Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper analyses the lithic complex from GOT 1-S site, Gotera area, Southern Ethiopia. The aim is to test the hypothesis of two distinct reduction sequences according to different raw material choices and availability using both technological and statistical approach. The principal raw materials are quartz and basalt. The technological analysis shows a more opportunistic reduction strategy on basalt artefact, exploiting the natural convexities on cobbles to produce flakes and tools.

In this work, the first phytochemical comparison performed on the polar fractions of two different phenotypes of Mentha aquatica L. having pink-violet and white flowers, is reported. This comparison was conducted through both a classical phytochemical analysis and a metabolomic one by means of spectroscopic and spectrometric approaches. Twenty-seven compounds were identified in both phenotypes. Most of them were evidenced in both. Anyway, all these compounds possess chemotaxonomic, pharmacological and nutritional value.

Human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), including embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, represent powerful tools for disease modeling and for therapeutic applications. PSCs are particularly useful for the study of development and diseases of the nervous system. However, generating in vitro models that recapitulate the architecture and the full variety of subtypes of cells that make the complexity of our brain remains a challenge.

Filler dispersion in polymer matrices plays an important role in defining the performance of nanocomposite materials. Here, a novel method for the quantitative assessment of filler dispersion is reported. The method is based on the direct analysis of optical images using an algorithm implemented in MATLAB, which considers the distance of each pixel with respect to pixels of same value and to pixels of different value. A dispersion index is determined by comparing the grayscale optical image with the corresponding uniformly dispersed image.