Search results for "Defense"

Nanocarriers for respiratory diseases treatment: Recent advances and current challenges

2014

Pulmonary delivery of locally-acting drugs encapsulated in nanocarriers provides several advantages for the treatment of respiratory diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis and lung cancer. These advantages include, among others, sustained drug delivery to the lungs, reduced therapeutic dose and improved patient compliance. The aim of this review is to give an updated overview on recent advances recorded in the last few years in this field as well as on the major challenges still existing and that remain to be overcome before any clinical application. After an outline on the cellular and extracellular barriers affecting drug delivery to…

La sécurité, la fondation de l'Etat centrafricain : contribution à la recherche de l'Etat de droit

2012

“Ensuring order and security” is a deep-seated desire shared by the whole of humanity. It is therefore reasonable to devote this thesis to the place occupied by insecurity in public debate in the Central African Republic, a state covering roughly the same surface area as France. Security implies that the weight of fear or terror is removed. If order and security are to be genuinely ensured in the Central African Republic, more is required than the absence of bloodshed and the protection of each citizen’s physical integrity. It is also essential that the rights of all be respected and that all citizens should be entitled to the protection of their rights as well as their possessions. Legal s…

Reed Warbler Hosts Do Not Fine-Tune Mobbing Defenses During the Breeding Season, Even When Cuckoos Are Rare

2021

Hosts of brood parasitic cuckoos often employ mobbing attacks to defend their nests and, when mobbing is costly, hosts are predicted to adjust their mobbing to match parasitism risk. While evidence exists for fine-tuned plasticity, it remains unclear why mobbing does not track larger seasonal changes in parasitism risk. Here we test a possible explanation from parental investment theory: parents should defend their current brood more intensively as the opportunity to replace it declines (re-nesting potential), and therefore “counteract” any apparent seasonal decline to match parasitism risk. We take advantage of mobbing experiments conducted at two sites where reed warblers (Acrocephalus sc…

Vineyard irrigation and assessment of ecosystem service: Experimental trials on “Catarratto” cultivar for the production of “Bianco di Alcamo” DOC wi…

2022

Water is an important resource for humans both for drinking and for irrigation. In the case of irrigation, the use of water resources leads to many direct benefits for farmers. The use of irrigation water, in addition to having consequences for those directly involved, determines positive externalities on the ecosystem in general. In this research the value of the ecosystem service that determines water for irrigation was estimated. The method used was that of the gross margin method which determined a value of 200.10 (sic)/ha. The research results are very important in relation to climate change which makes water increasingly important as an element of production in Mediterranean environme…

Predicting the working alliance over the course of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy with the Rorschach Ego Impairment Index, self-reported defen…

2021

Better therapeutic alliances are known to predict better treatment outcomes, but little knowledge still exists on the patient characteristics that lead to better alliances. In a sample of 128 outpatients assigned to long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy and suffering from mood and/or anxiety disorder, this study evaluated how the alliance, measured using the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI), is predicted by three different measures for assessing psychological resources and vulnerabilities: the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS–R), the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ), and the Rorschach-based Ego Impairment Index (EII-2). All the three measures showed some ability to predict t…

From ethnobotany to experimental research: the therapeutic properties of Sicilian hellebore

2018

In Sicily, the genus Helleborus (Ranuculaceae) is only represented by H. bocconei subsp. siculus (= H. bocconei subsp. intermedius). In some mountain areas of the Island, the rhizomes of this plant, harvested in a particular month of the year (May) and dried, are used in traditional veterinary practice for treating pneumonia in domestic animals, cattle and horses in particular. The same usage – with rhizomes of other Helleborus species or subspecies – is reported from various other areas of Mediterranean Europe. Phytochemical tests have permitted the isolation and characterization of new biologically active molecules. The extracts of rhizomes and aerial parts of the plant were shown antibac…

Definition of Seismic Vulnerability Maps for Civil Protection Systems: The Case of Lampedusa Island

2016

The opportunity to locate and quantify the major criticalities associated to natural catastrophic events on a territory allows to plan adequate strategies and interventions by civil protection bodies involved in local and international emergencies. Seismic risk depends, most of all, on the vulnerability of buildings belonging to the urban areas. For this reason, the definition, by a deep analysis of the territory, of instruments identifying and locating vulnerability, largely favours the activities of institutions appointed to safeguard the safety of citizens. This paper proposes a procedure for the definition of vulnerability maps in terms of vulnerability indexes and critical peak ground …

Collaborative Governance and Emergency Management: A Case Study of Latvia

2016

Emergencies – crises, disasters and catastrophes – cannot be managed by individuals or one organization,collaborative actions are needed In the context of this paper, a two-part research on collaborative governance and emergency management in Latvia has been carried out. This research is important because due to extreme weather conditions even “safe” countries should be able to deal with frequently recorded emergencies. It also contributes to the literature on emergency management in the context of Europe. The method of a case study was employed for this qualitative research seeking to clarify the situation and provide answers to the research question. The research showed that much attentio…

[Cartas a Felipe II sobre fortificar los puertos]

Ms Títol pres del llom de l'enquadernació Al f. 2, s'inclou una taula de contingut Numeració antiga: 128 f. ; foliació posterior a llapis asignada pel catalogador: 248 f. ; fulls en blanc (129-228, 229v, 230r) Escrit per diverses mans i algunes anotacions marginals Filigrana Anotacions en el f. 1: "D[o]n Vespasiano Gonzaga, Principe de Sabioneta, Duque de Trageto fue Virrey de Valencia en 1575"; D[o]n Vespasiano Manrique Gonzaga, Conde de Paredes, fue Virrey de Val[enci]a en 1668, abuelo o visabuelo del C[on]de de Parcent actual" Cartes de Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna, datades entre els anys 1570 i 1577, informant sobre les fortificacions i defenses en diferents llocs d'Espanya dirigides, la …

The forager's dilemma: food sharing and food defense as risk-sensitive foraging options.

2003

Although many variants of the hawk-dove game predict the frequency at which group foraging animals should compete aggressively, none of them can explain why a large number of group foraging animals share food clumps without any overt aggression. One reason for this shortcoming is that hawk-dove games typically consider only a single contest, while most group foraging situations involve opponents that interact repeatedly over discovered food clumps. The present iterated hawk-dove game predicts that in situations that are analogous to a prisoner's dilemma, animals should share the resources without aggression, provided that the number of simultaneously available food clumps is sufficiently la…