCR and western blotting were utilized to measure Akt, eNOS, Nrf­2, NQO­1 and HO­1 expression. Results: Ex vivo endothelium­dependent relaxation was significantly improved by the glycomimetics under palmitate­induced oxidative stress. In vitro studies showed that the glycomimetics protected HUVECs against the palmitate­induced oxidative stress and enhanced NO production. We demonstrate that the protective effects of pre­incubation with glycomimetics occurred via upregulation of Akt/eNOS signaling, activation of the Nrf2/ARE pathway, and suppression of ROS­induced lipid peroxidation. Conclusion: We have developed a novel set of small molecule glycomimetics that protect against free fatty acidinduced endothelial dysfunction and thus, represent a new category of therapeutic drugs to target endothelial damage, the first line of defense against cardiovascular disease

Salt reduction in meat processing: effects of water state and quality of dry cured ham.

Salting is an ancient technology widely used in combination with other actions to preserve meat by water activity depression and development of desired sensorial properties. In recent times the health and nutritional concerns about sodium intake has led to a reduction of the salt content in processed meat products also in the case of the traditional ones. This is not easy task in the dry cured ham as salt plays an important technological role in the control of endogenous enzymes involved in the development of the main quality characteristics and in the water state of the final product.In this study the effects of changes in the salting process conditions on the salt diffusion and water state of a traditional smoked dry cured ham have been investigated. Raw hams of two different size (small-S and large-L) were subjected to a 2- or 3- salting steps process. Salt content, moisture and aw were determined on three muscle portions of the ham before and after salting up to 90 days of processing. The decrease of the number of salting steps reduced the salt diffusion and the salt content of the inner regions of the L-hams while no meaningful effects occurred when the same experimental procedure was applied to the small size raw hams. NaCl content and aw values of all the ham samples resulted to fit a linear model (r2> 0.80) and the linear equation was used to predict the final aw value of the differently salted dry cured hams. The predictive model highlighted the risk that based on the salt content determined at the end of the resting, 2-salting steps-L dry-cured hams will achieve an aw > 0.92 value that could impair the microbial stability of the product and compromise the sensory quality. [...

Prediction of the salt content from water activity analysis in dry-cured ham.

Salt (NaCl) penetration was studied on dry-cured hams of different weight processed by two different salting processes. Chemical composition and water activity (aw) were analysed on two of the most representative ham muscles during the process. The normalized Weibull cumulative distribution was used to fit salt uptake in Biceps femoris m. (BF) and to calculate the salt diffusion coefficient. The aw values strictly depend on the Salt Index (S.I., gNaCl 100 gw −1). The S.I. of BF samples from hams taken at different processing steps, were modelled as a function of aw by both a linear and a first order polynomial model achieving good fitting (R2 = 0.92). The calibration root mean square error (RMSE) resulted being of 1% for both models. Cross validation was performed and the RMSEs were of 0.62% and 0.61% for the linear and polynomial models, respectively. These models can be useful to manage the salting process in dry-cured hams at industrial level

Effect of intensity of smoking treatment on the free amino acids and biogenic amines occurrence in dry cured ham

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the intensity of smoking treatment on the evolution of free amino acids (FAAs) of dry cured ham during processing. The correlation between FAAs and biogenic amines (BAs) content was also investigated as well as its effect on the perception of some sensory characteristics of ripened hams. Larger increases of FAAs occurred in the drying and ripening step and a higher content was determined in non-smoked hams than the ones have undergone the mild (two days) and intense (three days) smoking process. However, the FAAs composition detected in smoked products influenced to a limited extent the sensory properties of the ripened dry cured hams. Total FAAs content was highly correlated with total BAs amount; maximum concentration of BAs was reached in non-smoked hams, even if the sum of vasoactive amines for all samples was lower than those considered to generate toxic effects