PM10 and PM2.5 Qualitative Source Apportionment Using Selective Wind Direction Sampling in a Port-Industrial Area in Civitavecchia, Italy

The possibility to discriminate between different emission sources and between natural and anthropogenic contributions is a key issue for planning efficient air pollution reduction and mitigation strategies. Moreover, the knowledge of the particulate matter (PM) chemical composition for the different size fractions is recognized as increasingly important, in particular with respect to health effects of exposed population. This study is focused on the characterization of PM10 and PM2.5 main sources located in the Civitavecchia harbor-industrial area (Central Italy), namely a large coal-fired power plant, a natural gas power plant, the harbor area, the vehicular traffic (due to both the local traffic and the highway crossing the area) and small industrial activities. The approach was based on PM10/PM2.5 samples monthly collected for one year and a further relative chemical characterization of organic and inorganic fractions. Wind-select sensors, allowing a selective PM10 and PM2.5 sampling downwind to specific emission sources, were used for the overall sampling. This methodology manages to explain specific emission patterns and to assess the concentration levels of the micro pollutants emitted by local sources and particularly toxic for health. A descriptive statistical analysis of data was performed, also verifying the occurrence of legislative threshold exceedances. Moreover, in order to highlight the contribution of specific sources, the differences in the measured micro pollutants concentrations between wind directions, PM size fractions and sampling sites have been investigated, as well as the seasonal trends of pollutants concentrations. These results allow to highlight that the applied methodology represents a valid support in source apportionment studies

Wheat sprout extract induces changes on 20S proteasomes functionality.

Wheat sprouts contain a very high level of organic phosphates and a powerful cocktail of different molecules such as enzymes, reducing glycosides and polyphenols. The antioxidant properties of wheat sprouts have been widely documented and it has been shown that they are able to protect DNA against free-radicals mediated oxidative damage. Furthermore, we have recently reported on the effects of several polyphenols on 20S proteasomes, underlying the dual role of epigallocatechin-3-gallate as an antioxidant and a proteasome effector in cancer cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of wheat sprout extracts on 20S proteasome functionality. Wheat sprout extracts have been analysed and characterized for their polyphenolic content using the Folin-Ciocalteau reagent and RP-HPLC technique. Comparing our data with a polyphenol standard mixture we identified five different polyphenols: gallic acid, epigallocatechin-3-gallate, epigallocatechin, epicatechin and catechin. The treatment of isolated 20S proteasomes with the extract induced a gradual inhibition of all the tested components, ChT-L, T-L, PGPH and BrAAP, in both the complexes. At low extract concentration a slight activation of the enzyme was evident only for the BrAAP component of the constitutive enzyme and the ChT-L activity of the immunoproteasome. b-casein degradation rate decreased, particularly with the immunoproteasome. Human Colon adenocarcinoma (Caco) cells, stimulated with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate, showed activation of the 20S proteasome activities at short incubation times and an increase in intracellular oxidative proteins. Cells treatment with wheat sprout extract led to proteasome inhibition in unstimulated cells and attenuated the effects mediated by TPA. Finally, exposure to the extract affected the expression levels of pro-apoptotic proteins

Bioaccumulation of Trace Elements in the Muscle of the Blackmouth Catshark Galeus melastomus from Mediterranean Waters

Environmental pollution, particularly in the marine environment, has become a significant concern due to the increasing presence of pollutants and their adverse effects on ecosystems and human health. This study focuses on the bioaccumulation of trace elements in the muscle tissue of the blackmouth catshark (Galeus melastomus) from different areas in the Mediterranean Sea. Trace elements are of interest due to their persistence, toxicity, and potential for bioaccumulation. This research aims to assess the distribution and accumulation of trace elements in the muscle tissue of G. melastomus and investigate their potential impact on the deep-sea environment of the Mediterranean. The focused areas include the Ligurian Sea, the northern and central Tyrrhenian Sea, the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, the Ionian Sea, the Pantelleria Waters, and the Gela Waters. Samples were collected following established protocols, and trace element analysis was conducted using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The study provides data on the concentrations of 17 trace elements, namely aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, copper, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, zinc, selenium, strontium, lead, chromium, iron, barium, bismuth, and uranium. The findings contribute to a better understanding of trace element bioaccumulation patterns in elasmobranch species, specifically G. melastomus, and highlight the potential risks associated with chemical contamination in the Mediterranean Sea. This research emphasizes the importance of studying the impacts of pollutants on marine organisms, particularly those occupying key ecological roles, like sharks, to support effective conservation and management strategies

Post-intervention Status in Patients With Refractory Myasthenia Gravis Treated With Eculizumab During REGAIN and Its Open-Label Extension

