A Journey to the West. Observations on the Chinese Migration to Italy

This volume presents the results of a number of studies about Chinese migration to Italy carried out between 2003 and 2013. The data discussed in the different chapters were collected mostly through ethnographic fieldwork carried out both in China and in Italy. Covered topics include: the organization of Chinese trade activities in Italy, the perception of Italy as a country of migration, identity construction among Italian-born Chinese, language use among Chinese migrants in Italy and literary works written by Chinese in Italy. In addition to the chapters devoted to the discussion of data gathered from fieldwork, an introductory chapter based on a review of the scientific literature is offered in order to provide the reader with a basic background about the characteristics of a migration flow that has lasted nearly a century

Chapter Cinesità fluide: avventure di cinesi nel mondo

The article by Valentina Pedone focuses on Chinese migration flows to the South-East Asia, offering a wide historical view of those migration flows and a very interesting analysis of the literary works which have been edited by Chinese or Chinese descendants abroad

Ultra-small octahedral PtNP-labeled antibodies as an ultrasensitive nanozyme probe for chemiluminescence detection in bioanalytics

Chemiluminescence (CL)-based probes are one of the most sensitive detection principles in nanodiagnostics. A widely used system is the CL substrate for peroxidase (HRP) employed to label a variety of molecules ranging from small steroids to protein. The CL cocktail for HRP is based on luminol or its analogues, hydrogen peroxide, and an enhancer, allowing the detection of submolar concentrations of the enzyme-labeled analyte. The catalyst of the CL reaction, namely HRP, can be replaced by other more practical and highly stable nano-catalysts/nanozymes; among them, recent studies have demonstrated the superior performance of Pt nanomaterials [1]. In this work, we propose the use of ultra-small (3 nm) citrate-coated octahedral Pt nanocrystals prepared by a new wet chemical reduction method in aqueous environment and conjugated to a secondary human IgG antibody, as an ultrasensitive probe for luminol/hydrogen peroxide CL detection. Conjugates with different nanocrystal-to-antibody molar ratios were first fully characterized and purified by Field-Flow Fractionation (FFF) [2]. FFF confirms the homogeneous size of the conjugated which represents a fundamental parameter for their efficiency. The FFF-selected purified conjugates are homogeneous in size and highly concentrated, and readily available for downstream CL tests, an important requirement for the use of FFF as semi-prep step. First results demonstrate the applicability of Pt nanocrystals as probes for CL detection. Indeed the Pt nanocrystals-antibodies CL signal has been measured for the different nanoparticles-IgG molar ratios, showing an increasing signal as a function of nanoparticles concentration with the possibility to detect IgG down to 10-12 M, value close to that obtained using HRP [3]. In addition, the light signal reaches a steady state value for more than 30 minutes, thus facilitating the assay handling. These results paves the way to the use of Pt nanomaterials, highly monodisperse in size and shape and with easy-to-remove coating, for the production of highly efficient catalysts/nanozymes for CL applications and the development of simple and rapid new tests

The effect of composition on structural, thermal, redox and bioactive properties of Ce-containing glasses

The effect of phosphate on the ability of Ce-containing bioactive glasses to inhibit oxidative stress was studied on compositions based on Hench (46.2%SiO224.3%Na2O26.9ÊO2.6P2O5, mol%) and Kokubo (50.0%SiO225.0%Na2O25.0ÊO) glasses. In particular, the reduction of catalase mimetic activity of Ce-containing glasses due to the presence: i) of P2O5 in the glass compositions, and ii) of phosphate groups in the solution employed for catalase mimetic activity tests was explained and rationalized by combining SEM, XPS, XRD, DTA, FT-IR and UV-vis experiments with Molecular Dynamics simulations.The results suggest that the Ce ions play a different structural role in the two series of glasses. In particular, in phosphate free glasses Ce is coordinated by non-bridging oxygens (NBOs) originated from the disruption of the silicate network, whereas in phosphate containing glasses the NBOs around Ce ions belong to orthophosphate groups. The latter groups stabilize the Ce3+ species subtracting them from the interconversion process between Ce3+ and Ce4+, which is of fundamental importance for the exhibition of the catalase mimetic activity