Il problema della sicurezza dei cittadini di fronte a calamità naturali, rischi ambientali e agli incidenti causati dagli uomini è un tema fortemente sentito a livello politico e sociale; in questi ultimi anni si sono moltiplicate le azioni volte a promuovere una cultura della sicurezza, con l'obiettivo di accrescere la consapevolezza e il senso di responsabilità dei cittadini. Come sottolineato dall' art. 19 della Risoluzione del Parlamento Europeo del 4 settembre 2007 sulle catastrofi ...

n recent years scientists have been rethinking research workflows in favour of innovative paradigms to support multidisciplinary, computationally-heavy and data-intensive collaborative activities. In this context, e-Infrastructures can play a crucial role in supporting not only data capture and curation but also data analysis and visualization. Their implementation demands seamless and on-demand access to computational, content, and application services such as those typified by the Grid and ...

Il progetto conTatto nasce dall'esperienza di terapista nel settore della neuropsichiatria infantile della D.ssa Grazia Ragone e della D.ssa Marina Pagliarini operata all'interno di strutture ospedaliere con modalità e tecniche di musicoterapia riabilitativa ed educativa e dall'esperienza di informatici del Dr.Leonello Tarabella e del Dr.Massimo Magrini operata all'interno dell'Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione, Area della Ricerca del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerca di Pisa, ...

OpenAIRE will deliver "an electronic infrastructure and supporting mechanisms for the identification, deposition, access, and monitoring of FP7 and ERC funded articles", where the main supporting mechanism will be a European Helpdesk System. The infrastructure will be based on state-of-the-art software services of the D-Net Software Toolkit developed within the DRIVER and DRIVER-II projects and the Invenio digital repository software developed at CERN. Although simple in conception, ...

A research team at the Signal and Image Processing Lab of ISTI-CNR has been involved in studying data analysis algorithms for the European Space Agency's Planck Surveyor Satellite since 1999. The huge amount of data on the cosmic microwave background radiation provided by the Planck sensors requires very efficient analysis algorithms and high-performance computing facilities. The CNR group has proposed some of the source separation procedures that are now operational at the Planck data ...

The Computational Universe conjecture relates complexity in physics with emergence in computation. Our current research efforts are meant to put the surprisingly powerful notion of (computational) emergence at the service of recent quantum gravity theories, with special attention to the Causal Set Programme, which assumes causality among events as the most fundamental structure of spacetime, and causal sets as the most appropriate way to describe it. Our physical universe is discrete, finite, ...

Conditions appropriate to gas-surface interactions on satellite surfaces in orbit have not been successfully duplicated in the laboratory. However, measurements by pressure gauges and mass spectrometers in orbit have revealed enough of the basic physical chemistry that realistic theoretical models of the gas-surface interaction can now be used to calculate physical drag coefficients. The dependence of these drag coefficients on conditions in space can be inferred by comparing the physical drag ...

The characterization of ceramics at nanoscale level is of fundamental importance, especially when the interfaces between two different phases play the major role in determining the efficacy of toughening mechanisms. In this framework lies the activity of microstructural characterization by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) combined with other analytical techniques, such as electron diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). The main ...

Flower-like silver nanoparticle microstructures are prepared by the reaction of silver nitrate and ascorbic acid in an acidic aqueous solution of a poly-naphthalene system. The three-dimensional flower-like structure has a purely hierarchic arrangement, wherein each petal is composed of bundles of silver particle chains, each enclosed in a polymer sheath. The ordering arises from strong adsorption of silver ions onto the polymer and by the interplay of the redox properties of nitric and ascorbic ...

All the SOD1 mutations are autosomal dominantly inherited with the exception of D90A. To date, in Italy, only two sporadic ALS cases carrying the D90A mutation have been reported in a homozygous state. In this study, carried out by the ISN-CNR researchers, 169 unrelated ALS patients (eight familial ALS and 155 sporadic cases, 84 men and 79 women) from Southern Italy were investigated for the presence of this mutation. The genetic analysis revealed three ALS patients (1.8%) with mild phenotype ...

