Organic Fertilization In A “Tomato – Pea” Rotation In Southern Italy

The use of alternative to mineral fertilizers is an important issue in organic systems. A four-year field experiment to evaluate the effects of organic fertilizers on yield and quality of processing tomato and proteic pea in rotation, was carried out in Southern Italy. The fertilization treatments aimed to supply 100 kg ha-1 of N for tomato and 60 kg ha-1 of P2O5 for pea and were: 1) an organic biological fertilizer (BIO); 2) an experimental compost obtained by olive residues, sludge and straw mixture (COMP); 3) a control managed with traditional chemical fertilizers (ammonium nitrate and perphosphate, MIN). At harvest, the main productive and qualitative parameters were assessed. Tomato fruit yield did not differ among the fertilization treatments, but unripe fruit yield was higher in the MIN and BIO treatment; MIN showed also smaller fruit than BIO and COMP. The N availability during crop cycle influenced the mean fruit weight and maturity date. No difference among treatments was observed for pea in rotation with tomato and, similarly, on the wheat cropped without fertilization following the two crops. The possibility to use organic fertilizer for processing tomato and proteic pea has been evaluated and the conclusion is that organic fertilization is comparable to mineral one from a productive and qualitative point of view

L’inedita Expositio super Centiloquio Ptholomei di Lorenzo Bonincontri

The Expositio super Centiloquio Ptholomei by Laurentius Bonincontrius Miniatensis is one of the most important commentaries upon the pseudo-Ptolemaic Centiloquium of the second half of the XVth century. The text is still unpublished and is extant in only two manuscripts; one of these (Vaticanus Latinus 3379) is autograph and reflects the final draft of the text. In this paper is edited, with an introduction and a modern Italian translation, the Prologue of Bonincontriʼs Commentary from the Vatican manuscript.LʼExpositio super Centiloquio Ptholomei dellʼumanista Lorenzo Bonincontri da San Miniato è uno dei più importanti commenti sul Centiloquio pseudo-tolemaico della seconda metà del secolo XV. Tuttora inedito, il testo è tràdito da due soli manoscritti, tra i quali il Vaticano Latino 3379 (autografo) tramanda la redazione finale dellʼopera. In questo studio si pubblica, sulla base del codice Vaticano, il Prologo del commento assieme ad una introduzione e ad una traduzione italiana

La lettera di dedica a Federico da Montefeltro del primo libro delle Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei di Giovanni Gioviano Pontano

The Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei by Giovanni Pontano are the most important translation and commentary on Ps.-Ptolemy’s Καρπός (Centiloquium) written in the second half of 15th century. This essay analyzes the reception of Pontano’s astrological work among contemporary scholars such as Pico, Poliziano and Ermolao Barbaro. An appendix to the essay contains Pontano’s Prologus to his Commentationes in Ptolemaeum together with an translation into modern Italian.Les Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei de Giovanni Pontano sont une traduction duΚαρπός(Centiloquium) faussement attribué à Ptolémée, suivie d’un commentaire astrologique. Cette étude a pour but d’illustrer la réception de l’œuvre astrologique de Pontano par les érudits italiens contemporains, comme Pic de la Mirandole, Politien et Ermolao Barbaro. Elle offre en annexe une édition et une traduction italienne du Prologue au premier livre

La lettera di dedica a Federico da Montefeltro del primo libro delle Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei di Giovanni Gioviano Pontano

The Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei by Giovanni Pontano are the most important translation and commentary on Ps.-Ptolemy’s Καρπός (Centiloquium) written in the second half of 15th century. This essay analyzes the reception of Pontano’s astrological work among contemporary scholars such as Pico, Poliziano and Ermolao Barbaro. An appendix to the essay contains Pontano’s Prologus to his Commentationes in Ptolemaeum together with an translation into modern Italian.Les Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei de Giovanni Pontano sont une traduction duΚαρπός(Centiloquium) faussement attribué à Ptolémée, suivie d’un commentaire astrologique. Cette étude a pour but d’illustrer la réception de l’œuvre astrologique de Pontano par les érudits italiens contemporains, comme Pic de la Mirandole, Politien et Ermolao Barbaro. Elle offre en annexe une édition et une traduction italienne du Prologue au premier livre

