Dehydration of fructose to 5-HMF over acidic TiO2 catalysts

Different solid sulfonic titania-based catalysts were investigated for the hydrothermal dehydration of fructose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF). The catalytic behavior of the materials was evaluated in terms of fructose conversion and selectivity to 5-HMF. The surface and structural properties of the catalysts were investigated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 adsorption isotherms, thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and acid capacity measurements. Special attention was focused on the reaction conditions, both in terms of 5-HMF selectivity and the sustainability of the process, choosing water as the solvent. Among the various process condition studied, TiO2-SO3H catalyzed a complete conversion (99%) of 1.1M fructose and 5-HMF selectivity (50%) and yield (50%) at 165 °C. An important improvement of the HMF selectivity (71%) was achieved when the reaction was carried out by using a lower fructose concentration (0.1M) and lower temperature (140 °C). The catalytic activities of the materials were related to their acid capacities as much as their textural properties. In particular, a counterbalance between the acidity and the structure of the pores in which the catalytic sites are located, results in the key issue for switch the selectivity towards the achievement of 5-HMF

Computerised tomography and magnetic resonance imaging of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma: A practical approach

Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common head and neck cancer. This review describes the state-of-the-art computerised tomography and magnetic resonance imaging protocols of the neck and the normal larynx anatomy, and provides a practical approach for the diagnosis and staging of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Growth performance, in vitro antioxidant properties and chemical composition of the halophyte Limonium algarvense Erben are strongly influenced by the irrigation salinity

Limonium algarvense Erben (sea lavender) is a halophyte species with potential to provide natural ingredients with in vitro antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective and antidiabetic properties. This study reports for the first time the 1) cultivation of sea lavender in greenhouse conditions under irrigation with freshwater (approx. 0 mM NaCl) and saline aquaculture wastewater (300 and 600 mM NaCl), and 2) the influence of the irrigation salinity on the plant performance (e.g growth, number of produced leaves and flowers), in vitro antioxidant properties [radical scavenging activity (DPPH and ABTS), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), metal chelating properties on copper (CCA) and iron (ICA)], toxicity (in vitro on three mammalian cell lines) and chemical composition (determined by LC-ESI-HRMS/MS). The freshwater-irrigated plants had better growth performance than those irrigated with saltwater. Extracts from wild plants, had the highest antioxidant activity, but those from cultivated ones kept high in vitro antioxidant properties and interesting chemical profile. The flowers' extracts of plants irrigated with 300 mM NaCl had the highest antioxidant activities against DPPH, whereas those from freshwater-irrigated plants were more active on ABTS, CCA and FRAP. Most of the extracts showed nil toxicity. The flowers' extracts displayed the highest diversity of compounds, mainly quercetin, apigenin, luteolin, naringenin and their glycoside derivatives. Moreover, their abundance varied with the irrigation salinity. These data indicate that sea lavender plants can be successfully cultivated in greenhouse conditions under fresh- and saltwater irrigation, maintaining interesting biological and chemical properties.Funding Agency Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology Portuguese National Budget CCMAR/Multi/04326/2019 GreenVet project ALG-01-0145-FEDER-028876 XtrerneAquaCrops FA-05-2017-028 Lisboa-01-0145-FEDER-022125-RNEM-IST ID/QUI/00100/201 Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology SFRH/BD/116604/2016 CEECIND/00425/2017info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

What’s new in psoriasis treatment? An analysis of systematic reviews published in 2015

This review provides a summary of key findings from 27 systematic reviews of 51 articles first published or indexed during 2015, focusing on the treatment of psoriasis as well as precision medicine in psoriasis. Evidence supports weight loss interventions by dieting and exercise for the improvement in disease severity in overweight and obese patients with psoriasis. No significant increased risk of serious infections were reported for the biologic therapies adalimumab, etanercept and ustekinumab when compared with appropriate comparators. Evidence could not provide reliable estimates of rare adverse events, underscoring the need for large prospective registries. Polymorphisms in the tumour necrosis factor (TNF) alpha gene may confer improved responses to TNF inhibitor (TNFI) therapy, but studies to date lack power to detect true association. From limited available evidence, multidisciplinary management is both more effective and more satisfactory for patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis than conventional consultations. This summary of reviews provides a succinct guide for clinicians and patients wishing to remain up‐to‐date with high quality evidence for the treatment of psoriasis

Passiflora incarnata attenuation of neuropathic allodynia and vulvodynia apropos GABA-ergic and opioidergic antinociceptive and behavioural mechanisms

