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During the 2005 phytopathological forest survey of the Tuscany Region, named META (Regione Toscana 2008a), the occurrence of Cryphonectria parasitica, responsible of the chestnut blight, was registered on all of the 63 monitoring areas and on about 90% of the trees. The hypovirulent strains of the pathogen were mostly prevalent (about twice) then virulent ones, excluding some areas near the Apennines. Generally hypovirulent strains were present in sites showing high values of solar radiation, where the dsRNA transfer from mycelia resulted easier, in respect to chilly sites (p < 0.05). The analysis offers a chance to predict the spreading of hypovirulent strains and organize sanitary operations in chestnut stands.

In this paper, a calculation code, developed in house by the authors, able to evaluate the performance of a gas turbine with all possible fogging strategies (high pressure fogging, overspray, and interstage injection) is presented and discussed. The code has a flexible structure and can be applied to evaluate the performance of ever), commercial gas turbine model. The aim of the calculation code is to overcome the limits of the most widespread commercial software, especially with regard to the two phase flow compression process simulation. The calculation code was validated on results available in the literature showing a good agreement with experimental and theoretical results. [DOI: 10.1115/1.2771563]

This paper investigates effects of interstate water injection on the performance of a GE Frame 7EA gas turbine using aerothermodynamic modeling. To accomplish this objective, a computational code, written in FORTRAN 90 language and developed by DIEM University of Bologna, has been used. The calculation procedure considers effects of evaporation of injected water within the compressor including droplets dynamics, which are necessary in order to fully evaluate effects of wet compression on the gas turbine performance. The robustness of the computational code is demonstrated by evaluating stage-by-stage compressor performance and the overall gas turbine performance in the presence of inlet evaporative fogging, overspray fogging, and interstage water injection. The presented results show that water injection location influences compressor stage loading redistribution differently. The plausible explanations to the observed trends of various performance parameters are presented in this paper. [DOI: 10.1115/1.2771247]

Background:Limited knowledge is available on alterations induced by cytostatic drugs on magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and imaging (MRI) parameters of human cancers, in absence of apoptosis or cytotoxicity. We here investigated the effects of a cytostatic cisplatin (CDDP) treatment on 1H MRS and MRI of HER2-overexpressing epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) cells and in vivo xenografts.Methods:High-resolution MRS analyses were performed on in vivo passaged SKOV3.ip cells and cell/tissue extracts (16.4 or 9.4 T). In vivo MRI/MRS quantitative analyses (4.7 T) were conducted on xenografts obtained by subcutaneous implantation of SKOV3.ip cells in SCID mice. The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and metabolite levels were measured.Results:CDDP-induced cytostatic effects were associated with a metabolic shift of cancer cells towards accumulation of MRS-detected neutral lipids, whereas the total choline profile failed to be perturbed in both cultured cells and xenografts. In vivo MRI examinations showed delayed tumour growth in the CDDP-treated group, associated with early reduction of the ADC mean value.Conclusion:This study provides an integrated set of information on cancer metabolism and physiology for monitoring the response of an EOC model to a cytostatic chemotherapy, as a basis for improving the interpretation of non-invasive MR examinations of EOC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Aberrant choline metabolism has been proposed as a novel cancer hallmark. We recently showed that epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) possesses an altered MRS-choline profile, characterised by increased phosphocholine (PCho) content to which mainly contribute over-expression and activation of choline kinase-alpha (ChoK-alpha).Methods: To assess its biological relevance, ChoK-alpha expression was downmodulated by transient RNA interference in EOC in vitro models. Gene expression profiling by microarray analysis and functional analysis was performed to identify the pathway/functions perturbed in ChoK-alpha-silenced cells, then validated by in vitro experiments.Results: In silenced cells, compared with control, we observed: (I) a significant reduction of both CHKA transcript and ChoK-alpha protein expression; (II) a dramatic, proportional drop in PCho content ranging from 60 to 71%, as revealed by (1)H-magnetic spectroscopy analysis; (III) a 35-36% of cell growth inhibition, with no evidences of apoptosis or modification of the main cellular survival signalling pathways; (IV) 476 differentially expressed genes, including genes related to lipid metabolism. Ingenuity pathway analysis identified cellular functions related to cell death and cellular proliferation and movement as the most perturbed. Accordingly, CHKA-silenced cells displayed a significant delay in wound repair, a reduced migration and invasion capability were also observed. Furthermore, although CHKA silencing did not directly induce cell death, a significant increase of sensitivity to platinum, paclitaxel and doxorubicin was observed even in a drug-resistant context.Conclusion: We showed for the first time in EOC that CHKA downregulation significantly decreased the aggressive EOC cell behaviour also affecting cells' sensitivity to drug treatment. These observations open the way to further analysis for ChoK-alpha validation as a new EOC therapeutic target to be used alone or in combination with conventional drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Develops a model in which stock repurchases serve as a defense against takeovers by signaling the manager's private information about the value of the firm. Manager's equilibrium strategy; Impact of the repurchase on the expected value of the stock.