Towards a Better Understanding of Poverty in the Italian Labour Market

During the last century poverty was mainly associated with unemployment status. Over the years, changes like the globalization process and policies to increase labour market flexibility led to a weakening of labour market institutions and the consequent worsening of workers’ socioeconomic conditions, to the naissance of the working poor class. The literature does not provide a unique definition of working poverty, but several definitions can be obtained by combining the labour market dimension with different poverty definitions. While “in-work poverty” is the EU indicator to detect working poverty in the labour market, it has several limitations because of its hybrid nature: it considers both the sphere of work of the individual and the family dimension. Relying on an advanced version of the 2019 IT-SILC survey dataset, the objective of this study is twofold. First, we propose an alternative measure considering territorial and sectoral disparities to have a better understanding of the low-wage employment in the Italian labour market. Second, we investigate the determinants of each type of working poverty explored and their potential coexistence

Optical Vortices during a Super-Resolution Process in a Metamaterial

We show that a super-resolution process with 100% visibility is characterized by the formation of a point of phase singularity in free space outside the lens in the form of a saddle with topological charge equal to -1. The saddle point is connected to two vortices at the end boundary of the lens, and the two vortices are in turn connected to another saddle point inside the lens. The structure saddle-vortices-saddle is topologically stable. The formation of the saddle point in free space explains also the negative flux of energy present in a certain region of space outside the lens. The circulation strength of the power flow can be controlled by varying the position of the object plane with respect to the lens

Immune-inflammatory markers and arterial stiffness indexes in subjects with acute ischemic stroke.

No study has yet evaluated the relationship between arterial stiffness indexes and immuno-inflammatory pathway in patients with an acute cardiovascular or cerebrovascular event. The aim of our study was to evaluate in patients with acute ischemic stroke the relationship between immune-inflammatory markers and arterial stiffness indexes. METHODS: 107 subjects with acute ischemic stroke and 107 controls without stroke. We evaluated plasma levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-1beta (IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-10 (IL-10), E-selectin, P-selectin, intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), von Willebrand Factor (vWF), tissue plasminogen activator (TPA), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1). Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) and augmentation index (Aix) were evaluated. RESULTS: There was a significant positive relationship, corrected for age, and gender, between PWV and CRP, TNF-α, IL1β, VWF and IL-6. Aix was significantly related to VWF, IL-6 and TNF-α levels. Among Lacunar subtype PWV was significantly related to CRP, IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α and vWF. In LAAS subjects PWV was significantly related to CRP, IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α but not with vWF. Among CEI subtype, PWV was significantly and positively related to CRP, IL-1β, TNF-α and vWF. DISCUSSION: Our findings show that both aortic stiffness and wave reflection are related to the degree of systemic inflammation in stroke subjects, suggesting that circulating inflammation mediators can influence the stiffness of vessels distant to those involved in the disease process itself

Gap solitons in a nonlinear quadratic negative index cavity

By integrating the full Maxwell's equations we predict the existence of gap solitons in a quadratic, Fabry-Perot negative index cavity. An intense, fundamental pump pulse shifts the band structure that forms when magnetic and electric plasma frequencies are different so that a weak, second harmonic pulse initially tuned inside the gap is almost entirely transmitted. The process is due cascading, which occurs far from phase matching conditions, and causes pulse compression. A nonlinear polarization spawns a dark soliton, while a nonlinear magnetization produces a bright soliton

Control of superluminal transit through a heterogeneous medium

We consider pulse propagation through a two component composite medium (metal inclusions in a dielectric host) with or without cavity mirrors. We show that a very thin slab of such a medium, under conditions of localized plasmon resonance, can lead to significant superluminality with detectable levels of transmitted pulse. A cavity containing the heterogeneous medium is shown to lead to subluminal-to-superluminal transmission depending on the volume fraction of the metal inclusions. The predictions of phase time calculations are verified by explicit calculations of the transmitted pulse shapes. We also demonstrate the independence of the phase time on system width and the volume fraction under specific conditions.Comment: 21 Pages,5 Figures (Published in Journal of Modern Optics

Targeting GSTP1-1 induces JNK activation and leads to apoptosis in cisplatin-sensitive and -resistant human osteosarcoma cell lines

