Field study in an urban environment of simultaneous self-cleaning and hydrophobic nanosized TiO-based coatings on stone for the protection of building surface.

Titanium dioxide based nanocomposites for stone coating have been found to be promising in laboratory conditions to obtain manifold protective actions against pollution and weathering affecting the outdoor built heritage. Lasting performances in real conditions of these multifunctional coatings have been scarcely examined, although this is a key issue in evaluating their potential for applications in a real building context and their optimization. This paper illustrates a field study aimed at investigating simultaneous hydrophobic and self-cleaning effectiveness, on the medium-long run, of TiO NPs/fluoropolymer coatings applied on a limestone.

Ultrasonic pulse velocity for the evaluation of physical and mechanical properties of a highly porous building limestone.

UPV as non-destructive technique can effectively contribute to the low invasive in situ analysis and diagnosis of masonry elements related to the conservation, rehabilitation and strengthening of the built heritage. The use of non-destructive and non-invasive techniques brings all the times many advantages in diagnostic activities on pre-existing buildings in terms of sustainability; moreover, it is a strong necessity with respect to the conservation constraints when dealing with the historical-architectural heritage. In this work laboratory experiments were carried out to investigate the effectiveness of ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) in evaluating physical and mechanical properties of Lecce stone, a soft and porous building limestone.

Evidence of different metabolic phenotypes in humans.

The study of metabolic responses to drugs, environmental changes, and diseases is a new promising area of metabonomic research. Metabolic fingerprints can be obtained by analytical techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). In principle, alterations of these fingerprints due to appearance/disappearance or concentration changes of metabolites can provide early evidences of, for example, onset of diseases.

New strategies to identify molecular markers predicting chemotherapy activity and toxicity in breast cancer.

Despite significant improvements in the treatment and outcomes of early-stage breast cancer, the quest continues to find biological and molecular markers that would enable earlier diagnosis or better prediction of treatment efficacy and toxicity. Metabolomics--the latest and one of the most exciting of the 'omic' sciences--has shown early promise as a non-invasive diagnostic aid in ovarian cancer, and may allow the detection of subtle metabolic changes that could have diagnostic, prognostic or predictive value in breast cancer. Routine monitoring of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) has also been advocated as a novel means of detecting breast cancer progression earlier, and identifying alterations in tumour cells that might signal the need for therapy changes.

Thin film construction and characterization and gas-sensing performances of a tailored phenylene-thienylene copolymer.

An alternating copolymer, poly(2,5-dioctyloxy-1,4-phenylene-alt-2,5-thienylene), has been synthesized and used in this research. The behavior of the floating film at the air-water interface has been investigated by measuring surface pressure versus area Langmuir isotherms and contemporaneously by reflection spectroscopy and Brewster angle microscopy. The floating films were transferred by the Langmuir-Schäfer (horizontal lifting) method onto various substrates.