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether eculizumab helps patients with anti-acetylcholine receptor-positive (AChR+) refractory generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG) achieve the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America (MGFA) post-intervention status of minimal manifestations (MM), we assessed patients' status throughout REGAIN (Safety and Efficacy of Eculizumab in AChR+ Refractory Generalized Myasthenia Gravis) and its open-label extension. METHODS: Patients who completed the REGAIN randomized controlled trial and continued into the open-label extension were included in this tertiary endpoint analysis. Patients were assessed for the MGFA post-intervention status of improved, unchanged, worse, MM, and pharmacologic remission at defined time points during REGAIN and through week 130 of the open-label study. RESULTS: A total of 117 patients completed REGAIN and continued into the open-label study (eculizumab/eculizumab: 56; placebo/eculizumab: 61). At week 26 of REGAIN, more eculizumab-treated patients than placebo-treated patients achieved a status of improved (60.7% vs 41.7%) or MM (25.0% vs 13.3%; common OR: 2.3; 95% CI: 1.1-4.5). After 130 weeks of eculizumab treatment, 88.0% of patients achieved improved status and 57.3% of patients achieved MM status. The safety profile of eculizumab was consistent with its known profile and no new safety signals were detected. CONCLUSION: Eculizumab led to rapid and sustained achievement of MM in patients with AChR+ refractory gMG. These findings support the use of eculizumab in this previously difficult-to-treat patient population. CLINICALTRIALSGOV IDENTIFIER: REGAIN, NCT01997229; REGAIN open-label extension, NCT02301624. CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE: This study provides Class II evidence that, after 26 weeks of eculizumab treatment, 25.0% of adults with AChR+ refractory gMG achieved MM, compared with 13.3% who received placebo

Minimal Symptom Expression' in Patients With Acetylcholine Receptor Antibody-Positive Refractory Generalized Myasthenia Gravis Treated With Eculizumab

The efficacy and tolerability of eculizumab were assessed in REGAIN, a 26-week, phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody-positive (AChR+) refractory generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG), and its open-label extension

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Il ruolo dell'utenza nel comportamento dinamico delle reti di distribuzione idrica

