Search results for "Spectroscopy"

Role of sex and age in fatal outcomes of COVID-19: women and older centenarians are more resilient.

2023

In the present paper, we have analysed the role of age and sex in the fatal outcome of COVID-19, as there are conflicting results in the literature. As such, we have answered three controversial questions regarding this aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) Have women been more resilient than men? (2) Did centenarians die less than the remaining older people? (3) Were older centenarians more resistant to SARS-CoV-2 than younger centenarians? The literature review demonstrated that: (1) it is women who are more resilient, in agreement with data showing that women live longer than men even during severe famines and epidemics; however, there are conflicting data regarding centenarian men; (2) c…

Multicomponent Antibiofilm Lipid Nanoparticles as Novel Platform to Ameliorate Resveratrol Properties: Preliminary Outcomes on Fibroblast Proliferati…

2023

The well-being of skin and mucous membranes is fundamental for the homeostasis of the body and thus it is imperative to treat any lesion quickly and correctly. In this view, polyphenols might assist and enhance a successful wound healing process by reducing the inflammatory cascade and the production of free radicals. However, they suffer from disadvantageous physico–chemical properties, leading to restricted clinical use. In this work, a complex mixture of PEGylated lipid, Glyceryl monoester, 18-β-Glycyrrhetinic Acid and Menthol was designed to entrap Resveratrol (RSV) as the active ingredient and further produce lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) by homogenization followed by high-freq…

Techniques to evaluate erythrocyte deformability in diabetes mellitus

2005

Using several rheological techniques, we examined the erythrocyte deformability in different groups of diabetic subjects. The macrorheological techniques used for this evaluation were respectively whole-blood filtration, filtration of erythrocyte suspensions, polyviscosimetry and diffractometry. Whole-blood filterability, at a negative pressure of 20 cm water, was decreased in type 2 diabetics; no difference was evident at a negative pressure of 10 cm water. The filtration of erythrocyte suspensions at low haematocrit (5%) did not show differences between normal and diabetic subjects. The polyviscosimetry, which explores the filterability of erythrocyte suspensions at high haematocrit (80%)…

Analysis of sterols by high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry combined with chemometrics

2006

A newly developed high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS) method has been successfully used to analyze plasma concentrations of various phytosterols (cholestanol and beta-sitosterol) and cholesterol metabolites (desmosterol and lathosterol). This was based on an unusual solvent combination of water/methanol vs. methanol/acetone/n-hexane applied on a Purospher Star RP-18e (125 x 2 mm, 3 microm) column, which proved excellent for the separation, identification and quantification of plasma sterols. Simple solid-phase extraction preparation of plasma samples was performed, followed by the developed fast and robust HPLC separation. Results on four groups of people were…

Pathogenetic Mechanisms of Hypertension-Brain-Induced Complications: Focus on Molecular Mediators.

2021

There is growing evidence that hypertension is the most important vascular risk factor for the development and progression of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. The brain is an early target of hypertension-induced organ damage and may manifest as stroke, subclinical cerebrovascular abnormalities and cognitive decline. The pathophysiological mechanisms of these harmful effects remain to be completely clarified. Hypertension is well known to alter the structure and function of cerebral blood vessels not only through its haemodynamics effects but also for its relationships with endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress and inflammation. In the last several years, new possible mechani…

Infrared Spectroscopy In Urolithiasis In Children

2014

FDA dimension reduction techniques and components separation in Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

2020

FTIR spectroscopy is a measurement technique used to obtain an infrared spectrum of absorption of a solid (or a liquid or a gas), for the characterization of specific chemical components of materials. When repeated measures are taken on samples of materials, the result is a collection of spectra representing a set of samples from continous functions (signals) defined in the domain of the frequencies. An unifying approach to the study of a collection of FTIR spectra is proposed to deal with the presence of random shifts in the peaks, the identification of representative spectra and finally the characterization of the observed differences: in the functional data framework, the performance of …

Fabrication of Electrical Contacts on Pyramid-Shaped NTD-Ge Microcalorimeters Using Free-Standing Shadow Masks

2011

In our effort to fabricate arrays of germanium microcalorimeters for X-ray detection, a truncated square-based pyramid shape has been identified as a suitable geometry for the sensors. It allows to obtain a uniform current spreading across each sensor, and represents a good compromise between having a large support area for the radiation absorber and for maintaining an overall small bolometer volume. This three-dimensional geometry, however, does not allow to create the electrical contacts for the sensors using a regular photoresist-based lift-off metallization process. In this paper we show how to deposit metal contacts on the lateral faces of the pyramidal sensors by metal evaporation thr…

Disease Biomarkers: Modelling MR Spectroscopy and Clinical Applications

2012

Clinical MRS has become a reference technique for in vivo evaluating the metabolism of different tissues, with special application to brain and prostate lesion characterization and tumour’s follow-up. It allows detecting relevant changes that cannot be appreciated in the conventional MR images. Nowadays, MRS has been widely applied in many different brain pathologies with excellent results as a disease biomarker. Since the different diseases and grades have different manifestations in the spectroscopic profile, a deep understanding of the subjacent biology is needed for the signal interpretation. The development of high-field (≥3 T) scanners has permitted the acquisition of high-quality MRS…

Multi-spectral mapping of in vivo skin hemoglobin and melanin

2010

The multi-spectral imaging technique has been used for distant mapping of in-vivo skin chromophores by analyzing spectral data at each reflected image pixel and constructing 2-D maps of the relative concentrations of oxy-/deoxyhemoglobin and melanin. Instead of using a broad visible-NIR spectral range, this study focuses on narrowed spectral band 500-700 nm, so speeding-up the signal processing procedure. Regression analysis confirmed that superposition of three Gaussians is optimal analytic approximation for the oxy-hemoglobin absorption tabular spectrum in this spectral band, while superposition of two Gaussians fits well for deoxy-hemoglobin absorption and exponential function - for mela…