Publications by authors named "E d'Aniello"
Edible ice is often produced by special machines that can represent a source of significant chemical and microbiological contamination. In this work, the presence of phthalic acid esters (phthalates, PAEs) and heavy metals in ice cubes distributed by 77 vending machines installed in two different zones in southern Italy and fed by water from the public water supply was investigated. Solid-phase microextraction coupled to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (SPME-GC/MS) was used to evaluate contamination with four PAEs, which were selected because they are commonly used in the production of food-contact plastics, while inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP/MS) was used to quantify the heavy metals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Researchers developed and validated a COVID-19 specific scoring system, called the EL COVID score, to predict in-hospital mortality based on patient data, including ECG features, from a multicenter Italian study.
- Out of 1014 hospitalized patients analyzed, key factors identified that were associated with higher mortality included age, delirium, platelet count, D-dimer levels, signs of right ventricular strain, and previous myocardial necrosis.
- The EL COVID score demonstrated moderate accuracy (sensitivity of 78.4%, specificity of 65.2%) and can help identify high-risk patients for better treatment and monitoring upon hospital admission.
Microplastics pose risks to marine organisms through ingestion, entanglement, and as carriers of toxic additives and environmental pollutants. Plastic pre-production pellet leachates have been shown to affect the development of sea urchins and, to some extent, mussels. The extent of those developmental effects on other animal phyla remains unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- The "ribbon" structure of connected Golgi stacks is typically thought to exist only in vertebrates, but this study suggests it might have originated earlier in animal evolution.
- Researchers found ribbon-like structures in various metazoans, indicating that this architectural feature predates vertebrates and may be linked to processes like embryogenesis.
- The study proposes that the evolution of specific proteins (GRASP) may have facilitated the formation of these Golgi ribbons, which could have important biological roles that are still not fully understood.
The use of choroidal vascularization to diagnose and follow-up ocular and systemic pathologies has been consolidated in recent research. Unfortunately, the choroidal parameters can be different depending on the lighting settings of optical coherence tomography (OCT) images. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the brightness of OCT images could influence the measurements of choroidal parameters obtained by processing and analyzing scientific images with the ImageJ program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF