966 results match your criteria: "Ca' Foscari University of Venice.[Affiliation]"

Activating brown adipose tissue (BAT) improves systemic metabolism, making it a promising target for metabolic syndrome. BAT is activated by 12,13-dihydroxy-9Z-octadecenoic acid (12,13-diHOME), which we previously identified to be inversely associated with BMI and which directly improves metabolism in multiple tissues. Here we profile plasma lipidomics from 83 people and test which lipids' association with BMI replicates in a concordant direction using our novel tool ScreenDMT, whose power and validity we demonstrate via mathematical proofs and simulations.

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In this study chitin derived from shrimp shells was used in the design of heterogeneous Pd-based catalysts for Heck and Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions. The synthesis of Pd nanoparticles supported on N-doped carbons was performed through different approaches, including a sustainable mechanochemical approach, by using a twin-screw extruder. All catalytic systems were characterized by a multitechnique approach and the effect of nanoparticles size, N-doping on the support, and their synergistic interactions were elucidated.

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Wild vegetables (WVs) have been an essential source of human nutrition since ancient times. Foraging is a millennia-old practice that has gained more attention recently and is becoming fashionable, especially in restaurants in urban areas, as they attract customers who see WVs as an innovative sensory element and specialty food. Some cooks have used very few WVs for decades, but most chefs have only recently introduced them in their modern restaurants.

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Real-time forecast of temperature-related excess mortality at small-area level: towards an operational framework.

Environ Res Health

July 2024

Environment & Health Modelling (EHM) Lab, Department of Public Health Environments and Society, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.

The development of innovative tools for real-time monitoring and forecasting of environmental health impacts is central to effective public health interventions and resource allocation strategies. Though a need for such generic tools has been previously echoed by public health planners and regional authorities responsible for issuing anticipatory alerts, a comprehensive, robust and scalable real-time system for predicting temperature-related excess deaths at a local scale has not been developed yet. Filling this gap, we propose a flexible operational framework for coupling publicly available weather forecasts with temperature-mortality risk functions specific to small census-based zones, the latter derived using state-of-the-art environmental epidemiological models.

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Regional variation in the role of humidity on city-level heat-related mortality.

PNAS Nexus

August 2024

Department of Civil Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.

Article Synopsis
  • - The study examines the connection between humidity levels and daily human mortality across 739 cities, highlighting how different heat stress indicators can predict health risks related to extreme heat.
  • - It reveals that air temperature (T) effectively predicts heat-related deaths in cities with strong negative humidity correlations, while cities with weak correlations benefit from using humidity-inclusive heat stress indicators for better predictions.
  • - The research underscores the need for improved heat-health alert systems by identifying regions particularly vulnerable to humid heat, facilitating targeted responses to protect public health.
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Fungi have been used for medicinal purposes for many centuries. This study, based on 35 historical written sources and 581 in-depth semi-structured interviews from eight countries in the western borderlands of the former Soviet Union, investigates the medicinal use of fungi by local communities. We compared the taxa and uses obtained from fieldwork and historical sources with works that advocated fungi use within Soviet herbals, representing the centralised medical system.

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Amino-Acid Characteristics in Protein Native State Structures.

Biomolecules

July 2024

Department of Physics and Institute for Fundamental Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.

The molecular machines of life, proteins, are made up of twenty kinds of amino acids, each with distinctive side chains. We present a geometrical analysis of the protrusion statistics of side chains in more than 4000 high-resolution protein structures. We employ a coarse-grained representation of the protein backbone viewed as a linear chain of C atoms and consider just the heavy atoms of the side chains.

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This manuscript discusses the challenges of applying New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) for safe by design and regulatory risk assessment of advanced nanomaterials (AdNMs). The authors propose a framework for Next Generation Risk Assessment of AdNMs involving NAMs that is aligned to the conventional risk assessment paradigm. This framework is exposure-driven, endpoint-specific, makes best use of pre-existing information, and can be implemented in tiers of increasing specificity and complexity of the adopted NAMs.

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Glyphosate and other plant protection products in size-segregated urban aerosol: Occurrence and dimensional trend.

Environ Pollut

October 2024

Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155, 30172, Venezia Mestre, Italy. Electronic address:

Plant protection products (PPPs) play a fundamental role in the maintenance of agricultural fields and private/public green areas, however they can contaminate zones nearby the application point due to wind drift, resuspension, and evaporation. Several studied have deepened the relationship between PPPs and living beings' health, suggesting that these products might have a negative influence. Some PPPs belong to the class of Emergent Contaminants, which are compounds whose knowledge on the environmental distribution and influence is limited.

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Over centuries, European vintners have developed a profound knowledge about grapes, environment, and techniques that yield the most distinguishable wines. In many regions, this knowledge is reflected in the system of wine geographical indications (GI), but climate change is challenging this historical union. Here, we present a climate change vulnerability assessment of 1085 wine GIs across Europe and propose climate-resilient development pathways using an ensemble of biophysical and socioeconomic indicators.

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Background: In the intricate tapestry of food security, wild food species stand as pillars, nourishing millions in low-income communities, and reflecting the resilience and adaptability of human societies. Their significance extends beyond mere sustenance, intertwining with cultural traditions and local knowledge systems, underscoring the importance of preserving biodiversity and traditional practices for sustainable livelihoods.

Methods: The present study, conducted between February 2022 and August 2023 along the Line of Control in India's Kashmir Valley, employed a rigorous data collection encompassing semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and specific field observations facilitated through a snowball sampling technique.

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The main conservation problem of p-PVC artworks is phthalate-based plasticizer migration. Phthalate migration from the bulk to the surface of the materials leads to the formation of a glossy and oily film on the outer layers, ultimately reducing the flexibility of the material. This study aimed to develop a removable coating for the preservation of contemporary artworks and design objects made of plasticized polyvinyl chloride (p-PVC).

