Calabi-Yau quotients with terminal singularities

In this paper we are interested in quotients of Calabi-Yau threefolds with isolated singularities. In particular, we analyze the case when $X/G$ has terminal singularities. We prove that, if $G$ is cyclic of prime order and $X/G$ has terminal singularities, then $G$ has order $2,3$ or $5$.Comment: 15 pages, no figures. Current version has some changes in the structure of the article, some corrected typos and an up-to-date bibliograph

Covering of elliptic curves and the kernel of the Prym map

Motivated by a conjecture of Xiao, we study families of coverings of elliptic curves and their corresponding Prym map $\Phi$. More precisely, we describe the codifferential of the period map $P$ associated to $\Phi$ in terms of the residue of meromorphic $1$-forms and then we use it to give a characterization for the coverings for which the dimension of $\ker(dP)$ is the least possibile. This is useful in order to exclude the existence of non isotrivial fibrations with maximal relative irregularity and thus also in order to give counterexamples to the Xiao's conjecture mentioned above. The first counterexample to the original conjecture, due to Pirola, is then analysed in our framework.Comment: 21 pages, no figures. The seminal ideas at the base of this article were born in the framework of the PRAGMATIC project of year 201

New examples of Calabi-Yau threefolds and genus zero surfaces

We classify the subgroups of the automorphism group of the product of 4 projective lines admitting an invariant anticanonical smooth divisor on which the action is free. As a first application, we describe new examples of Calabi-Yau 3-folds with small Hodge numbers. In particular, the Picard number is 1 and the number of moduli is 5. Furthermore, the fundamental group is non-trivial. We also construct a new family of minimal surfaces of general type with geometric genus zero, K^2=3 and fundamental group of order 16. We show that this family dominates an irreducible component of dimension 4 of the moduli space of the surfaces of general type.Comment: 18 pages; v2: simplified some arguments in the last section, final version to appear on Communications in Contemporary Mathematic

Lefschetz properties for jacobian rings of cubic fourfolds and other Artinian algebras

In this paper, we exploit some geometric-differential techniques to prove the strong Lefschetz property in degree $1$ for a complete intersection standard Artinian Gorenstein algebra of codimension $6$ presented by quadrics. We prove also some strong Lefschetz properties for the same kind of Artinian algebras in higher codimensions. Moreover, we analyze some loci that come naturally into the picture of "special" Artinian algebras: for them, we give some geometric descriptions and show a connection between the non emptiness of the so-called non-Lefschetz locus in degree $1$ and the "lifting" of a weak Lefschetz property to an algebra from one of its quotients.Comment: 21 page

Clinical features and outcomes of elderly hospitalised patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure or both

Background and objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure (HF) mutually increase the risk of being present in the same patient, especially if older. Whether or not this coexistence may be associated with a worse prognosis is debated. Therefore, employing data derived from the REPOSI register, we evaluated the clinical features and outcomes in a population of elderly patients admitted to internal medicine wards and having COPD, HF or COPD + HF. Methods: We measured socio-demographic and anthropometric characteristics, severity and prevalence of comorbidities, clinical and laboratory features during hospitalization, mood disorders, functional independence, drug prescriptions and discharge destination. The primary study outcome was the risk of death. Results: We considered 2,343 elderly hospitalized patients (median age 81 years), of whom 1,154 (49%) had COPD, 813 (35%) HF, and 376 (16%) COPD + HF. Patients with COPD + HF had different characteristics than those with COPD or HF, such as a higher prevalence of previous hospitalizations, comorbidities (especially chronic kidney disease), higher respiratory rate at admission and number of prescribed drugs. Patients with COPD + HF (hazard ratio HR 1.74, 95% confidence intervals CI 1.16-2.61) and patients with dementia (HR 1.75, 95% CI 1.06-2.90) had a higher risk of death at one year. The Kaplan-Meier curves showed a higher mortality risk in the group of patients with COPD + HF for all causes (p = 0.010), respiratory causes (p = 0.006), cardiovascular causes (p = 0.046) and respiratory plus cardiovascular causes (p = 0.009). Conclusion: In this real-life cohort of hospitalized elderly patients, the coexistence of COPD and HF significantly worsened prognosis at one year. This finding may help to better define the care needs of this population

A theorem of Gordan and Noether via Gorenstein rings

Gordan and Noether proved in their fundamental theorem that an hypersurface $X=V(F)\subseteq \mathbb{P}^n$ with $n\leq 3$ is a cone if and only if $F$ has vanishing hessian (i.e. the determinant of the Hessian matrix). They also showed that the statement is false if $n\geq 4$, by giving some counterexamples. Since their proof, several others have been proposed in the literature. In this paper we give a new one by using a different perspective which involves the study of standard Artinian Gorenstein $\mathbb{K}$-algebras and the Lefschetz properties. As a further application of our setting, we prove that a standard Artinian Gorenstein algebra $R=\mathbb{K}[x_0,\dots,x_4]/J$ with $J$ generated by a regular sequence of quadrics has the strong Lefschetz property. In particular, this holds for Jacobian rings associated to smooth cubic threefolds.Comment: 21 page