Structure–composition relationships of the traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena close to jamming transition (part II): Threshold control parameters

The Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena (TBVM) is a high-valuable Italian specialty that, for reasons not yet fully explained, may undergo non-equilibrium degrading phenomena involving phase separation and flow arrest caused by solidification with or without crystalline order. TBVM was probed for its microstructure and composition as well as for its flow ability under low- and high shear limits. Results indicated vinegar concentration, temperature and viscosity as three independent variables affecting the extent of solidification in TBVM. Polymer-mediated mechanisms and diffusion-limited kinetics were hypothesized for structure development. Three main experimental evidences offered a convincing proof unifying all solidification phenomena observed in TBVM under the concept of colloidal jamming transition: (i) simultaneous presence of fractal-like aggregated colloids and polydispersed biopolymers; (ii) non-linear shear dependence above a critical level of vinegar concentration; (iii) a modified Krieger–Dougherty model satisfactorily described scaling behavior of relative viscosity accounting for the fractal dimension of jammed structure. Threshold for jamming in TBVM was defined in terms of critical concentration of the overall structure-active constituents (corresponding to 72°Bx and 40% w/w of the main sugars) and maximum resistance to the Newtonian flow (the onset for shear-thinning flow was achieved with a low-shear limiting viscosity of about 0.95 Pa·s).     

Performance Driven WS Orchestration and Deployment in Service Oriented Infrastructure

Composite Web services (WS) can be seen as software systems designed according to workflow-based orchestration of building blocks or simpler WS. Each block has its own specifications concerning both functional and non-functional properties. While the characteristics of each block have a scope limited to its domain, the WS must guarantee service levels that are usually described by global end-to-end metrics. The problem of relating local to global objectives in WS orchestration is hard to approach. In this context, some WS components have to be deployed in distributed service oriented infrastructure mixing heterogeneous systems belonging to private and/or public providers. In this paper we propose a performance-driven technique for designing and deploying composite WS on heterogeneous service oriented infrastructure. Users having different requirements in terms of resource demands and performance objectives are considered. Several WS deployment alternatives, involving both physical and virtual resources provided by the infrastructure, are evaluated to identify the logical (workflow) and physical (deployment) configuration allowing to meet the requirements. In order to demonstrate the suitability of the proposed approach to the service oriented context, an example of a travel management WS is described and the optimal deployment of the components in a hybrid infrastructure is investigated.     

Mechanical squeezing of an elastomeric nanochannel device: numerical simulations and ionic current characterization

Peculiar transport phenomena appear at nanoscale, since surface effects strongly affect the behaviour of fluids. Electrostatic and steric interactions, capillary forces and entropic effects play a key role in the behaviour of fluids and biomolecules. Since these effects strongly depend on the size of the nanofluidic system, a careful characterization of the fluidic environment is necessary. Moreover, the possibility to dynamically modulate the size of nanochannels is very appealing in the field of biomolecule manipulation. Recently, we have developed a lab-on-chip made of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). This polymeric device is based on a tuneable nanochannel able to dynamically change its dimension in order to fit the application of interest. In fact, a mechanical compression applied on the top of the elastomeric device squeezes the nanochannel, reducing the channel cross section and allowing a dynamical optimization of the nanostructures. In this paper, this squeezing process is fully characterized both numerically and experimentally. This analysis provides information on the reduction of the nanochannel dimensions induced by compression as a function of the work of adhesion and of the stiffness of the materials composing the device. Moreover, calculations demonstrate the possibility to predict the change of the nanochannel size and shape induced by the compression. The possibility to dynamically tune the channel size opens up new opportunities in biomolecular sensing or sieving and in the study of new hydrodynamics effects.     

Provably-Secure Time-Bound Hierarchical Key Assignment Schemes

A time-bound hierarchical key assignment scheme is a method to assign time-dependent encryption keys to a set of classes in a partially ordered hierarchy, in such a way that each class can compute the keys of all classes lower down in the hierarchy, according to temporal constraints.     

Does carbon nanopowder threaten amphibian development?

Lethal and teratogenic potentials of carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) in their amorphous form were investigated by the standardized Frog Embryo Teratogenesis Assay-Xenopus (FETAX), a 96-h in vitro whole-embryo toxicity test based on the amphibian Xenopus laevis. Embryos were acutely exposed to 1, 10, 100 and 500 mg/L CNP suspensions and evaluated for lethality, malformations and growth inhibition. Larvae were processed for histological and ultrastructural analyses to detect the main affected organs, to look for specific lesions at the subcellular level and to image and track CNPs into tissues. Only the highest CNP suspension resulted in being embryolethal for X. laevis larvae, while malformed larva percentages significantly differed from controls starting from 100 mg/L. The stomach and gut were the preferential CNP accumulation sites, on the contrary, the digestive epithelium remained intact. The analyses showed the presence of isolated nanoparticles and/or aggregates in different secondary target organs. CNPs were found in circulating erythrocytes. The research confirms the good tolerance of X. laevis towards pure elemental carbon in its nanoparticulate amorphous form, but highlights the possibility of CNP transfer toward all body areas.     

