Internal quality and antioxidants content of cold-stored red sweet peppers as affected by polyethylene bag packaging and hot water treatment

Physical (weight, firmness) and compositional (sugars, organic acids, ascorbic acid, phenolic compounds and carotenoids) changes of red sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum L.) were monitored during 21 days of cold storage (at 7.5 °C); fruits were stored without packaging, packaged in low density polyethylene bags, or after hot water dipping (53 °C for 4 min) and packaging. Packaging prevented water loss, and preserved the firmness of the fresh product. Sugars (fructose and glucose) content was practically constant throughout the whole storage time, for all treatments. A moderate accumulation of citric acid was observed during storage, but no marked effects of packaging and hot water dipping on citric and malic acid content. Ascorbic acid content slightly increased in unpackaged and packaged fruits, but not in treated+packaged peppers. Hydroxycinnamics total content seemed not to be affected by cold storage, packaging or hot water treatment, whereas glycosylated flavonoids showed somewhat lowered levels during storage, particularly in the case of unpackaged and packaged+treated fruits. Regarding carotenoids content, the effect of the considered storage conditions seemed to be much smaller than that due to ripening stage. Provitamin A content showed an increasing trend in unpackaged and packaged fruits; packaged+treated peppers were characterised by a lower retention of provitamin A and a higher level of capsanthin and cucurbitaxanthin A with respect to not treated fruits. On the whole, packaging and hot water treatment did not produce noticeable adverse effects on the majority of the examined compositional quality parameters.     

High dose intravenous immune globulins and plasma exchange in Guillain-Barré Syndrome

We report the effects of treatment with plasma-exchange (PE) and intravenous immune globulins (IVIg) in 36 out of 50 patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) recruited by an incidence study in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Comparison of the patients treated with PE and IVIg showed no significant differences in terms of effectiveness in improving the clinical course of GBS: at one month, respectively 11.1% and 25% had recovered, and 55.5% and 58.3% had improved by at least one grade. These results are in agreement with those of the Dutch GBS trial. No relapses were observed in either group. Moreover, our results showed no difference in clinical outcome at 1 and 3 months between the patients receiving only one therapy and those receiving two; a second cycle of therapy did not seem to improve the clinical course of the disease significantly. We conclude that PE and IVIg are both safe and effective therapies for GBS.     

Gamma irradiation of PolyEthyleneTerephthalate and PolyEthyleneNaphthalate

The effect of gamma irradiation in air is investigated in two thermoplastic polyesters (PET and PEN), in order to evaluate the influence of aromatic density and the role of oxygen on radiation resistance. EPR measurements were carried out to detect radical stability against oxygen permeation and to provide radical characterization. Viscometric data reveal a different behaviour between films and thick samples. Positron annihilation spectra show a decrease of ortho-positronium intensity, which is more marked in film samples. ortho-positronium lifetime does not depend on the radiation dose.     

Proinflammatory Interleukin-33 Induces Dichotomic Effects on Cell Proliferation in Normal Gastric Epithelium and Gastric Cancer

Interleukin (IL)-33 is a member of the interleukin (IL)-1 family of cytokines linked to the development of inflammatory conditions and cancer in the gastrointestinal tract. This study is designed to investigate whether IL-33 has a direct effect on human gastric epithelial cells (GES-1), the human gastric adenocarcinoma cell line (AGS), and the gastric carcinoma cell line (NCI-N87) by assessing its role in the regulation of cell proliferation, migration, cell cycle, and apoptosis. Cell cycle regulation was also determined in ex vivo gastric cancer samples obtained during endoscopy and surgical procedures. Cell lines and tissue samples underwent stimulation with rhIL-33. Proliferation was assessed by XTT and CFSE assays, migration by wound healing assay, and apoptosis by caspase 3/7 activity assay and annexin V assay. Cell cycle was analyzed by means of propidium iodine assay, and gene expression regulation was assessed by RT-PCR profiling. We found that IL-33 has an antiproliferative and proapoptotic effect on cancer cell lines, and it can stimulate proliferation and reduce apoptosis in normal epithelial cell lines. These effects were also confirmed by the analysis of cell cycle gene expression, which showed a reduced expression of pro-proliferative genes in cancer cells, particularly in genes involved in G0/G1 and G2/M checkpoints. These results were confirmed by gene expression analysis on bioptic and surgical specimens. The aforementioned results indicate that IL-33 may be involved in cell proliferation in an environment- and cell-type-dependent manner.     

Characterisation of mortar morphology in thin sections by digital image processing

A digital imaging approach was applied to investigate mortar morphology in thin sections; in particular, the binder/aggregate ratio and the grading curve of five mortar bars were attained by digital image processing (DIP), using the Image Pro Plus 4.1 software package. The imaging procedure employed image segmentation, to extract mortar aggregate, and image filtering, to fix grain boundaries. The results show that digital image processing may be considered as an alternative method to mechanical sieving for the characterisation of mortar morphology, as it appears to be quicker and more accurate than the traditional method. However, digital image processing exhibits limits, which are discussed in the text.     

Sketching human character animations by composing sequences from large motion database

Quick creation of 3D character animations is an important task in game design, simulations, forensic animation, education, training, and more. We present a framework for creating 3D animated characters using a simple sketching interface coupled with a large, unannotated motion database that is used to find the appropriate motion sequences corresponding to the input sketches. Contrary to the previous work that deals with static sketches, our input sketches can be enhanced by motion and rotation curves that improve matching in the context of the existing animation sequences. Our framework uses animated sequences as the basic building blocks of the final animated scenes, and allows for various operations with them such as trimming, resampling, or connecting by use of blending and interpolation. A database of significant and unique poses, together with a two-pass search running on the GPU, allows for interactive matching even for large amounts of poses in a template database. The system provides intuitive interfaces, an immediate feedback, and poses very small requirements on the user. A user study showed that the system can be used by novice users with no animation experience or artistic talent, as well as by users with an animation background. Both groups were able to create animated scenes consisting of complex and varied actions in less than 20 minutes.     

Kinetic folding mechanism of PDZ2 from PTP-BL

PDZ domains represent a large family of protein-interaction modules associated with a variety of unrelated proteins with different functions. We report a complete characterization of the kinetic folding mechanism of a fluorescent variant of PDZ2 from PTP-BL, investigated under a variety of different experimental conditions. For this purpose, we engineered a fluorescent variant of this protein Y43W (called pseudo-wild-type, pWT43). The results suggest the presence of a high-energy intermediate in the folding of PDZ2, as revealed by a pronounced non-linear dependence of the unfolding rate constant on denaturant concentration. Such an intermediate may or may not be detectable depending on the experimental conditions, giving rise to apparent two-state folding under stabilizing conditions (e.g. in the presence of sodium sulfate). Interestingly, even under these conditions, three-state folding can be restored by selectively destabilizing the native-like rate-limiting barrier by one specific mutation (V44A). Finally, we show that data taken on pWT43 under different experimental conditions (e.g. different pH values from 2.1 to 8.0 or in the presence of a stabilizing salt) and also data on a site-directed conservative mutant can be rationalized in terms of a simple reaction scheme involving a single set of intermediates and transition states.