Evaluation of biodegradation kinetic constants for aromatic compounds by means of aerobic batch experiments

Kinetics of aerobic biodegradation have been investigated for twenty aromatic species using sludges collected from the aeration basin of municipal sewage treatment plants. The reproducibility of the results is tested with respect to the sludges period of collection and the wastewater treatment plant where they are taken. The comparison of kinetic constants, estimated for the investigated chemicals, allows to evaluate the reactivity effect of single groups (i.e., -OH, -CH3, -Cl, -NO2) into the aromatic structures. The search for easy structure-reactivity relationships is also attempted by means of contributing group methods

On off-shell bosonic string amplitudes

We give a simple prescription for computing, in the framework of the bosonic string theory, off-shell one-loop amplitudes with any number of external massless particles, both for the open and for the closed string. We discuss their properties and, in particular, for the two-string one-loop amplitudes we show their being transverse.Comment: 12 pages, Latex. One reference added. Introduction and conclusions expanded. Some other minor changes in the tex

Proprioceptive drift is affected by the intermanual distance rather than the distance from the body's midline in the rubber hand illusion

In the rubber hand illusion (RHI), simultaneous brush stroking of a subject's hidden hand and a visible rubber hand induces a transient illusion of the latter to "feel like it's my hand" and a proprioceptive drift of the hidden own hand toward the rubber hand. Recent accounts of the RHI have suggested that the illusion would only occur if weighting of conflicting sensory information and their subsequent integration results in a statistically plausible compromise. In three different experiments, we investigated the role of distance between the two hands as well as their proximity to the body's midline in influencing the occurrence of the illusion. Overall, the results suggest that the illusion is abolished when placing the two hands apart, therefore increasing the mismatch between the visual and proprioceptive modality, whereas the proximity of the two hands to the body's midline plays only a minor role on the subjective report of the illusion. This might be driven by the response properties of visuotactile bimodal cells encoding the peripersonal space around the hand

First description of cervical intradural thymoma metastasis

Thymoma and thymic carcinoma are rare epithelial tumors, which originate from the thymus gland. According to the World Health Organization there are "organotypic" (types A, AB, B1, B2, and B3) and "non-organotypic" (thymic carcinomas) thymomas. Type B3 thymomas are aggressive tumors, which can metastasize. Due to the rarity of these lesions, only 7 cases of extradural metastasis are described in the literature. We report the first and unique case of a man with cervical intradural B3 thymoma metastasis. A 46-year-old man underwent thymoma surgical removal. The year after the procedure he was treated for a parietal pleura metastasis. In 2006 he underwent cervical-dorsal extradural metastasis removal and C5-Th1 stabilization. Seven years after he came to our observation complaining left cervicobrachialgia and a reduction of strength of the left arm. He underwent a cervical spine magnetic resonance imaging, which showed a new lesion at the C5-C7 level. The patient underwent a surgery for the intradural B3 thymoma metastasis. Neurological symptoms improved although the removal was subtotal. He went through postoperative radiation therapy with further mass reduction. Spinal metastases are extremely rare. To date, only 7 cases of spinal extradural metastasis have been described in the literature. This is the first case of spinal intradural metastasis. Early individuation of these tumors and surgical treatment improve neurological outcome in patients with spinal cord compression. A multimodal treatment including neoadjuvant chemotherapy, surgery and postoperative radiation therapy seems to improve survival in patients with metastatic thymoma

The effect of cell morphology on the permeability of the nuclear envelope to diffusive factors