Background: Passiflora incarnata is widely used as an anxiolytic and sedative due to its putative GABAergic properties. Passiflora incarnata L. methanolic extract (PI-ME) was evaluated in an animal model of streptozotocininduced diabetic neuropathic allodynia and vulvodynia in rats along with antinociceptive, anxiolytic and sedative activities in mice in order to examine possible underlying mechanisms. Methods: PI-ME was tested preliminary for qualitative phytochemical analysis and then quantitatively by proximate and GC-MS analysis. The antinociceptive property was evaluated using the abdominal constriction assay and hot plate test. The anxiolytic activity was performed in a stair case model and sedative activity in an open field test. The antagonistic activities were evaluated using naloxone and/or pentylenetetrazole (PTZ). PI-ME was evaluated for prospective anti-allodynic and anti-vulvodynic properties in a rat model of streptozotocin induced neuropathic pain using the static and dynamic testing paradigms of mechanical allodynia and vulvodynia. Results: GC-MS analysis revealed that PI-ME contained predominant quantities of oleamide (9-octadecenamide), palmitic acid (hexadecanoic acid) and 3-hydroxy-dodecanoic acid, among other active constituents. In the abdominal constriction assay and hot plate test, PI-ME produced dose dependant, naloxone and pentylenetetrazole reversible antinociception suggesting an involvement of opioidergic and GABAergic mechanisms. In the stair case test, PI-ME at 200 mg/kg increased the number of steps climbed while at 600 mg/kg a significant decrease was observed. The rearing incidence was diminished by PI-ME at all tested doses and in the open field test, PI-ME decreased locomotor activity to an extent that was analagous to diazepam. The effects of PI-ME were antagonized by PTZ in both the staircase and open field tests implicating GABAergic mechanisms in its anxiolytic and sedative activities. In the streptozotocin-induced neuropathic nociceptive model, PI-ME (200 and 300 mg/kg) exhibited static and dynamic anti-allodynic effects exemplified by an increase in paw withdrawal threshold and paw withdrawal latency. PI-ME relieved only the dynamic component of vulvodynia by increasing flinching response latency. Conclusions: These findings suggest that Passiflora incarnata might be useful for treating neuropathic pain. The antinociceptive and behavioural findings inferring that its activity may stem from underlying opioidergic and GABAergic mechanisms though a potential oleamide-sourced cannabimimetic involvement is also discussed

To Pin or Not to Pin: Asserting the Scalability of QEMU Parallel Implementation

International audienceDue to its speed in cross-executing sequential code, dynamic binary translation is the unchallenged technology for full system-level simulation. Among the translators, QEMU has become the de facto solution. &nbsp;It introduced parallel host execution of the target cores a few years ago for the ARM instruction set architecture and this support is now also available, among others, for RISCV. &nbsp;Given the popularity of these instruction sets in multi and many-core systems, assessing the scalability of their parallel implementation makes sense. &nbsp;In this paper, we use a subset of the PARSEC benchmark to measure the execution time of QEMU&#39;s parallel implementation, to which we added the ability to pin a target processor to a host core or hardware thread. &nbsp;We report the results of a wealth of experiments we performed on a 16-core/32-thread x86-64 SMP machine. &nbsp;They show that the support of parallelism in QEMU scales well, and that, somewhat counter intuitively, pinning does not improve &nbsp; performance.</p

Sviluppare la resilienza attraverso l'incontro di due generazioni nel contesto lavorativo: L'esperienza in Fintecna

L'esperienza che presentiamo si riferisce ad un intervento complesso svoltosi nel 2013 presso la FINTECNA. In particolare ci siamo focalizzati sullo sviluppo delle competenze resilienti a partire dall'incontro di due generazioni, senior (over 50) e junior (neoassunti), che si trovavano a fronteggiare un momento di trasformazione societaria connotata da una grande incertezza. Il momento storico era l'acquisizione da parte di Cassa Depositi e Prestiti della Fintecna. In tale scenario la valorizzazione dell'esperienza dei senior e dell'energia degli junior ha permesso a queste due generazioni, attraverso la riflessione su di Sè ed il confronto generazionale, di ridefinire la propria identità professionale, di creare un senso di comunità caratterizzato da una forte coesione e di orientare, in maniera sensata, il proprio agire all'interno del contesto professionale. Tutto ciò è stato sviluppato attraverso un percorso in cui sono state integrate diverse metodologie di intervento come il counseling, il coaching e la formazione d'aula. È stato eseguito un incontro di follow-up a distanza di qualche mese ed i risultati sia a livello personale che gruppale si sono mantenuti, anzi accresciuti, mostrando una rete di relazioni interpersonali forte ed un senso identitario coeso. L'intervento che presentiamo sarà incentrato sull'esposizione di alcune metodologie di intervento come il counselling narrativo rivolto agli over 50 e l'orientamento di "senso" rivolto ai due target