DATABASES TO SUPPORT ASSET MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL REUSE: THE CASE STUDY OF THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA

Over the past decades, many EU and non EU countries have amended their legislative and institutional framework on proceeds of crime confiscation to deprive criminals of their assets more effectively and to better manage and dispose of them. There are still, however, some under-researched issues that could greatly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of confiscation policies. A first topic is the contribution that databases can give to asset management and disposal; the second one deals with a particular asset disposal option which involves giving criminal proceeds back to the communities affected by crime and promoting their use in line with communal needs: social reuse. This article responds to this question: what is the current situation regarding these two key issues in the Republic of North Macedonia

La destinazione dei beni confiscati alle mafie nell'Unione Europea

The volume compares the legislation and the application practice regarding administration and destination in the EU. Then the main experiences of social reuse and reuse regimes are presented, with a focus on the Italian (direct social reuse) and French (indirect social reuse) cases

Autosomal Dominant Tubulointerstitial Kidney Disease with Adult Onset due to a Novel Renin Mutation Mapping in the Mature Protein

Autosomal dominant tubulointerstitial kidney disease (ADTKD) is a genetically heterogeneous renal disorder leading to progressive loss of renal function. ADTKD-REN is due to rare mutations in renin, all localized in the protein leader peptide and affecting its co-translational insertion in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Through exome sequencing in an adult-onset ADTKD family we identified a new renin variant, p.L381P, mapping in the mature protein. To assess its pathogenicity, we combined genetic data, computational and predictive analysis and functional studies. The L381P substitution affects an evolutionary conserved residue, co-segregates with renal disease, is not found in population databases and is predicted to be deleterious by in silico tools and by structural modelling. Expression of the L381P variant leads to its ER retention and induction of the Unfolded Protein Response in cell models and to defective pronephros development in zebrafish. Our work shows that REN mutations outside of renin leader peptide can cause ADTKD and delineates an adult form of ADTKD-REN, a condition which has usually its onset in childhood. This has implications for the molecular diagnosis and the estimated prevalence of the disease and points at ER homeostasis as a common pathway affected in ADTKD-REN, and possibly more generally in ADTKD

A novel in-frame deletion in MYOT causes an early adult onset distal myopathy

Missense mutations in MYOT encoding the sarcomeric Z-disk protein myotilin cause three main myopathic phenotypes including proximal limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, spheroid body myopathy, and late-onset distal myopathy. We describe a family carrying a heterozygous MYOT deletion (Tyr4_His9del) that clinically was characterized by an early-adult onset distal muscle weakness and pathologically by a myofibrillar myopathy (MFM). Molecular modeling of the full-length myotilin protein revealed that the 4-YERPKH-9 amino acids are involved in local interactions within the N-terminal portion of myotilin. Injection of in vitro synthetized mutated human MYOT RNA or of plasmid carrying its cDNA sequence in zebrafish embryos led to muscle defects characterized by sarcomeric disorganization of muscle fibers and widening of the I-band, and severe motor impairments. We identify MYOT novel Tyr4_His9 deletion as the cause of an early-onset MFM with a distal myopathy phenotype and provide data supporting the importance of the amino acid sequence for the structural role of myotilin in the sarcomeric organization of myofibers

5G-TRANSFORMER Service Orchestrator: design, implementation, and evaluation

European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC 2019)5G networks will pose complex network management challenges due to the variety of vertical services they will need to serve and the diversity and heterogeneity of underlying infrastructure. The service orchestration functionality is fundamental to enable fulfilling the requirements of the different verticals while efficiently sharing the infrastructure resources. This paper details the 5G-TRANSFORMER service orchestrator implementation and operation. It also evaluates and profiles service creation time showing how the automation offered by the platform allows reducing it from hours to minutes. It also shows that the most time-consuming steps correspond to the deployment of the virtual network functions and post-deployment configuration, which consume one order of magnitude more time than the rest of steps (e.g., network creation, port creation).This work has been partially funded by the EC H2020 5G-TRANSFORMER Project (grant no. 761536) and grants TEC2017-88373-R (5G-REFINE) and 2017 SGR 1195

A multi-element psychosocial intervention for early psychosis (GET UP PIANO TRIAL) conducted in a catchment area of 10 million inhabitants: study protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial

Multi-element interventions for first-episode psychosis (FEP) are promising, but have mostly been conducted in non-epidemiologically representative samples, thereby raising the risk of underestimating the complexities involved in treating FEP in 'real-world' services

“Evaluating anti money laundering policies: where are we?”

Notwithstanding the international community focused its attention on money laundering quite a long time ago, still there is very little scientific knowledge on the effectiveness and efficiency of countermeasures adopted to contrast such a phenomenon. This articles aims to contribute to the debate on the topic by discussing the reasons for this lack of knowledge and criti-cally reviewing traditional and new approaches to assess anti-money laundering efforts. Amongst the latter, a recent and promising strand of economic literature is discussed

Il caso della confisca

L'articolo riflette sulla valutazione delle politiche di confisca. Il paragrafo 8.2 passa in rassegna la scarsa letteratura sul tema e indaga i motivi della ridotta produzione scientifica in materia. Il paragrafo 8.3 presenta uno studio sull’implementazione delle politiche di confisca nell’Unione europea condotto nel 2006 dall’autrice dell'articolo, che è ancora oggi l’esempio più avanzato di comprensione della loro prassi applicativa. Il paragrafo 8.4 discute le possibili frontiere della ricerca valutativa in questo settore, ed in particolare i metodi utilizzabili per valutare l’impatto della sanzione in termini di deterrenza generale. Infine, il paragrafo 8.5 contiene alcune considerazioni finali

Report on the piloting of the PAYBACK DMS

This chapter describes the piloting of the PAYBACK Data Management System prototype

4. Methods of disposal and destination of proceeds

This chapter reviews methods of disposal and destination of confiscated proceeds from crime across the EU Member States