University of Florence

About: University of Florence is a education organization based out in Florence, Toscana, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Carbonic anhydrase. The organization has 27292 authors who have published 79599 publications receiving 2341684 citations. The organization is also known as: Università degli studi di Firenze & Universita degli studi di Firenze.

Cutaneous Lymphoma International Consortium Study of Outcome in Advanced Stages of Mycosis Fungoides and Sézary Syndrome: Effect of Specific Prognostic Markers on Survival and Development of a Prognostic Model

Abstract: Purpose Advanced-stage mycosis fungoides (MF; stage IIB to IV) and Sezary syndrome (SS) are aggressive lymphomas with a median survival of 1 to 5 years. Clinical management is stage based; however, there is wide range of outcome within stages. Published prognostic studies in MF/SS have been single-center trials. Because of the rarity of MF/SS, only a large collaboration would power a study to identify independent prognostic markers. Patients and Methods Literature review identified the following 10 candidate markers: stage, age, sex, cutaneous histologic features of folliculotropism, CD30 positivity, proliferation index, large-cell transformation, WBC/lymphocyte count, serum lactate dehydrogenase, and identical T-cell clone in blood and skin. Data were collected at specialist centers on patients diagnosed with advanced-stage MF/SS from 2007. Each parameter recorded at diagnosis was tested against overall survival (OS). Results Staging data on 1,275 patients with advanced MF/SS from 29 international sites ...

Mutational analysis of acylphosphatase suggests the importance of topology and contact order in protein folding.

Abstract: Muscle acylphosphatase (AcP) is a small protein that folds very slowly with two-state behavior. The conformational stability and the rates of folding and unfolding have been determined for a number of mutants of AcP in order to characterize the structure of the folding transition state. The results show that the transition state is an expanded version of the native protein, where most of the native interactions are partially established. The transition state of AcP turns out to be remarkably similar in structure to that of the activation domain of procarboxypeptidase A2 (ADA2h), a protein having the same overall topology but sharing only 13% sequence identity with AcP. This suggests that transition states are conserved between proteins with the same native fold. Comparison of the rates of folding of AcP and four other proteins with the same topology, including ADA2h, supports the concept that the average distance in sequence between interacting residues (that is, the contact order) is an important determinant of the rate of protein folding.

Quantentunneln der Magnetisierung und verwandte Phänomene in molekularen Materialien

Abstract: Molekule mit einer grosen Zahl gekoppelter paramagnetischer Zentren werden gegenwartig intensiv erforscht. Man hofft auf Eigenschaften zu treffen, die zwischen denen isolierter Paramagnete und klassischer Magnete liegen, und damit einen eindeutigen Nachweis fur das Auftreten von Grosenquantisierungseffekten in Magneten zu erhalten. Als Prufsteine fur neue Theorien dienten bislang die beiden Clusterfamilien Mn12 und Fe8. Man darf jedoch davon ausgehen, dass die Synthesechemie in naher Zukunft weitere Klassen mit ahnlichen oder gar besseren Eigenschaften hervorbringt. Als eine Voraussetzung hierfur mussen die Beziehungen zwischen Struktur und Eigenschaften des Molekuls klar verstanden und Konzepte wie Quantentunneln, Quantenkoharenz oder Quantenoszillation gut bekannt sein. Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, die notwendigen Grundlagen zum Verstandnis der Grosenquantisierungseffekte zusammenzufassen und einen kritischen Uberblick uber die Entwicklung dieses jungen Forschungsgebietes zu geben.

Numerical simulation of hydrodynamics and bank erosion in a river bend

Abstract: We present an integrated analysis of bank erosion in a high-curvature bend of the gravel bed Cecina River (central Italy). Our analysis combines a model of fluvial bank erosion with groundwater flow and bank stability analyses to account for the influence of hydraulic erosion on mass failure processes, the key novel aspect being that the fluvial erosion model is parameterized using outputs from detailed hydrodynamic simulations. The results identify two mechanisms that explain how most bank retreat usually occurs after, rather than during, flood peaks. First, in the high curvature bend investigated here the maximum flow velocity core migrates away from the outer bank as flow discharge increases, reducing sidewall boundary shear stress and fluvial erosion at peak flow stages. Second, bank failure episodes are triggered by combinations of pore water and hydrostatic confining pressures induced in the period between the drawdown and rising phases of multipeaked flow events.