Exploiting the Potential in Water Cleanup from Metals and Nutrients of Desmodesmus sp. and Ampelodesmos mauritanicus

Increasing levels of freshwater contaminants, mainly due to anthropogenic activities, have resulted in a great deal of interest in finding new eco-friendly, cost-effective and efficient methods for remediating polluted waters. The aim of this work was to assess the feasibility of using a green microalga Desmodesmus sp., a cyanobacterium Nostoc sp. and a hemicryptophyte Ampelodesmos mauritanicus to bioremediate a water polluted with an excess of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and heavy metals (copper and nickel). We immediately determined that Nostoc sp. was sensitive to metal toxicity, and thus Desmodesmus sp. was chosen for sequential tests with A. mauritanicus. First, A. mauritanicus plants were grown in the ‘polluted’ culture medium for seven days and were, then, substituted by Desmodesmus sp. for a further seven days (14 days in total). Heavy metals were shown to negatively affect both the growth rates and nutrient removal capacity. The sequential approach resulted in high metal removal rates in the single metal solutions up to 74% for Cu and 85% for Ni, while, in the bi-metal solutions, the removal rates were lower and showed a bias for Cu uptake. Single species controls showed better outcomes; however, further studies are necessary to investigate the behavior of new specie

Assessing molecular diversity among 87 species of the Quercus L. genus by RAPD markers

Oaks (Quercus sp.) are among the most ecologically and economically important woody Angiosperms of the northern hemisphere. Nowadays, the reduction of Quercus biodiversity is becoming a matter of global concern, and several oak species have been included in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Consequently, characterization and preservation strategies for the oak germplasm are largely promoted. Thus, in this work, the genetic diversity existing among 87 different Quercus species was assessed using the RAPD markers, in order to better typify these specimens, to show the amazing DNA variability of this plant genus, and to confirm or infer new putative molecular correlations. Our data were discussed taking into consideration the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships previously proposed by the literature. In general, the obtained results corroborated that the evolutionary pattern of Quercus genus has been extremely intricate and continues to change rapidly, making it difficult to be fully resolved. The evidence collected in the present investigation would confirm the complex evolution of the oaks, due to their high migration capacity, divergence rate, and hybridization propensity. This research, performed on a so large series of species, represents a positive contribution for highlighting the genetic diversity within collections of Quercus germplasm and favouring ex-situ conservation programmes

Spin and a Running Radius in RS1

We develop a renormalization group formalism for the compactified Randall-Sundrum scenario wherein the extra-dimensional radius serves as the scaling parameter. Couplings on the hidden brane scale as we move within local effective field theories with varying size of the warped extra dimension. We consider this RG approach applied to U(1) gauge theories and gravity. We use this method to derive a low energy effective theory.Comment: 18 pages, minor changes, references adde

Axion-Higgs Unification

In theories with no fundamental scalars, one gauge group can become strong at a large scale Lambda and spontaneously break a global symmetry, producing the Higgs and the axion as composite pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons. We show how KSVZ and DFSZ axion models can be naturally realised. The assumption Lambda around 10^{11} GeV is phenomenologically favoured because: a) The axion solves the QCD theta problem and provides the observed DM abundance; b) The observed Higgs mass is generated via RGE effects from a small Higgs quartic coupling at the compositeness scale, provided that the Higgs mass term is fine-tuned to be of electroweak size; c) Lepton, quark as well as neutrino masses can be obtained from four-fermion operators at the compositeness scale. d) The extra fermions can unify the gauge couplings.Comment: 19 pages. Refs. added and eq. 3.6 fixe

Sustainability in Aquaponics: Industrial Spirulina Waste as a Biofertilizer for Lactuca sativa L. Plants