Le reti di distribuzione idrica (RDI) sono oggigiorno generalmente progettate e gestite sia da un punto di vista tecnico che scientifico assumendone un funzionamento in condizioni stazionarie mentre il comportamento dinamico di tali sistemi rimane ancora un campo meno investigato. D’altra parte, i sistemi acquedottistici sono soggetti a fenomeni di moto vario e, mentre gran parte degli sforzi di analisi e modellazione in condizioni non stazionarie è stata finora rivolta ai sistemi di adduzione, sta crescendo la consapevolezza che anche le reti di distribuzione idrica siano continuamente soggette a transitori e raggiungano raramente stati stazionari. I transitori che si instaurano nelle RDI possono insorgere per cause diverse, classificabili in due gruppi principali: (i) le manovre rapide su organi di controllo e di regolazione e su sistemi di pompaggio che producono transitori di entità elevata e meno frequenti nel tempo e (ii) gli aggiustamenti delle valvole di regolazione, degli inverter ma anche l’attività dell’utenza che tendono a produrre variazioni di pressione di entità limitata ma molto frequenti. Nei sistemi di distribuzione devono perciò essere presi in considerazione due tipi di effetti dei transitori di pressione che possono determinare sia danni immediatamente evidenti sia deterioramenti che tendono ad aggravarsi nel tempo. Nonostante le RDI siano quindi continuamente soggette a transitori di diversa origine, il numero limitato di lavori in letteratura disponibili sullo studio e la modellazione in moto vario di questi sistemi si concentra principalmente sull’effetto di transitori del primo tipo. Questa Tesi vuole proporre un approccio innovativo finalizzato allo studio e alla modellazione del comportamento dinamico delle RDI soggette a transitori indotti dalla domanda idrica, a partire dalla generazione dei transitori a livello di singola abitazione fino alla rete principale di distribuzione. In particolare, partendo dai dati raccolti mediante due campagne di misure è caratterizzato il comportamento dinamico di un allaccio idrico e di una rete principale di distribuzione idrica soggetti all’attività dell’utenza. La prima campagna di misure si è svolta con riferimento ad un allaccio idrico reale, primo elemento insieme all’impianto idrico privato ad essere interessato dall’attività dell’utenza, sottoposto a manovre generate internamente all’utenza servita dall’allaccio e manovre generate da utenze vicine e in rete. La seconda campagna di misure è stata condotta, sempre con un monitoraggio ad alta frequenza della pressione affiancato da un monitoraggio dei consumi degli utenti, su una rete di distribuzione idrica reale sottoposta esclusivamente all’attività dell’utenza idrica. Dalle due campagne di misure è emerso come anche l’attività dell’utenza può avere un impatto sul sistema, sia a livello di allacci idrici, sottoponendo tali elementi a variazioni di pressione che possono essere anche molto significative, sia a livello di rete principale, generando sollecitazioni in rete di modesta entità ma continue nel tempo, e variabili da zona a zona della rete e nell’arco della giornata. A partire dai dati sperimentali raccolti durante la seconda campagna di misure, è proposto poi un approccio stocastico che permette di caratterizzare il comportamento dinamico della rete soggetta ad attività dell’utenza attraverso modellazione numerica finalizzato alla caratterizzazione realistica dell’andamento delle pressioni in rete e l’individuazione delle sezioni più sollecitate dalle fluttuazioni di pressione. È infine studiata la relazione tra alcuni indicatori di connettività e la risposta dinamica di una RDI reale soggetta all’attività dell’utenza con lo scopo di identificare un possibile strumento di rapida valutazione che possa supportare nella caratterizzazione macroscopica del comportamento dinamico dei sistemi al variare della loro struttura topologica.Nowadays, water distribution networks (WDNs) are generally designed and managed both from a technical and a scientific standpoint under the assumption of steady-state conditions whereas the dynamic behaviour of these systems still remains a less investigated topic. Water distribution systems are actually subjected to unsteady flow phenomena and, while most of the efforts of analysis and modelling under unsteady state conditions have so far been directed at transmission mains, the awareness that water distribution networks are continuously subjected to transients, rarely reaching steady-state conditions, is growing. The transients that occur in WDN can be generated by different causes, which can be classified into two main categories: (i) fast manoeuvres on control and regulating devices and on pumping systems which produce transients of significant magnitude and less frequent in time and (ii) adjustments of control valves, inverters but also users’ activity which tend to produce pressure variations of limited magnitude but very frequent in time. Consequently, in WDNs two types of effects of pressure transients should be considered, which can cause immediately evident damage or deterioration that tends to aggravate over time, respectively. Notwithstanding WDNs are continuously subjected to transients of different nature, the moderate number of studies available in the literature on the study and modelling of these systems under unsteady flow conditions mainly focuses on the effect of transients of the first type. This Thesis proposes an innovative approach aimed at studying and modelling the dynamic behaviour of WDNs subjected to transients induced by the users’ activity, starting from the generation of transients at the level of a single house up to the main distribution network. In greater detail, starting from the data collected through two measurement campaigns, the dynamic behaviour of a water service line and a main WDN subject to user activity is characterised. The first measurement campaign was carried out with reference to a real service line, the first element along with the plumbing system affected by pressure variations generated by users’ activity, subjected to manoeuvres generated within the user served and manoeuvres generated by nearby users and in the network. The second campaign of measurements has been conducted, always through high-frequency monitoring of pressure along with the monitoring of user consumption, on a real water distribution network subjected exclusively to users’ activity. From the two measurement campaigns the users’ activity has emerged to have an impact on the system, both at the level of the service lines, subjecting these elements to pressure variations that can be also very significant, and at the level of the main network, generating stresses in the network of limited magnitude but continuous in time, and variable from the different areas of the network and over the day. Starting from the experimental data collected during the second measurement campaign, a stochastic approach is then proposed, which allows characterising the dynamic behaviour of the network subjected to user activity through numerical modelling aimed at the realistic characterisation of the pressure trend in the network and the identification of the sections most stressed by pressure fluctuations. By applying the stochastic approach of unsteady flow modelling of WDNs presented, the effect of topological structure on the dynamic behaviour of a real hydraulic system subjected to users’ activity is analysed. In greater detail, the relationship between some connectivity metrics and the dynamic response of the network is studied in order to identify a rapid assessment tool that can support in the macroscopic characterisation of the dynamic behaviour of systems as their topological structure changes

Rapporto tra Turnaround e Corporate Governance. Considerazioni teoriche e analisi empirica.

Durante l’ultimo ventennio, il verificarsi di una serie di fenomeni di crisi aziendali, causati dalla cattiva gestione, ha portato gli studiosi della materia ad avere un maggiore interesse nei confronti del governo d’impresa. Ciò ha condotto alla ridefinizione delle regole di Corporate Governance, poiché, in gran parte, i sistemi di amministrazione e controllo si presentavano inefficaci, inefficienti e poco adatti all’epoca della globalizzazione. Una delle operazioni maggiormente impiegate, per risanare una crisi, è il piano di Turnaround, il quale prevede, all’interno della sua strategia d’intervento, una ristrutturazione della Corporate Governance. Per dimostrare l’esistenza di un’interazione tra l’intervento di Turnaround e la Corporate Governance all’interno dello studio fatto, è stato sviluppato un caso empirico in cui viene analizzato il governo di imprese di piccole e medie dimensioni dopo che queste sono state sottoposte ad un intervento di Turnaround. Per verificare l’efficacia del nuovo assetto è stato creato un Indicatore di Buona Governance, messo a confronto con le nuove performance aziendali, misurate attraverso la comparazione con i valori di bilancio che si avevano durante il periodo del deal