Search results for "Label"

Preclinical Retinal Neurodegeneration in a Model of Multiple Sclerosis

2012

Neurodegeneration plays a major role in multiple sclerosis (MS), in which it is thought to be the main determinant of permanent disability. However, the relationship between the immune response and the onset of neurodegeneration is still a matter of debate. Moreover, recent findings in MS patients raised the question of whether primary neurodegenerative changes can occur in the retina independent of optic nerve inflammation. Using a rat model of MS that frequently leads to optic neuritis, we have investigated the interconnection between neurodegenerative and inflammatory changes in the retina and the optic nerves with special focus on preclinical disease stages. We report that, before manif…

Phosphodiesterase inhibition induces retinal degeneration, oxidative stress and inflammation in cone-enriched cultures of porcine retina.

2013

nherited retinal degenerations affecting both rod and cone photoreceptors constitute one of the causes 74 of incurable blindness in the developed world. Cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) is crucial in the 75 phototransduction and, mutations in genes related to its metabolism are responsible for different retinal 76 dystrophies. cGMP-degrading phosphodiesterase 6 (PDE6) mutations cause around 4e5% of the retinitis 77 pigmentosa, a rare form of retinal degeneration. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether phar- 78 macological PDE6 inhibition induced retinal degeneration in cone-enriched cultures of porcine retina 79 similar to that found in murine models. PDE6 inhibition was induced…

ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY PERFORMANCES OF BUILDING PRODUCTS: A WORKING CHAIN BASED ANALYSIS

2014

The present work is aimed at investigating the environmental and energy performances of products to be utilized in buildings. Specifically, marble (Section 1), granite (Section 2) and natural materials (Section 3) will be analyzed. The marble features are here studied on the basis of a field working chain audit. Particularly, two representative firms of the Custonaci productive basin (Trapani) have been considered. Their working chain have been investigated, by the point of view of the energy and materials flows, with a classical Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. Moreover, the social and economic impacts of such materials have also been assessed by means of the Life Cycle Costing (LCC) …

Fine-tuning scaffolds for tissue regeneration: effects of formic acid processing on tissue reaction to silk fibroin

2010

Formic acid (FA) plays a key role in the preparation of silk fibroin (SF) scaffolds from cocoons of Bombyx mori and is used for fibre distribution. In this study, we used a subcutaneous implantation model in Wistar rats to examine SF scaffolds prepared by treating the degummed cocoon with FA for either 30 or 60 min. The tissue reaction and inflammatory response to SF was assessed by qualitative histology at intervals from 3 to 180 days. Additionally, dynamic biomaterial-induced vascularization and biomaterial degradation were quantified using a technique for analysing an image of the entire implanted biomaterial. Varying the FA treatment time led to different scaffold morphologies and resul…

The overall classification of residential buildings: Possible role of tourist EU Ecolabel award scheme

2012

Abstract The debate on the environmental performance of buildings and their classification is continuously rising and deeply involves all actors of the sector, from researchers to technicians and from owners to real estate managers. In the field, the EU has created a panel that is currently working on defining the criteria for attributing an Ecolabel award to a building. However, despite the enormous efforts made by administrative and academic institutions, a suitable and widely available scheme for operators to assess the environmental performance of a building is far from being established. To help provide a solution to the problem, the possibility of adopting the EU Ecolabel scheme estab…

Toward a European Eco-label brand for residential buildings: Holistic or by-components approaches?

2011

The Eco-label scheme is becoming ever more important in the environmental certification of products and services, especially in light of the recent ambitious aim of containing greenhouse emissions and improving the efficiency of utilizing energy sources. A recently-introduced hypothesis concerns the European Eco-label scheme relating to buildings, in the awareness that the construction industry is of primary importance to the whole economic and social life of states. This scheme should adopt an integrated approach to environmental problems and include construction, day-to-day management, and the possible disposal of building materials, throughout the life cycle of the building. In addition,…

Consumer Demand for Environmental, Social, and Ethical Information in Fishery and Aquaculture Product Labels

2022

[EN] Customers' attention to sustainability labels in fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs) has been increasing in the last decades, and the industry has adapted to this growing interest by adopting fish ecolabels. However, there is a growing interest to widen the sustainability concept to include the social and ethical information of the fishery and aquaculture industry and to go further from the voluntary approach on the labeling of these aspects in FAPs. For this reason, using data from 2021 Eurobarometer and using machine learning techniques, we disentangle the characteristics of the FAP buyers that consider the importance of environmental impact, ethical, and social information appea…

Seismic sequences identification in Italy by local test of random labelling

2023

Carbohydrate-Mediated Biomolecular Recognition and Gating of Synthetic Ion Channels

2013

Nanochannel-based biosensing devices have been proposed for selective detection of protein analyte molecules. However, the design and miniaturization of reusable channel-based biosensors is still a challenge in nanoscience and biotechnology. We present here a reusable nanofluidic biosensor based on reversible lectin-carbohydrate interactions. The nanochannels are fabricated in heavy ion tracked polymer membranes. The channel walls are functionalized with p-aminophenyl alpha-D-mannopyranoside (APMP) monolayers through carbodiimide coupling chemistry. The chemical (mannopyranoside) groups on the inner channel walls serve as binding sites and interact with specific protein molecules. The bindi…

Serotoninergic innervation of nonprincipal cells in the cerebral cortex of the lizard Podarcis hispanica.

2004

The mechanism of serotoninergic transmission in the neo- and archicortex of mammals kis complex, including both synaptic and nonsynaptic components, direct actions on principal cells, and indirect effects mediated by GABAergic interneurons. Here we studied the termination pattern and synaptic organization of the serotoninergic afferents in the cerebral cortex of the lizard, Podarcis hispanica, which is considered to correspond in part to the mammalian hippocampal formation, with the aim of unraveling basic, phylogenetically preserved rules in the connectivity of this pathway. We demonstrate that serotoninergic afferents, visualized by immunostaining for serotonin itself, establish multiple …