Search results for "heavy [meson]"
showing 10 items of 385 documents
Multidisciplinary Approach for Evaluating the Geochemical Degradation of Building Stone Related to Pollution Sources in the Historical Center of Napl…
2020
Natural stones have represented one of the main building materials since ancient times. In recent decades, a worsening in degradation phenomena related mostly to environmental pollution was observed, threatening their conservation. The present work is focused on the minero-petrographic and geochemical characterization of black crust (BC) samples taken from the historical center of Naples, after selecting two pilot monumental areas. The latter were chosen based on their historical importance, type of material, state of preservation and position in the urban context (i.e., high vehicular traffic area, limited traffic area, industrial area, etc.). The building materials used and their interact…
L -lysine and EDTA polymer mimics as resins for the quantitative and reversible removal of heavy metal ion water pollutants
2012
Traditional precipitation methods for inorganic micropollutant removal from waters are increasingly being replaced by sorption methods based on both natural and synthetic materials. In this context, two novel effective heavy metal ions absorbers are presented. These resins, LYMA and LMT85, were crosslinked poly(amidoamine)s carrying amine and carboxyl groups in their repeating units. In particular, the LYMA-repeating unit contains one carboxyl and two amine groups and is a mimic of L-lysine, whereas LMT85 contains two amine and five carboxyl groups and is a mimic of EDTA. Both resins were prepared at moderate cost by simple eco-friendly procedures. The heavy metal ion set adopted as benchma…
Sorption of Cadmium and Zinc in Selected Species of Epigeic Mosses
2014
The sorption abilities of seven moss species growing on the area of Bory Stobrawskie forest (southern Poland) were tested in laboratory. Sorption was carried out in solutions of Zn and Cd chlorides. It has been shown that the sorption properties depend on the moss species and increases in the series as follows: Polytrichum commune < Leucobryum glaucum < Eurhynchium praelongum < Thuidium tamtariscifolium ≤ Dicranum scoparium ≤ Pleurozium schreberi < Sphagnum sp. With help of microscope images, it was also demonstrated that one of the factors affecting the sorption properties of mosses was the level of their surface development. The determined sorption capacity of Zn varies according to speci…
Chemistry, mineralogy and radioactivity inposidonia oceanicameadows from North-Western Sicily
2004
This paper presents measurements of major, minor, metal trace elements and radionuclides in sediments and in Posidonia oceanica samples from north-western Sicily (Italy). The mineralogical and chemical composition of sediments were determined by X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence techniques, respectively. A flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used to measure concentrations of Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb in P. oceanica samples and in sediments. Specific activities of selected radionuclides have been determined by high-resolution gamma spectrometry. Standard statistical analysis was used to assess correlations between different elements and different sample types.
Heavy Metals and Human Health: Possible Exposure Pathways and the Competition for Protein Binding Sites
2021
Heavy metals enter the human body through the gastrointestinal tract, skin, or via inhalation. Toxic metals have proven to be a major threat to human health, mostly because of their ability to cause membrane and DNA damage, and to perturb protein function and enzyme activity. These metals disturb native proteins’ functions by binding to free thiols or other functional groups, catalyzing the oxidation of amino acid side chains, perturbing protein folding, and/or displacing essential metal ions in enzymes. The review shows the physiological and biochemical effects of selected toxic metals interactions with proteins and enzymes. As environmental contamination by heavy metals is one of the most…
Toxicogenomics for the prediction of toxicity related to herbs from traditional Chinese medicine.
2010
Toxicogenomics represents the integration of genomics and toxicology to investigate the interaction between genes and environmental stress in human health. It is a scientific field that studies how the genome is involved in responses to environmental stressors and toxicants. The patterns of altered gene expression that are caused by specific exposures or disease outcomes reveal how toxicants may act and cause disease. Nowadays, toxicogenomics faces great challenges in discriminating the molecular basis of toxicity. We do believe that advances in this field will eventually allow us to describe all the toxicological interactions that occur within a living system. Toxicogenomic responses of a …
Pollutant concentrations in placenta.
2011
Unborn children are exposed to environmental pollutants via the placenta, and there is a causal relationship between maternal intake of pollutants and fetal exposure. Placental examination is an effective way for acquiring data for estimating fetal exposure. We analyzed the concentrations of 104 congeners of persistent organic pollutants, seven organotin compounds, five heavy metals, and methylmercury in 130 randomly selected placentas. Additionally, we examined similarities between pollutant concentrations by analyzing correlations between their placental concentrations. Our results yield new information for conducting contaminant risk assessments for the prenatal period. Out of the 117 in…
Weak decays of heavy hadrons into dynamically generated resonances
2016
In this paper, we present a review of recent works on weak decay of heavy mesons and baryons with two mesons, or a meson and a baryon, interacting strongly in the final state. The aim is to learn about the interaction of hadrons and how some particular resonances are produced in the reactions. It is shown that these reactions have peculiar features and act as filters for some quantum numbers which allow to identify easily some resonances and learn about their nature. The combination of basic elements of the weak interaction with the framework of the chiral unitary approach allow for an interpretation of results of many reactions and add a novel information to different aspects of the hadron…
Poisoning histories in the Italian renaissance: The case of Pico Della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano.
2018
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano were two of the most important humanists of the Italian Renaissance. They died suddenly in 1494 and their deaths have been for centuries a subject of debate. The exhumation of their remains offered the opportunity to study the cause of their death through a multidisciplinary research project. Anthropological analyses, together with documentary evidences, radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA analysis supported the identification of the remains attributed to Pico. Macroscopic examination did not reveal paleopathological lesions or signs related to syphilis. Heavy metals analysis, carried out on bones and mummified tissues, showed that in Pico's…
The Origin of Heavy Metals and Radionuclides Accumulated in the Soil and Biota Samples Collected in Svalbard, Near Longyearbyen
2017
Abstract Heavy metals and radioactive compounds are potentially hazardous substances for plants, animals and humans in the Arctic. A good knowledge of the spatial variation of these substances in soil and primary producers, and their sources, is therefore essential. In the samples of lichen Thamnolia vermicularis, Salix polaris and Cassiope tetragona, and the soil samples collected in 2014 in Svalbard near Longyearbyen, the concentrations of the following heavy metals were determined: Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb and Hg, as well as the activity concentrations of the following: K-40, Cs-137, Pb-210, Pb-212, Bi-212, Bi-214, Pb-214, Ac-228, Th-231 and U-235 in the soil samples. The differences in th…