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Article Synopsis
  • * The study involved field research in 60 rural settlements with interviews and observations from local communities, analyzing wild plant use over three timeframes: past, continuous, and recently acquired.
  • * Results highlighted that many wild plants are still used for food, with significant overlap across timeframes; shifts in use were influenced by environmental changes, policies, culture, and economics.
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We present a detailed analysis of the electronic properties of graphene/Eu/Ni(111). By using angle- and spin-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and ab initio calculations, we show that the intercalation of Eu in the graphene/Ni(111) interface gives rise to a gapped freestanding dispersion of the ππ^{*} Dirac cones at the K[over ¯] point with an additional lifting of the spin degeneracy due to the mixing of graphene and Eu states. The interaction with the magnetic substrate results in a large spin-dependent gap in the Dirac cones with a topological nature characterized by a large Berry curvature and a spin-polarized Van Hove singularity, whose closeness to the Fermi level gives rise to a polaronic band.

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We perform a multi-scale analysis of the geometric structure of the network of X (Twitter at the time of data collection) interactions surrounding the Italian snap general elections of September 25th 2022. We identify within it the communities related to the major Italian political parties and after it we analyse both the large-scale structure of interactions between different parties, showing that it resembles the coalitions formed in the run-up to the elections and the internal structure of each community. We observe that some parties have a very centralised communication with the major leaders clearly occupying the central role, while others have a more horizontal communication strategy, with many accounts playing an important role.

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The histories of African crops remain poorly understood despite their contemporary importance. Integration of crops from western, eastern and northern Africa probably first occurred in the Great Lakes Region of eastern Africa; however, little is known about when and how these agricultural systems coalesced. This article presents archaeobotanical analyses from an approximately 9000-year archaeological sequence at Kakapel Rockshelter in western Kenya, comprising the largest and most extensively dated archaeobotanical record from the interior of equatorial eastern Africa.

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Standard medical ethnobotany of Kohistan, North Pakistan.

J Ethnobiol Ethnomed

July 2024

Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Abbottabad, 22060, Pakistan.

Background: This study was exclusively focused on the documentation and cross-cultural evaluation of ethnomedicinal knowledge (EMK) within the diverse linguistic groups of Kohistan situated between the Himalayan and Hindukush Mountain ranges in the north Pakistan.

Methods: Data were gathered during the field survey (May 2022 to July 2023) through group conversations, semi-structured interviews, and on-site observation. Venn diagrams were employed to illustrate the comparative assessment of EMK, and different ethnobotanical indices were utilized to examine the data.

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A carrier free delivery system of a MAGL inhibitor is effective on ovarian cancer.

Eur J Pharm Biopharm

October 2024

Pathology Unit, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico di Aviano (C.R.O.) IRCCS, 33081 Aviano, Italy; Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 30172 Venice, Italy. Electronic address:

Monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL) is a promising target for cancer therapy due to its involvement in lipid metabolism and its impact on cancer hallmarks like cell proliferation, migration, and tumor progression. A potent reversible MAGL inhibitor, MAGL23, has been recently developed by our group, demonstrating promising anticancer activities. To enhance its pharmacological properties, a nanoformulation using nanocrystals coated with albumin was prepared (MAGL23AF).

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On the cost-effectiveness of Nature-based Solutions for reducing disaster risk.

Sci Total Environ

October 2024

CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, Edificio Porta dell'Innovazione, Piano 2, Via della Liberta` 12, 30175 Marghera, Venice (VE), Italy; Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Edificio di Porta dell'Innovazione, Piano 2, Via della Liberta` 12, 30175 Marghera, Venice (VE), Italy.

The potential of ecosystem-based interventions, also known as Nature-based Solutions (NbS), for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) is now recognized by major national policies and international framework agreements. However, there is limited scientific evidence about their economic viability and equity impacts. We examined English-language peer-reviewed studies, published between 2000 and 2021, which undertook economic evaluations of NbS for DRR and CCA.

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Combining Partial True Discovery Guarantee Procedures.

Biom J

July 2024

Department of Biomedical Data Sciences, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Closed testing has recently been shown to be optimal for simultaneous true discovery proportion control. It is, however, challenging to construct true discovery guarantee procedures in such a way that it focuses power on some feature sets chosen by users based on their specific interest or expertise. We propose a procedure that allows users to target power on prespecified feature sets, that is, "focus sets.

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Climate physical risk assessment is crucial to inform adaptation policies and finance. However, science-based and transparent solutions to assess climate physical risks are limited, compounding the adaptation gap. This is a main limitation to fill the adaptation gap.

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Risk governance of nanomaterials and nanotechnologies is traditionally mainly limited to risk assessment, risk management and life cycle assessment. Recent approaches have experimented with widening the scope and including economic, social, and ethical aspects. This paper reports on tests and stakeholder feedback on the use of ethical impact assessment guidelines and tools adapting CEN Workshop Agreement part 2 CWA 17145-2:2017 (E)) to support risk governance of nanomaterials, in the RiskGONE project.

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Objectives: In Italy, asbestos was used intensively until its ban in 1992, which was extended for asbestos cement factories until 1994. The aim of this study was to evaluate the dose-response between asbestos exposure and asbestosis mortality across a pool of Italian occupational cohorts, taking into account the presence of competing risks.

Methods: Cohorts were followed for vital status and the cause of death was ascertained by a linkage with mortality registers.

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Background: The matched case-control design, up until recently mostly pertinent to epidemiological studies, is becoming customary in biomedical applications as well. For instance, in omics studies, it is quite common to compare cancer and healthy tissue from the same patient. Furthermore, researchers today routinely collect data from various and variable sources that they wish to relate to the case-control status.

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