AFLP molecular markers to identify virgin olive oils from single Italian cultivars

Olive oil traceability becomes instrumental to ensure the consumer’s protection, particularly for extra virgin olive oil, the quality of which is highly related to the cultivars employed. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the possibility of identifying the cultivar used to obtain the derived olive oil by the analysis of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers. To this purpose, ten virgin olive oils were prepared in the laboratory from ten different very common Italian cultivars and were then analysed using six AFLP primer combinations. The technique was optimised for fragmented DNA of oil in order to enhance the intensity of the bands in the AFLP patterns. The obtained results indicated a percentage of polymorphism ranging from 16% for Pst-AGC/Mse-AGT to 43% for Pst-AGC/Mse-ACA. The diversity index was comprised between 90.2% for Pst-AGC/Mse-AGT and 95.2% for Pst-AGG/Mse-AGG. One of the six primer combination analysed, namely Pst-AGG/Mse-AGG, was able to distinguish all the olive oil examined, and a similarity tree of the samples was elaborated.     

Management of Acute Lung Injury: Palmitoylethanolamide as a New Approach

Acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are common and devastating clinical disorders with high mortality and no specific therapy. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is usually used intratracheally to induce ALI in mice. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of an ultramicronized preparation of palmitoylethanolamide (um-PEA) in mice subjected to LPS-induced ALI. Histopathological analysis reveals that um-PEA reduced alteration in lung after LPS intratracheal administration. Besides, um-PEA decreased wet/dry weight ratio and myeloperoxidase, a marker of neutrophils infiltration, macrophages and total immune cells number and mast cells degranulation in lung. Moreover, um-PEA could also decrease cytokines release of interleukin (IL)-6, interleukin (IL)-1β, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-18. Furthermore, um-PEA significantly inhibited the phosphorylation of nuclear factor of kappa light polypeptide gene enhancer in B-cells inhibitor, alpha (IκBα) and nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) activation in ALI, and at the same time decreased extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38/MAPK) expression, that was increased after LPS administration. Our study suggested that um-PEA contrasted LPS-induced ALI, exerting its potential role as an adjuvant anti-inflammatory therapeutic for treating lung injury, maybe also by p38/NF-κB pathway.     

Molecular Landscape and Therapeutic Strategies in Cholangiocarcinoma: An Integrated Translational Approach towards Precision Medicine

Cholangiocarcinomas (CCAs) are heterogeneous biliary tract malignancies with dismal prognosis, mainly due to tumor aggressiveness, late diagnosis, and poor response to current therapeutic options. High-throughput technologies have been used as a fundamental tool in unveiling CCA molecular landscape, and several molecular classifications have been proposed, leading to various targeted therapy trials. In this review, we aim to analyze the critical issues concerning the status of precision medicine in CCA, discussing molecular signatures and clusters, related to both anatomical classification and different etiopathogenesis, and the latest therapeutic strategies. Furthermore, we propose an integrated approach comprising the CCA molecular mechanism, pathobiology, clinical and histological findings, and treatment perspectives for the ultimate purpose of improving the methods of patient allocations in clinical trials and the response to personalized therapies.     

Failure Mechanism for Thermal Fatigue of Thermal Barrier Coating Systems

Thick thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), consisting of a CoNiCrAlY bond coat and yttria-partially stabilized zirconia top coat with different porosity values, were produced by air plasma spray (APS). The thermal fatigue resistance limit of the TBCs was tested by furnace cycling tests (FCT) according to the specifications of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). The morphology, residual stresses, and micromechanical properties (microhardness, indentation fracture toughness) of the TBC systems before and after FCT were analyzed. The thermal fatigue resistance increases with the amount of porosity in the top coat. The compressive in-plane stresses increase in the TBC systems after thermal cycling; nevertheless the increasing rate has a trend contrary to the porosity level of top coat. The data suggest that the spallation happens at the TGO/top coat interface. The failure mechanism of thick TBCs was found to be similar to that of conventional thin TBC systems made by APS.     

