ECOLOGICAL Infrastructure Management Enhanced Pollination and Targeted Precision Biocontrol: The BICOPOLL Project

The project focuses on two main topics: 1 - the use of pollinators to carry to the target crop flowers beneficial microorganisms that act as antagonists of plant pathogens that penetrate through the flowers; 2 - the improvement of the pollination of organic horticultural and fruit crops

Ecological Infrastructure Management for Enhanced Pollination and Targeted Precision Biocontrol

Il progetto si propone di migliorare qualità e quantità delle produzioni biologiche attraverso un innovativo sistema di protezione delle piante dalle malattie grazie all’azione degli insetti impollinatori (o pronubi). BICOPOLL prevede infatti lo studio degli impollinatori per il trasporto di microrganismi antagonisti di pericolose malattie che penetrano attraverso il fiore. L’utilizzo dei pronubi per queste finalità implica: • Lo sviluppo di speciali dispenser applicati all’uscita dell’arnia delle api o dei nidi di bombi e api solitarie. • Lo sviluppo di substrati in polvere adatti a disperdere i microrganismi antagonisti da collocare nei dispenser

Silicon Photo-Multiplier radiation hardness tests with a beam controlled neutron source

We report radiation hardness tests performed at the Frascati Neutron Generator on silicon Photo-Multipliers, semiconductor photon detectors built from a square matrix of avalanche photo-diodes on a silicon substrate. Several samples from different manufacturers have been irradiated integrating up to 7x10^10 1-MeV-equivalent neutrons per cm^2. Detector performances have been recorded during the neutron irradiation and a gradual deterioration of their properties was found to happen already after an integrated fluence of the order of 10^8 1-MeV-equivalent neutrons per cm^2.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, Submitted to Nucl. Inst. Meth.

MAPS in 130 nm triple well CMOS technology for HEP applications

Deep N-well CMOS monolithic active pixel sensors (DNWMAPS) represent an alternative approach to signal processing in pixellated detectors for high energy physics experiments. Based on different resolution constraints, two prototype MAPS, suitable for applications requiring different detector pitch, have been developed and fabricated in 130 nm triple well CMOS technology. This work presents experimental results from the characterization of some test structures together with TCAD and Monte Carlo simulations intended to study the device properties in terms of charge diffusion and charge sharing among pixels

Geant4-based simulations of charge collection in CMOS Active Pixel Sensors

Geant4 is an object-oriented toolkit for the simulation of the interaction of particles and radiation with matter. It provides a snapshot of the state of a simulated particle in time, as it travels through a specified geometry. One important area of application is the modelling of radiation detector systems. Here, we extend the abilities of such modelling to include charge transport and sharing in pixelated CMOS Active Pixel Sensors (APSs); though similar effects occur in other pixel detectors. The CMOS APSs discussed were developed in the framework of the PRaVDA consortium to assist the design of custom sensors to be used in an energy-range detector for proton Computed Tomography (pCT). The development of ad-hoc classes, providing a charge transport model for a CMOS APS and its integration into the standard Geant4 toolkit, is described. The proposed charge transport model includes, charge generation, diffusion, collection, and sharing across adjacent pixels, as well as the full electronic chain for a CMOS APS. The proposed model is validated against experimental data acquired with protons in an energy range relevant for pCT

