Biotransformation of Waste Bile Acids: A New Possible Sustainable Approach to Anti-Fungal Molecules for Crop Plant Bioprotection?

Phytopathogenic fungi are among the main causes of productivity losses in agriculture. To date, synthetic chemical pesticides, such as hydroxyanilides, anilinopyrimidines and azole derivatives, represent the main treatment tools for crop plant defence. However, the large and uncontrolled use of these substances has evidenced several side effects, namely the resistance to treatments, environmental damage and human health risks. The general trend is to replace chemicals with natural molecules in order to reduce these side effects. Moreover, the valorisation of agri-food industry by-products through biotransformation processes represents a sustainable alternative to chemical synthesis in several sectors. This research is aimed at comparing the anti-phytopathogenic activity of waste bovine and porcine bile with secosteroids obtained by biotransformation of bile acids with Rhodococcus strains. The ultimate goal is to apply these natural products on food crops affected by phytopathogenic fungi.     

Genetic nearest feature plane

The problem addressed in this paper concerns the complexity reduction of the nearest feature plane classifier, so that it may be applied also in dataset where the training set contains many patterns. This classifier considers, to classify a test pattern, the subspaces created by each combination of three training patterns. The main problem is that in dataset of high cardinality this method is unfeasible.A genetic algorithm is here used for dividing the training patterns in several clusters which centroids are used to build the feature planes used to classify the test set.The performance improvement with respect to other nearest neighbor based classifiers is validated through experiments with several benchmark datasets.     

Formulation optimisation of vegetable flour–loaded functional bread. Part II: effect of the flour hydration on the bread quality

In this work, the hydration process of durum wheat–based functional bread loaded with yellow pepper flour was optimised. In particular, the investigated vegetable flour and durum wheat semolina were mixed after they were separately hydrated. Three different amounts of water added to the yellow pepper flour were studied for assessing the effect of vegetable flour hydration level on the dough development and overall quality of bread. The bread formulation investigated in a previous work, based on 25% of yellow pepper and 2% of guar seed as structuring agent where the vegetable flour was directly added to the hydrated durum wheat semolina dough, was chosen as control sample. Results highlighted that dough samples with yellow pepper flour hydrated at highest water content showed a rheological behaviour similar to the durum wheat dough. Moreover, creep analysis showed that the sample added with no‐hydrated yellow pepper flour recorded the greatest resistance to deformation. Same results were obtained for the dough tensile and bread compression tests. The use of the hydrated yellow pepper flour also improved all sensorial attributes.     

Removal of exhausted oils by adsorption on mixed Ca and Mg oxides

Adsorption tests were performed on two different exhausted oils to reduce their polluting and health hazard potential: a "water-insoluble oil", utilised for automotive engine lubrication, and an "emulsified" oil, used as coolant for metal-cutting tools. Dolomite, a low-cost recovery material, was used to prepare two effective adsorbents: (a) a mixed Ca and Mg oxide obtained by thermal decomposition of dolomite at 1800 degrees C, and (b) an activated material obtained by submitting this product to chemical treatment with HCl. Preliminary tests carried out with an excess of the former material showed that the insoluble oil was adsorbed with lower yield (Y = 0.40) than the soluble (emulsified) oil (Y = 0.60). The material activation with HCl remarkably improved the adsorption of soluble oil organic fraction (Y > 0.90), while only a little increase in the removal yield was observed for the insoluble oil (Y = 0.44). The results presented and discussed in this work pointed out that the products of dolomite calcination can successfully replace the conventional adsorbing materials in the removal of organic pollutants, with particular concern to exhausted soluble oils, which cannot usually be recycled, thus reducing the operational costs of their treatment.     

The "genetics" of driving behavior: parents' driving style predicts their children's driving style

It can be hypothesized that children inherit their parents' driving habits both through genetic disposition and model learning. A few studies have shown indeed that parents' and their children's traffic convictions and accidents correlate which, however, may be due to life style and other exposure factors. This study aimed at investigating the relationships between parents' and their children's self-reported driving behavior. The subjects were 174 parent-child pairs who independently completed a questionnaire. Driving behavior-driving style-was evaluated by means of Manchester driver behavior questionnaire (DBQ), while data about driving exposure, life style, accidents, and traffic tickets were also collected. A series of regression models indicated that parents' self-reported driving behavior explains their children's respective self-reported behavior, even when exposure and demographic and life-style factors are controlled.     

Uniqueness and reciprocity in the boundary-initial value problem for a mixture of two elastic solids occupying an unbounded domain

Summary In this paper two uniqueness theorems for an anisotropic mixture of two linear elastic solids are established: The former concerns the mixed boundary-value problem, the latter the displacement problem. These theorems are proved for unbounded domains in the absence of artificial restrictions upon the behaviour of the unknown fields at infinity. A reciprocity theorem is also given.     

Fuzzy and simulation-based techniques for industrial safety and risk assessment

This paper characterizes the development of a hybrid computer-based tool supporting design for safety practices in industrial plant component specification and layout definition. The tool combines simulation and fuzzy logic techniques for the systematic risk assessment of specified design and layout configurations for plants dealing with hazardous materials. In the hybrid system architecture, the simulation module provides the historical experience for a priori hazard identification and ranking, accounting for the domino effects of possible accidental occurrences, while the fuzzy module provides the correlation matrices for concurrent hazard evaluation and overall risk assessment. In particular, the fuzzy module enables the quantitative assessment and comparison among alternative design solutions providing design guidelines, which can be further tested and verified through simulation.