Search results for " ambientali"

Could alanine/EPR dosimetry be useful for ultra-high dose rate beams used for FLASH radiotherapy?

In the last years a large interest has aroused towards radiation therapy treatments with dose rates much larger with respect to the conventional ones since experiments support the evidence of a considerable normal tissue sparing effect. Indeed, in-vivo experiments showed an increasing of the therapeutic window for dose rates over 50 Gy/s [2]. If confirmed, the ‘FLASH effect’ has the potential to re-shape the future of radiation treatments, with a significant impact on many oncology patients. Significant dosimetric challenges should be dealt with for Ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) beams for FLASH radiotherapy [4]. In particular, ionization chambers are affected by ion recombination effects, alt…

Dosimetric characterization of an ultra-high dose rate beam for FLASH radiotherapy through alanine EPR dosimetry

2022

Experimental evidence is growing, supporting the evidence of a considerable normal tissue sparing effect when treatments are delivered with dose rates much larger with respect to the conventional ones [1]. In particular, an increasing of the therapeutic window has been demonstrated for dose rates over 50 Gy/s, over a large variety of in-vivo experiments [2]. If confirmed, the ‘FLASH effect’ has the potential to re-shape the future of radiation treatments, with a significant impact on many oncology patients [3]. Ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) beams for FLASH radiotherapy present significant dosimetric challenges [4]. Ionization chambers are affected by ion recombination effects, although novel …

Alanine EPR pellets for dosimetry of clinical proton and carbon ion beams

2015

The main gol of the present work is to investigate the response behaviour of alanine EPR pellets in clinical proton anc carbon ion beams. Proton irradiations were carried out at PSI (Switzerland) using both passive and active scattering modality, whereas, C ions irradiation were performed at GSI (Germany) adopting the raster scanning modality.

ALANINE/ESR DOSIMETRY FOR TOTAL BODY IRRADIATION USING AN ANTHROPOMORPHIC PHANTOM

2016

Introduction: Total Body Irradiation (TBI) is a technique widely used in the radiation blood-oncology in the treatment of patients that need bone marrow transplantation or peripheral stem cell transplantation. This technique has some limitations such as the lack of homogeneity of the dose distribution (which may show variations of 20% in the different areas), irradiation of critical organs such as the lungs, the liver, the intestine and the eye-lens which can receive a dose comparable to that nominal and require appropriate shielding and a proper evaluation of the dose absorbed by them. The positive outcome of this type of radiation therapy is strictly related to a precise and accurate meas…

Dosimetry to Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) using organic compounds (alanine and ammonium tartrate) for mixed neutron-gamma fields

2015

Alongside with the development of Neutron Capture Therapy (NCT) and the use of thermal neutrons for radiotherapeutic purposes, many efforts have been devoted to the characterization of the beam in order to optimize therapy procedures. Reliable dose measurements should be able to determine the various (neutrons and photonic) components of the mixed beam usually employed for therapy. This paper studies the effect of additives such as Boric and Gadolinium nuclei on the sensitivity of neutron organic (alanine and ammonium tartrate) dosimeters analyzed through Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) technique. These dosimeters were exposed to a mixed (neutron-gamma) field mainly composed of thermal neutro…

Comparison of EPR response of alanine and Gd2O3-alanine dosimeters exposed to TRIGA Mainz reactor.

2015

In this work we report some preliminary results regarding the analysis of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) response of alanine pellets and alanine pellets added with gadolinium used for dosimetry at the TRIGA research reactor in Mainz, Germany. Two set-ups were evaluated: irradiation inside PMMA phantom and irradiation inside boric acid phantom. We observed that the presence of Gd2O3 inside alanine pellets increases the EPR signal by a factor of 3.45 and 1.24 in case of PMMA and boric acid phantoms, respectively. We can conclude that in the case of neutron beam with a predominant thermal neutron component the addition of gadolinium oxide can significantly improve neutron sensitivity of…

MODELLISTICA MATEMATICA E PIATTAFORME INFORMATICHE A SUPPORTO DELLA RICERCA AMBIENTALE

2021

La modellizzazione matematica è diventata ormai uno strumento essenziale nell’avanzamento delle conoscenze in qualsiasi campo della scienza, dall’econometria alla psicologia, dalla chimica all’epidemiologia, come vissuto di recente nella pandemia da SARS-coV-2. Anche quelle che erano una volta discipline “soft” come la biomedicina o l’ecologia possono ora usufruire di tecniche di rappresentazione ed esplicazione dei processi estremamente utili alla comprensione delle dinamiche in gioco. Questa evoluzione, dovuta in non piccola parte all’attuale disponibilità di abbondante potenza di calcolo elettronico a costi ridotti, non è però opera ed appannaggio soltanto della nostra generazione. Lo st…

Cholesterol facilitates interactions between α‐synuclein oligomers and charge‐neutral membranes

2015

AbstractOligomeric species formed during α-synuclein fibrillation are suggested to be membrane-disrupting agents, and have been associated with cytotoxicity in Parkinson’s disease. The majority of studies, however, have revealed that the effect of α-synuclein oligomers is only noticeable on systems composed of anionic lipids, while the more physiologically relevant zwitterionic lipids remain intact. We present experimental evidence for significant morphological changes in zwitterionic membranes containing cholesterol, induced by α-synuclein oligomers. Depending on the lipid composition, model membranes are either unperturbed, disrupt, or undergo dramatic morphological changes and segregate …

Secondary nucleation and accessible surface in insulin amyloid fibril formation.

2008

At low pH insulin is highly prone to self-assembly into amyloid fibrils. The process has been proposed to be affected by the existence of secondary nucleation pathways, in which already formed fibrils are able to catalyze the formation of new fibrils. In this work, we studied the fibrillation process of human insulin in a wide range of protein concentrations. Thioflavin T fluorescence was used for its ability to selectively detect amyloid fibrils, by mechanisms that involve the interaction between the dye and the accessible surface of the fibrils. Our results show that the rate of fibrillation and the Thioflavin T fluorescence intensity saturate at high protein concentration and that, surpr…

Multiple aggregation mechanism in Abeta(1-40) fibril formation

2011

A general characteristic of aggregation is the multiple interaction and cross-feedback among distinct mechanisms occurring at different hierarchical levels. The comprehension of the different species interconversion during aggregation is very important since emerging evidences indicate intermediate oligomeric aggregates as primary toxic species. In this context, Aβ amyloid peptide provides a challenging model for studying aggregation phenomena both for the complexity of its association process and for the direct implications in Alzheimer’s Disease. Indeed, aggregates growth conditions strongly affect their final morphology and their molecular structure as well as the time evolution of aggre…