Search results for "FN"

Zirconium–hafnium and rare earth element signatures discriminating the effect of atmospheric fallout from hydrothermal input in volcanic lake water

2016

The geochemical behaviour of Rare Earth Elements, Zr and Hf was investigated in the thermal waters of Nevado del Ruiz volcano system. A wide range of pH, between 1.0 and 8.8, characterizes these fluids. The acidicwaters are sulphate dominatedwith different Cl/SO4 ratios. The important role of the pH and the ionic complexes for the distribution of REE, Zr a nd Hf in the aqueous phase was evidenced. The pH rules the precipitation of authigenic Fe and Al oxyhydroxides producing changes in REE, Zr, Hf amounts and strong anomalies of Cerium. The precipitation of alunite and jarosite removes LREE from the solution, changing the REE distribution in acidic waters. Y-Ho and Zr-Hf (twin pairs) have a…

Geochemistry of Zr, Hf and REE in extreme water environments: hyperacid, hyper saline and lake waters in hydrothermal systems

This PhD thesis concerns the geochemistry of Zr, Hf and REE in extreme water environments characterized by a wide spectrum of chemical physical-parameters and compositions. The investigations were carried out in hypersaline waters covering a wide range of Eh values along Dead Sea Fault (Israel), in hyperacid waters circulating in Nevado del Ruiz volcano-hydrothermal system (Colombia) and in CO2-rich waters belonging to the Pantelleria volcano-hydrothermal system (Italy), including the alkaline lake “Specchio di Venere” formed within a calderic depression. The wide spectrum of chemical-physical conditions and various water chemical compositions interacting with different solid phases allowed…

Stretch-shortening cycle: a powerful model to study normal and fatigued muscle.

2000

Stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) in human skeletal muscle gives unique possibilities to study normal and fatigued muscle function. The in vivo force measurement systems, buckle transducer technique and optic fiber technique, have revealed that, as compared to a pure concentric action, a non-fatiguing SSC exercise demonstrates considerable performance enhancement with increased force at a given shortening velocity. Characteristic to this phenomenon is very low EMG-activity in the concentric phase of the cycle, but a very pronounced contribution of the short-latency stretch-reflex component. This reflex contributes significantly to force generation during the transition (stretch-shortening) pha…

Parameters affecting the fundamental period of infilled RC frame structures

2015

Despite the fact that the fundamental period appears to be one of the most critical parameters for the seismic design of structures according to the modal superposition method, the so far available in the literature proposals for its estimation are often conflicting with each other making their use uncertain. Furthermore, the majority of these proposals do not take into account the presence of infills walls into the structure despite the fact that infill walls increase the stiffness and mass of structure leading to significant changes in the fundamental period numerical value. Toward this end, this paper presents a detailed and in-depth analytical investigation on the parameters that affect…

The Influence of Hierarchical Masks on Masked Repetition Priming: Evidence From Event-Related Potential Investigation

2019

The discussion about relationship between prime and target has contributed to the mechanism of priming effect and object recognition. Nevertheless, the role of relationship between mask and target in those cognitive processes remains unquestioned. In the present study, we aim to investigate how mask-target hierarchical relationship may affect word priming and familiarity, by using the masked repetition paradigm and manipulating three hierarchical relationship between mask and target. It is hypothesized that a closer hierarchical relationship between mask and target is associated with a higher mask target similarity, and thereby it leads to a worse recognition performance. Our behavioral res…

Intermittent Low-Dose IFN Gamma Treatment for Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma: Analysis of Factors Predicting Clinical Response and Long-Term Survival

1995

Background: Objective tumor remissions are induced by a variety of immunomodulating agents in a minority of patients suffering from metastasizing renal cell carcinoma. The results of different clinical studies, however, varied greatly for each of these treatment modalities. In order to elucidate potential causes for this variability and to further study the long-term results of intermittent low-dose IFN gamma therapy in patients with advanced renal cell cancer (RCC) we retrospectively analyzed factors predicting clinical response and long-term survival of 121 patients. Material and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical results of 5 phase II studies treating 121 patients with int…

IFN-gamma-induced protein 10 is a novel biomarker of rhinovirus-induced asthma exacerbations

2007

BACKGROUND: Rhinovirus-induced acute asthma is the most frequent trigger for asthma exacerbations. OBJECTIVE: We assessed which inflammatory mediators were released from bronchial epithelial cells (BECs) after infection with rhinovirus and then determined whether they were also present in subjects with acute virus-induced asthma, with the aim to identify a biomarker or biomarkers for acute virus-induced asthma. METHODS: BECs were obtained from bronchial brushings of steroid-naive asthmatic subjects and healthy nonatopic control subjects. Cells were infected with rhinovirus 16. Inflammatory mediators were measured by means of flow cytometry with a cytometric bead array. Subjects with acute a…

Vasoactive peptide urotensin II in plasma is associated with cerebral vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage and constitutes a potential …

2019

National audience; OBJECTIVECerebral vasospasm (VS) is a severe complication of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Urotensin II (UII) is a potent vasoactive peptide activating the urotensin (UT) receptor, potentially involved in brain vascular pathologies. The authors hypothesized that UII/UT system antagonism with the UT receptor antagonist/biased ligand urantide may be associated with post-SAH VS. The objectives of this study were 2-fold: 1) to leverage an experimental mouse model of SAH with VS in order to study the effect of urotensinergic system antagonism on neurological outcome, and 2) to investigate the association between plasma UII level and symptomatic VS after SAH in huma…

ASSOCIATION OF SERUM URIC ACID WITH AORTIC STIFFNESS IN UNTREATED HYPERTENSIVE SUBJECTS.

2013

INTRODUCTION: Recent studies have reported an association between serum uric acid (SUA) and reduced arterial elasticity. However, in these studies arterial elastic properties have been assessed chiefly by measuring brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (PWV) or peripheral PWV and only sometimes by using aortic PWV, that is considered the gold standard for measuring arterial stiffness. Moreover, the studies exploring the influence of SUA on aortic distensibility in subjects with arterial hypertension yielded conflicting results. AIM: The purpose of our study was to evaluate the relationships between SUA and aortic stiffness in a group of essential hypertensive patients. METHODS: We enrolled 222…

FATTORI ASSOCIATI ALLA DISCORDANZA TRA ALTERAZIONI DELLA PULSE WAVE VELOCITY AORTICA E AUMENTO DELLO SPESSORE MIO-INTIMALE CAROTIDEO IN SOGGETTI IPER…

2014

Numerosi studi hanno dimostrato come lo spessore mio-intimale carotideo (IMTc), valutato mediante eco-color-Doppler, sia un importante marcatore di danno d’organo subclinico nonché espressione di alterazione vascolare sistemica. Recenti dati, d’altro canto, hanno evidenziato come anche la pulse wave velocity aortica (PWVa), nota misura di stiffness arteriosa, sia indice di precoce danno vasale. Pur dipendendo parzialmente da comuni fattori patogenetici, IMTc e PWVa non hanno un significato clinico del tutto sovrapponibile e risultano non raramente discordanti tra loro. Appare pertanto interessante identificare quali siano i fattori associati al divergente comportamento di tali parametri. So…