Improving building energy efficiency: case study

The main purpose of this study was to conduct a study for improving energy efficiency of an important building in Rome, the Headquarters of the Italian State Monopoly. The study was conducted by comparing conventional analysis tools with innovative ones, in order to evaluate the possible solutions, both structural and plant, aimed at the use of renewable sources and at energy saving. After making a thermo graphic survey, the first and useful step for a good energy audit, conduct building energy was simulated, at first in steady state by the use of a software widely used at the professional level, then in transient state by the use of TRNSYS, a finite difference method software which is able to simulate more accurately conduct building energy. The next step was to propose possible redevelopment of a structural and energy plant that promotes the building energy rating higher, finding the right balance between the energetic and economic aspect. Among the interventions plant, two possible workarounds have been proposed and designed in detail: - installation of a photovoltaic system; - installation of a solar cooling system. Both solutions lead to a reduction of electricity consumption with a significant impact in economic and environmental term

Nanogravimetric and Optical Characterizations of Thrombin Interaction with a Self-Assembled Thiolated Aptamer

Efficient biorecognition of thrombin (TB), a serine protease with crucial role in physiological and pathological blood coagulation, is a hot topic in medical diagnostics. In this work, we investigate the ability of synthetic thrombin aptamer (TBA), immobilized on a gold substrate, to bind thrombin by two different label-free techniques: the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and the spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). By QCM characterization in the range from 20 to 110 nM, we demonstrate high specificity of TBA-TB interaction and determine affinity constant (Kd) of 17.7 ± 0.3 nM, system sensitivity of 0.42 ± 0.03 Hz nM-1, and limit of detection (LOD) of 240 ± 20 pM. The interaction between TBA and TB is also investigated by SE, an all-optical method, by quantifying the thickness increase of the TBA film assembled on gold substrate. AFM characterization of TBA and TB molecules deposited on flat silicon surface is also supplied

Modified denatured lysozyme effectively solubilizes fullerene c60 nanoparticles in water

Fullerenes, allotropic forms of carbon, have very interesting pharmacological effects and engineering applications. However, a very low solubility both in organic solvents and water hinders their use. Fullerene C60, the most studied among fullerenes, can be dissolved in water only in the form of nanoparticles of variable dimensions and limited stability. Here the effect on the production of C60 nanoparticles by a native and denatured hen egg white lysozyme, a highly basic protein, has been systematically studied. In order to obtain a denatured, yet soluble, lysozyme derivative, the four disulfides of the native protein were reduced and exposed cysteines were alkylated by 3-bromopropylamine, thus introducing eight additional positive charges. The C60 solubilizing properties of the modified denatured lysozyme proved to be superior to those of the native protein, allowing the preparation of biocompatible highly homogeneous and stable C60 nanoparticles using lower amounts of protein, as demonstrated by dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy studies. This lysozyme derivative could represent an effective tool for the solubilization of other carbon allotropes

Prolonged and tunable residence time using reversible covalent kinase inhibitors.

Drugs with prolonged on-target residence times often show superior efficacy, yet general strategies for optimizing drug-target residence time are lacking. Here we made progress toward this elusive goal by targeting a noncatalytic cysteine in Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) with reversible covalent inhibitors. Using an inverted orientation of the cysteine-reactive cyanoacrylamide electrophile, we identified potent and selective BTK inhibitors that demonstrated biochemical residence times spanning from minutes to 7 d. An inverted cyanoacrylamide with prolonged residence time in vivo remained bound to BTK for more than 18 h after clearance from the circulation. The inverted cyanoacrylamide strategy was further used to discover fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) kinase inhibitors with residence times of several days, demonstrating the generalizability of the approach. Targeting of noncatalytic cysteines with inverted cyanoacrylamides may serve as a broadly applicable platform that facilitates 'residence time by design', the ability to modulate and improve the duration of target engagement in vivo

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Computational analysis of cooling dynamics in photonic-crystal-based thermal switches

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Adaptive mesh refinement method. Part 2: Application to tsunamis propagation

Numerical simulations of multi dimensional large scale fluid-flows such as tsunamis, are still nowadays a challenging and a difficult problem. To this purpose, a parallel finite volume scheme on adaptive unstructured meshes for multi dimensional Saint-Venant system is presented. The adaptive mesh refinement method is based on a block-based decomposition (called BB-AMR) which allows quick meshing and easy parallelization. The main difficulty addressed here concerns the selection of the mesh refinement threshold which is certainly the most important parameter in the AMR method. Usually, the threshold is calibrated according to the test problem to balance the accuracy of the solution and the computational cost. To avoid " hand calibration " , we apply an automatic threshold method based on the decreasing rearrangement function of the mesh refinement criterion. This method is applied and validated successfully to the one and two dimensional non homogeneous Saint-Venant system through several tsunamis propagation test cases

Are hematopoietic stem cells involved in hepatocarcinogenesis?

THE LIVER HAS THREE CELL LINEAGES ABLE TO PROLIFERATE AFTER A HEPATIC INJURY: the mature hepatocyte, the ductular "bipolar" progenitor cell termed "oval cell" and the putative periductular stem cell. Hepatocytes can only produce other hepatocytes whereas ductular progenitor cells are considerate bipolar since they can give rise to biliary cells or hepatocytes. Periductular stem cells are rare in the liver, have a very long proliferation potential and may be multipotent, being this aspect still under investigation. They originate in the bone marrow since their progeny express genetic markers of donor hematopoietic cells after bone marrow transplantation. Since the liver is the hematopoietic organ of the fetus, it is possible that hematopoietic stem cells may reside in the liver of the adult. This assumption is proved by the finding that oval cells express hematopoietic markers like CD34, CD45, CD 109, Thy-1, c-kit, and others, which are also expressed by bone marrow-derived hematopoietic stem cells (BMSCs). Few and discordant studies have evaluated the role of BMSC in hepatocarcinogenesis so far and further studies in vitro and in vivo are warranted in order to definitively clarify such an issue