A recent advance in understanding stem cell differentiation is that the cell is able to translate its morphology, i.e., roundish or spread, into a fate decision. We hypothesize that strain states in the nuclear envelope (NE) cause changes in the structure of the nuclear pore complexes. This induces significant changes in the NE’s permeability to the traffic of the transcription factors involved in stem cell differentiation which are imported into the nucleus by passive diffusion. To demonstrate this, we set up a numericalmodel of the transport of diffusivemolecules through the nuclear pore complex (NPC), on the basis of the NPC deformation. We then compared the prediction of the model for two different cell configurations with roundish and spread nuclear topologies with those measured on cells cultured in both configurations. To measure the geometrical features of the NPC, using electron tomography we reconstructed three-dimensional portions of the envelope of cells cultured in both configurations. We found non-significant differences in both the shape and size of the transmembrane ring of single pores with envelope deformation. In the numerical model, we thus assumed that the changes in pore complex permeability, caused by the envelope strains, are due to variations in the opening configuration of the nuclear basket, which in turn modifies the porosity of the pore complex mainly on its nuclear side. To validate the model, we cultured cells on a substrate shaped as a spatial micro-grid, called the “nichoid,” which is nanoengineered by two-photon laser polymerization, and induces a roundish nuclear configuration in cells adhering to the nichoid grid, and a spread configuration in cells adhering to the flat substrate surrounding the grid. We then measured the diffusion through the nuclear envelope of an inert green-fluorescent protein, by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP). Finally, we compared the diffusion times predicted by the numerical model for roundish vs. spread cells, with the measured times. Our data show that cell stretching modulates the characteristic time needed for the nuclear import of a small inert molecule, GFP, and the model predicts a faster import of diffusive molecules in the spread compared to roundish cells.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Divergence of AMP Deaminase in the Ice Worm Mesenchytraeus solifugus (Annelida, Clitellata, Enchytraeidae)

Glacier ice worms, Mesenchytraeus solifugus and related species, are the largest glacially obligate metazoans. As one component of cold temperature adaptation, ice worms maintain atypically high energy levels in an apparent mechanism to offset cold temperature-induced lethargy and death. To explore this observation at a mechanistic level, we considered the putative contribution of 5′ adenosine monophosphate deaminase (AMPD), a key regulator of energy metabolism in eukaryotes. We cloned cDNAs encoding ice worm AMPD, generating a fragment encoding 543 amino acids that included a short N-terminal region and complete C-terminal catalytic domain. The predicted ice worm AMPD amino acid sequence displayed conservation with homologues from other mesophilic eukaryotes with notable exceptions. In particular, an ice worm-specific K188E substitution proximal to the AMP binding site likely alters the architecture of the active site and negatively affects the enzyme's activity. Paradoxically, this would contribute to elevated intracellular ATP levels, which appears to be a signature of cold adapted taxa

N=1 Matter from Fractional Branes

We study a bound state of fractional D3-branes localized inside the world-volume of fractional D7-branes on the orbifold C^3/Z_2 x Z_2. We determine the open string spectrum that leads to N=1 U(N1)xU(N2)xU(N3)xU(N4) gauge theory with matter having the number of D7-branes as a flavor index. We derive the linearized boundary action of the D7-brane on this orbifold using the boundary state formalism and we discuss the tadpole cancellation. After computing the asymptotic expression of the supergravity solution the anomalies of the gauge theory are reproduced.Comment: LaTeX 20 pages, 1 figure, small changes and references adde

Preliminary assessments of microalgae direct transesterification for biodiesel production

Biodiesel is a renewable fuel which can be produced from a wide range of biomasses. In recent years, the possibility to produce it from non-food feedstock such as microalgae has been proposed. It is well known that: i) microalgae may accumulate significant quantities of triglycerides; ii) they are fast-growing photosynthetic organisms capable of sequestering CO2; iii) they can be cultivated in fresh and sea water. Nevertheless the potential of biodiesel production from microalgae, the industrial development still asks investigation. The present contribution reports about recent results of a research program in Napoli on the biodiesel production from microalgae. The study carried out so far have highlighted the success with Stichococcus strains as microalgal feedstocks to produce fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) according to traditional processes: lipid extraction coupled with alkaline catalyzed transesterification of lipids (Olivieri et al., 2011, 2013). Results of the direct alkaline transesterification process of Stichococcus bacillaris algal strains are here presented. Tests were carried out under wide intervals of operating conditions: pre-contact time (time of contact of biomass with alkaline methanol at room temperature), catalyst concentration, methanol/biomass weight ratio, reaction temperature, reaction time, biomass water concentration. Effects of operating conditions on FAME yield were assessed