The study presents some results of the on-going European Project, RePublic_ZEB, on the refurbishment of the public building stock towards nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB). The work is focused on ...the application of the nZEB requirements to two existing public buildings representative of the 1960s in Northern Italy. Many packages of energy efficiency measures that comply with nZEB requirements are identified and evaluated. The aim is to promote energy efficient but also cost-effective solutions for the Italian building stock refurbishment. The results are presented in terms of «package of measures», energy consumption, global costs, actualized pay-back period and CO2 emission.
Tomato manufacturing industry originates substantial amounts of residues. If left without control these residues can constitute an environmental problem. Their energetic use can solve this problem ...and give added value to the process. In this research physical-chemical characteristics of this biomass and its components are studied to evaluate the possibility of an energy recovery. In general, the dry residues of tomato processing industry are suitable as solid biofuel for energy purposes in large size power plants. The separation of components that constitute tomato residues (peels and seeds) makes sense in case of production and exploitation of oil from tomato seeds. The results can be useful for developing standards on these materials.
► Physical-chemical characteristics of the industrial tomato residues have been studied. ► We carried out analyses on tomato peels, seeds, oilcakes and extraction meals. ► We evaluated the tomato oil seed production through mechanical extraction. ► The results show significant differences between the components of the tomato residue. ► The separation in different components can be useful for tomato residues valorization.
Sustainability of Grape-Ethanol Energy Chain Foppa Pedretti, Ester; Duca, Daniele; Toscano, Giuseppe ...
Journal of agricultural engineering (Pisa, Italy),
01/2014, Letnik:
45, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The aim of this work is to evaluate the sustainability, in terms of greenhouse gases emission saving, of a new potential bio-ethanol production chain in comparison with the most common ones. The ...innovation consists of producing bio-ethanol from different types of no-food grapes, while usually bio-ethanol is obtained from matrices taken away from crop for food destination: sugar cane, corn, wheat, sugar beet. In the past, breeding programs were conducted with the aim of improving grapevine characteristics, a large number of hybrid vine varieties were produced and are nowadays present in the Viticulture Research Centre (CRA-VIT) Germplasm Collection. Some of them are potentially interesting for bio-energy production because of their high production of sugar, good resistance to diseases, and ability to grow in marginal lands. Life cycle assessment (LCA) of grape ethanol energy chain was performed following two different methods: i) using the spreadsheet BioGrace, developed within the Intelligent Energy Europe program to support and to ease the Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC implementation; ii) using a dedicated LCA software. Emissions were expressed in CO₂ equivalent (CO₂eq). These two tools gave very similar results. The overall emissions impact of ethanol production from grapes on average is about 33 g CO²eq MJ–¹ of ethanol if prunings are used for steam production and 53 g CO²eq MJ–¹ of ethanol if methane is used. The comparison with other bio-energy chains points out that the production of ethanol using grapes represents an intermediate situation in terms of general emissions among the different production chains. The results showed that the sustainability limits provided by the normative are respected to this day. On the contrary, from 2017 this production will be sustainable only if the transformation processes will be performed using renewable sources of energy.
Although the emergence of bone marrow (BM)–resident p190BCR-ABL–specific T lymphocytes has been correlated with hematologic and cytogenetic remissions in patients with Philadelphia ...chromosome–positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL) undergoing maintenance tyrosine-kinase inhibitor treatment, little is known about the possibility of culturing these cells ex vivo and using them in T-cell therapy strategies. We investigated the feasibility of expanding/priming p190BCR-ABL–specific T cells in vitro by stimulation with dendritic cells pulsed with p190BCR-ABL peptides derived from the BCR-ABL junctional region and alternative splicing, and of adoptively administering them to patients with relapsed disease. We report on the feasibility of producing clinical-grade BCR-ABL–specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), endowed with antileukemia activity, from Ph+ ALL patients and healthy donors. We treated 3 patients with Ph+ ALL with autologous or allogeneic p190BCR-ABL–specific CTLs. No postinfusion toxicity was observed, except for a grade II skin graft-versus-host disease in the patient treated for hematologic relapse. All patients achieved a molecular or hematologic complete remission (CR) after T-cell therapy, upon emergence of p190BCR-ABL–specific T cells in the BM. Our results show that p190BCR-ABL–specific CTLs are capable of controlling treatment-refractory Ph+ ALL in vivo, and support the development of adoptive immunotherapeutic approaches with BCR-ABL CTLs in Ph+ ALL.
•BCR-ABL–specific CTLs may be obtained by stimulation with peptides derived from BCR-ABL junctional region and alternative splicing.•T-cell therapy with BCR-ABL–specific CTLs from healthy donors or patients mediates molecular or hematologic CR in patients with Ph+ ALL.
Objectives To describe the first in-depth analysis of both the T-cell responses against human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8) and the HHV-8 viral load in 1 patient who developed iatrogenic ...HHV-8-associated-Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) following immunosuppressive treatment for undifferentiated arthritis and to review the literature on iatrogenic KS (IKS). Methods T-cell responses against HHV-8 lytic and latent antigens were analyzed by ex vivo enzyme-linked immunospot (Elispot) and HHV-8 viral load was assessed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, in sequential peripheral blood samples from a 55-year-old woman who developed skin/mucosal and visceral KS, while receiving treatment with cyclosporine, methotrexate, and methylprednisolone for undifferentiated arthritis. Results KS may result from HHV-8 infection in patients undergoing immunosuppressive treatment for rheumatic diseases and this is the first case of IKS occurring in undifferentiated arthritis. A role for immune surveillance in the pathogenesis of IKS is supported by the observation of disease regression following discontinuation of immunosuppressive therapy. In a 4-year follow-up, we showed that variations of the virus-specific immune responses but not of the viral load correlated well with the disease course, characterized by 2 remission and subsequent relapse phases, following changes of immunosuppressive therapy. Conclusions We have provided evidence of a clear-cut correlation between changes in immunologic markers of HHV-8 infection and the disease course of this viral associated tumor, concomitant with variations of immunosuppressive treatment. Thus, ex vivo enzyme-linked immunospot for HHV-8-specific T-cell responses represents a new tool for the clinical management of rheumatic patients with IKS.
BACKGROUNDWe performed serological and molecular pretransplant screening in solid organ transplant (SOT) donors and recipients in north central Italy and a surveillance program for human herpesvirus ...8 (HHV8) infection after transplant, aiming to establish an optimal management of HHV8 infection in SOT recipients.
METHODSFor pretransplant HHV8 screening in both donors and recipients, 6 serological (4 indirect immunofluorescent assays IFA and 2 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays—both HHV8 lytic and latent antigen based) and 2 molecular assays were used. A reference standard to identify HHV8-positive patients was defined by at least 2 positive assays. All transplant patients at risk to develop HHV8-related disease underwent virological posttransplant monitoring by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.
RESULTSHuman herpesvirus 8 seroprevalence was 4% (10/249) in donors and 18% (93/517) in organ recipients. The best performance was obtained by 2 lytic antigen-based IFAs that showed almost perfect agreement to the reference standard (0.943 and 0.931 Cohen kappa). Human herpesvirus 8–DNA was detected in 6.8% and 2.9% of HHV8-seropositive donor samples by in-house nested PCR and quantitative real-time PCR assays, respectively. After transplant, 3 (25%) of 12 HHV8-mismatch patients (seropositive donor/seronegative recipient) developed a primary infection, one of whom developed a lethal nonmalignant illness. Two of 93 HHV8-seropositive recipients (2.1%) had viral replication in posttransplant period, one of whom developed Kaposi sarcoma.
CONCLUSIONSSerological assays, specifically lytic IFAs, were the best methodological approach to identify HHV8-infected SOT donors and recipients. A very low incidence (1.9%) of posttransplant HHV8-related disease was observed.
This paper discusses some considerations and advances a number of proposals about the potential of Agricultural Engineering to contribute to the field of renewable energy, with an emphasis on ...biomass. Several areas for action are identified. First, general education and teaching of students who will go on to become technicians and professionals in the sector of renewable energies, even though the characteristics of the sectors are still fuzzy. Diffusion of the energy culture, a too often neglected aspect that is however indispensable to sustain the overdue penetration of renewable energies in Italy, is an additional area for action. Another critical area, energy planning, is currently viewed mainly as involving the assessment on more or less wide areas of energy consumption and for the scope of replacing fossil resources with renewables to meet some energy requirements. A more complex, overarching issue is energy efficiency, especially of buildings, which should be a mainstay of the planning process but is in fact not so clearly addressed in development plans for renewables. At this same level, all interactions among production sectors should be assessed, to enhance the role of agriculture, one of the new potential energy-producing sectors and one of the possible prospective suppliers of renewable energy for different final users, from households to the service sector and industry. Agricultural Engineering has the skills needed to implement all these different actions. A role for it in advanced research, i.e. biotechnologies, can and should also be envisaged. Its work in the renewable energy sector should closely involve microbiological, genetic, chemical, agronomic, and animal research to define the goals to be pursued and to implement intuitions. In this way, Agricultural Engineering would increasingly be characterized as Biosystems Engineering.
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