Search results for "PSO"
showing 10 items of 679 documents
Surface properties of valine-gramicidin A at the air-water interface
1996
Abstract Fluorescence microscopy, X-ray reflectivity and ellipsometry have been applied to the study of a monolayer of valine-gramicidin A (VGA) at the air-water interface to obtain insight into the conformation and orientation of VGA, and to clarify the shoulder observed in its π - A curve (12.5–16 mN m −1 , 240 – 175 A 2 molecule −1 ). At low molecular areas, the X-ray reflectivities are consistent with formation of a single layer of tubular-shaped dimers. Fluorescence microscopy yielded homogeneous pictures suggesting that on the macroscopic scale the shoulder cannot be attributed to domain formation. Thicknesses calculated from the ellipsometric isotherm are consistent with the X-ray da…
Automatic correction of the effects of the light source on spherical objects. An application to the analysis of hyperspectral images of citrus fruits
2008
This study proposes a method for correcting the adverse effects produced by the curvature of spherical objects in acquiring images with a computer vision system. Its suitability has been illustrated in a specific case of citrus fruits. The images of this kind of fruit are darker in areas nearer the edge than in the centre, and this makes them more difficult to analyse. This methodology considers the fruit as being a Lambertian ellipsoidal surface and produces a 3D model of the fruit. By doing it becomes possible to calculate the part of the radiation that should really reach the camera and to make the intensity of the radiation uniform over the whole of the fruit surface captured by the cam…
Surface-exposed Amino Acid Residues of HPV16 L1 Protein Mediating Interaction with Cell Surface Heparan Sulfate
2007
Efficient infection of cells by human papillomaviruses (HPVs) and pseudovirions requires primary interaction with cell surface proteoglycans with apparent preference for species carrying heparan sulfate (HS) side chains. To identify residues contributing to virus/cell interaction, we performed point mutational analysis of the HPV16 major capsid protein, L1, targeting surface-exposed amino acid residues. Replacement of lysine residues 278, 356, or 361 for alanine reduced cell binding and infectivity of pseudovirions. Various combinations of these amino acid exchanges further decreased cell attachment and infectivity with residual infectivity of less than 5% for the triple mutant, suggesting …
Semiparametric Models with Functional Responses in a Model Assisted Survey Sampling Setting : Model Assisted Estimation of Electricity Consumption Cu…
2010
This work adopts a survey sampling point of view to estimate the mean curve of large databases of functional data. When storage capacities are limited, selecting, with survey techniques a small fraction of the observations is an interesting alternative to signal compression techniques. We propose here to take account of real or multivariate auxiliary information available at a low cost for the whole population, with semiparametric model assisted approaches, in order to improve the accuracy of Horvitz-Thompson estimators of the mean curve. We first estimate the functional principal components with a design based point of view in order to reduce the dimension of the signals and then propose s…
Soil Erosion as an Environmental Concern ... for Everyone?
2020
Nowadays, the scientific community is aware of the negative environmental impacts of soil erosion on ecosystem services. Soil erosion is one of the most important causes of land degradation because of its immediate influence of the most fertile topsoil parts. It is well-known that questions related to who, what, why, where and when soil erosion causes negative impacts must be considered by stakeholders and policymakers. However, why do the Sustainable Development Goals tell anything about soil erosion? In this keynote, we will try to show the importance to develop tools which can be used to assess soil erosion to obtain convincing results for stakeholders and policymakers. According to this…
Critical range of soil organic carbon in southern Europe lands under desertification risk.
2021
Soil quality is fundamental for ecosystem long term functionality, productivity and resilience to current climatic changes. Despite its importance, soil is lost and degraded at dramatic rates worldwide. In Europe, the Mediterranean areas are a hotspot for soil erosion and land degradation due to a combination of climatic conditions, soils, geomorphology and anthropic pressure. Soil organic carbon (SOC) is considered a key indicator of soil quality as it relates to other fundamental soil functions supporting crucial ecosystem services. In the present study, the functional relationships among SOC and other important soil properties were investigated in the topsoil of 38 sites under different …
S2k guideline for treatment of cutaneous lupus erythematosus - guided by the European Dermatology Forum (EDF) in cooperation with the European Academ…
2016
Cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) is a rare inflammatory autoimmune disease with heterogeneous clinical manifestations. To date, no therapeutic agents have been licensed specifically for patients with this disease entity, and topical and systemic drugs are mostly used 'off-label'. The aim of the present guideline was to achieve a broad consensus on treatment strategies for patients with CLE by a European subcommittee, guided by the European Dermatology Forum (EDF) and supported by the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV). In total, 16 European participants were included in this project and agreed on all recommendations. Topical corticosteroids remain the mainstay of trea…
Real-world evidence of biologic treatments in psoriatic arthritis in Italy: results of the CHRONOS (EffeCtiveness of biologic treatments for psoriati…
2022
Abstract Background Biologics have demonstrated efficacy in PsA in randomized clinical trials. More evidence is needed on their effectiveness under real clinical practice conditions. The aim of the present work is to provide real-world evidence of the effectiveness of biologics for PsA in the daily clinical practice. Methods CHRONOS was a multicenter, non-interventional, cohort study conducted in 20 Italian hospital rheumatology clinics. Results 399 patients were eligible (56.9% females, mean (SD) age: 52.4 (11.6) years). The mean (SD) duration of PsA and psoriasis was 7.2 (6.9) and 15.3 (12.2) years, respectively. The mean (SD) duration of the biologic treatment under analysis was 18.6 (6.…
Cambios en las tendencias de la prescripción y causas de la interrupción en los tratamientos biológicos indicados en la psoriasis durante los primero…
2020
Resumen Antecedentes y objetivos Las guias sobre el tratamiento de la psoriasis habitualmente no incluyen las recomendaciones acerca de cual debe ser la primera linea de tratamiento sistemico o biologico. Los objetivos de este estudio fueron describir las tendencias en la prescripcion del primer farmaco biologico y comparar la retirada de los farmacos y las tasas de efectos adversos a lo largo de los 10 anos de seguimiento. Material y metodos Se utilizo el registro Biobadaderm para determinar cual fue el primer farmaco biologico indicado en pacientes con psoriasis naive para biologicos, asi como cual es la tasa de efectos adversos y los motivos de suspension de los farmacos. Los resultados …
Sulfur isotope ratio measurements of individual sulfate particles by NanoSIMS
2008
Abstract The sulfur isotopic compositions of barite (BaSO4), anhydrite (CaSO4), gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O), mascagnite ((NH4)2SO4), thenardite (Na2SO4), boetite (K2SO4), epsomite (MgSO4·7H2O), magnesium sulfate (MgSO4·xH2O) and cysteine (an amino acid) were determined with a Cameca NanoSIMS 50 ion microprobe employing a Cs+ primary ion beam and measuring negative secondary ions. This ion microprobe permits the analysis of sulfur isotope ratios in sulfates on 0.001–0.5 ng of sample material, enabling the analysis of individual S-bearing particles with diameters as small as 500 nm. The grain-to-grain reproducibility of measurements is typically 5‰ (1σ) for micron-sized grains,