Thermodynamic analysis of porphyrin binding to Momordica charantia (bitter gourd) lectin

Owing to the use of porphyrins in photodynamic therapy for the treatment of malignant tumors, and the preferential interaction of lectins with tumor cells, studies on lectin-porphyrin interaction are of significant interest. In this study, the interaction of several free-base and metalloporphyrins with Momordica charantia (bitter gourd) lectin (MCL) was investigated by absorption spectroscopy. Difference absorp-tion spectra revealed that significant changes occur in the Soret band region of the porphyrins on binding to MCL. These changes were monitored to obtain association constants (Ka) and stoichiometry of binding. The tetrameric MCL binds four porphyrin molecules, and the stoichiometry was unaffected by the presence of the specific sugar, lactose. In addition, the agglutination activity of MCL was unaffected by the presence of the porphyrins used in this study, clearly indicating that porphyrin and carbohydrate ligands bind at different sites. Both cationic and anionic porphyrins bind to the lectin with comparable affinity (Ka =103-105 m-1). The thermodynamic parameters associated with the interaction of several porphyrins, obtained from the temperature dependence of the Ka values, were found to be in the range: Δ H° = -98.1 to -54.4 kJ·mol-1 and Δ S° =-243.9 to -90.8 J·mol-1·K-1. These results indicate that porphyrin binding to MCL is governed by enthalpic forces and that the contribution from binding entropy is negative. Enthalpy-entropy compensation was observed in the interaction of different porphyrins with MCL, underscoring the role of water structure in the overall binding process. Analysis of CD spectra of MCL indicates that this protein contains about 13%α-helix, 36%β-sheet, 21%β-turn, and the rest unordered structures. Binding of porphyrins does not significantly alter the secondary and tertiary structures of MCL

Effect of a Park-Based Physical Activity Intervention on Psychological Wellbeing at the Time of COVID-19

Practicing regular physical activity in green spaces has been invocated as a promising strategy for improving wellbeing in urban settings. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of a structured park-based physical activity intervention, the “Moving Parks” project, on citizens’ wellbeing at the time of COVID-19. The intervention was carried out in six public parks in Bologna (Italy) and administered by qualified instructors (from May 2021 to September 2021). The Psychological General Well Being Index short form questionnaire was administered before and after the three months of outdoor activities. A total of 328 participants completed the questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of the project. In September 2021, all psychosocial domains of the questionnaire (anxiety, depressed mood, self-control, positive well-being, vitality energy, and vitality-tiredness) significantly improved in the female sample (p value < 0.01) and only the last two in the male sample (p value < 0.05). The “Moving Parks” project seems to be able to improve citizens’ psychological wellbeing, particularly in women

Measurement of radon-induced backgrounds in the NEXT double beta decay experiment

The measurement of the internal $^{222}$Rn activity in the NEXT-White detector during the so-called Run-II period with $^{136}$Xe-depleted xenon is discussed in detail, together with its implications for double beta decay searches in NEXT. The activity is measured through the alpha production rate induced in the fiducial volume by $^{222}$Rn and its alpha-emitting progeny. The specific activity is measured to be $(38.1\pm 2.2~\mathrm{(stat.)}\pm 5.9~\mathrm{(syst.)})$~mBq/m$^3$. Radon-induced electrons have also been characterized from the decay of the $^{214}$Bi daughter ions plating out on the cathode of the time projection chamber. From our studies, we conclude that radon-induced backgrounds are sufficiently low to enable a successful NEXT-100 physics program, as the projected rate contribution should not exceed 0.1~counts/yr in the neutrinoless double beta decay sample.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figures, 6 tables. Version accepted for publication in JHE

Cumulative asbestos exposure and mortality from asbestos related diseases in a pooled analysis of 21 asbestos cement cohorts in Italy

