Studies on the biological effects of ozone: 10. Release of factors from ozonated human platelets.

In a previous work we have shown that heparin, in the presence of ozone (O3), promotes a dose-dependent platelet aggregation, while after Ca2+ chelation with citrate, platelet aggregation is almost negligible. These results led us to think that aggregation may enhance the release of platelet components. We have here shown that indeed significantly higher amount of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1) and interleukin-8 (IL-8) are released in a dose-dependent manner after ozonation of heparinised platelet-rich plasma samples. These findings may explain the enhanced healing of torpid ulcers in patients with chronic limb ischemia treated with O3 autohaemoteraphy (O3-AHT)

Studies on the biological effects of ozone: 11. Release of factors from human endothelial cells.

BACKGROUND: Empirical observations have shown that ozonated autohemotherapy markedly improves the symptoms of chronic limb ischemia (muscular pain at rest, intermittent claudication, etc) in atherosclerotic patients, but mechanisms of action remain unclear. AIMS: Human endothelial cells (HUVECs) are known to release nitrogen monoxide (NO) and we investigated the biological effects of human ozonated serum on HUVECs in culture. METHODS: We assessed the relevance of peroxidation, the release of NO as nitrite and of three classical cytokines. RESULTS: The treatment of HUVECs with ozonated serum yields a dose dependent increase of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and a decrease of protein thiol groups (PTG). Concomitantly, in comparison to either the control or the oxygenated sample, there is a significant and steady increase of nitric oxide (NO) production; this is markedly enhanced by the addition of L-arginine (20 microM) and inhibited in the presence of the NO inhibitor, L-NAME (20 mM). The main mediator of ozone action is H2O2 as it has been shown either after its direct measurement or by the addition of 20, 40 and 100 microM. Moreover, during 24 hours incubation we have investigated the production of endothelin 1 (ET-1), E-selectin and Interleukin 8 (IL-8) and it appears that ozonation enhances IL-8, inhibits E-selectin and hardly modifies ET-1 production. CONCLUSIONS: It appears that reinfusion of ozonated blood, by enhancing release of NO, may induce vasodilation in ischemic areas and reduce hypoxia

Focus contrastivo nella periferia sinistra della frase: un solo accento ma non solo un accento

No abstract availableIn questo lavoro abbiamo investigato le propriet? prosodiche (metriche e intonative) che caratterizzano le frasi con Focus Contrastivo (FC) nella periferia sinistra della frase (Rizzi, 1997). Per valutare la portata di differenti configurazione sintattiche e interpretative, abbiamo costruito e sottoposto ad analisi acustica un corpus di frasi lette (italiano parlato a Siena), contenente frasi con Focus Contrastivo e, quale mezzo di confronto, frasi in Focus Ampio (FA) e con Topic dislocati a sinistra con ripresa clitica (Topic) (Cinque, 1990). Indipendentemente dalla presenza di un ordine superficiale dei costituenti in grado di disambiguare l\u27interpretazione contrastiva, all\u27attivazione della proiezione di Focus corrispondono sistematicamente un insieme di caratteristiche prosodiche che non sono confinate al costituente focalizzato ma che caratterizzano tutta l\u27articolazione FC-Presupposizione. Sia l\u27analisi intonativa che metrica, tanto percettiva che quantitativa, ci hanno portato a concludere che tutta l\u27articolazione FC-Presupposizione ? realizzata all\u27interno di un unico Sintagma Intonativo, al cui interno la prominenza principale ? assegnata al costituente focalizzato e non al costituente pi? a destra, come invece avviene nelle frasi in FA. Dal punto di vista intonativo, la prominenza associata al costituente focalizzato ? costituita da un accento ascendente per il quale proponiamo la trascrizione L+H*, gi? proposta per il FC in situ nella variet? fiorentina (Avesani & Vayra, 2003, 2004). Poich? la Presupposizione di Focus ? priva di accenti intonativi, mentre il Comment di Topic ? portatore di un accento intonativo nucleare, H+L* nel nostro corpus, arriviamo a concludere che Focus e Topic ricevono un trattamento distinto nel componente fonologico. L\u27assenza nella Presupposizione e la presenza nel Comment di un accento nucleare ci sembra essere collegata alle differenti propriet? interpretative che caratterizzano il FC (Calabrese, 1982; Belletti, 2004) e i Topic (B?ring, 1997; Bocci, in stampa). Se le nostre analisi sono corrette, inoltre, possiamo scartare l\u27ipotesi che la prosodia del FC sia derivata a partire dal Focus Ampio semplicemente attraverso la cancellazione degli accenti sulla Presupposizione. In conclusione, il raffronto tra frasi in FC e in FA indica che le differenti propriet? prosodiche delle due strutture non possono essere ridotte unicamente ad un fatto di allineamento tra Focus e prominenza principale poich? gli accenti intonativi nucleari coinvolti sono tipologicamente opposti. Allo stesso tempo, le caratteristiche prosodiche associate alla presenza del FC investono tutta la struttura intonativa dell\u27articolazione discorsiva e, pertanto, non possono essere ridotte all\u27associazione di un accento intonativo idiosincratico

Studies on the biological effects of ozone: 8. Effects on the total antioxidant status and on interleukin-8 production.

Ozone (O3) is a controversial gas because, owing to its potent oxidant properties, it exerts damaging effects on the respiratory tract and yet it has been used for four decades as a therapy. While the disinfectant activity of O3 is understandable, it is less clear how other biological effects can be elicited in human blood with practically no toxicity. On the other hand plasma and cells are endowed with a powerful antioxidant system so that a fairly wide range of O3 concentrations between 40 and 80 microg/ml per gram of blood (approximately 0.83-1.66 mM) are effective but not deleterious. After blood ozonation total antioxidant status (TAS) and plasma protein thiol groups (PTG) decrease by 20% and 25%, respectively, while thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) increases up to five-fold. The increase of haemolysis is negligible suggesting that the erythrocyte membrane is spared at the expense of other sacrificial substrates. While there is a clear relationship between the ozone dose and IL-8 levels, we have noticed that high TAS and PTG values inhibit the cytokine production. This is in line with the current idea that hydrogen peroxide, as a byproduct of O3 decomposition, acts as a messenger for the cytokine induction

Hadamard Products of Symbolic Powers and Hadamard Fat Grids

In this paper we address the question if, for points P, Q ? P-2, I(P)I-m(*)(Q)(n) = I(P(*)Q)(m+n-1 )and we obtain different results according to the number of zero coordinates in P and Q. Successively, we use our results to define the so called Hadamard fat grids, which are the result of the Hadamard product of two sets of collinear points with given multiplicities. The most important invariants of Hadamard fat grids, as minimal resolution, Waldschmidt constant and resurgence, are then computed

Editorial: Advances in Invasive and Non-invasive Brain Stimulation for Dystonia and Other Hyperkinetic Movement Disorders

No abstract availabl

Ozone and Ozonated Oils in Skin Diseases: A Review

Although orthodox medicine has provided a variety of topical anti-infective agents, some of them have become scarcely effective owing to antibiotic- and chemotherapeutic-resistant pathogens. For more than a century, ozone has been known to be an excellent disinfectant that nevertheless had to be used with caution for its oxidizing properties. Only during the last decade it has been learned how to tame its great reactivity by precisely dosing its concentration and permanently incorporating the gas into triglycerides where gaseous ozone chemically reacts with unsaturated substrates leading to therapeutically active ozonated derivatives. Today the stability and efficacy of the ozonated oils have been already demonstrated, but owing to a plethora of commercial products, the present paper aims to analyze these derivatives suggesting the strategy to obtain products with the best characteristics