Hyperelliptic continued fractions and generalized jacobians: Minicourse given by Umberto Zannier

These are notes from the minicourse given by Umberto Zannier (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa). The notes were worked out by Laura Capuano, Peter Jossen,1 Christina Karolus, and Francesco Veneziano. Most of the material of these lectures, except for the numerical examples which were added by us, is already available in [45], The authors wish to thank Umberto Zannier for the lively discussions in Alpbach, and Olaf Merkert for providing computations of the examples 3.17, 3.28, 3.29, 3.33, and 3.25

Chlamydophila pecorum in fetuses of mediterranean buffalo (bubalus bubalis) bred in Italy

In order to study the role played by the different species of Chlamydophila in causing abortions in Mediterranean buffalo, the Authors examined 164 fetuses from 80 different buffalo herds in Southern Italy. Three fetuses, came from two different herds, were positive. Our study confirms the pathogenic role of C. pecorum in buffalo, not only as a cause of neuropathology in calves but as an infectious abortive agent

The New Paradigms in Clinical Research: From Early Access Programs to the Novel Therapeutic Approaches for Unmet Medical Needs.

Despite several innovative medicines gaining worldwide approval in recent years, there are still therapeutic areas for which unsatisfied therapeutic needs persist. For example, high unmet clinical need was observed in patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus and hemophilia, as well as in specific age groups, such as the pediatric population. Given the urgent need to improve the therapy of clinical conditions for which unmet clinical need is established, clinical testing, and approval of new medicines are increasingly being carried out through accelerated authorization procedures. Starting from 1992, the Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have supported the so-called Early Access Programs (EAPs). Such procedures, which can be based on incomplete clinical data, allow an accelerated marketing authorization for innovative medicines. The growth in pharmaceutical research has also resulted in the development of novel therapeutic approaches, such as biotech drugs and advanced therapy medicinal products, including new monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of asthma, antisense oligonucleotides for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy, and new anticancer drugs that act on genetic biomarkers rather than any specific type of cancer. Even though EAPs and novel therapeutic approaches have brought huge benefits for public health, their implementation is limited by several challenges, including the high risk of safety-related label changes for medicines authorized through the accelerated procedure, the high costs, and the reimbursement and access concerns. In this context, regulatory agencies should provide the best conditions for the implementation of the described new tools

Efficient adaptive pseudo-symplectic numerical integration techniques for Landau-Lifshitz dynamics

Numerical time integration schemes for Landau-Lifshitz magnetization dynamics are considered. Such dynamics preserves the magnetization amplitude and, in the absence of dissipation, also implies the conservation of the free energy. This property is generally lost when time discretization is performed for the numerical solution. In this work, explicit numerical schemes based on Runge-Kutta methods are introduced. The schemes are termed pseudo-symplectic in that they are accurate to order p, but preserve magnetization amplitude and free energy to order q > p. An effective strategy for adaptive time-stepping control is discussed for schemes of this class. Numerical tests against analytical solutions for the simulation of fast precessional dynamics are performed in order to point out the effectiveness of the proposed methods

A comparison between the β-globin gene clusters of domestic sheep (Ovis aries) and Sardinian mouflon (Ovis gmelini musimon)

International audienc

Endogenous Public and Private Leadership with Diverging Social and Private Marginal Costs

We investigate endogenous timing in a mixed duopoly with price competition and with social marginal cost differing from private marginal costs. We find that any equilibrium timing patterns--Bertrand, Stackelberg with private leadership, Stackelberg with public leadership, and multiple Stackelberg equilibria-- emerge. When the foreign ownership share in a private firm is less than 50%, public leadership more likely emerges than private leadership. Conversely, private leadership can emerge in a unique equilibrium when the foreign ownership share in a private firm is large. These results may explain recent policy changes in public financial institutions in Japan. We also find a nonmonotone relationship between the welfare advantage of public and private leadership and the difference between social and private marginal costs for a private firm. A nonmonotone relationship does not emerge in profit ranking

Ground deformation analysis at Campi Flegrei (Southern Italy) by CGPS and tide-gauge network

