The Potential Role of Religion in the Public Sphere. Considerations By Means Of the Contemporary Imaginary

While telling the history of the next two centuries namely the advent of nihilism Nietzsche s intention was also to warn us about the consequences of the death of God What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun Whither is it moving now Whither are we moving Away from all suns Are we not plunging continually And backward sideward forward in all directions Is there still any up or down Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing Do we not feel the breath of empty space Has it not become colder Is not night continually closing in on us Nietszsche 1974 182 Nietzsche s hypothesis does not appear extraneous to the present reality especially when we consider the perils to which we are exposed by a nihilist culture exalted by the new power which technical systems have progressively rendered available to individuals Indeed there could be no room at all for human beings in a world that purports to work without posing the question of eanin

Maintenance and risk management of rockfall protection net fences through numerical study of deteriorations

Rockfall protection net fences are key protection systems in mountainous areas worldwide to ensure the safety of infrastructures, roads and urban areas against rockfall. Management of the maintenance of rockfall protection net fences is fundamental for public administrations in order to guarantee risk mitigation. This paper deals with the assessment of the installation problems and deterioration of rockfall protection net fences, using numerical modelling in order to evaluate the influence of these issues on their behaviour. A percentage of the residual efficiency is assessed as a useful tool for risk analysis and maintenance planning

Sustainable Retrofitting Solutions: Evaluating the Performance of Jute Fiber Nets and Composite Mortar in Natural Fiber Textile Reinforced Mortars

Sustainable building materials for integrated (structural and thermal) retrofitting are the need of the hour to retrofit/upgrade the seismic vulnerable and ill-insulated existing building stocks. At the same time, the use of natural fibers and their recyclability could help construct safer and more sustainable buildings. This paper presents three aspects of jute fiber products: (1) the evaluation of the mechanical performance of the jute nets (2.5 cm × 2.5 cm and 2.5 cm and 1.25 cm mesh configurations) through tensile strength tests (with the aim for these to be used in upgrading masonry wall with natural fiber textile reinforced mortars (NFTRM) systems); (2) the hundred percentage recyclability of left-over jute fibers (collected during the net fabrication and failed nets post-tensile strength tests) for the composite mortar preparation; (3) and the evaluation of insulation capacity of the recycled jute net fiber composite mortar (RJNFCM) through thermal conductivity (TC) measurements, when a maximum amount of 12.5% of recycled jute fiber could be added in the mortar mixture at laboratory conditions and with available instruments Notably, when more than the said amount was used, the fiber–mortar bonding was found to be not optimal for the composite mortar preparation. These studies have been carried out considering these products’ applicability for integrated retrofitting purposes. It has been found that the denser mesh configuration (2.5 cm × 1.25 cm) is 35.80% stiffer than the other net configurations (2.5 cm × 2.5 cm). Also, the mesh configuration (2.5 cm × 1.25 cm) shows about 60% more capability to absorb strain energy. TC tests have demonstrated the moderate insulation capacity of these composite mortar samples, and the TC values obtained from the tests range from 0.110 (W/mK) to 0.121 (W/mK)

Thesaurus: un database per il patrimonio culturale sommerso

Thesaurus Project aims at promoting the knowledge of the underwater cultural heritage, ancient and modern, through the application of several typologies of tools: underwater autonomous vehicles, which will be able to explore the sea bottom in teams communicating with each other; a database, which will be useful to store and manage all the information referring to archaeological or historical objects, shipwrecks and sites. This paper aims to explain the logic structure of the database indicating the particular needs of the research, the different typologies of items which have to be managed (archaeological and historical objects; ancient, medieval or modern shipwrecks; underwater sites; written or figurative sources, etc.), the relation with other similar databases and projects. The main task of this part of Thesaurus is to plan and organize an IT system, which will allow archaeologists to describe information in detail, in order to make an efficient managing and retrieving data system available

Effect of Quercetin on ABCC6 Transporter: Implication in HepG2 Migration.

Quercetin is a member of the flavonoid group of compounds, which is abundantly present in various dietary sources. It has excellent antioxidant properties and anti-inflammatory activity and is very effective as an anti-cancer agent against various types of tumors, both in vivo and in vitro. Quercetin has been also reported to modulate the activity of some members of the multidrug-resistance transporters family, such as P-gp, ABCC1, ABCC2, and ABCG2, and the activity of ecto-5'-nucleotidase (NT5E/CD73), a key regulator in some tumor processes such as invasion, migration, and metastasis. In this study, we investigated the effect of Quercetin on ABCC6 expression in HepG2 cells. ABCC6 is a member of the superfamily of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, poorly involved in drug resistance, whose mutations cause pseudoxanthoma elasticum, an inherited disease characterized by ectopic calcification of soft connective tissues. Recently, it has been reported that ABCC6 contributes to cytoskeleton rearrangements and HepG2 cell motility through purinergic signaling. Gene and protein expression were evaluated by quantitative Reverse-Transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) and western blot, respectively. Actin cytoskeleton dynamics was evaluated by laser confocal microscopy using fluorophore-conjugated phalloidin. Cell motility was analyzed by an in vitro wound-healing migration assay. We propose that ABCC6 expression may be controlled by the AKT pathway as part of an adaptative response to oxidative stress, which can be mitigated by the use of Quercetin-like flavonoids