Wear Resistance Improvement of Small Dimension Invar Massive Molds for CFRP Components

Invar alloy (Fe-36%Ni) is used in industrial applications that require high dimensional stability because of its exceptionally low thermal expansion coefficient. The purpose of this work is to improve the wear resistance of the molds in the production of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) components applying thermal spray coatings. Four different kinds of commercial powders were coated on an Invar substrate: ZrO₂-8Y₂O₃, Al₂O₃-13TiO₂, and Cr₂O₃ by air plasma spray (APS) and WC-CoCr by high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF). Metallographic microscopy observation and scanning electron microscopic analysis were carried out, microhardness and fracture toughness were evaluated using the microindentation method. Friction behavior and wear resistance were evaluated with pin-on-disk apparatus. Tungsten carbide coating had the lowest average coefficient of friction. Cermet and alumina-titania coatings showed the lowest wear mass loss. Among the APS ceramic coatings, alumina-titania exhibited the best wear behavior and the HVOF cermet coating exhibited the best behavior among all the coatings.     

Radiances simulated in the presence of clouds by use of a fast radiative transfer model and a multiple-scattering scheme

A fast-forward radiative transfer (RTF) model is presented that includes cloud-radiation interaction for any number of cloud layers. Layer cloud fraction and transmittance are treated separately and combined with that of gaseous transmittances. RTF is tested against a reference procedure that uses line-by-line gaseous transmittances and solves the radiative transfer equation by use of the adding-doubling method to handle multiple-scattering conditions properly. The comparison is carried out for channels 8, 12, and 14 of the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS/2) and for the geostationary satellite METEOSAT thermal infrared and water vapor channels. Fairly large differences in simulated radiances by the two schemes are found in clear conditions for upper- and mid-tropospheric channels; the cause of the differences is discussed. For cloudy situations an improved layer source function is shown to be required when rapid changes in atmospheric transmission are experienced within the model layers. The roles of scattering processes are discussed; results with and without scattering, both obtained by use of a reference code, are compared. Overall, the presented results show that the fast model is capable of reproducing the cloudy results of the much more complex and time-consuming reference scheme.     

Dynamic clustering of maps in autonomous agents

The problem of organizing and exploiting spatial knowledge for navigation is an important issue in the field of autonomous mobile systems. In particular, partitioning the environment map into connected clusters allows for significant topological features to be captured and enables decomposition of path-planning tasks through a divide-and-conquer policy. Clustering by discovery is a procedure for identifying clusters in a map being learned by exploration as the agent moves within the environment, and yields a valid clustering of the available knowledge at each exploration step. In this work, we define a fitness measure for clustering and propose two incremental heuristic algorithms to maximize it. Both algorithms determine clusters dynamically according to a set of topological and metric criteria. The first one is aimed at locally minimizing a measure of “scattering” of the entities belonging to clusters, and partially rearranges the existing clusters at each exploration step. The second estimates the positions and dimensions of clusters according to a global map of density. The two algorithms are compared in terms of optimality, efficiency, robustness, and stability     

Phase-contrast microtomography of thin biomaterials

Phase-contrast microtomography, performed at the beamline ID 22 of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF, Grenoble, France), is demonstrated for high-resolution 3-D imaging of a hydroxyapatite sample. The technique, which relies on phase contrast imaging, gives the possibility to observe features inside samples with negligible absorption contrast. The positive results obtained suggest a possible future investigation of the influence of the distribution of pores and defects inside biomaterial coatings, on the growth of osteoblast cells.     

Quality evaluation of re-milled durum wheat semolinas used for bread-making in Southern Italy

Re-milled durum wheat semolinas from Altamura, Laterza and Matera (Southern Italy), currently used in the production of traditional breads, were tested for quality. The re-milled semolinas exhibited variable technological quality, and different bread-making techniques were observed. Alveograph P/L ranged from 0.34 to 2.50 with W values from 71×10^–4 to 176×10^–4 J. The higher values were found in samples from Laterza, which gave breads with the lowest specific volumes, due to its excessive gluten tenacity. The P/L values were correlated to SDS sedimentation height; dry gluten was correlated to both wet gluten content and protein content, and was negatively correlated to P/L. Bread protein content was correlated to the protein content of the starting material and bread specific volumes were negatively correlated to alveographic P/L values. Significant differences were found between breads from different points of origin (attributable to differences in the bread-making processes), in terms of the level of total titratable acidity and the yellow pigment content of the crumb.This revised version was published online October 2004. The errors concern the seventh column in Table 2, all the numbers need to be amended.