Background: Despite the available information on cancer risk, asbestos is used in large areas in the world, mostly in the production of asbestos cement. Moreover, questions are raised regarding the shape of the dose response relation, the relation with time since exposure and the association with neoplasms in various organs. We conducted a study on the relationship between cumulative asbestos exposure and mortality from asbestos related diseases in a large Italian pool of 21 cohorts of asbestos-cement workers with protracted exposure to both chrysotile and amphibole asbestos. Methods: The cohort included 13,076 workers, 81.9% men and 18.1% women, working in 21 Italian asbestos-cement factories, with over 40 years of observation. Exposure was estimated by plant and period, and weighted for the type of asbestos used. Data were analysed with consideration of cause of death, cumulative exposure and time since first exposure (TSFE), and by gender. SMRs were computed using reference rates by region, gender and calendar time. Poisson regression models including cubic splines were used to analyse the effect of cumulative exposure to asbestos and TSFE on mortality for asbestos-related diseases. 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) were computed according to the Poisson distribution. Results: Mortality was significantly increased for ‘All Causes’ and ‘All Malignant Neoplasm (MN)’, in both genders. Considering asbestos related diseases (ARDs), statistically significant excesses were observed for MN of peritoneum (SMR: men 14.19; women 15.14), pleura (SMR: 22.35 and 48.10), lung (SMR: 1.67 and 1.67), ovary (in the highest exposure class SMR 2.45), and asbestosis (SMR: 507 and 1023). Mortality for ARDs, in particular pleural and peritoneal malignancies, lung cancer, ovarian cancer and asbestosis increased monotonically with cumulative exposure. Pleural MN mortality increased progressively in the first 40 years of TSFE, then reached a plateau, while peritoneal MN showed a continuous increase. The trend of lung cancer SMRs also showed a flattening after 40 years of TSFE. Attributable proportions for pleural, peritoneal, and lung MN were respectively 96, 93 and 40%. Conclusions: Mortality for ARDs was associated with cumulative exposure to asbestos. Risk of death from pleural MN did not increase indefinitely with TSFE but eventually reached a plateau, consistently with reports from other recent studie

Demand for environmentally friendly vehicles: A review and new evidence

Although the need for more environmentally friendly vehicles was recognized some decades ago, this new market has not yet established itself. Consumer behavior needs to be studied to ascertain when people will decide to purchase hybrid or electric vehicles rather than conventional ones. An in-depth review of the state-of-the-art has identified existing deficiencies and these are addressed in this paper, proposing a new approach that is applied to the case of Santander in Spain. Emphasis is placed on the role of citizens in researching the local market and their requirements with respect to such vehicles; our model assumes variability in user preferences, an utmost requirement as concluded from the literature review. Results suggest that the highest demand for cleaner vehicles would be achieved in two ways: firstly, by penalizing conventional vehicles in terms of costs/km; secondly, by providing incentives directed at lowering the purchasing price of hybrid and electric vehicles. Finally, as demand becomes more elastic, the preferred strategy should initially focus on hybrid vehicles

Demonstration of Single-Barium-Ion Sensitivity for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay Using Single-Molecule Fluorescence Imaging