Aquaponics represents an alternative to traditional soil cultivation. To solve the problem of nutrient depletion that occurs in this biotechnological system, the application of a spirulina-based biofertilizer was assessed. The microalgal waste used in this study came from industrial processing. Four different dilutions of the supernatant portion of this waste were sprayed on lettuce plants cultivated in an aquaponics system installed at the Botanical Gardens of the Tor Vergata University of Rome. The biofertilizer was characterized to evaluate its amount of macro- and micronutrients. The analysis conducted on the plants involved both morpho-biometric aspects and qualitative–quantitative measurements. The experiments showed that the spirulina extract had a positive effect on the growth and nutraceutical content of the lettuce plants; the obtained results highlighted that a dilution of 75% was the best for treatment. The use of the proposed organic and recycled fertilizer could increase the sustainability of crop cultivation and promote the functioning of aquaponics systems

Supersymmetry phenomenology beyond the MSSM after 5/fb of LHC data

We briefly review the status of motivated beyond-the-MSSM phenomenology in the light of the LHC searches to date. In particular, we discuss the conceptual consequences of the exclusion bounds, of the hint for a Higgs boson at about 125 GeV, and of interpreting the excess of direct CP violation in the charm sector as a signal of New Physics. We try to go into the various topics in a compact way while providing a relatively rich list of references, with particular attention to the most recent developments.Comment: 20 pages + refs. v2: minor modifications, published versio

Effective action and brane running

We address the renormalized effective action for a Randall-Sundrum brane running in 5d bulk space. The running behavior of the brane action is obtained by shifting the brane-position without changing the background and the fluctuations. After an appropriate renormalization, we obtain an effective, low energy braneworld action, in which the effective 4d Planck mass is independent of the running-position. We address some implications of this effective action.Comment: 15 pages, no figur

The effects of COVID-19 pandemic on elective post-bariatric surgery waiting list. A single plastic surgery center investigation

Objective: After massive weight loss, patients that meet specific criteria can be inserted in an ad-hoc post-bariatric surgery list in order to be subjected to body contouring procedures. During COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian National Health System has been overwhelmed by the continue load of life-threatening patients that needed medical assistance. Plastic surgery practice enormously scaled back during this period and this fact greatly affected elective procedures waiting lists. The aim of our study is to analyze how the lockdown and its related sanitary policies affected post-bariatric patients' behaviors towards the delay of their procedure. Patients and methods: A 7-item questionnaire was administered to all patients. Change in the desire to be subjected to body contouring procedures was recorded. Smoking status, level of training during quarantine and psychological co-morbidities were also evaluated. Results: 124 patients completed the questionnaire. Data analysis showed that none of them encountered a decrease of the desire to be subjected to post-bariatric plastic surgery procedures. Conclusions: The present study showed that all the patients in the waiting list did not modify their interest in being subjected to post-bariatric surgery procedures, even though the waiting time increased

AdS/QCD: The Relevance of the Geometry

We investigate the relevance of the metric and of the geometry in five-dimensional models of hadrons. Generically, the metric does not affect strongly the results and even flat space agrees reasonably well with the data. Nevertheless, we observe a preference for a decreasing warp factor, for example AdS space. The Sakai-Sugimoto model reduces to one of these models and the level of agreement is similar to the one of flat space. We also consider the discrete version of the five-dimensional models, obtained by dimensional deconstruction. We find that essentially all the relevant features of "holographic" models of QCD can be reproduced with a simple 3-site model describing only the states below the cut-off of the theory.Comment: 25 pages + appendix. v2 minor changes and Refs. adde

Crossing the cosmological constant line in a dilatonic brane-world model with and without curvature corrections

We construct a new brane-world model composed of a bulk -with a dilatonic field-, plus a brane -with brane tension coupled to the dilaton-, cold dark matter and an induced gravity term. It is possible to show that depending on the nature of the coupling between the brane tension and the dilaton this model can describe the late-time acceleration of the brane expansion (for the normal branch) as it moves within the bulk. The acceleration is produced together with a mimicry of the crossing of the cosmological constant line (w=-1) on the brane, although this crossing of the phantom divide is obtained without invoking any phantom matter neither on the brane nor in the bulk. The role of dark energy is played by the brane tension, which reaches a maximum positive value along the cosmological expansion of the brane. It is precisely at that maximum that the crossing of the phantom divide takes place. We also show that these results remain valid when the induced gravity term on the brane is switched off.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX