The local impact of closing undersized schools

The availability of public education services can influence residential choices. Hence, policies aiming to ‘rationalise’ service provision by reducing the number of undersized nodes in the public school network can lead to population decline. This paper examines the demographic and income effects of primary school closures by exploiting an Italian education reform that resulted in a significant contraction of the school network. We assess whether school closures impact households’ residential choices, on top and beyond preexisting negative population trends that motivate school closures. To address endogeneity, we combine a Two-Way Fixed Effects model with an instrumental variable approach, constructing the IVs based on institutional thresholds for school sizing adopted by some Italian regions. Our findings suggest that municipalities affected by school closures experience significant reductions in population and income. The effect is driven by peripheral municipalities located far from economic centres and distant from the next available primary school. This evidence indicates that school ‘rationalisation policies’, by fostering depopulation of peripheral areas, have an influence on the spatial distribution of households and income, thus affecting territorial disparities

Knowledge economy, internal migration, and the effect on local labour markets

Knowledge-intensive activities may generate significant multiplicative effects at the local level. In particular, inflows of workers in knowledge-related sectors may contribute to make local labour markets more attractive for other kind of workers as well. This paper assesses how the employment growth and inflow of workers in knowledge-intensive sectors affect wage, employment, and probability of outmigration of local workers in other sectors. We focus on Italy during the 2005-2019 period, taking advantage of matched employer-employee social-security data, which allows to track workers’ histories across jobs and locations. To address the identification concerns of sorting and idiosyncratic shocks, we implement a two-step procedure combined with a shift-share IV strategy. We separately identify the contribution of sorting and spillovers to labour market outcomes. Our results suggest that the employment growth and inflow of workers in knowledge-intensive sectors have multiplicative effects on employment, increasing the number of days worked by local workers, and they also seem to reduce the probability of outmigration. Nominal wages of localworkers seem unaffected, while house prices increase producing a negative effect on local real wages

Dinamiche demografiche e riduzione dei servizi pubblici: un rafforzamento delle diseguaglianze territoriali

In questo capitolo, partendo da due recenti contributi scientifici in materia, faremo il punto sulle attuali tendenze approfondendo nella prima parte il ruolo dei servizi sulle dinamiche di spopolamento. Nella seconda, invece, partendo da dati recenti vengono approfondite le dinamiche migratorie del segmento più giovane della popolazione e le caratteristiche in grado di influenzare una diversa propensione a migrare o a restare nelle aree interne

Health Effects of Phenolic Compounds Found in Extra-Virgin Olive Oil, By-Products, and Leaf of Olea europaea L.

Olea europaea L. fruit is a peculiar vegetal matrix containing high levels of fatty acids (98-99% of the total weight of extra-virgin olive oil, EVOO) and low quantities (1-2%) of phenolics, phytosterols, tocopherols, and squalene. Among these minor components, phenolics are relevant molecules for human health. This review is focused on their beneficial activity, in particular of hydroxytyrosol (HT), oleuropein (OLE), oleocanthal (OLC), and lignans found in EVOO, olive oil by-products and leaves. Specifically, the cardioprotective properties of the Mediterranean diet (MD) related to olive oil consumption, and the biological activities of polyphenols recovered from olive oil by-products and leaves were described. Recent European projects such as EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition) and EPICOR (long-term follow-up of antithrombotic management patterns in acute coronary syndrome patients) have demonstrated the functional and preventive activities of EVOO showing the relation both between cancer and nutrition and between consumption of EVOO, vegetables, and fruit and the incidence of coronary heart disease. The data reported in this review demonstrate that EVOO, one of the pillars of the MD, is the main product of Olea europaea L. fruits; leaves and by-products are secondary but precious products from which bioactive compounds can be recovered by green technologies and reused for food, agronomic, nutraceutical, and biomedical applications according to the circular economy strategy

A polydnavirus-encoded ANK protein has a negative impact on steroidogenesis and development

Polydnaviruses (PDV) are viral symbionts associated with ichneumonid and braconid wasps parasitizing moth larvae, which are able to disrupt the host immune response and development, as well as a number of other physiological pathways. The immunosuppressive role of PDV has been more intensely investigated, while very little is known about the PDV-encoded factors disrupting host development. Here we address this research issue by further expanding the functional analysis of ankyrin genes encoded by the bracovirus associated with Toxoneuron nigriceps (Hymenoptera, Braconidae). In a previous study, using Drosophila melanogaster as experimental model system, we demonstrated the negative impact of TnBVank1 impairing the ecdysone biosynthesis by altering endocytic traffic in prothoracic gland cells. With a similar approach here we demonstrate that another member of the viral ank gene family, TnBVank3, does also contribute to the disruption of ecdysone biosynthesis, but with a completely different mechanism. We show that its expression in Drosophila prothoracic gland (PG) blocks the larval-pupal transition by impairing the expression of steroidogenic genes. Furthermore, we found that TnBVank3 affects the expression of genes involved in the insulin/TOR signaling and the constitutive activation of the insulin pathway in the PG rescues the pupariation impairment. Collectively, our data demonstrate that TnBVANK3 acts as a virulence factor by exerting a synergistic and non-overlapping function with TnBVANK1 to disrupt the ecdysone biosynthesis

Boron accumulation and tolerance in sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) with green or purple leaves

Background and aims There is a wide variability in plant tolerance to boron (B) toxicity, which is often associated with the ability to limit B accumulation. This study was conducted on two cultivars of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) with different B tolerance: ‘Tigullio’, less tolerant and with green leaves; ‘Red Rubin’, more tolerant and with purple leaves. The main goal was to verify whether the greater B tolerance of ‘Red Rubin’ is attributable to an exclusion mechanism. Methods In three greenhouse experiments, plants were grown hydroponically with solution B concentration ranging from 0.25 (control) to 25 mg L−1. Results Tissue B concentration increased with increasing B supply. Boron concentrations in root and leaf tissues were comparable in ‘Tigullio’ and ‘Red Rubin’ or even higher in the purple cultivar. Boron supply did not affect the leaf concentration of total phenolic compounds and other nutrients. Leaf concentrations of total phenols and rosmarinic acid were remarkably higher in ‘Red Rubin’ than in ‘Tigullio’. Conclusions The greater B tolerance of ‘Red Rubin’ was associated with the ability to withstand higher concentrations of this element in plant tissues rather than to reduced B accumulation in the shoot. The high phenolic content was thought to contribute to the B tolerance of ‘Red Rubin’

Photovoltaic Assemblies for the Power Generation of the Exomars Missions

This paper provides a detailed description of the Photovoltaic Assembly (PVA) and, in particular, how the extreme environmental and operative requirements of the Exomars missions are met. “Exomars” is a program established by the European Space Agency to investigate the Martian environment and to validate new technologies in view of future Mars exploration missions. The first mission will be launched in 2016 and will carry a spacecraft composed of the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Entry, descent and landing Demonstrator Module (EDM). The second mission is scheduled on year 2018 and will carry a rover vehicle. Leonardo PVA contribution is on either the TGO, Carrier and Rover vehicle solar arrays. Moreover we were deeply involved in the design of the power conditioning and distribution electronics of the TGO leveraging on our Power Management and Distribution heritage for scientific platforms. As far as Exomars SA’s (Solar Array) are concerned, they are significantly different: the TGO is based on two deployable wing system, whose attitude is controlled by the SADM. Each wing comprehends two panels. The Rover vehicle solar array assembly (SAA) is made of a fixed panel and four deployable (primary and secondary) panels. This SAA is unique with respect to standard deployable systems because of the motor deployment control and trimming possibilities during Martian soil exploration. Each of these missions imposed major design challenges: for the TGO the aero braking maneuvers will cause a significant dissipation of the kinetic energy leading to a solar array temperature increase up to +175°C on the rear face, while +135°C on the front (active) face. On the other hand, during the cruise phase the same PVA will experience extreme cold temperatures down to -209°C. For the rover SAA the biggest challenge is related to surviving Mars planet environment (i.e. dust, wind and charge accumulation) and the associated mechanical and electrical constraints. We duly considered the experience gained by NASA-JPL on previous Mars lander missions and the selected technical solutions, all taken from the European heritage, represent the evolution to what already successfully flown. Finally the bio burden and planetary protection requirements are also not a standard in SA field. A special manufacturing, assembly and test sequence will be implemented to capitalize our previous experience on the Mars drill tool development. For both the arrays European PVA technology was exclusively used: more specifically high efficiency III-V compounds solar cells and a new glass grounding network

Extracellular matrix mechanical cues regulate lipid metabolism through Lipin-1 and SREBP

Extracellular matrix (ECM) mechanical cues have powerful effects on cell proliferation, differentiation and death. Here, starting from an unbiased metabolomics approach, we identify synthesis of neutral lipids as a general response to mechanical signals delivered by cell\u2013matrix adhesions. Extracellular physical cues reverberate on the mechanical properties of the Golgi apparatus and regulate the Lipin-1 phosphatidate phosphatase. Conditions of reduced actomyosin contractility lead to inhibition of Lipin-1, accumulation of SCAP/SREBP to the Golgi apparatus and activation of SREBP transcription factors, in turn driving lipid synthesis and accumulation. This occurs independently of YAP/TAZ, mTOR and AMPK, and in parallel to feedback control by sterols. Regulation of SREBP can be observed in a stiffened diseased tissue, and contributes to the pro-survival activity of ROCK inhibitors in pluripotent stem cells. We thus identify a general mechanism centered on Lipin-1 and SREBP that links the physical cell microenvironment to a key metabolic pathway