Although research has successfully produced UHTCs with flexural strength up to 1 GPa, fracture toughness and thermal shock resistance still represent major concerns for the application of these ceramics in aerospace or in highly stressed environments. To address these issues, novel processing methods have been implemented to introduce elongated reinforcements (such C or SiC fibers) into UHTC-based matrices. Short fiber reinforced composites: A simple technology is applied to obtain reinforced ...

Autori: Vignali F., Predieri G., Palanti S., Feci E., Conti E. Titolo Convegno: 9 S.A.Y.C.S., Sigma Aldrich Young Chemists Symposium, Pesaro, 12-14 Ottobre Premio come miglior poster assegnato dal Gruppo Giovani della SCI Società Chimica Italiana.

La diffusione delle tecnologie mobili in tutti i paesi dell'Unione Europea offre un'opportunità per sviluppare politiche mirate alla partecipazione e all'inclusione sociale, poiché l'uso dei dispositivi mobili è trasversale all'età, allo status sociale, al sesso e alle origini etniche. Sebbene la comunità scientifica abbia messo in evidenza che il mobile learning possa essere una metodologia adeguata per supportare l'apprendimento permanente, le politiche nazionali non hanno ancora ...

The 'Report on the Mediterranean' is an annual publication of the ISSM. Three quarters of the world's population have at their disposal a quarter of the world's product. The wealthiest 10 percent has half. This is information that is often read with regard to the distribution of product among countries at the beginning of the third millennium. However, the situation regarding the inequalities on a global scale was already changing at the turn of the millennium. This change has accelerated in the ...

Gaglioppo, Magliocco, Arvino, Mantonico e Sangiovese, sono solo alcune delle molte cultivar presenti sul territorio calabrese. Denominata 'regione dalle molte uve', la Calabria con i suoi 15 mila ettari impiantati a vite, mostra un patrimonio di biodiversità ricco e variegato, suddiviso tra uve nere, bianche, rosse, viola, rosso grigiastre, spesso dal sapore aromatico. Ma perché proprio in Calabria una così ampia ricchezza di diversità genetica? Secondo uno studio realizzato dall'Istituto di ...

To understand the present problems and the opportunities of social and economic development of the Mediterranean it is necessary to deal with its history. This may be the core which at present provides a major impulse in the research carried out in this common area. An interest which evidently emerges in light of the new season of partnership inaugurated with the Declaration of Barcelona (1995). In the framework of the scientific activities of the Euro-Mediterranean Ramses 2 network, inspired ...

Plant virology was borne as a branch of plant pathology, but has become more and more an independent discipline with strong biochemical and biotechnological implications. The IVV, in collaboration with Extracampus, the web TV of the University of Torino, has produced short video (10') explaining plant virology and some of the problems connected to it. The video gives a very short synthesis of the discovery of viruses as submicroscopic plant pathogens, then a brief description of the viral ...

46BR.1G1 cells derive from a patient with a genetic syndrome characterized by drastically reduced replicative DNA ligase I (LigI) activity and delayed joining of Okazaki fragments. Here we show that the replication defect in 46BR.1G1 cells results in the accumulation of both single stranded and double stranded DNA breaks. This is accompanied by phosphorylation of the H2AX histone variant and the formation of γH2AX foci that mark damaged DNA. Single cell analysis demonstrates that the number ...

Trichothiodystrophy (TTD) is a rare, autosomal recessive neurodevelopmental disorder most commonly caused by mutations in XPD, a gene that encodes a subunit of the transcription/repair factor TFIIH. The research group leaded by Miria Stefanini has recently characterised two new TTD cases showing moderate clinical features. Detailed biochemical and molecular investigations offered a clue to explain the clinical outcome of the patients and helped to shed light on the effect of specific mutations ...

La cardiopatia ischemica è la principale causa di morte nei paesi industrializzati. Nonostante i recenti progressi nel trattamento dello scompenso cardiaco, le terapie farmacologiche attualmente disponibili risultano spesso inadeguate. Per questo motivo, rigenerare il tessuto cardiaco rappresenta un obiettivo fondamentale della medicina cardiovascolare. La grande sfida è riuscire ad attivare le cellule staminali cardiache eventualmente presenti nel cuore e generare cardiomiociti a partire ...

