Von Willebrand Factor Multimers and the Relaxation Response: A One-Year Study

Background and aim: Mental stress represents a pivotal factor in cardiovascular diseases. The mechanism by which stress produces its deleterious ischemic effects is still under study but some of the most explored pathways are inflammation, endothelial function and balancing of the thrombotic state. In this scenario, von Willebrand factor (vWF) is a plasma glycoprotein best known for its crucial hemostatic role, also acting as key regulatory element of inflammation, being released by the activated vascular endothelium. Antistress techniques seem to be able to slow down inflammation. As we have recently verified how the practice of the Relaxation Response (RR), which counteracts psychological stress, causes favorable changes in some inflammatory genes’ expressions, neurotransmitters, hormones, cytokines and inflammatory circulating microRNAs with coronary endothelial function improvement, we aimed to verify a possible change even in serum levels of vWF. Experimental procedure: We measured vWF multimers and the total protein carbonyl contents in the sera of 90 patients with ischemic heart disease (and 30 healthy controls) immediately before and after an RR session, three times (baseline, 6 months, 12 months), during a one-year follow-up study. Results: According to our data, large vWF multimers decrease during the RR, as does the plasma total carbonyl content. Conclusion: vWF levels seem to vary rapidly between anti-inflammatory and antithrombotic behaviors dependent on psychological activity, leading to relaxation and also possibly changes in its quaternary structure.     

Decoupled Mild Solutions of Path-Dependent PDEs and Integro PDEs Represented by BSDEs Driven by Cadlag Martingales

Potential Analysis - We focus on a class of path-dependent problems which include path-dependent PDEs and Integro PDEs (in short IPDEs), and their representation via BSDEs driven by a cadlag...     

Versatile image-based measurements of granular flows and water wave propagation in experiments of tsunamis generated by landslides

Landslides falling into water bodies can generate destructive waves, which can be classified as tsunamis. An experimental facility to study this phenomenon has been set up. It consists of a landslide generator releasing gravel at high-speed into a wave basin. A non-intrusive system has been designed ad-hoc to be able to measure the high velocity and the geometry of the landslide as well as the generated waves characteristics. The measurement system employs the treatment of images captured by a high-speed camera which records the launched granular material illuminated by a laser sheet. A grid of laser sheets marks the basin water surface. The water has been filled by a small amount of kaolin to properly reflect the laser light at water surface. Thus, by filming with high definition cameras the perturbed water surface and successively processing the resulting images, it has been possible to measure the generated waves. The measurement framework employs a versatile camera calibration technique which allows accurate measurements in presence of: (1) high lens distortions; (2) pronounced non-parallelism condition between camera sensor and plane of measurement coincident with the laser sheet. The maximum resolution of the measurement tool is 0.01 mm, while the maximum uncertainty due to systematic error has been estimated to be 15% for the worst-case scenario. This work improves the suitability of image-based measuring systems in granular flows and free surface hydraulics experiments.     

Photo- and Electrochemical Dual-Responsive Iridium Probe for Saccharide Detection

Dual detection systems are of interest for rapid, accurate data collection in sensing systems and in vitro testing. We introduce an Ir^III complex with a boronic acid receptor site attached to the 2-phenylpyridine ligand as an ideal probe with photo- and electrochemical signals that is sensitive to monosaccharide binding in aqueous solution. The complex displays orange luminescence at 618 nm, which is reduced by 70 and 40 % upon binding of fructose and glucose, respectively. The electro-chemiluminescent signal of the complex also shows a direct response to monosaccharide binding. The Ir^III complex shows the same response upon incorporation into hydrogel matrices as in solution, thus demonstrating the potential of its integration into a device, as a nontoxic, simple-to-use tool to observe sugar binding over physiologically relevant pH ranges and saccharide concentrations. Moreover, the complex's luminescence is responsive to monosaccharide presence in cancer cells.     

Atmospheric CO2 mitigation technologies: carbon capture utilization and storage

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Poly(methyl methacrylate)-Assisted Exfoliation of Graphite and Its Use in Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene Composites

One of the applications of graphene in which its scalable production is of utmost importance is the development of polymer composites. Among the techniques used to produce graphene flakes, the liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE) of graphite stands out due to its versatility and scalability. However, solvents suitable for the LPE process are generally toxic and have a high boiling point, making the processing challenging. The use of low boiling point solvents could be convenient for the processing, due to the easiness of their removal. In this study, the use of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as a stabilizing agent is proposed for the production of graphene flakes in a low boiling point solvent, that is, acetone. The graphene dispersions produced in the mixture acetone-PMMA have higher concentration, +175 %, and contain a higher percentage of few-layer graphene flakes (<5 layers), that is, +60 %, compared to the dispersions prepared in acetone. The as-produced graphene dispersions are used to develop graphene/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene composites. The mechanical properties of the pristine polymer are improved, that is, +22 % in the Young's modulus, by adding 0.01 wt. % of graphene flakes. Moreover, a decrease of ≈20 % in the oxygen permeability is obtained by using 0.1 wt. % of graphene flakes filler, compared to the unloaded matrix.     

Temperature-Dependent Surface Enrichment Effects in Binary Mixtures of Fluorinated and Non-Fluorinated Ionic Liquids

Using angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ARXPS), we investigate the topmost nanometers of various binary ionic liquid (IL) mixtures at different temperatures in the liquid state. The mixtures consist of ILs with the same [PF₆]⁻ anion but two different cations, namely 3-methyl-1-(3,3,4,4,4-pentafluorobutyl)imidazolium hexafluorophosphate, [PFBMIm][PF₆], and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, [C₄C₁Im][PF₆], with 10, 25, 50 and 75 mol % content of [PFBMIm][PF₆]. We observe a preferential enrichment of the fluorinated chain in the topmost layer, relative to the bulk composition, which is most pronounced for the lowest content of [PFBMIm][PF₆]. Upon cooling the mixtures stepwise from 95 °C until surface charging effects in XPS indicate solidification, we observe a pronounced increase in surface enrichment of the fluorinated chain with decreasing temperature in the liquid state. In contrast to the mixtures with lower [PFBMIm][PF₆] contents, cooling the 75 mol % mixture additionally shows an abrupt decrease of the fluorinated chain signal before complete solidification occurs, which is assigned to partial precipitation effects.     

A note on commutator subgroups in groups of large cardinality

Monatshefte für Mathematik - If G is an uncountable group of regular cardinality $$\aleph $$, we shall denote by $${\mathfrak {L}L}_\aleph (G)$$ the set of all subgroups of G of cardinality...     

How Divalent Cations Interact with the Internal Channel Site of Guanine Quadruplexes

The formation of guanine quadruplexes (GQ) in DNA is crucial in telomere homeostasis and regulation of gene expression. Pollution metals can interfere with these DNA superstructures upon coordination. In this work, we study the affinity of the internal GQ channel site towards alkaline earth metal (Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, Sr²⁺, and Ba²⁺), and (post-)transition metal (Zn²⁺, Cd²⁺, Hg²⁺, and Pb²⁺) cations using density functional theory computations. We find that divalent cations generally bind to the GQ cavity with a higher affinity than conventional monovalent cations (e. g. K⁺). Importantly, we establish the nature of the cation-GQ interaction and highlight the relationship between ionic and nuclear charge, and the electrostatic and covalent interactions. The covalent interaction strength plays an important role in the cation affinity and can be traced back to the relative stabilization of cations’ unoccupied atomic orbitals. Overall, our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how pollution metals could induce genomic instability.