The stochastic quantization method and its application to the numerical simulation of volcanic conduit dynamics under random conditions

Stochastic Quantization (SQ) is a method for the approximation of a continuous probability distribution with a discrete one. The proposal made in this paper is to apply this technique to reduce the number of numerical simulations for systems with uncertain inputs, when estimates of the output distribution are needed. This question is relevant in volcanology, where realistic simulations are very expensive and uncertainty is always present. We show the results of a benchmark test based on a one-dimensional steady model of magma flow in a volcanic conduit

In vitro Models to evaluate drug-induced hypersensitivity : potential test based on activation of dendritic cells

Hypersensitivity drug reactions (HDRs) are the adverse effect of pharmaceuticals that clinically resemble allergy. HDRs account for approximately 1/6 of drug-induced adverse effects, and include immune-mediated ("allergic") and non-immune-mediated ("pseudo allergic") reactions. In recent years, the severe and unpredicted drug adverse events clearly indicate that the immune system can be a critical target of drugs. Enhanced prediction in preclinical safety evaluation is, therefore, crucial. Nowadays, there are no validated in vitro or in vivo methods to screen the sensitizing potential of drugs in the pre-clinical phase. The problem of non-predictability of immunologically-based hypersensitivity reactions is related to the lack of appropriate experimental models rather than to the lack of -understanding of the adverse phenomenon. We recently established experimental conditions and markers to correctly identify drug associated with in vivo hypersensitivity reactions using THP-1 cells and IL-8 production, CD86 and CD54 expression. The proposed in vitro method benefits from a rationalistic approach with the idea that allergenic drugs share with chemical allergens common mechanisms of cell activation. This assay can be easily incorporated into drug development for hazard identification of drugs, which may have the potential to cause in vivo hypersensitivity reactions. The purpose of this review is to assess the state of the art of in vitro models to assess the allergenic potential of drugs based on the activation of dendritic cells

Antarctic Salt-Cones: An Oasis of Microbial Life? The Example of Boulder Clay Glacier (Northern Victoria Land)

The evaporation of a localized, highly saline water body of the Boulder Clay debris-covered glacier, in the Northern Victoria Land, probably generated the accumulation of mirabilite (Na2SO4 × 10H2O) and thenardite (Na2SO4) in a glacier salt-cone. Such an extremely cold and salty environment resembles the conditions on Mars, so it can be considered a terrestrial analog. The study was aimed at gaining a first glimpse at the prokaryotic community associated with Antarctic mirabilite and thenardite minerals and also to find clues about the origin of the salts. For this purpose, samples were analyzed by a next generation approach to investigate the prokaryotic (Bacteria and Archaea) diversity. Phylogenetic analysis allowed the identification of Bacteroidota, Actinobacteriota, Firmicutes, and Gammaproteobacteria as the main bacterial lineages, in addition to Archaea in the phylum Halobacterota. The genera Arthrobacter, Rhodoglobus, Gillisia, Marinobacter and Psychrobacter were particularly abundant. Interestingly, several bacterial and archaeal sequences were related to halotolerant and halophilic genera, previously reported in a variety of marine environments and saline habitats, also in Antarctica. The analyzed salt community also included members that are believed to play a major role in the sulfur cycle

Remote sensing of ecosystem light use efficiency with MODIS-based PRI

Several studies sustained the possibility that a photochemical reflectance index (PRI) directly obtained from satellite data can be used as a proxy for ecosystem light use efficiency (LUE) in diagnostic models of gross primary productivity. This modelling approach would avoid the complications that are involved in using meteorological data as constraints for a fixed maximum LUE. However, no unifying model predicting LUE across climate zones and time based on MODIS PRI has been published to date. In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness with which MODIS-based PRI can be used to estimate ecosystem light use efficiency at study sites of different plant functional types and vegetation densities. Our objective is to examine if known limitations such as dependence on viewing and illumination geometry can be overcome and a single PRI-based model of LUE (i.e. based on the same reference band) can be applied under a wide range of conditions. Furthermore, we were interested in the effect of using different faPAR (fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation) products on the in-situ LUE used as ground truth and thus on the whole evaluation exercise. We found that estimating LUE at site-level based on PRI reduces uncertainty compared to the approaches relying on a maximum LUE reduced by minimum temperature and vapour pressure deficit. Despite the advantages of using PRI to estimate LUE at site-level, we could not establish an universally applicable light use efficiency model based on MODIS PRI. Models that were optimised for a pool of data from several sites did not perform well