Results from silicon photo-multiplier neutron irradiation test

Silicon photo-multipliers, often called "SiPM", are semiconductor photon detectors built from a square matrix of avalanche photo-diodes on common silicon substrate. SiPM have been proposed for several different applications in High Energy Physics, in particular where a large detection granularity is needed. In this presentation the results of a radiation hardness test performed at the Frascati Neutron Generator are presented. Several SiPM of different manufacturers have been irradiated integrating up to 7 1010 1-MeV-equivalent neutrons per cm2. For the first time, their performance have been recorded during the neutron irradiation and a gradual deterioration of their properties was found to happen already after an integrated dose of the order of 108 1-MeV-equivalent neutrons per cm2. The Frascati Neutron Generator (FNG) FNG uses a deuteron beam accelerated up to 300 keV impinging on a deuteron target to produce a nearly isotropic 2.5 MeV neutron output via the D(d,n)3He fusion reaction. The beam current at the target can be regulated up to 1 mA resulting in a maximum neutron production rate of 5 108 neutrons on the whole solid angle per second. Through the monitoring of the rate of associated emitted particles, protons or alpha, the neutron emission rate can be monitored on-line. This gives the unique possibility of measuring the effect of neutrons as long as the irradiation takes place. On-Line Measurements Six devices produced by the IRST and four produced by the Hamamatsu have been tested with neutrons. Depending on the distance from the production point, in four days of test, the SiPM integrated between 0.18 and 7.32 1-MeV-equivalent neutron per cm2. The current drawn by each device and its dark counting rate were continuously monitored and recorded while being irradiated. Fig. 1 shows that the current drawn by the SiPM starts to increase soon after the beginning of the irradiation. No differences between the current behavior of tested devices were found. The effects of the different neutron fluences are not visible at the level we operated. The neutron flux was kept off for a whole night while the currents were recorded. No significant recovery effects appeared. The absolute value of the current and the increasing rate, once the flux was back on, didn't change. The neutron beam has been paused several times in order to perform low voltage scans during the irradiation runs and to measure the effects on the dark currents and on the dark counting rates for different bias values. In the low voltage scans the current behavior changed rapidly with the integrated dose as it is shown in Fig.2. Off-Line Measurements The SiPM have been tested with cosmic rays before and after the neutron irradiation and the charge spectra obtained are shown in Fig 3. After the neutron irradiation, the gain was found to be about the half of the initial one (Fig.3 Bottom) and the noise pedestals (Fig. 3 Top) are much broader. The main effect is an important reduction of the detection efficiency from more than 95% to about 70%. Fig2: Measured currents as a function of the low voltage supply after different integrated doses Fig3: SiPM charge spectra with cosmic rays before (top) and after (bottom) the neutron irradiation. Fig1: Increasing factor of the current drawn by the SiPM as a function of the integrated neutron dose

European registry on helicobacter pylori management: Effectiveness of first and second-line treatment in Spain

The management of Helicobacter pylori infection has to rely on previous local effectiveness due to the geographical variability of antibiotic resistance. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of first and second-line H. pylori treatment in Spain, where the empirical prescription is recommended. A multicentre prospective non-interventional registry of the clinical practice of European gastroenterologists concerning H. pylori infection (Hp-EuReg) was developed, including patients from 2013 until June 2019. Effectiveness was evaluated descriptively and through a multivariate analysis concerning age, gender, presence of ulcer, proton-pump in-hibitor (PPI) dose, therapy duration and compliance. Overall, 53 Spanish hospitals were included, and 10, 267 patients received a first-line therapy. The best results were obtained with the 10-day bismuth single-capsule therapy (95% cure rate by intention-to-treat) and with both the 14-day bismuth-clarithromycin quadruple (PPI-bismuth-clarithromycin-amoxicillin, 91%) and the 14-day non-bismuth quadruple concomitant (PPI-clarithromycin-amoxicillin-metronidazole, 92%) therapies. Second-line therapies were prescribed to 2448 patients, with most-effective therapies being the triple quinolone (PPI-amoxicillin-levofloxacin/moxifloxacin) and the bismuth-levofloxacin quadruple schemes (PPI-bismuth-levofloxacin-amoxicillin) prescribed for 14 days (92%, 89% and 90% effective-ness, respectively), and the bismuth single-capsule (10 days, 88.5%). Compliance, longer duration and higher acid inhibition were associated with higher effectiveness. “Optimized” H. pylori therapies achieve over 90% success in Spain

A structural biology community assessment of AlphaFold2 applications

Most proteins fold into 3D structures that determine how they function and orchestrate the biological processes of the cell. Recent developments in computational methods for protein structure predictions have reached the accuracy of experimentally determined models. Although this has been independently verified, the implementation of these methods across structural-biology applications remains to be tested. Here, we evaluate the use of AlphaFold2 (AF2) predictions in the study of characteristic structural elements; the impact of missense variants; function and ligand binding site predictions; modeling of interactions; and modeling of experimental structural data. For 11 proteomes, an average of 25% additional residues can be confidently modeled when compared with homology modeling, identifying structural features rarely seen in the Protein Data Bank. AF2-based predictions of protein disorder and complexes surpass dedicated tools, and AF2 models can be used across diverse applications equally well compared with experimentally determined structures, when the confidence metrics are critically considered. In summary, we find that these advances are likely to have a transformative impact in structural biology and broader life-science research