Remediate and sense: alginate beads empowered by portable electrochemical strips for copper ion removal and detection at environmental sites.

The contamination of environmental sites due to the presence of persistent species represents an important issue to be tackled. In particular, the presence of high levels of metals in soil and surface water is more frequent. One of the metals that sometimes exceeds the permissible limit set by regulatory authorities is copper.

Smartphone-based 3D-printed electrochemiluminescence enzyme biosensor for reagentless glucose quantification in real matrices.

Three-dimensional (3D) printed electrochemical devices are increasingly used in point-of-need and point-of-care testing. They show several advantages such as simple fabrication, low cost, fast response, and excellent selectivity and sensitivity in small sample volumes. However, there are only a few examples of analytical devices combining 3D-printed electrodes with electrochemiluminescence (ECL) detection, an electrochemical detection principle widely employed in clinical chemistry analysis.

Current understanding, challenges and perspective on portable systems applied to plant monitoring and precision agriculture.

The devastating effects of global climate change on crop production and exponential population growth pose a major challenge to agricultural yields. To cope with this problem, crop performance monitoring is becoming increasingly necessary. In this scenario, the use of sensors and biosensors capable of detecting changes in plant fitness and predicting the evolution of their morphology and physiology has proven to be a useful strategy to increase crop yields.

Electrochemical Biosensors for Tracing Cyanotoxins in Food and Environmental Matrices.

The adoption of electrochemical principles to realize on-field analytical tools for detecting pollutants represents a great possibility for food safety and environmental applications. With respect to the existing transduction mechanisms, i.e.

A Smartphone-Based Chemosensor to Evaluate Antioxidants in Agri-Food Matrices by In Situ AuNP Formation.

In recent years, there has been a continuously growing interest in antioxidants by both customers and food industry. The beneficial health effects of antioxidants led to their widespread use in fortified functional foods, as dietary supplements and as preservatives. A variety of analytical methods are available to evaluate the total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of food extracts and beverages.

Association of Cycling With All-Cause and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality Among Persons With Diabetes: The European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) Study.

Importance: Premature death from all causes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes is higher among persons with diabetes.

Objective: To investigate the association between time spent cycling and all-cause and CVD mortality among persons with diabetes, as well as to evaluate the association between change in time spent cycling and risk of all-cause and CVD mortality.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This prospective cohort study included 7459 adults with diabetes from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.

"Pressure pain threshold over masticatory muscles and temporomandibular joint in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis".

Background: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is an autoimmune, chronic, inflammatory joint disease, affecting children and adolescents. Patients with JIA may have pain and fatigue in muscles. There are not studies evaluating the pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) of both masticatory muscles and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) in patients with JIA.

Temporomandibular joint damage in juvenile idiopathic arthritis: Diagnostic validity of diagnostic criteria for temporomandibular disorders.

Background: Diagnostic criteria reported in the expanded taxonomy for temporomandibular disorders include a standardised clinical examination and diagnosis (DC/TMD 3.B) of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) damage in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA); however, their validity is unknown.

Objectives: To assess the validity of DC/TMD 3.

Microbial lipid extraction from Lipomyces starkeyi using irreversible electroporation.

The aim of the study was to investigate the feasibility of using irreversible electroporation (EP) as a microbial cell disruption technique to extract intracellular lipid within short time and in an eco-friendly manner. An EP circuit was designed and fabricated to obtain 4 kV with frequency of 100 Hz of square waves. The yeast cells of Lipomyces starkeyi (L.

Technical difficulties and solutions of direct transesterification process of microbial oil for biodiesel synthesis.

Microbial oils are considered as alternative to vegetable oils or animal fats as biodiesel feedstock. Microalgae and oleaginous yeast are the main candidates of microbial oil producers' community. However, biodiesel synthesis from these sources is associated with high cost and process complexity.

Evaluation of ischemic diabetic maculopathy with Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography and microperimetry.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of high-speed Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) and fundus microperimetry (MP-1) in identifying the anatomic and functional features of ischemic diabetic maculopathy.

Design: Prospective noninterventional study.

Participants: Forty-two consecutive eyes (23 patients) with ischemic diabetic maculopathy and 40 normal eyes (25 control subjects) were included in this study.

No link between breast cancer and meningioma: results from a large monoinstitutional retrospective analysis.

Background: The etiology of meningioma is largely unknown, although breast cancer has been suggested to play a role.

Methods: A monoinstitutional, retrospective analysis was performed at European Institute of Oncology on 12,330 patients with breast cancer. The cumulative incidence of meningioma was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and the log-rank test was used to assess differences between groups.

The mtDNA 15497 G/A polymorphism in cytochrome b in severe obese subjects from Southern Italy.

Background And Aim: A large number of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations have been implicated in degenerative diseases and aging. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the 15497 G/A mtDNA polymorphism (G251S) in the cytochrome b subunit of respiratory complex III, which has been associated with obesity-related variables and lipid metabolism in a Japanese population, is associated with severe obesity also in adult Caucasians from southern Italy.

Methods And Results: Unrelated severely obese patients (n = 317; BMI > 40kg/m2) and controls (n = 217; BMI < 25kg/m2) from Southern Italy were genotyped by allelic discrimination TaqMan assay for the 15497 G/A mtDNA polymorphism.