267 research outputs found
Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub
With the recent climate warming, tundra ecotones are facing a progressive acceleration
of spring snowpack melting and extension of the growing season, with evident
consequences to vegetation. Along with summer temperature, winter precipitation has
been recently recognised as a crucial factor for tundra shrub growth and physiology.
However, gaps of knowledge still exist on long-living plant responses to different
snowpack duration, especially on how intra-specific and year-to-year variability together
with multiple functional trait adjustments could influence the long-term responses.
To fill this gap, we conducted a 3 years snow manipulation experiment above the
Alpine treeline on the typical tundra species Juniperus communis, the conifer with the
widest distributional range in the north emisphere. We tested shoot elongation, leaf
area, stomatal density, leaf dry weight and leaf non-structural carbohydrate content of
plants subjected to anticipated, natural and postponed snowpack duration. Anticipated
snowpack melting enhanced new shoot elongation and increased stomatal density.
However, plants under prolonged snow cover seemed to compensate for the shorter
growing period, likely increasing carbon allocation to growth. In fact, these latter showed
larger needles and low starch content at the beginning of the growing season. Variability
between treatments slightly decreased over time, suggesting a progressive acclimation
of juniper to new conditions. In the context of future warming scenarios, our results
support the hypothesis of shrub biomass increase within the tundra biome. Yet, the
picture is still far from being complete and further research should focus on transient
and fading effects of changing conditions in the long term
Appraisal of Ancient Quarries and WWII Air Raids as Factors of Subsidence in Rome: A Geomatic Approach
Ancient mining and quarrying activities left anthropogenic geomorphologies that have shaped the natural landscape and affected environmental equilibria. The artificial structures and their related effects on the surrounding environment are analyzed here to characterize the quarrying landscape in the southeast area of Rome in terms of its dimensions, typology, state of preservation and interface with the urban environment. The increased occurrence of sinkhole events in urban areas has already been scientifically correlated to ancient cavities under increasing urban pressure. In this scenario, additional interacting anthropogenic factors, such as the aerial bombardments perpetrated during the Second World War, are considered here. These three factors have been investigated by employing a combined geomatic methodology. Information on air raids has been organized in vector archives. A dataset of historical aerial photographs has been processed into Digital Surface Models and orthomosaics to reconstruct the quarry landscape and its evolution, identify typologies of exploitation and forms of collapse and corroborate the discussion concerning the induced historical and recent subsidence phenomena, comparing these outputs with photogrammetric products obtained from recent satellite data. Geological and urbanistic characterization of the study area allowed a better connection between these historical and environmental factors. In light of the information gathered so far, SAR interferometric products allowed a preliminary interpretation of ground instabilities surrounding historical quarries, air raids and recent subsidence events. Various sub-areas of the AOI where the presenceof the considered factors also corresponds to areas in slight subsidence in the SAR velocity maps have been highlighted. Bivariate hotspot analysis allowed substantiating the hypothesis of a spatial correlation between these multiple aspects
The Peak of the Fallback Rate from Tidal Disruption Events: Dependence on Stellar Type
A star completely destroyed in a tidal disruption event (TDE) ignites a
luminous flare that is powered by the fallback of tidally stripped debris to a
supermassive black hole (SMBH) of mass . We analyze two estimates
for the peak fallback rate in a TDE, one being the "frozen-in" model, which
predicts a strong dependence of the time to peak fallback rate, ,
on both stellar mass and age, with yr for main sequence stars with masses and . The second estimate, which postulates
that the star is completely destroyed when tides dominate the maximum stellar
self-gravity, predicts that is very weakly dependent on stellar
type, with for , while for a Kroupa initial
mass function truncated at . This second estimate also agrees
closely with hydrodynamical simulations, while the frozen-in model is
discrepant by orders of magnitude. We conclude that (1) the time to peak
luminosity in complete TDEs is almost exclusively determined by SMBH mass, and
(2) massive-star TDEs power the largest accretion luminosities. Consequently,
(a) decades-long extra-galactic outbursts cannot be powered by complete TDEs,
including massive-star disruptions, and (b) the most highly super-Eddington
TDEs are powered by the complete disruption of massive stars, which -- if
responsible for producing jetted TDEs -- would explain the rarity of jetted
TDEs and their preference for young and star-forming host galaxies.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, ApJL accepte
Spray-dried mucoadhesives for intravesical drug delivery using N-acetylcysteine- and glutathione-glycol chitosan conjugates
This work describes N-acetylcysteine (NAC)- and glutathione (GSH)-glycol chitosan (GC) polymer conjugates engineered as potential platform useful to formulate micro-(MP) and nano-(NP) particles via spray-drying techniques. These conjugates are mucoadhesive over the range of urine pH, 5.0-7.0, which makes them advantageous for intravesical drug delivery and treatment of local bladder diseases. NAC- and GSH-GC conjugates were generated with a synthetic approach optimizing reaction times and purification in order to minimize the oxidation of thiol groups. In this way, the resulting amount of free thiol groups immobilized per gram of NAC-and GSH-GC conjugates was 6.3 and 3.6 mmol, respectively. These polymers were completely characterized by molecular weight, surface sulfur content, solubility at different pH values, substitution and swelling degree. Mucoadhesion properties were evaluated in artificial urine by turbidimetric and zeta (zeta)-potential measurements demonstrating good mucoadhesion properties, in particular for NAC-GC at pH 5.0. Starting from the thiolated polymers, MP and NP were prepared using both the Bidchi B-191 and Nano Buchi B-90 spray dryers, respectively. The resulting two formulations were evaluated for yield, size, oxidation of thiol groups and ex-vivo mucoadhesion. The new spray drying technique provided NP of suitable size (<1 mu m) for catheter administration, low degree of oxidation, and sufficient mucoadhesion property with 9% and 18% of GSH- and NAC-GC based NP retained on pig mucosa bladder after 3 h of exposure, respectively
Microfluidic preparation and in vitro evaluation of iRGD-functionalized solid lipid nanoparticles for targeted delivery of paclitaxel to tumor cells
Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) can combine the advantages of different colloidal carriers and prevent some of their disadvantages. The production of nanoparticles by means of microfluidics represents a successful platform for industrial scale-up of nanoparticle manufacture in a reproducible way. The realisation of a microfluidic technique to obtain SLNs in a continuous and reproducible manner encouraged us to create surface functionalised SLNs for targeted drug release using the same procedure. A tumor homing peptide, iRGD, owning a cryptic C-end Rule (CendR) motif is responsible for neuropilin-1 (NRP-1) binding and for triggering extravasation and tumor penetration of the peptide. In this study, the Paclitaxel loaded-SLNs produced by microfluidics were functionalized with the iRGD peptide. The SLNs proved to be stable in aqueous medium andwere characterized by a Z-average under 150 nm, a polydispersity index below 0.2, a zeta-potential between -20 and -35 mV and a drug encapsulation efficiency around 40%. Moreover, in vitro cytotoxic effects and cellular uptake have been assessed using 2D and 3D tumour models of U87 glioblastoma cell lines. Overall, these results demonstrate that the surface functionalization of SLNs with iRGD allow better cellular uptake and cytotoxicity ability.Peer reviewe
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