Discovering preferential patterns in sectoral trade networks

We analyze the patterns of import/export bilateral relations, with the aim of assessing the relevance and shape of preferentiality in countries trade decisions. Preferentiality here is defined as the tendency to concentrate trade on one or few partners. With this purpose, we adopt a systemic approach through the use of the tools of complex network analysis. In particular, we apply a pattern detection approach based on community and pseudocommunity analysis, in order to highlight the groups of countries within which most of members trade occur. The method is applied to two intra-industry trade networks consisting of 221 countries, relative to the low-tech Textiles and Textile Articles and the high-tech Electronics sectors for the year 2006, to look at the structure of world trade before the start of the international financial crisis. It turns out that the two networks display some similarities and some differences in preferential trade patterns: they both include few significant communities that define narrow sets of countries trading with each other as preferential destinations markets or supply sources, and they are characterized by the presence of similar hierarchical structures, led by the largest economies. But there are also distinctive features due to the characteristics of the industries examined, in which the organization of production and the destination markets are different. Overall, the extent of preferentiality and partner selection at the sector level confirm the relevance of international trade costs still today, inducing countries to seek the highest efficiency in their trade patterns

Role of anisotropy in the F\"orster energy transfer from a semiconductor quantum well to an organic crystalline overlayer

We consider the non-radiative resonant energy transfer from a two-dimensional Wannier exciton (donor) to a Frenkel exciton of a molecular crystal overlayer (acceptor). We characterize the effect of the optical anisotropy of the organic subsystem on this process. Using realistic values of material parameters, we show that it is possible to change the transfer rate within typically a factor of two depending on the orientation of the crystalline overlayer. The resonant matching of donor and acceptor energies is also partly tunable via the organic crystal orientation.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

Confined optical phonon modes in polar tetrapod nanocrystals detected by resonant inelastic light scattering

We investigated CdTe nanocrystal tetrapods of different sizes by resonant inelastic light scattering at room temperature and under cryogenic conditions. We observe a strongly resonant behavior of the phonon scattering with the excitonic structure of the tetrapods. Under resonant conditions we detect a set of phonon modes that can be understood as confined longitudinal-optical phonons, surface-optical phonons, and transverse-optical phonons in a nanowire picture.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Insulin resistance and HCV virologic response to peg-interferons (Peg-IFN) with ribavirin (RBV) in HIV/HCV co-infected patients

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The Lomagundi-Jatuli carbon isotopic event recorded in the marble of the Tandilia System basement, Río de la Plata Craton, Argentina

The “Lomagundi-Jatuli event” corresponds to the most important δ13C positive anomaly (≥5‰) globally reported in Palaeoproterozoic marine carbonates (between ∼2.30 and 2.06 Ga). In the Tandilia System (Argentina), Río de la Plata Craton, this event was recorded in the basement marble of the San Miguel area. The calcite-diopside marble, hosted by biotite gneiss and intruded by 2.12 Ga garnet-leucogranite, was metamorphosed in amphibolite facies during the Transamazonian Cycle. PAAS-normalised rare-earth elements (REE) and Y for the carbonate rocks are HREE-enriched and display positive Eu and Y anomalies, typical of primary precipitates from a mixed hydrothermal-marine environment carbonate. Additionally, a truly negative Ce anomaly for all the samples indicates that the depositional environment was oxidising. Positive δ13C values ranging from +5.90 to +4.30‰ (V-PDB), and δ18O from +17.45 to +13.84‰ (V-SMOW) were determined in this marble, both gradually decreasing towards the contact with the leucogranites. These values indicate that devolatilization reactions took place during the crystallisation of a wollastonite-vesuvianite-grossular-diopside skarn generated by the leucogranite intrusions into the marble. δ18O values obtained from diopside and calcite crystals, in the marble sectors furthest from the contacts with leucogranite, allowed a 663–623 °C formation temperature to be calculated, considering oxygen in a calcite-diopside geothermometric pair. These temperatures are consistent with the metamorphic degree (amphibolite facies) reached in this portion of the basement. Although the San Miguel marble shows petrographic and mineralogical evidence of regional and contact metamorphism, important geochemical and isotopic characteristics, together with its estimated Palaeoproterozoic age, indicate that the marble protolith was a marine carbonate deposited during the “Lomagundi-Jatuli event”.Fil: Lajoinie, Maria Florencia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; ArgentinaFil: Lanfranchini, Mabel Elena. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; ArgentinaFil: Recio, C.. Universidad de Salamanca; EspañaFil: Sial, A.N.. Federal University of Pernambuco; BrasilFil: Cingolani, Carlos Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigaciones Geológicas. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Centro de Investigaciones Geológicas; ArgentinaFil: Ballivian Justiniano, Carlos Alberto. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Etcheverry, Ricardo Oscar. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentin

Near-field spectroscopy of phase segregation in white-light-emitting blends based on low-mass molecules

We report on the direct observation of phase segregation occurring in thin-film blends of a thiophene monomer and an ammino compound, used in the fabrication of organic white-light-emitting diodes. In the homogeneous and uniform regions of the films, the interaction between the two molecular components gives rise to exciplex states responsible for a broad redshifted photoluminescence emission band, which disappears in the film zones where segregation occurs. This effect has been observed with submicrometer spatial resolution by means of local spectroscopic measurements performed in a scanning near-field optical microscope

The tip of the tail needle affects the rate of DNA delivery by bacteriophage P22.

The P22-like bacteriophages have short tails. Their virions bind to their polysaccharide receptors through six trimeric tailspike proteins that surround the tail tip. These short tails also have a trimeric needle protein that extends beyond the tailspikes from the center of the tail tip, in a position that suggests that it should make first contact with the host\u27s outer membrane during the infection process. The base of the needle serves as a plug that keeps the DNA in the virion, but role of the needle during adsorption and DNA injection is not well understood. Among the P22-like phages are needle types with two completely different C-terminal distal tip domains. In the phage Sf6-type needle, unlike the other P22-type needle, the distal tip folds into a knob with a TNF-like fold, similar to the fiber knobs of bacteriophage PRD1 and Adenovirus. The phage HS1 knob is very similar to that of Sf6, and we report here its crystal structure which, like the Sf6 knob, contains three bound L-glutamate molecules. A chimeric P22 phage with a tail needle that contains the HS1 terminal knob efficiently infects the P22 host, Salmonella enterica, suggesting the knob does not confer host specificity. Likewise, mutations that should abrogate the binding of L-glutamate to the needle do not appear to affect virion function, but several different other genetic changes to the tip of the needle slow down potassium release from the host during infection. These findings suggest that the needle plays a role in phage P22 DNA delivery by controlling the kinetics of DNA ejection into the host

Two-photon continuous flow lithography.

Dr. S. C. Laza , Dr. M. Polo , Dr. A. A. R. Neves , Dr. A. Camposeo , Prof. D. Pisignano National Nanotechnology Laboratory of Istituto Nanoscienze-CNRUniversita del Salentovia Arnesano, I-73100 Lecce, Italy E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Dr. A. Camposeo , Prof. D. Pisignano Center for Biomolecular Nanotechnologies @ UNILEIstituto Italiano di Tecnologiavia Barsanti, I-73010 Arnesano, Italy Prof. D. Pisignano Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'InnovazioneUniversita del Salentovia Arnesano I-73100 Lecce, Italy Prof. R. Cingolani Italian Institute of Technology via Morego 30, I-16163 Genova, Ital