Search results for "CA [MG]"

Activated Biochar From Posidonia Oceanica. A New Adsorbent Material of Hydrocarbons from Wastewater

2019

Environmental pollution by petroleum derivatives is a very current topic. In particular, low concentration of this kind of pollutants can seriously compromise the life of animals and plants of aquatic ecosystems (Yu, 2017). The current legislation provides that bilgewater, wastewater produced by boats, can be discharged directly into the sea only if the total hydrocarbon concentration not exceds 15 mg L-1. In this work, new activated carbons were tested as adsorbent materials of oil / hydrocarbons from wastewater. Moreover, an instrumental technique able to quickly measure the required low hydrocarbons concentration is also proposed. The new activated carbons were obtained from bio-oil prod…

Hydrocarbons removal from wastewater by adsorption onto biochar from Posidonia oceanica

Environmental pollution by petroleum derivatives is a very current topic. In particular, low concentration of this kind of pollutants can seriously compromise the life of animals and plants of aquatic ecosystems [1]. For this reason, recent environmental legislation imposes severe restriction to oil-in-water content for overboard discharge with concentration limits from 15 to 5 ppm [2]. The shipping industry is trying to adapt to these directives by equipping ships with cleaning treatment devices in which there are several oil removal steps. Usually, the last step of bilge water treatment is based on adsorption onto suitable adsorbent materials that must be able to remove the last and most …

Bayesian hierarchical models for analysing the spatial distribution of bioclimatic indices

2017

A methodological approach for modelling the spatial distribution of bioclimatic indices is proposed in this paper. The value of the bioclimatic index is modelled with a hierarchical Bayesian model that incorporates both structured and unstructured random effects. Selection of prior distributions is also discussed in order to better incorporate any possible prior knowledge about the parameters that could refer to the particular characteristics of bioclimatic indices. MCMC methods and distributed programming are used to obtain an approximation of the posterior distribution of the parameters and also the posterior predictive distribution of the indices. One main outcome of the proposal is the …

BioMet14 XIV PharmacoBioMetallics Pisa, 24-25 ottobre 2014

2014

Topoisomerase II regulates yeast genes with singular chromatin architectures

2013

Eukaryotic topoisomerase II (topo II) is the essential decatenase of newly replicated chromosomes and the main relaxase of nucleosomal DNA. Apart from these general tasks, topo II participates in more specialized functions. In mammals, topo IIa interacts with specific RNA polymerases and chromatin-remodeling complexes, whereas topo IIb regulates developmental genes in conjunction with chromatin remodeling and heterochromatin transitions. Here we show that in budding yeast, topo II regulates the expression of specific gene subsets. To uncover this, we carried out a genomic transcription run-on shortly after the thermal inactivation of topo II. We identified a modest number of genes not invol…

Specific and global regulation of mRNA stability during osmotic stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

2009

Hyperosmotic stress yields reprogramming of gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells. Most of this response is orchestrated by Hog1, a stress-activated, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) homologous to human p38. We investigated, on a genomic scale, the contribution of changes in transcription rates and mRNA stabilities to the modulation of mRNA amounts during the response to osmotic stress in wild-type and hog1 mutant cells. Mild osmotic shock induces a broad mRNA destabilization; however, osmo-mRNAs are up-regulated by increasing both transcription rates and mRNA half-lives. In contrast, mild or severe osmotic stress in hog1 mutants, or severe osmotic stress in wild-type cel…

Evaluating the effect of organization and context on technical efficiency: a second-stage DEA analysis of Italian hospitals

2022

Objective: the purpose of this study was to compare the technical efficiency of Italian hospitals at a regional level and to examine if differences could be explained by organisational and contextual factors. Technical efficiency was defined as the ability of the operating units evaluated to use optimal resource levels for their level of output.Methods: the effect of external factors was explored through a second stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Efficiency scores were calculated for each hospital using the DEA method (Stage I). Through Tobit regression analysis, the estimated efficiency scores were regressed against a set of organisational and contextual characteristics beyond manager…

Genome-wide homozygosity in Maremmana cattle

2017

The current availability of large numbers of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) throughout the genome makes these markers particularly suitable for the detection of patterns of genetic diversity and of genome-wide homozygosity in animal populations. The aim of this work was to estimate genetic diversity and homozygosity in the Maremmana cattle breed. We used a sample of 149 animals (males and females) geno-typed with the BovineSNP50 v2 (54K) Illumina BeadChip. After editing for call-rate >0.9 and removing SNP unassigned or on the sex chromosomes, 128 animals and 50,814 SNPs were left. We estimated the following genetic parameters: observed and expected heterozygosity (Ho and He), minor …

Association Between Carotid Atherosclerosis and Metabolic Syndrome: Results From the ISMIR Study

2010

The metabolic syndrome (MetS) has previously been associated with an early marker of atherosclerosis, the carotid intima-media thickness (IMT). From the ISMIR (Ispessimento Medio Intimale e Rischio cardiovascolare [media-intima thickness and cardiovascular risk]) study population of 479 asymptomatic participants, we identified 80 participants with MetS. Carotid IMT and plaques were evaluated by ultrasonography. Blood samples were obtained from all participants. Participants with MetS had a significantly higher prevalence of a carotid IMT > 0.80 mm (P = .004) and of carotid plaques (P < .001) as compared with participants without MetS. Carotid IMT was significantly correlated with fas…

Effects of Polyphenol, Measured by a Biomarker of Total Polyphenols in Urine, on Cardiovascular Risk Factors After a Long-Term Follow-Up in the PREDI…

2016

Several epidemiological studies have shown an inverse association between the consumption of polyphenol-rich foods and risk of cardiovascular diseases. However, accuracy and reliability of these studies may be increased using urinary total polyphenol excretion (TPE) as a biomarker for total polyphenol intake. Our aim was to assess if antioxidant activity, measured by a Folin-Ciocalteu assay in urine, is correlated with an improvement in cardiovascular risk factors (blood pressure and serum glucose, cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and triglyceride concentrations) in an elderly population at high risk. A longitudinal study was performed with 573 participants (aged 67.3 ± 5.9) f…