Campi Flegrei caldera is located 15 km west of the city of Naples, within the central-southern sector of a large graben called Campanian Plain. It is an active volcanic area marked by a quasi-circular caldera depression, formed by a huge ignimbritic eruption occurred about 37000 years ago. This caldera was generated by several collapses produced by strong explosive eruptions (the last eruption, occurred in 1538, built an about 130 m spatter cone called Mt. Nuovo). Campi Flegrei area periodically experiences significant deformation episodes, with uplift phenomena up to more than 3.5 m in 15 years (from 1970 to 1984), which caused during 1983-84 the temporary evacuation of about 40000 people from the ancient part of Pozzuoli town. The deformation field obtainable by CGPS and tidegauge stations plays an important role for the modelling and interpretation of volcanic phenomena, as well as for forecasting purposes. The structural complexity of the Campi Flegrei area, together with the evidence of a strong interaction between magmatic chamber and shallow geothermal system, calls for a detailed characterization of the substructure and of magma-water interaction processes. The incoming experiment of deep drilling, down to about 4 km, will give detailed structural and physical constraints able to resolve the intrinsic ambiguities of geophysical data and in particular geodetic ones. In this poster we describe the recent ground deformations at Campi Flegrei area by means of GPS technique and tide gauge stations, discussing the possible interpretations also in light of further constraints likely coming from the next CFDDP (Campi Flegrei Deep Drilling) deep drilling experiment

Recent results from the G(0) experiment

We have measured parity violating asymmetries in elastic electron-proton and quasi-elastic electron-deuteron scattering at backward electron angle. These measurements have been done at two momentum transfers : Q(2) = 0.22 and 0.63 (GeV/c)(2). Together with our previous forward angle measurement [1], we can extract strange quark contributions to the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon, as well as nucleon axial form factor coming from the neutral weak interaction. The results indicate a strange quark magnetic contribution close to zero at these Q(2), and a possible non zero strange quark electric contribution for the high Q(2). The first Q(2) behavior measurement of the nucleon axial form factor in elastic electron scattering shows a good agreement with radiative corrections calculated at Q(2) = 0 and with a dipole form using the axial mass determined in neutrino scattering

The Role of Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System in the Heart and Lung: Focus on COVID-19

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) firstly considered as a cardiovascular circulating hormonal system, it is now accepted as a local tissue system that works synergistically or independently with the circulating one. Evidence states that tissue RAAS locally generates mediators with regulatory homeostatic functions, thus contributing, at some extent, to organ dysfunction or disease. Specifically, RAAS can be divided into the traditional RAAS pathway (or classic RAAS) mediated by angiotensin II (AII), and the non-classic RAAS pathway mediated by angiotensin 1–7. Both pathways operate in the heart and lung. In the heart, the classic RAAS plays a role in both hemodynamics and tissue remodeling associated with cardiomyocyte and endothelial dysfunction, leading to progressive functional impairment. Moreover, the local classic RAAS may predispose the onset of atrial fibrillation through different biological mechanisms involving inflammation, accumulation of epicardial adipose tissue, and electrical cardiac remodeling. In the lung, the classic RAAS regulates cell proliferation, immune-inflammatory response, hypoxia, and angiogenesis, contributing to lung injury and different pulmonary diseases (including COVID-19). Instead, the local non-classic RAAS counteracts the classic RAAS effects exerting a protective action on both heart and lung. Moreover, the non-classic RAAS, through the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), mediates the entry of the etiological agent of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) into cells. This may cause a reduction in ACE2 and an imbalance between angiotensins in favor of AII that may be responsible for the lung and heart damage. Drugs blocking the classic RAAS (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers) are well known to exert a cardiovascular benefit. They are recently under evaluation for COVID-19 for their ability to block AII-induced lung injury altogether with drugs stimulating the non-classic RAAS. Herein, we discuss the available evidence on the role of RAAS in the heart and lung, summarizing all clinical data related to the use of drugs acting either by blocking the classic RAAS or stimulating the non-classic RAAS