Metasomatism is a source of methane on Mars

MR and SM acknowledge support from NERC standard grant (NE/PO12167/1) and UK Space Agency Aurora grant (ST/T001763/1). DAS acknowledges support by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Geosciences program under Award Number DE-SC0019830 as well as NSF Petrology and Geochemistry Grant Number 2032039.The abundance of inactive Martian volcanic centres suggests that early Mars was more volcanically active than today. On Earth, volcanic degassing releases climate-forcing gases such as H2O, SO2, and CO2 into the atmosphere. On Mars, the volcanic carbon is likely to be more methane-rich than on Earth because the interior is, and was, more reducing than the present-day Terrestrial upper mantle. The reports of reduced carbon associated with high-temperature minerals in Martian igneous meteorites back up this assertion. Here, we undertake irreversible reaction path models of the fluid-rock interaction to predict carbon speciation in magmatic fluids at the Martian crust-mantle boundary. We find methane is a major carbon species between 300 and 800 °C where logfO2 is set at the Fayalite = Magnetite + Quartz redox buffer reaction (FMQ). When logfO2 is below FMQ, methane is dominant across all temperatures investigated (300–800 °C). Moreover, ultramafic rocks produce more methane than mafic lithologies. The cooling of magmatic bodies leads to the release of a fluid phase, which serves as a medium within which methane is formed at high temperatures and transported. Metasomatic methane is, therefore, a source of reduced carbonaceous gases to the early Martian atmosphere and, fundamentally, for all telluric planets, moons, and exoplanets with Mars-like low logfO2 interiors.Peer reviewe

Ergosterol reduction impairs mitochondrial DNA maintenance in S. cerevisiae

Sterols are essential lipids, involved in many biological processes. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the enzymes of the ergosterol biosynthetic pathway (Erg proteins) are localized in different cellular compartments. With the aim of studying organelle interactions, we discovered that Erg27p resides mainly in Lipid Droplets (LDs) in respiratory competent cells, while in absence of respiration, is found mostly in the ER. The results presented in this paper demonstrate an interplay between the mitochondrial respiration and ergosterol production: on the one hand, rho° cells show lower ergosterol content when compared with wild type respiratory competent cells, on the other hand, the ergosterol biosynthetic pathway influences the mitochondrial status, since treatment with ketoconazole, which blocks the ergosterol pathway, or the absence of the ERG27 gene, induced rho° production in S. cerevisiae. The loss of mitochondrial DNA in the ∆erg27 strain is fully suppressed by exogenous addition of ergosterol. These data suggest the notion that ergosterol is essential for maintaining the mitochondrial DNA attached to the inner mitochondrial membrane

The hypoxic transcription factor KlMga2 mediates the response to oxidative stress and influences longevity in the yeast Kluyveromyces lactis

Hypoxia is defined as the decline of oxygen availability, depending on environmental supply and cellular consumption rate. The decrease in O2 results in reduction of available energy in facultative aerobes. The response and/or adaptation to hypoxia and other changing environmental conditions can influence the properties and functions of membranes by modifying lipid composition. In the yeast Kluyveromyces lactis, the KlMga2 gene is a hypoxic regulatory factor for lipid biosynthesis-fatty acids and sterols-and is also involved in glucose signaling, glucose catabolism and is generally important for cellular fitness. In this work we show that, in addition to the above defects, the absence of the KlMGA2 gene caused increased resistance to oxidative stress and extended lifespan of the yeast, associated with increased expression levels of catalase and SOD genes. We propose that KlMga2 might also act as a mediator of the oxidative stress response/adaptation, thus revealing connections among hypoxia, glucose signaling, fatty acid biosynthesis and ROS metabolism in K. lactis

DNA Vaccines: Developing New Strategies against Cancer

Due to their rapid and widespread development, DNA vaccines have entered into a variety of human clinical trials for vaccines against various diseases including cancer. Evidence that DNA vaccines are well tolerated and have an excellent safety profile proved to be of advantage as many clinical trials combines the first phase with the second, saving both time and money. It is clear from the results obtained in clinical trials that such DNA vaccines require much improvement in antigen expression and delivery methods to make them sufficiently effective in the clinic. Similarly, it is clear that additional strategies are required to activate effective immunity against poorly immunogenic tumor antigens. Engineering vaccine design for manipulating antigen presentation and processing pathways is one of the most important aspects that can be easily handled in the DNA vaccine technology. Several approaches have been investigated including DNA vaccine engineering, co-delivery of immunomodulatory molecules, safe routes of administration, prime-boost regimen and strategies to break the immunosuppressive networks mechanisms adopted by malignant cells to prevent immune cell function. Combined or single strategies to enhance the efficacy and immunogenicity of DNA vaccines are applied in completed and ongoing clinical trials, where the safety and tolerability of the DNA platform are substantiated. In this review on DNA vaccines, salient aspects on this topic going from basic research to the clinic are evaluated. Some representative DNA cancer vaccine studies are also discussed

Scanning integer points with lex-inequalities: A finite cutting plane algorithm for integer programming with linear objective

We consider the integer points in a unimodular cone K ordered by a lexicographic rule defined by a lattice basis. To each integer point x in K we associate a family of inequalities (lex-cuts) that defines the convex hull of the integer points in K that are not lexicographically smaller than x. The family of lex-cuts contains the Chvatal-Gomory cuts, but does not contain and is not contained in the family of split cuts. This provides a finite cutting plane method to solve the integer program min{cx : x \in S \cap Z^n }, where S \subset R^n is a compact set and c \in Z^n . We analyze the number of iterations of our algorithm.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur