Search results for "Beni culturali"

Protein aggregates for water purification

Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies including lakes, rivers, oceans and it is a leading global risk factor for illness and death for people, plants and living organisms. A principal source of water pollution is industry, from which increasing amounts of toxic pollutants are released including heavy metals such as cobalt, lead and copper. Today various technologies for purifying contaminated water can be applied, a lot of them being typically expensive, ion specific and characterised by low efficiency. For these reason, the search of new biocompatible materials with increased capabilities is strongly needed.Protein aggregates have already revealed their potential as environm…

Preliminary study on analysis and removal of wax from a Carrara marble statue

2015

This preliminary study has mainly focused on the wax identification by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and removal. Wax is used for many purposes in the field of art as protective coatings on wooden, stone or metal objects. From the comparison of the spectra H NMR and in particular with the correspondence of the resonance peaks of the samples taken from the statue and beeswax and paraffin, we can conclude that the wax applied on the statue surface is beeswax. From our data, it can be concluded that, to remove the beeswax, from any stone support, the more effective solvent is the mixture of cyclohexane/ethyl acetate. The removal percentages ranged from 19 to 99%. Lower percentages of remova…

Hydroxypropyl Cellulose Films Filled with Halloysite Nanotubes/Wax Hybrid Microspheres

2021

The design of novel nanocomposite films based on hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) and wax/halloysite hybrid microspheres has been reported. In particular, we first prepared wax/clay Pickering emulsions which were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis and microscopy. SEM images allowed more detailed insights on the nanotubes disposition at the wax/water interface, acting as an outer stabilizing shell. Therefore, the cellulosic biopolymer was added, and it was found that HPC enhances the colloidal stability of the particles, preventing their coalescence and sedimentation. The preparation of the composite films was carried out by the solvent casting method, which enabled the development of …

Analysis and modeling of wind directions time series

2013

This work aims at studying some aspects of wind directions in Italy and supplying appropriate models. A comparison is presented between independent mixture and Hidden Markov models, which seem to be appropriate as far as the series we studied.

Joint probability distributions for wind speed and direction. A case study in Sicily

2015

In this study we analyze data of hourly average wind speed and direction measured at three different sampling stations located in Sicily (Italy) and provide a statistical model for their joint probability density function. Singly truncated from below Normal Weibull mixture distribution and a linear combination of von Mises distributions are used to model wind speed and direction. Sites with heterogeneous local conditions (prevailing wind direction and/or elevation) have been considered in order to investigate the reliability of the model here taken into consideration.

Resonant activation in polymer translocation: new insights into the escape dynamics of molecules driven by an oscillating field

2010

The translocation of molecules across cellular membranes or through synthetic nanopores is strongly affected by thermal fluctuations. In this work we study how the dynamics of a polymer in a noisy environment changes when the translocation process is driven by an oscillating electric field. An improved version of the Rouse model for a flexible polymer has been adopted to mimic the molecular dynamics, by taking into account the harmonic interactions between adjacent monomers and the excluded-volume effect by introducing a Lennard–Jones potential between all beads. A bending recoil torque has also been included in our model. The polymer dynamics is simulated in a two-dimensional domain by num…

Early stages of beta2-microglobulin aggregation and the inhibiting action of alphaB-crystallin

2008

The interest of nucleation of protein crystals and aggregates (including oligomerization) spans from basic physics theory all the way to biophysics, nanophysics, clinical sciences, biotechnologies, food technologies and polymer-solvent interactions. Understanding nucleation within a theoretical framework capable of providing quantitative predictions and control of nucleation rates, or even the very occurrence of crystallization, is a long-sought goal of remarkable relevance to each of the above fields. A large amount of work has been aimed at such goal, but success has been so far rather limited. Work at our laboratory has more recently highlighted a direct link between nucleation rates and…

STUDY OF CAPILLARY ABSORPTION KINETICS BY X-RAY CT IMAGING TECHNIQUES: A SURVEY ON SEDIMENTARY ROCKS OF SICILY

2008

Sedimentary rocks are natural porous materials with a great percent of microscopic interconnected pores: they contain fluids, permitting their movement on macroscopic scale. Generally, these rocks present porosity higher then metamorphic rocks. Under certain points of view, this feature represents an advantage; on the other hand, this can constitute an obstacle for cultural heritage applications, because the porosity grade can lead to a deterioration of the lapideous monument for water capillary absorption. In this paper, CT (Computerized Tomography) image techniques are applied to capillary absorption kinetics in sedimentary rocks utilized for the Greek temples as well as baroc monuments, …

Charge Sharing and Cross Talk Effects in High-Z and Wide-Bandgap Compound Semiconductor Pixel Detectors

2023

Intense research activities have been made in the development of high-Z and wide-bandgap compound semiconductor pixel detectors for the next generation X-ray and gamma ray spectroscopic imagers. Cadmium telluride (CdTe) and cadmium-zinc-telluride (CdZnTe or CZT) pixel detectors have shown impressive performance in X-ray and gamma ray detection from energies of few keV up to 1 MeV. Charge sharing and cross-talk phenomena represent the typical drawbacks in sub-millimeter pixel detectors, with severe distortions in both energy and spatial resolution. In this chapter, we review the effects of these phenomena on the response of CZT/CdTe pixel detectors, with particular emphasis on the current st…

Digital Pulse-Processing Techniques for X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Semiconductor Detectors

2017

Over the last decade, digital pulse-processing (DPP) electronics have been widely proposed and used for new generation x- and gamma-ray spectrometers. DPP systems, based on direct digitizing and processing of detector signals, lead to better results than the traditional analog pulse-processing electronics in terms of stability, flexibility, reproducibility, energy resolution, throughput, and dead time. In this chapter, we will review the principles of operation of conventional analog electronic chains for x- and gamma-ray semiconductor detectors, with special emphasis on the benefits of the digital approach. The characteristics of a new real-time DPP system, developed by our group, are disc…