Several studies suggest that the surface coating of titanium could play an important role in bone tissue engineering. In the present study, we have followed a particular biomimetic strategy where ultrasonically or electromagnetically stimulated SAOS-2 human osteoblasts proliferated and built their extracellular matrix on a titanium surface. In comparison with control conditions, the ultrasonic and the electromagnetic stimulation caused higher cell proliferation, and increased surface coating ...

siRNA sono piccole molecole di RNA a doppia catena di 21 paia di basi, presenti nelle cellule di tutti gli organismi viventi, con la funzione fisiologica di regolare l'espressione genica. La loro scoperta ha aperto prospettive terapeutiche in vari campi per la possibilità di inibire in maniera specifica l'espressione di geni coinvolti negli stati patologici, introducendo nelle cellule siRNA sintetici con sequenze appositamente disegnate. I siRNA, se non somministrati in maniera ...

The paper, published on Histochemistry and Cell Biology - the official organ of the International Society for Histochemistry - refers to a research activity carried out since years at the IGM-CNR of Pavia in cooperation with the Department of Animal Biology of the University of Pavia, which focuses on the development of Photodynamic-Diagnosis/Therapy  (PDD/T). This consists in a procedure of diagnosis and therapy of pathologies, in particular tumors, based on the activation of phototoxic ...

In April 2008 the European project SUBTUNE (Widely Tuneable VCSELs using subwavelength gratings) started and will last for three years. This project aims to realize VCSELs (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers) tuneable in wavelength over large intervals using different techniques, so to cover different emission windows and applications: 850nm, 1550nm and 2000nm. To that end the MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, see Focus 2003) technology will be adopted to realize an optical cavity of ...

UV-sensitive syndrome (UVSS) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterised by sun-sensitivity and mild cutaneous symptoms resulting from defects in transcription-coupled repair (TC-NER), the sub-pathway of nucleotide excision repair that rapidly removes UV-induced damage from the transcribed strand of active genes. Cockayne syndrome (CS) is another genetic disorder defective in TC-NER showing developmental and neurological abnormalities and premature ageing. CS is caused by mutations in the ...

A study funded by Telethon and published in Molecular Therapy proposes the use of invisible nanoparticles in the fight against dystrophy. The work aims to convert the most severe form of muscular dystrophy, the Duchenne (DMD), in the slightest, the Becker dystrophy (DMB).

Nell'ambito di un progetto "De minimis" in collaborazione con l'Associazione degli allevatori della Sardegna e con la Facoltà di Veterinaria dell'Univ. di Sassari, l'Istituto di Genetica delle Popolazioni ha intrapreso dal 2008 uno studio sulla filogenesi e biodiversità della popolazione caprina in Sardegna, con l'obiettivo di stabilire le reali origini della capra autoctona. L'allevamento caprino è una delle attività maggiormente diffuse nell'entroterra sardo e la razza autoctona ...

Nell'ambito delle attività di ricerca del dell'IAMC è stato pubblicato il volume:"Geohazard in rocky coastal areas" a cura di Crescenzo Violante incentrato su tematiche riguardanti i rischi naturali in aree costiere. Il volume è una Pubblicazione Speciale della Geological Society of London (SP 322). Il volume raccoglie nove contributi scientifici che illustrano diversi aspetti della pericolosità e del rischio naturale derivanti da eventi geologici in aree di costa rocciosa. I casi studio si ...

Semicrystalline polymers have a metastable nanophase structure, which is determined by a competition among self-organization, crystallization and vitrification, and is established during material processing. Early investigations of semicrystalline polymers based their description on a two-phase model, where the two phases, an amorphous and a crystalline one, have nanometer dimensions in one or more directions. More detailed analyses revealed that an intermediate fraction is present at the ...

The Institute of Cybernetics" E Caianiello" has developed a digital holographic microscope for quantitative imaging of biostructures. A digital holographic microscope relies on the classical principle of holography except that the hologram is not recorded by a traditional film, but by means of a CCD array sensor camera, typically a sensor of 1024 x 1024 pixel of 5-10 micron size. Each pixel records the intensity of the resulting interference pattern. The hologram is recorded and digitized ...