The effect of the glutathione transferase P1-1 (GSTP1-1) targeting has been investigated in both sensitive (U-2OS) and cisplatin-resistant (U-2OS/CDDP4μg) human osteosarcoma cell lines. Despite the different enzyme’s content, inhibition of GSTP1-1 by 6-(7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazol-4-ylthio)hexanol (NBDHEX) causes the activation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and apoptosis in both cell lines. However, different time courses of JNK activation and cell responses are observed. Whereas in the U-2OS/CDDP4μg cell line drug treatment results in an early increase of caspase activity and secondary necrosis, in the U-2OS cells it mainly causes cell cycle arrest followed by apoptosis. Thereafter, we detailed the action mechanism of NBDHEX in the U-2OS cell line. We report evidence of the interaction between GSTP1-1 and the TNF receptor associated factor 2 (TRAF2) and we demonstrate that NBDHEX is able to dissociate the GSTP1-1:TRAF2 complex. This restores the TRAF2:ASK1 signaling, thereby leading to the simultaneous and prolonged activation of JNK and p38. These mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) mediate different effects: JNK is crucial for apoptosis, whereas p38 causes an increase in the p21 level and a concomitant cell cycle arrest. Our study shows that GSTP1-1 plays an important regulatory role in TRAF signaling of osteosarcoma and discloses new features of the action mechanism of NBDHEX that suggest potentially practical consequences of these finding

QT Indexes in Cirrhotic Patients: Relationship with Clinical Variables and Potential Diagnostic Predictive Value.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: A wide spectrum of cardiovascular changes characterizes cirrhosis, ranging from subclinical alterations to hyperkinetic syndrome. We looked for ECG markers of ventricular repolarization in a population of patients with cirrhosis in comparison to patients without cirrhosis and we investigated the relationship between these and other clinical and laboratory variables. METHODS: In 149 patients with cirrhosis and 152 controls, we measured QT maximum interval (QTmax), QT corrected interval (QTc), QT minimum interval (QTmin), QT dispersion (QTdisp), QT peak and T peak-to-end (TpTe). RESULTS: In subjects with cirrhosis, in comparison with controls, we observed a higher mean QTmax, mean QTc, mean QTmin, mean QTdisp and mean TpTe. At Cox regression analysis, diastolic blood pressure and beta-blocker treatment were significantly associated with mean QTmax, hypertension with mean QTmin and mean QTc, diastolic blood pressure, beta-blockers and ACE-inhibitors/ARBs with QT disp, and beta-blockers with TpTe. Analysis of ROC curves showed a significant area under curve towards cirrhosis diagnosis, respectively, for a cut-off value of >400 msec of QTmax, >360 msec of QTmin, >450 msec of QTc, >105 msec of TpTe and >55 msec of QTdisp

A graphical environment to express the semantics of control systems

We present the concept of a unified graphical environment for expressing the semantics of control systems. The graphical control system design environment in Simulink already allows engineers to insert a variety of assertions aimed the verification and validation of the control software. We propose extensions to a Simulink-like environment's annotation capabilities to include formal control system stability, performance properties and their proofs. We provide a conceptual description of a tool, that takes in a Simulink-like diagram of the control system as the input, and generates a graphically annotated control system diagram as the output. The annotations can either be inserted by the user or generated automatically by a third party control analysis software such as IQC$\beta$ or $\mu$-tool. We finally describe how the graphical representation of the system and its properties can be translated to annotated programs in a programming language used in verification and validation such as Lustre or C

Geometrical isotropy in perforated plates with subwavelength holes decorated with Archimedean patterns

The design and use of small apertures perforated in opaque plates to control the transmission of ultrasonic waves has been widely studied in recent years. The ultrasonic transmission response of brass plates perforated with Archimedean patterns of subwavelength hole arrays immersed in water is reported, both numerically and experimentally, in this work. It is shown that an increase in the geometrical isotropy of the elementary cells of the Archimedean patterns gives rise to a suppression of both minimum and maximum transmission corresponding to the destructive and constructive interferences, leading to uniformity within the angle-dependent transmitted sound power coefficient. The experimental results are in close agreement with the calculated ones. This property can be used to design ultrasonic devices such as filters and sensors.This work has been supported by the Spanish MICINN (MAT2010-16879) and Generalitat Valenciana (PROM-ETEOII/2014/026).Gómez Lozano, V.; Rubio Michavila, C.; Candelas Valiente, P.; Belmar Ibáñez, F.; Uris Martínez, A. (2015). Geometrical isotropy in perforated plates with subwavelength holes decorated with Archimedean patterns. EPL. 111(3):34002p1-34002p5. https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/111/34002S34002p134002p5111