The ‘Noir’ in David Peace’ s Shadow

The ‘Noir’ in David Peace’ s Shadowby Manuela BarrettaA Conversation with David Peace (Tokyo, April 28, 2008

Salute, innovazione e concorrenza nel mercato farmaceutico: una questione di bilanciamento tra diritti confliggenti

L'elaborato si articola su tre parti. La prima è dedicata alla ricostruzione del processo di affermazione del diritto alla salute in Italia e nell'Unione europea nonché all'analisi della legislazione farmaceutica e delle previsioni normative nazionali introdotte con l'obiettivo di promuovere l'utilizzo dei medicinali equivalenti. La seconda fornisce una ricognizione delle caratteristiche del brevetto. Viene analizzata la legislazione internazionale, europea e nazionale in materia brevettuale e ci si focalizza sulla ricerca del fondamento costituzionale della proprietà intellettuale. Successivamente ci si sofferma sull'importanza della protezione della proprietà intellettuale nel mercato farmaceutico e se ne individua lo specifico fondamento costituzionale. La terza parte si apre con una ricognizione dell'istituto del bilanciamento tra diritti costituzionali. Si prosegue, poi, con la descrizione dei casi AstraZeneca e Pfizer, verificando quale bilanciamento sia stato individuato tra i due diritti confliggenti coinvolti, ossia l'accesso dei medicinali equivalenti al mercato e la promozione della ricerca scientifica

Perceived Creative Partnership: A Consequence of Music\u27s Social Use

As contemporary consumers interact with one another and the market in a more symbolic manner, the ways music and other products are used are changing. Scholarly research has investigated the use of music in a social manner, mostly in terms of self-identity, and practitioners have explored the sharing of music, particularly with regard to the use of technology. The present research takes a closer look at the social use of music and proposes a consequence that is termed Perceived Creative Partnership; people use music in a social manner in order to achieve a state of being where they feel as if they are part of the music scene. A mixed methods research design is employed, including both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. Triangulation is achieved by combining multiple qualitative methods; the data is interpreted to identify constructs and develop scales for measuring those constructs and to test the relationships among them. Perceived Creative Partnership is proposed as a second order construct and tested as a consequence of the social use of music. Results support 10 of 12 hypotheses, finding evidence of the proposed second order constructs and some of the hypothesized relationships among them. This study of how people use music as a social tool to reach a state where they feel they have become more of a creative partner than a passive listener is consistent with extant research into more participative consumption, explores social use as a prominent use for music, and begins to explain music sharing in greater depth than simply a consequence of enabling technology. Theoretical and practical implications indicate a greater understanding of contemporary consumers and a direction for music and other products of the cultural industries

IDENTIFYING THE \u3ci\u3ecis\u3c/i\u3e-ACTING SUGAR RESPONSE ELEMENTS THAT FACILITATE GLUCOSE SIGNALING IN \u3ci\u3eArabidopsis thaliana\u3c/i\u3e

Identifying the initial sugar sensing and response activating mechanisms in plants has been difficult due to the dual functions of sugars as nutrients and as signaling molecules. In this study, we have examined transcript expression and promoter features of different genes encoding proteins for actin remodeling that have been implicated as targets of plant glucose signaling. Using Reverse Transcription PCR analysis, we confirmed that expression of two actin-associated genes, actin depolymerizing factor 9 (ADF9) and actin related protein 8 (ARP8), are repressed following a short-term glucose treatment of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings. Glucose did not repress the expression of other ADF and ARP gene family members. The cis-acting promoter elements of both gene families were evaluated using the PLACE database. This analysis indicated that the ARP8 promoter has a unique signature motif, a four amylase box 1 repeat, that might account for the observed glucose dependent repression response. A unique response element motif was not readily identified in the predicted promoter region of ADF9. To further define possible sugar response elements, the predicted promoters of ADF9 and ARP8 were cloned as luciferase fusions in a plant expression vector. However, by transient expression assay, the cloned constructs were not active under different experimental conditions. Identifying the functionally active sugar response elements in the predicted promoter regions of genes that are targets of glucose signaling will improve our understanding of this regulatory process