Characterizing the effects of salt stress in Calendula officinalis L

[EN] In this study the effects of salt stress on growth and several stress markers were investigated in the ornamental and medicinal plant Calendula officinalis. One-month-old plants were submitted to increasing salt concentrations, up to 150 mM NaCl, for a period of 30 days. Salinity affected growth in terms of relative reduction of stem length and fresh weight of the plants, but water content remained unchanged indicating a certain tolerance to low and mild NaCl concentrations. Although Na+ and Cl- increased in parallel to increasing salinity, the levels of K+ and Ca2+ showed no significant change, while Mg2+ levels recorded a twofold increase upon the ap- plication of the highest salt concentration. Other measured para- meters showed a more significant change, notably proline levels, which registered a nine-fold increase in the presence of 150 mM NaCl. In conclusion, although plants suffered from salt stress, as shown by the degradation of photosynthetic pigments and induction of oxidative stress (increased MDA levels), they continued their ve- getative growth under low concentrations of salt. The main mechanisms of response to salt stress in this species appear to be based on the maintenance of K+ and Ca2+ homeostasis and the accumulation of proline as a functional osmolyte.Kozminska, A.; Al Hassan, M.; Kumar, D.; Oprica, L.; Martinelli, F.; Grigore, MN.; Vicente, O.... (2017). Characterizing the effects of salt stress in Calendula officinalis L. Journal of Applied Botany and Food Quality. 90:323-329. doi:10.5073/JABFQ.2017.090.040S3233299

Characterization of Clostridioides difficile Strains from an Outbreak Using MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry

The epidemiology of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) has changed over the last two decades, due to the emergence of C. difficile strains with clinical relevance and responsible for nosocomial outbreaks with severe outcomes. This study reports an outbreak occurred in a Long-term Care Unit from February to March 2022 and tracked by using a Matrix-Assisted Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) typing approach (T-MALDI); subsequently, a characterization of the toxigenic and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of the C. difficile isolates was performed. A total of 143 faecal samples belonging to 112 patients was evaluated and C. difficile DNA was detected in 51 samples (46 patients). Twenty-nine C. difficile isolates were obtained, and three different clusters were revealed by T-MALDI. The most representative cluster accounted 22 strains and was considered to be epidemic, in agreement with PCR-Ribotyping. Such epidemic strains were susceptible to vancomycin (MIC <= 0.5 mg/mL) and metronidazole (MIC <= 1 mg/mL), but not to moxifloxacin (MIC > 32 mg/mL). Moreover, they produced only the Toxin A and, additionally, the binary toxin. To our knowledge, this is the first reported outbreak referable to a tcdA+/tcdB-/cdt+ genotypic profile. In light of these results, T-MALDI is a valid and rapid approach for discovering and tracking outbreaks

The application of scanning near field optical imaging to the study of human sperm morphology

BackgroundThe morphology of spermatozoa is a fundamental aspect to consider in fertilization, sperm pathology, assisted reproduction and contraception. Head, neck, midpiece, principal and terminal part of flagellum are the main sperm components to investigate for identifying morphological features and related anomalies. Recently, scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM), which belongs to the wide family of nanoscopic techniques, has opened up new routes for the investigation of biological systems. SNOM is the only technique able to provide simultaneously highly resolved topography and optical images with a resolution beyond the diffraction limit, typical of conventional optical microscopy. This offers the advantage to obtain complementary information about cell surface and cytoplasmatic structures.ResultsIn this work human spermatozoa both healthy and with morphological anomalies are analyzed by SNOM, to demonstrate the potentiality of such approach in the visualization of sperm morphological details. The combination of SNOM topography with optical (reflection and transmission) images enables to examine typical topographic features of spermatozoa together with underlying cytoplasmic structures. Indeed the head shape and inner components as acrosome and nucleus, and the organization of mitochondria in the midpiece region are observed. Analogously for principal tract of the tail, the ridges and the columns are detected in the SNOM topography, while their internal arrangement can be observed in the corresponding SNOM optical transmission images, without requiring specific staining procedures or invasive protocols.ConclusionsSuch findings demonstrate that SNOM represents a versatile and powerful tool to describe topographical and inner structural details of spermatozoa simultaneously. This analysis could be helpful for better characterizing several morphological anomalies, often related to sperm infertility, which cannot be examined by conventional techniques all together

New exploitation strategies of the by-products deriving from the hazelnut supply chain

Hazelnut processing industry generates significant waste streams, in particular cuticles and shells. Extractives are the main components of the cuticle fraction (~36 wt%), mainly including polyphenols and fatty acids, which can be advantageously used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry. Focusing on the shell fraction, this represents ~50 % of the total nut weight (about 273 thousand metric tons, based on the 2021-2022 worldwide data on hazelnut production). Differently from cuticles, shells are rich in recalcitrant lignin (~38 wt%), in addition to cellulose and hemicellulose (each component accounting for ~23 wt%). Up to now, this waste, which is preponderantly produced in Italy and Turkey, is mostly underutilized, being limitedly used as a boiler fuel for domestic heating and for landscaping. On the other hand, these both fractions of hazelnut shells can be successfully valorized and, in this perspective, we have proposed a new cascade approach, converting its cellulosic fraction into levulinic acid (∼9-12 wt%), and recovering an abundant carbonaceous hydrochar as the final waste (∼45 wt%), mainly composed of aromatic and furanic units. In this work, the exploitation of this waste biomass-derived hydrochar for environmental applications has been investigated, after its pyrolysis and chemical activation treatments (H3PO4, ZnCl2, KOH, NaOH). The synthesized new active carbons (ACs) have been properly characterized and used as adsorbents for CO2 and methylene blue removal. This proposed integrated approach makes possible to fully exploit the hazelnut shell feedstock, smartly closing the biorefinery cycle of the hazelnut wastes, in a sustainable and circular perspective