Distribution pattern of hepatitis C virus genotypes and correlation with viral load and risk factors in chronic positive patients.

Objective: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has emerged as a leading cause of chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide. The purpose of this study was to describe the distribution pattern of HCV genotypes in chronic hepatitis patients in the Campania region of southern Italy and estimate their association with risk factors and viral load. Materials and Methods: 404 consecutive HCV ribonucleic acid-positive patients were included in the study. HCV genotyping was carried out by the HCV line probe assay test and viral load estimation by the TaqMan real-time PCR system. Results: The predominant genotype was 1 (63.6%), followed by genotype 2 (29.4%), 3 (6.2%) and 4 (0.8%). Subtype 1b was more frequent in females than in males. Conversely, genotype 3 was more frequent in males. No significant difference was observed in age distribution of HCV genotypes. Surgery and dental therapy were the most frequent risk factors for genotype 1 and intravenous drug abuse and tattooing for genotype 3. Patients with genotype 1 more frequently showed high HCV viral load when compared to those with genotypes 2 and 3. Conclusion: The present study revealed that HCV genotypes 1 and 2 accounted for over 95% of all HCV infections in the Campania region, and genotype 1 was more frequently associated with a higher viral load when compared to genotypes 2 and 3

Enhanced removal of water pollutants by dielectric barrier discharge non-thermal plasma reactor

In this work it was studied the removal efficiency of several water pollutants (methylene blue, phenol, paracetamol, caffeine and ceftriaxone) by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) non-thermal plasma (NTP) reactor. The results evidenced that using oxygen as process gas in the DBD reactor and 20 kV of applied voltage, the complete degradation and mineralization of methylene blue and ceftriaxone was achieved after only 5 min of treatment time, while 15 min were required for the complete degradation and mineralization, of phenol and paracetamol, and 25 min for the caffeine. In addition, kinetic evaluations evidenced that, for each pollutant, the degradation and mineralization occurred at the same rates, underling that the pollutants are selectively converted to carbon dioxide. For this reason, the results obtained in the present work were significantly better than those reported in the current literature about the use of non-thermal technology in the removal of organic pollutants from aqueous solutions

Facile method to immobilize ZnO particles on glass spheres for the photocatalytic treatment of tannery wastewater

In order to apply the photocatalytic processes on a real scale for the treatment of industrial wastewaters, the use of slurry reactors employing suspended photocatalysts is not suitable due to the need for an uncomfortable and expensive separation phase of photocatalyst. To overcome this disadvantage, the photocatalyst particles must be immobilized on a transparent support: our work proposes, for this reason, a simple and cost effective method for the deposition of ZnO photocatalyst on glass spheres in order to formulate a structured photocatalyst effective in the treatment of aqueous solutions containing various organic dyes, commonly used in the tannery industries and in the treatment of a real wastewater at high COD content (11 g/L) coming from the refining unit of the tanning process. In particular, ZnO was immobilized on glass spheres (ZnO/GS) with a simple dip coating method, starting from zinc acetate aqueous solution, without using complexing agent and strong basic compounds. The optimization of ZnO amount on glass spheres was evaluated employing Acid Blue 7 dye, as model pollutant. In particular, it was found that best performances in terms of discoloration and mineralization of the target dye were obtained using the photocatalyst with a ZnO loading equal to 0.19 wt% (ZnO_ac1), prepared through only one dip-coating step. Moreover, the ZnO_ac1 photocatalyst can be easily separated from the reaction mixture, maintaining excellent photocatalytic activity and durability even after several reuse cycles. Finally, ZnO_ac1 showed a high photocatalytic activity in the treatment of the real wastewater, obtaining a COD removal equal to 70% after 180 min of UV light irradiation

Italian Map of Design Earthquakes from Multimodal Disaggregation Distributions: Preliminary Results

Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) allows to calculate the mean annual rate of exceedance of a ground-motion intensity measures (IM) given the seismic sources the considered site is subjected to. Moreover, through disaggregation of seismic hazard, it is possible to identify one or more dominant earthquakes; i.e. the values of magnitude (M), source to site distance (R) and e (number of standard deviations that the ground-motion parameter is away from its median value estimated by the assumed attenuation relationship) providing the largest contributions to the hazard related to a specified IM value. These events may be referred to as the design earthquakes. Building codes worldwide require the identification of the design earthquakes to define seismic input for seismic analysis of structures. For example, the Italian building code explicitly asks the accelerograms to be used for non-linear dynamic analysis to be selected reflecting the earthquakes dominating the hazard at the site. Although INGV (Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia) provides disaggregation data for all Italian territory in terms of Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) values, it should be emphasized that the disaggregation results change with the spectral ordinate (which should reflect the dynamic features of the structure of interest) in addition to return period. This is especially important when multiple design earthquakes exist; i.e., more than a single event dominate the hazard. In this work disaggregation of all Italian sites for structural periods equal to 0 sec and equal to 1.0 sec is presented. Four different return period are considered (975, 475, 50 and 30 years), they correspond to four limit states for ordinary structures. It will be discussed how seismic source geometry and attenuation factors can influence the number and features of dominant earthquakes, and in what cases a close small earthquake can still be the most important for long return periods also if a large and distant design earthquake exist

Enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production from glucose on Rh-doped LaFeO3