Sudden cardiac death in young athletes: Literature review of molecular basis

Intense athletic training and competition can rarely result in sudden cardiac death (SCD). Despite the introduction of pre-participation cardiovascular screening, especially among young competitive athletes, sport-related SCD remains a debated issue among medical personnel, sports communities and laypersons alike, and generates significant media attention. The most frequent cause of SCD is a hidden inherited cardiomyopathy, the athletes may not even be aware of. Predictive medicine, by searching the presence of pathogenic alterations in cardiac genes, may be an integrative tool, besides the conventional ones used in cardiology (mainly electro and echocardiogram), to reach a definitive diagnosis in athletes showing signs/symptoms, even borderline, of inherited cardiomyopathy/ channelopathy, and in athletes presenting family history of SCD and/or of hereditary cardiac disease. In this review, we revised the molecular basis of the major cardiac diseases associated to sudden cardiac death and the clinical molecular biology approach that can be used to perform risk assessment at DNA level of sudden cardiac death, contributing to the early implementation of adequate therapy. Alterations can occur in ion channel genes, in genes encoding desmosomal and junctional proteins, sarcomeric and Z-disc proteins, proteins for the cytoskeleton and the nuclear envelope. The advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology has provided the means to search for mutations in all these genes, at the same time. Therefore, this molecular approach should be the preferred methodology for the aforementioned purpose

PFIs Involving Multiple Public Partners:A Case Study from the Italian Health Care Sector

The financial crisis experienced by many countries since 2008 has given new importance to private finance initiatives (PFIs) for providing public services. This paper analyses the relationships between multiple public and private sector actors participating in a PFI in the healthcare sector in order to better understand the motives and behaviour of public and private sector partners. High levels of trust and the active participation of a regulatory body were found to be significant factors in terms of creating a partnership that benefits all sides

A Nonlocal Model for Carbon Nanotubes under Axial Loads

Various beam theories are formulated in literature using the nonlocal differential constitutive relation proposed by Eringen. A new variational framework is derived in the present paper by following a consistent thermodynamic approach based on a nonlocal constitutive law of gradient-type. Contrary to the results obtained by Eringen, the new model exhibits the nonlocality effect also for constant axial load distributions. The treatment can be adopted to get new benchmarks for numerical analyses

Modulated linear dynamics of nanobeams accounting for higher gradient effects

We present some numerical results for the linear dynamics of nanobeams modulated by an axial force, basing on a recent proposal of literature that encompasses both the standard nonlocal elasticity, according to Eringen, and second-order strain elasticity. Three different possibilities for the elastic potential energy provide different responses that highlight the contributions of nonlocality and strain gradient, plus their combination. An axial force affects the linear stationary dynamics of such nanobeams, inducing suitable variation of the natural angular frequencies for benchmark cases, until static buckling occurs when the natural angular frequency vanishes. Effects of the various elastic potentials on this modulation are investigated and thoroughly commented

ON MAUPERTUIS PRINCIPLE IN DYNAMICS

A new statement of Maupertuis principle of extremal action is contributed on the basis of a constrained action principle in the velocity phase-space in which the condition of energy conservation is imposed on virtual velocities. Dynamical systems governed by time-dependent Lagrangians on nonlinear configuration manifolds and subject to the action of time-dependent forces are considered. In time-independent systems, and in particular in conservative systems, the constrained action principle specializes to a formulation of the original Maupertuis least action principle in which however conservation of energy along the trajectory is a natural consequence of the variational principle and not an a priori assumption as in classical statements

The geometric paradigm in computational elasto-plasticity

Computational methods, for large displacements of continua in the elastoplastic range, rely on the mathematical modeling of the nonlinear constitutive behavior. In last decades an increasing favor has been deserved to nonlinear models based on a chain decomposition of the deformation gradient. The troubles involved in a structural analysis based on this model are well-known and have not been overcome although many efforts devoted to this end. Our investigation towards a more satisfactory model starts from the new analysis of the rate elastic behavior performed in [1, 2] since the difficulties faced by previous formulations were the very motivation for the discard of rate constitutive models in elasto-plasticity [3]. The new definition of hypo-elasticity, the detection of simple integrability conditions and a new formulation of conservativeness, lead to a definition of rate elasticity suitable for an effective modeling of rate elasto-plastic constitutive behaviors [4]. The treatment is based on a geometric definition of spatial and material fields and on the statement of a geometric paradigm assessing the rules for comparison of material fields naturally provided by push-pull according to the relevant transformation. The rates involved in constitutive relations are Lie-derivatives of stress field and constitutive parameters. Geometric compatibility requires that elastic and plastic stretchings additively give the Lie-derivative of metric field. No privileged reference configuration is involved and no consequent multiplicative decomposition of deformation gradient is assumed. Computational methods are shown to be based on the pull-back of constitutive relations to a straightened out trajectory segment which plays the role of computation chamber wherein linear operations of differentiation and integration may be performed. Accordingly, finite elastic and plastic stretches are considered as purely computational tools with no physical interpretation in constitutive relations. Both 3-D and lower dimensional structural models, such as wires and membranes, may be analysed by a direct application of the theory. The outcome is a significant improvement of physical insight and computational effectiveness with respect to previous treatments of finite elasto-plasticity