Search results for "TLE"
showing 10 items of 2417 documents
Effects of confinement on insulin amyloid fibrils formation.
2006
Insulin, a 51-residue protein universally used in diabetes treatment, is known to produce amyloid fibrils at high temperature and acidic conditions. As for other amyloidogenic proteins, the mechanisms leading to nucleation and growth of insulin fibrils are still poorly understood. We here report a study of the fibrillation process for insulin confined in a suitable polymeric hydrogel, with the aim of ascertain the effects of a reduced protein mobility on the various phases of the process. The results indicate that, with respect to standard aqueous solutions, the fibrillation process is considerably slowed down at moderately high concentrations and entirely suppressed at low concentration. M…
Economic Adaptation to Risky Environment in the Late Middle Ages: The Case of the "Accrues" of the Doubs in Chaussin (Jura, France) from c. 1370 to c…
2017
Located along the meanders of the Doubs, the people of Chaussin had to deal with the particular impact of the river on their environment. Due to the impact of the Little Ice Age on water levels in the area, the Doubs sometimes had special floods, which frequently changed its course from the end of the fourteenth century. As a result, some lands were absorbed, and others emerged, which were called the “accrues.” From 1377 the first observation of lost lands appears in the accounts of the castellan, in a petition from landowners who did not want to pay taxes on these fields. More than twenty years later, in the first decade of the fifteenth century, the duke of Burgundy, facing the same situa…
Direct Compensation and Risk Management: A Key Study from the Insurance Sector
2019
This paper examines the business model of an Italian company (TIS) that manage the claims for non-life insurance companies with innovative solutions. When a policy-holder make a claim for a loss or damage, the insurer may decide either to repair, rebuild or replace the property or to offer a cash settlement. To provide these services, many insurance companies have started developing strategic relationships directly with building firms, repairers, specialist suppliers and project managers, in order to find reliable contractors that will repair or replace the policy holder’s property quickly, with high quality and at a low cost. Opposite to other EU Countries, in Italy many insurance companie…
New Tendencies of Management and Control of Operational Risk in Financial Institutions
2013
Abstract Nowadays, financial institutions highly recognize a great influence of effective risk management on profit abilities. Therefore risk management became an important part of the financial instrument. According to the latest researches, there still remain problems related to the management of various types of risks. For instance, the Basel Committee of the Bank of International Settlements imposes financial institutions for more intensive devoting their attention to operational risk management problems. Due to the increased intensity of performed financial operations, financial institutions became very vulnerable to operational risks. In many cases, the high level of operational risks…
Destructuration of typical Sicilian calcarenites
2010
The paper discusses some interesting features of Sicilian fine grain calcarenites. Uniaxial, triaxial, oedometer and isotropic compression tests were undertaken on intact specimens of two types of calcarenite in order to investigate their mechanical characteristics. It was found that the strength and deformability is significantly influenced by the structure (fabric and bonding) and by the destructuration processes. A better understanding of fracture development behavior is gained through a combination of acoustic emission and photographic monitoring on non-homogeneous samples with natural pre-existing heterogeneities due to cementation or to density. The results show that the destructurati…
Resource-efficient hardware implementation of a neural-based node for automatic fingerprint classification
2017
Modern mobile communication networks and Internet of Things are paving the way to ubiquitous and mobile computing. On the other hand, several new computing paradigms, such as edge computing, demand for high computational capabilities on specific network nodes. Ubiquitous environments require a large number of distributed user identification nodes enabling a secure platform for resources, services and information management. Biometric systems represent a useful option to the typical identification systems. An accurate automatic fingerprint classification module provides a valuable indexing scheme that allows for effective matching in large fingerprint databases. In this work, an efficient em…
The effect of vertical ground movement on masonry walls simulated through an elastic–plastic interphase meso-model: a case study
2019
The present paper proposes an interphase model for the simulation of damage propagation in masonry walls in the framework of a mesoscopic approach. The model is thermodynamically consistent, with constitutive relations derived from a Helmholtz free potential energy. With respect to classic interface elements, the internal stress contribute is added to the contact stresses. It is considered that damage, in the form of loss of adhesion or cohesion, can potentially take place at each of the two blocks–mortar physical interfaces. Flow rules are obtained in the framework of the Theory of Plasticity, considering bilinear domains of ‘Coulomb with tension cut-off’ type. The model aims to be a first…
Turtles on the trash track: loggerhead turtles exposed to floating plastic in the Mediterranean Sea
2019
Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) spend most of their life in large marine areas occupying a variety of habitats where they are exposed to different types of threats. Among these, marine litter is known to pose a risk of entanglement or ingestion. Areas of risk exposure can be identified where the species overlap with litter accumulations, but gathering data on this highly mobile species and marine litter, especially in high sea areas, is challenging. Here we analysed five years of sea turtle and marine litter data collected by a network of research bodies along fixed trans-border transects in the Mediterranean Sea. Ferries were used as observation platforms to gather systematic data on …
Behavioural strategy of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in response to different kinds of boats in the waters of Lampedusa Island (It…
2013
Owing to the increase of boat-traffic in the ocean many studies have been conducted to determine the response of bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) to this kind of disturbance. This species is affected by boats in various ways and the response depends on the behavioural state of the dolphin but also on the kind of vessel. This study aimed to determine the effect of motorboats and trawlers on dolphins' presence, permanence in the area and whistle parameters in Lampedusa waters (Italy). Sampling was carried out between May and December 2006 and between July and September 2009, using experimental passive acoustic monitoring systems (PAM); a total of 300 h of recordings and 3000 whistles w…
Diet of the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) in the western Mediterranean Sea
2001
The stomach contents of 16 bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus (Cetacea: Odontoceti) stranded in the Spanish Mediterranean coast were examined. Remains and size of prey were analysed and correlated with the ecological characteristics and behavioural patterns of this dolphin. Fish and cephalopods represented the main diet components, and hake Merluccius merluccius was the most important prey. The food habits were considered as mainly demersal according to the characteristics of the prey. The study suggested ontogenic and sexual differences in feeding behaviour based on diet composition and hake size. The potential causative factors, particularly as they relate to dolphin social structure,…