Effect of the chemical structure of aromatic polyimides on their thermal aging,relaxation behavior and mechanical properties

This article examines the effects of structural changes and thermal aging treatments on the relaxation processes and mechanical properties of three polyimides differing for their molecular structure i.e. PMDA-ODA, 6FDA-ODA, and 6FDA-6FpDA. These polyimides were obtained by thermal imidization of their polyamic acid precursors, which were synthesized from the respective dianhydrides [pyromellitic anhydride (PMDA), hexahydrofluoroisopropylidene diphthalic anhydride (6FDA)], and diamines [4,4′-diaminodiphenyl ether (ODA), 4,4′-(hexafluoroisopropylidene) dianiline (6FpDA)]. After the curing process, the polyimides were thermally aged at a fixed temperature for various times Dynamic mechanical measurements performed in a multi-frequency mode, were used to determine the glass-rubber and sub-glass transitions, as well as the activation energy of the β transition. It was found that the T _g decreased in the order PMDA-ODA > 6FDA-6FpDA > 6FDA-ODA as a result of an increased chain rigidity and molecular packing induced by charge transfer interactions during the thermal imidization process. The β sub-glass transition showed two relaxation processes identified as β′ and β′′. The β′ process was attributed to the local motion of the diamine constituents while the β′′ process was caused by the local motion of the dianhydride moiety. The cooperativity of these molecular motions was also assessed via the Starkweather method. The thermal aging enhanced the state of aggregation of polyimide chains and thus the T _g and the sub-glass transition properties. This effect was particularly marked for the PMDA-ODA polyimide. Also the mechanical properties were significantly affected by chemical structure and aging treatments. For non-aged samples the more influenced parameter was the elongation at break, which decreased in the order PMDA-ODA > 6FDA-ODA > 6FDA-6FpDA. The aging enhanced the elastic modulus and the tensile strength and reduced the elongation at break.     

Probabilistic topic models for sequence data

Probabilistic topic models are widely used in different contexts to uncover the hidden structure in large text corpora. One of the main (and perhaps strong) assumption of these models is that generative process follows a bag-of-words assumption, i.e. each token is independent from the previous one. We extend the popular Latent Dirichlet Allocation model by exploiting three different conditional Markovian assumptions: (i) the token generation depends on the current topic and on the previous token; (ii) the topic associated with each observation depends on topic associated with the previous one; (iii) the token generation depends on the current and previous topic. For each of these modeling assumptions we present a Gibbs Sampling procedure for parameter estimation. Experimental evaluation over real-word data shows the performance advantages, in terms of recall and precision, of the sequence-modeling approaches.     

Effects of saline stress on mineral composition,phenolic acids and flavonoids in leaves of artichoke and cardoon genotypes grown in floating system

BACKGROUND: Cynara cardunculus is a species native to the Mediterranean basin. It includes globe artichoke and cultivated cardoon as well as their progenitor wild cardoon. The species is a source of biophenols, and its leaf extracts have been widely used in herbal medicine as hepatoprotectors and choleretics since ancient times. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of increasing the level of salinity in the nutrient solution (1 or 30 mmol L^?1 NaCl) on biomass production, mineral composition, radical‐scavenging activity, caffeoylquinic acids and flavonoids in three artichoke (‘Romolo’, ‘Violetto di Provenza’ and ‘Violetto di Romagna’) and three cultivated cardoon (‘Bianco Avorio’, ‘Bianco Gigante Inerme’ and ‘Gigante di Romagna’) cultivars grown in a floating system. RESULTS: Increased salinity in the nutrient solution decreased the leaf dry biomass and leaf number of artichoke and cultivated cardoon cultivars. Salinity reduced macro‐ and microelement accumulation in leaves (e.g. N, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn and B) but improved their antioxidant activity, total polyphenols, chlorogenic acid, cynarin and luteolin. The cultivated cardoons, especially ‘Bianco Avorio’ and ‘Gigante di Romagna’, showed higher biomass and leaf number than those observed in artichoke genotypes. ‘Violetto di Provenza’ exhibited the highest content of chlorogenic acid, closely followed by ‘Violetto di Romagna’, whereas for cynarin content the highest values were recorded in ‘Violetto di Provenza’, ‘Bianco Avorio’ and ‘Gigante di Romagna’. The highest content of luteolin was recorded in ‘Gigante di Romagna’ and ‘Bianco Avorio’, while the highest content of apigenin was observed in ‘Gigante di Romagna’. CONCLUSION: The results showed that the floating system could be considered an effective tool to improve quality aspects through proper management of the salt concentration in the nutrient solution. They also suggest that specific cultivars should be selected to obtain the desired profile of bioactive compounds. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

Optical and electrical characterization of a gold nanoparticle dispersion in a chiral liquid crystal matrix

We report on the effect of gold nanoparticle (Au NP) dispersion in a chiral nematic liquid crystal (LC). Polarized optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements evidence the insurgence of an order change in the LC host. Moreover, a comparative analysis based on dielectric and voltammetric spectroscopies performed on pure LC and on Au NP-doped LC shows that Au NP’s presence besides affecting LC order influences its electric properties: ion conductivity results importantly reduced, and beyond a threshold value of the applied field electrophoresis phenomena are induced.     

Decomposing regional business change at plant level in Italy: A novel spatial shift‐share approach

In this paper, spatial shift‐share decomposition is analysed when applied to Italian data on regional business change at plant level, over the period 2004–2009. A new type of spatial decomposition, which looks more effectively at neighbourhood influence, is introduced here. Notable results emerge from the empirical investigation. First, it can be seen that the spatial level of aggregation greatly affects results. Second, evidence of neighbourhood advantage in the Southern NUTS 3 regions is found, together with opposite results for the Central‐Northern NUTS 3 regions. Finally, evidence of positive industrial mix effects is only found in Central‐Northern Italy.