[EN] A new method to tag the barium daughter in the double-beta decay of Xe-136 is reported. Using the technique of single molecule fluorescent imaging (SMFI), individual barium dication (Ba++) resolution at a transparent scanning surface is demonstrated. A single-step photobleach confirms the single ion interpretation. Individual ions are localized with superresolution (similar to 2 nm), and detected with a statistical significance of 12.9 sigma over backgrounds. This lays the foundation for a new and potentially background-free neutrinoless double-beta decay technology, based on SMFI coupled to high pressure xenon gas time projection chambers.NEXT Collaboration acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC) under Advanced Grant No. 339787-NEXT, the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of Spain under Grants No. FIS2014-53371-C04 and the Severo Ochoa Program SEV-2014-0398, the Generalitat Valenciana (GVA) of Spain under Grant No. PROMETEO/2016/120, the Portuguese FCT and FEDER through the program COMPETE, project PTDC/FIS/103860/2008, the U.S. Department of Energy under Contracts No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) and No. DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M) and No. DE-SC0017721 (University of Texas at Arlington), and the University of Texas at Arlington.Mcdonald, A.; Jones, B.; Nygren, D.; Adams, C.; Álvarez-Puerta, V.; Azevedo, C.; Benlloch-Rodríguez, J.... (2018). Demonstration of Single-Barium-Ion Sensitivity for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay Using Single-Molecule Fluorescence Imaging. Physical Review Letters. 120(13):1-6. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.132504S1612013Chang, D., & Mohapatra, R. N. (1985). On a mechanism for small neutrino masses. Physical Review D, 32(5), 1248-1249. doi:10.1103/physrevd.32.1248Minkowski, P. (1977). μ→eγ at a rate of one out of 109 muon decays? Physics Letters B, 67(4), 421-428. doi:10.1016/0370-2693(77)90435-xMohapatra, R. N., & Senjanović, G. (1981). Neutrino masses and mixings in gauge models with spontaneous parity violation. Physical Review D, 23(1), 165-180. doi:10.1103/physrevd.23.165Fukugita, M., & Yanagida, T. (1986). Barygenesis without grand unification. Physics Letters B, 174(1), 45-47. doi:10.1016/0370-2693(86)91126-3Ostrovskiy, I., & O’Sullivan, K. (2016). Search for neutrinoless double beta decay. Modern Physics Letters A, 31(18), 1630017. doi:10.1142/s0217732316300172Ostrovskiy, I., & O’Sullivan, K. (2016). Errata: «Search for neutrinoless double beta decay». Modern Physics Letters A, 31(23), 1692004. doi:10.1142/s0217732316920048Dell’Oro, S., Marcocci, S., Viel, M., & Vissani, F. (2016). Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay: 2015 Review. Advances in High Energy Physics, 2016, 1-37. doi:10.1155/2016/2162659Gómez-Cadenas, J. ., Martín-Albo, J., Sorel, M., Ferrario, P., Monrabal, F., Muñoz, J., … Poves, A. (2011). Sense and sensitivity of double beta decay experiments. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2011(06), 007-007. doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2011/06/007Aseev, V. N., Belesev, A. I., Berlev, A. I., Geraskin, E. V., Golubev, A. A., Likhovid, N. A., … Zadorozhny, S. V. (2011). Upper limit on the electron antineutrino mass from the Troitsk experiment. Physical Review D, 84(11). doi:10.1103/physrevd.84.112003Gonzalez-Garcia, M. C., Maltoni, M., & Schwetz, T. (2016). Global analyses of neutrino oscillation experiments. Nuclear Physics B, 908, 199-217. doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2016.02.033Álvarez, V., Borges, F. I. G. M., Cárcel, S., Carmona, J. M., Castel, J., Catalá, J. M., … Conde, C. A. N. (2012). NEXT-100 Technical Design Report (TDR). Executive summary. Journal of Instrumentation, 7(06), T06001-T06001. doi:10.1088/1748-0221/7/06/t06001Auger, M., Auty, D. J., Barbeau, P. S., Beauchamp, E., Belov, V., Benitez-Medina, C., … Cleveland, B. (2012). Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay inXe136with EXO-200. Physical Review Letters, 109(3). doi:10.1103/physrevlett.109.032505Moe, M. K. (1991). Detection of neutrinoless double-beta decay. Physical Review C, 44(3), R931-R934. doi:10.1103/physrevc.44.r931Danilov, M., DeVoe, R., Dolgolenko, A., Giannini, G., Gratta, G., Picchi, P., … Zeldovich, O. (2000). Detection of very small neutrino masses in double-beta decay using laser tagging. Physics Letters B, 480(1-2), 12-18. doi:10.1016/s0370-2693(00)00404-4Mong, B., Cook, S., Walton, T., Chambers, C., Craycraft, A., Benitez-Medina, C., … Auty, D. J. (2015). Spectroscopy of Ba andBa+deposits in solid xenon for barium tagging in nEXO. Physical Review A, 91(2). doi:10.1103/physreva.91.022505Brunner, T., Fudenberg, D., Varentsov, V., Sabourov, A., Gratta, G., Dilling, J., … Albert, J. B. (2015). An RF-only ion-funnel for extraction from high-pressure gases. International Journal of Mass Spectrometry, 379, 110-120. doi:10.1016/j.ijms.2015.01.003Flatt, B., Green, M., Wodin, J., DeVoe, R., Fierlinger, P., Gratta, G., … Weber, P. (2007). A linear RFQ ion trap for the Enriched Xenon Observatory. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 578(2), 399-408. doi:10.1016/j.nima.2007.05.123Sinclair, D., Rollin, E., Smith, J., Mommers, A., Ackeran, N., Aharmin, B., … Breidenbach, M. (2011). Prospects for Barium Tagging in Gaseous Xenon. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 309, 012005. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/309/1/012005Lu, Y., & Paige, M. F. (2007). An Ensemble and Single-molecule Fluorescence Spectroscopy Investigation of Calcium Green 1, a Calcium-ion Sensor. Journal of Fluorescence, 17(6), 739-748. doi:10.1007/s10895-007-0185-1Álvarez, V., Borges, F. I. G. M., Cárcel, S., Castel, J., Cebrián, S., Cervera, A., … Díaz, J. (2013). Near-intrinsic energy resolution for 30–662keV gamma rays in a high pressure xenon electroluminescent TPC. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 708, 101-114. doi:10.1016/j.nima.2012.12.123Green, A. E. S. (1957). Single Electron Shakeoff Probability Following the Beta Decay of Krypton. Physical Review, 107(6), 1646-1650. doi:10.1103/physrev.107.1646Albert, J. B., Auty, D. J., Barbeau, P. S., Beck, D., Belov, V., Breidenbach, M., … Chambers, C. (2015). Measurements of the ion fraction and mobility ofα−andβ-decay products in liquid xenon using the EXO-200 detector. Physical Review C, 92(4). doi:10.1103/physrevc.92.045504Bolotnikov, A., & Ramsey, B. (1997). The spectroscopic properties of high-pressure xenon. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 396(3), 360-370. doi:10.1016/s0168-9002(97)00784-5Jones, B. J. P., McDonald, A. D., & Nygren, D. R. (2016). Single molecule fluorescence imaging as a technique for barium tagging in neutrinoless double beta decay. Journal of Instrumentation, 11(12), P12011-P12011. doi:10.1088/1748-0221/11/12/p12011Arai, F., Ito, Y., Wada, M., Schury, P., Sonoda, T., & Mita, H. (2014). Investigation of the ion surfing transport method with a circular rf carpet. International Journal of Mass Spectrometry, 362, 56-58. doi:10.1016/j.ijms.2014.01.005Burghardt, T. P. (2012). Measuring incidence angle for through-the-objective total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. Journal of Biomedical Optics, 17(12), 126007. doi:10.1117/1.jbo.17.12.126007Stemmer, A., Beck, M., & Fiolka, R. (2008). Widefield fluorescence microscopy with extended resolution. Histochemistry and Cell Biology, 130(5), 807-817. doi:10.1007/s00418-008-0506-8Fish, K. N. (2009). Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) Microscopy. Current Protocols in Cytometry, 50(1). doi:10.1002/0471142956.cy1218s50Habuchi, S., Ando, R., Dedecker, P., Verheijen, W., Mizuno, H., Miyawaki, A., & Hofkens, J. (2005). From The Cover: Reversible single-molecule photoswitching in the GFP-like fluorescent protein Dronpa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(27), 9511-9516. doi:10.1073/pnas.0500489102Thomas, D., Tovey, S. C., Collins, T. J., Bootman, M. D., Berridge, M. J., & Lipp, P. (2000). A comparison of fluorescent Ca2+indicator properties and their use in measuring elementary and global Ca2+signals. Cell Calcium, 28(4), 213-223. doi:10.1054/ceca.2000.0152Thompson, R. E., Larson, D. R., & Webb, W. W. (2002). Precise Nanometer Localization Analysis for Individual Fluorescent Probes. Biophysical Journal, 82(5), 2775-2783. doi:10.1016/s0006-3495(02)75618-