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

A sustainability-oriented methodology to compare production strategies: The case of AM-based remanufacturing

The implementation of sustainability principles is becoming fundamental for companies, also for creating added value in the production processes. Production managers should not consider only the economic-financial aspects in their decisions, but also the environmental and social implications to extend the benefits to all current and future world populations. This vision requires to develop and apply sustainability-oriented methodologies to compare alternative production strategies. This paper contributes to addressing this problem by proposing a methodology that allows comparing different production strategies by considering their sustainable impact, starting with the definition of their processes. An aggregated sustainability index has been designed for this purpose. Thus, the paper contributes to the literature on the evaluation of sustainability through the development of a methodology, which can be used by the practitioners as a decision support tool to identify the most sustainable production strategy according to the objective of the company and the specific production process considered. Then, the proposed methodology has been applied to compare two different production strategies, i. e., AM-based remanufacturing and the production of new components. A simulation model has been implemented to reproduce the behaviour of the two competing production strategies. Although the results depend on the utilized data, this application showed that it is possible to distinguish different areas of convenience for each strategy. Moreover, findings revealed that the sustainability of the production strategies is strictly connected to the adopted technology and the importance given to the economic, environmental and social aspects by the company

The impact of Additive Manufacturing on Supply Chain design: a simulation study

Additive Manufacturing is a production technology, which completely differs from the traditional subtractive approach. Because its different nature, its application could cause strong changes in supply chains and it could affect the relationship between the supply chain players. This paper proposes a quantitative evaluation of the Additive Manufacturing effects on the supply chain performance, considering different system configurations. A simulation model has been implemented in order to reproduce the behavior of the players and compare different scenarios. Both additive and traditional technologies have been modelled in order to compare their efficiency. Moreover, different supply chain configurations have been tested to assess the additive production feasibility combined with different supply chain structures. Results confirm that Additive Manufacturing provides good improvements in supply chain performances offering significant benefits in the decentralized solution

Economic and Environmental Sustainability for Aircrafts Service Life

Aircrafts are responsible for a significant environmental impact mainly due to the air pollution caused by their motors. The use of composite materials for their production is a way to significantly reduce the weight of the structures and to maximise the ratio between the payload weight and the gasoline consumption. Moreover, the design phase has to consider the cost of different operations performed during the aircraft service life. During the entire life cycle, one of the main costs is the maintenance one. In the current literature, there is a lack of knowledge of methods for maintenance cost estimation in the aircraft industry; moreover, very few environmental assessment methods have been developed. Thus, the aim of this paper is to define a new method to support the aircraft design process; both the environmental and the economic dimensions have been included with the purpose of assessing the aircraft sustainability during its service life. A green index has been identified mixing the maintenance cost and an environmental parameter with the aim of identifying the greenest solution. A final practical application shows the feasibility and the simple application of the proposed approach

Bilingual vocabulary size and lexical reading in Italian

In the present study we investigated how the vocabulary size of English-Italian bilinguals affects reading aloud in Italian (L2) modulating the reader\u27s sensitivity to lexical aspects of the language. We divided adult bilinguals in two groups according to their vocabulary size (Larger - LV, and smaller - SV), and compared their naming performance to that of native Italian (NI) readers. In Experiment 1 we investigated the lexicality and word frequency effects in reading aloud. Similarly to NI, both groups of bilinguals showed these effects. In Experiment 2 we investigated stress assignment - which is not predictable by rule - to Italian words. The SV group made more stress errors in reading words with a non-dominant stress pattern compared to the LV group. The results suggest that the size of the reader\u27s L2 lexicon affects the probability of correct reading aloud. Overall, the results indicate that proficient adult bilinguals show a similar sensibility to the statistical and distributional properties of the language as compared to Italian monolinguals

Fabrication and transport of large-scale molecular tunnel-junction arrays

We demonstrate a method for the simultaneous fabrication (without the need of expensive e-beam systems) of large arrays of nanodevices working at room temperature. The electrode gap is defined by a selective wet-etching of a AlGaAs/GaAs quantum well structure and controlled with nanometer precision. A selective oxidation of the Al rich barrier reduces the bulk leakage current by six orders of magnitude and extends the applicability of the produced devices to room temperature functionality. As a demonstration, we employ here these nanojunctions to investigate transport in molecular tunnel-junctions based on individual Azurins, a blue copper protein, under ambient conditions. This approach opens the way to the fabrication of complex circuits consisting of different nanodevices

Stargardt Phenotype Associated With Two ELOVL4 Promoter Variants and ELOVL4 Downregulation: New Possible Perspective to Etiopathogenesis?

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Influence of Organic and Conventional Farming on Grain Yield and Protein Composition of Chickpea Genotypes

Chickpea is a key crop in sustainable cropping systems and for its nutritional value. Studies on agronomic and genetic influences on chickpea protein composition are missing. In order to obtain a deep insight into the genetic response of chickpeas to management in relation to agronomic and quality traits, a two-year field trial was carried out with eight chickpea genotypes under an organic and conventional cropping system. Protein composition was assessed by SDS-PAGE in relation to the main fractions (vicilin, convicilin, legumin, lectin, 2s-albumin). Crop response was highly influenced by year and presumably also by management, with a −50% decrease in grain yield under organic farming, mainly due to a reduction in seed number per m2. No effect of crop management was observed on protein content, despite significant differences in terms of protein composition. The ratio between the major globulins, 7s vicilin and 11s legumin, showed a negative relationship with grain yield and was found to be higher under organic farming. Among genotypes, black-seed Nero Senise was characterized by the highest productivity and water-holding capacity, associated with low lectin content. These findings highlight the importance of the choice of chickpea genotypes for cultivation under organic farming in relation to both agronomic performance and technological and health quality

Genetic Immunization with CDR3-Based Fusion Vaccine Confers Protection and Long-Term Tumor-Free Survival in a Mouse Model of Lymphoma

Therapeutic vaccination against idiotype is a promising strategy for immunotherapy of B-cell malignancies. We have previously shown that CDR3-based DNA immunization can induce immune response against lymphoma and explored this strategy to provide protection in a murine B-cell lymphoma model. Here we performed vaccination employing as immunogen a naked DNA fusion product. The DNA vaccine was generated following fusion of a sequence derived from tetanus toxin fragment C to the VHCDR3109−116 epitope. Induction of tumor-specific immunity as well as ability to inhibit growth of the aggressive 38C13 lymphoma and to prolong survival of vaccinated mice has been tested. We determined that DNA fusion vaccine induced immune response, elicited a strong protective antitumor immunity, and ensured almost complete long-term tumor-free survival of vaccinated mice. Our results show that CDR3-based DNA fusion vaccines hold promise for vaccination against lymphoma

A nanobiosensor to detect single hybridization events

An economical nanoarray method to electrically detect hybridization events is demonstrated. As a proof of concept, we fabricated a sensor for DNA sequencing, in which targets are oligonucleotides conjugated to gold nanoparticles. As a consequence of target–probe binding events, a conductive bridge forms between two electrodes, resulting in a quantized change in conductivity. This enables a robust detection of a few (down to single) hybridization events and can be potentially applied also to other binding events (like specific interactions between proteins, antibodies, ligands and receptors). Moreover, target amplification techniques (such as PCR) are no longer necessary