The aim of this work was to evaluate effect of different amount of rhodium used for the doping of LaFeO3prepared through solution combustion synthesis in the photocatalytic hydrogen production from glucose solution. The process efficiency was evaluated in terms of both glucose degradation and hydrogen production during the irradiation time. Characterization results showed the formation of orthorhombic perovskite type structure and the absence of rhodium oxide crystallites up to Rh loading of 1.16 mol %. Photocatalytic results showed that the highest value of H2production (1835 μmol/L) was achieved on 0.70%Rh photocatalyst after 4 h irradiation time. The substitutional doping generated by the replacement of Fe4+with Rh4+promotes the separation of charge carriers efficiently, and consequently enhancing the photocatalytic activity

Design earthquakes’ map: an additional tool for engineering seismic risk analysis. Application to southern Apennines (Italy)

Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) is currently the soundest basis for the evaluation of the hazard for site-specific engineering design purposes. An increasing number of building codes worldwide acknowledges the uniform hazard spectra as the reference ground motion to determine design actions on structures and to select input signals for seismic structural analysis. The new Italian seismic code requires the seismic input for nonlinear dynamic analysis to be selected on the basis of dominating events, e.g., identified via disaggregation of seismic hazard. In the present study, the design earthquakes expressed in terms of magnitude (M), distance (R) and ε, were investigated for a wide region in the southern Apennines, Italy. The hazards corresponding to peak ground acceleration and spectral acceleration at 1 second having 475-year return period were disaggregated. For each of the disaggregation variables the shapes of the joint and marginal probability density functions were studied and the first two modes of M, R and ε were extracted and mapped. The obtained results can be used as additional information to better identify the design earthquakes. Moreover, for the study area, they allow the assessment of the seismic source contribution to various frequency ranges of the design spectrum.PublishedBologna (Italy)4.1. Metodologie sismologiche per l'ingegneria sismica4.2. TTC - Modelli per la stima della pericolosità sismica a scala nazionaleope

Importance of mapping design earthquakes: insights for Southern Apennines, Italy

Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis is currently the soundest basis for the rational evaluation of ground-motion hazard for site-specific engineering design and assessment purposes. An increasing number of building codes worldwide acknowledge the uniform hazard spectra as the reference to determine design actions on structures and to select input ground motions for seismic structural analysis. This is the case, for example, in Italy where the new seismic code also requires the seismic input for nonlinear dynamic analysis to be selected on the basis of dominating events, for example, identified via disaggregation of seismic hazard. In the present study, the design earthquakes expressed in terms of representative magnitude ( M), distance ( R), and e were investigated for a wide region in the southern Apennines, Italy. To this aim, the hazards corresponding to peak ground acceleration and spectral acceleration at 1 sec with a return period of 475 yr were disaggregated. For each of the disaggregation variables the shape of the joint and marginal probability density functions were studied. The first two modes expressed by M, R, and epsilon were extracted and mapped for the study area. The results shown provide additional information, in terms of source and ground-motion parameters, to be used along with the standard hazard maps to better select the design earthquakes. The analyses also allow us to assess how various frequency ranges of the design spectrum are differently contributed by seismic sources in the study area

Photocatalytic removal of tartrazine dye from aqueous samples on LaFeO3/ZnO Photocatalysts

Dyes represent a very important group of water pollutants that appear in the effluents of different industries. These contaminants, by preventing the penetration of light, can have negative effects on the aquatic environment, causing problems to the ecosystem, and possibly being carcinogenic and genotoxic on human health. In particular tartrazine is a commonly not-biodegradable dye used in food industries and it, in high amount, could cause allergic and/or intolerance reactions. In the past decade only few effective photocatalysts for organic dye degradation under visible-light irradiation has been reported. Effective photocatalysts, such as ZnO, however, exhibit photodegradation activity only under ultraviolet irradiation. The coupling of ZnO, having a band gap of 3.2 eV, with low band gap photocatalysts could induce the removal of the dyes under visible light. So, in this work, LaFeO3, which has a band gap of about 2.1 eV, was supported on ZnO surface. The aim of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of LaFeO3/ZnO on the degradation of tartrazine under UV but also under visible light. Furthermore it was evaluated the optimal composition in terms of LaFeO3 amount on ZnO

Visible light active Fe-doped TiO2for the oxidation of arsenite to arsenate in drinking water

The aim of this work was to study photocatalysts based on Titania doped with Fe, active in the presence of visible light and effective in the oxidation of As(III) to As(V). Fe-doped TiO2photocatatysts were prepared using sol-gel method and characterized by different techniques, such as XRD, UV-Vis DRS and Raman spectroscopy. Photocatalytic experiments were carried out using a cylindrical photoreactor irradiated with a strip of visible- LEDs (nominal power: 10W) with emission in the range 400 - 600 nm. Aqueous samples containing 6 mg L-1of As(III) were used in photocatalytic experiments. Chemical-physical characterization results evidenced that the doping of TiO2with Fe induced a decrease of band gap value from 3.2 eV to 2.9 eV, thus making the photocatalyst active under visible light. Consistently with the characterization results, the semiconductor Fedoped TiO2exhibited good photoactivity in the visible light driven tests: the complete oxidation of As(III) to As(V) took place after only 30 min of irradiation in distilled water and after 60 min in drinking water