La determinación de los precios de producción

Sin resume

Observational and Experimental Studies on the Diagnosis and Outcome of Epilepsy and Epileptogenic Conditions: Investigating the Static and Dynamic Phenotype of Epilepsy

Different studies spanning the diagnosis, the outcome and the treatment of the disease have been performed to investigate the spectrum of epilepsy. The topics were: 1. The differential diagnosis between epilepsy and another common clinical condition (PNES); 2. The verification if epilepsy could be a marker of genetic diseases characterized by intellectual disability and behavioural abnormalities (idic(15) syndrome); 3.The assessment of the long-term outcome of the disease to identify different prognostic patterns; 4.The investigation of the frequency and clinical features of drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) with reference to the number of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). In 1/3 of cases a confident diagnosis of PNES/ES can be established by epileptologists on video data only. Compared to epileptologists, psychiatrists demonstrated to be less accurate in diagnosing PNES but more attuned to capture the subtleties of human behaviour. Investigating the patients and their witnesses using ad-hoc structured questionnaires, some variables were highly predictive of PNES diagnosis. These instruments may be useful clinical tools in settings not offering the facilities for a correct diagnosis and in cases where video-EEG monitoring has failed. In the study on the characterisation of idic(15) syndrome, epilepsy was used as disease tracer. It was found to be one of the few symptoms with satisfactory agreement but not a marker of this genetic syndrome. To verify if the epilepsy course and treatment response is static or dynamic, a population based-study in a well-defined area of Italy was performed. DRE patients (1/6 patients with active epilepsy in the general population) can reach 2-year remission (24.9 %) at 20 years and also early terminal remission (1.3%). AEDs given at diagnosis are retained in the majority of cases and the withdrawal can be predicted by age at diagnosis, sex, disease characteristics and varies among drugs

Business in practice: a retrospective analysis of relyon through the operation director´s eyes

In the “Business in Practice” simulation, my group and I managed a fictitious car manufacturing company called “Rely On”. In this work project, I will analyse my behaviour during the team decision process, and I will determine improvements that I can develop in my future career. Furthermore, I will perform an in-depth analysis of Rely On, reviewing the decisions made by the Operations, Marketing and Finance departments. The main objective of this academic work is to underline the interdependences across different business functions

Breath of Life: Heart Disease Link to Developmental Hypoxia.

Heart disease remains one of the greatest killers. In addition to genetics and traditional lifestyle risk factors, we now understand that adverse conditions during pregnancy can also increase susceptibility to cardiovascular disease in the offspring. Therefore, the mechanisms by which this occurs and possible preventative therapies are of significant contemporary interest to the cardiovascular community. A common suboptimal pregnancy condition is a sustained reduction in fetal oxygenation. Chronic fetal hypoxia results from any pregnancy with increased placental vascular resistance, such as in preeclampsia, placental infection, or maternal obesity. Chronic fetal hypoxia may also arise during pregnancy at high altitude or because of maternal respiratory disease. This article reviews the short- and long-term effects of hypoxia on the fetal cardiovascular system, and the importance of chronic fetal hypoxia in triggering a developmental origin of future heart disease in the adult progeny. The work summarizes evidence derived from human studies as well as from rodent, avian, and ovine models. There is a focus on the discovery of the molecular link between prenatal hypoxia, oxidative stress, and increased cardiovascular risk in adult offspring. Discussion of mitochondria-targeted antioxidant therapy offers potential targets for clinical intervention in human pregnancy complicated by chronic fetal hypoxia.The work is supported by The British Heart Foundation (RG/17/8/32924) and the Medical Research Council UK (MR/V03362X/1)

On the Intrinsically Low Quantum Yields of Pyrimidine DNA Photodamages: Evaluating the Reactivity of the Corresponding Minimum Energy Crossing Points

The low quantum yield of photoformation of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers and pyrimidine-pyrimidone (6-4) adducts in DNA bases is usually associated with the presence of more favorable nonreactive decay paths and with the unlikeliness of exciting the system in a favorable conformation. Here, we prove that the ability of the reactive conical intersection to bring the system either back to the absorbing conformation or to the photoproduct must be considered as a fundamental factor in the low quantum yields of the mentioned photodamage. In support of the proposed model, the one order of magnitude difference in the quantum yield of formation of the cyclobutane thymine dimer with respect to the thymine-thymine (6-4) adduct is rationalized here by comparing the reactive ability of the seam of intersections leading respectively to the cyclobutane thymine dimer and the oxetane precursor of the thymine-thymine (6-4) adduct at the CASPT2 level of theory

On the photorelease of nitric oxide by nitrobenzene derivatives; a CASPT2//CASSCF model

Nitroaromatics compounds can photorelease NO after UV absorption. The efficiency of the photoreaction depends on the molecular structure and two features have been pointed out as particularly important for the yield of the process: the presence of methyl groups at the ortho position with respect to the nitro group and the degree of conjugation of the molecule. In the present contribution we provide a theoretical characterization at the CASPT2//CASSCF level of theory of the photorelease of NO for four molecules derived from nitrobenzene through the addition of ortho methyl groups and/or the elongation of the conjugation. Our previously described mechanism obtained for the photorelease of NO in nitrobenzene has been adopted as a model for the process. According to this model, the process proceeds through a reactive singlet-triplet crossing (STC) region that the system can reach from the triplet 3 (π O π*) minimum. The energy barrier that must be surmounted in order to populate the reactive STC can be associated with the efficiency of the photoreaction. The here obtained results display clear differences for the efficiency of the photoreaction in the studied systems, and can be correlated with experimental results. The model thus proves its ability to highlight differences in the photoreaction efficiency for the nitroaromatic compounds studied here

Pyrene, a Test Case for Deep-Ultraviolet Molecular Photophysics

We determined the complete relaxation dynamics of pyrene in ethanol from the second bright state, employing experimental and theoretical broadband heterodyne detected transient grating and two-dimensional photon echo (2DPE) spectroscopy, using pulses with duration of 6 fs and covering a spectral range spanning from 250 to 300 nm. Multiple lifetimes are assigned to conical intersections through a cascade of electronic states, eventually leading to a rapid population of the lowest long-living excited state and subsequent slow vibrational cooling. The lineshapes in the 2DPE spectra indicate that the efficiency of the population transfer depends on the kinetic energy deposited into modes required to reach a sloped conical intersection, which mediates the decay to the lowest electronic state. The presented experimental–theoretical protocol paves the way for studies on deep-ultraviolet-absorbing biochromophores ubiquitous in genomic and proteic systems