On rational maps from a general surface in P^3 to surfaces of general type

We study the dominant rational maps from a general surface in P^{3} to surfaces of general type. We prove restrictions on the target surfaces, and special properties of the rational maps. We show that for a small degree the general surface has no such map. Moreover a slight improvement of a result of Catanese, on the number of moduli of a surface of general type, is also obtained.Comment: 19 pages, accepted in Advances in Geometr

On the finiteness theorem for rational maps on a variety of general type

The dominant rational maps of finite degree from a fixed variety to varieties of general type, up to birational isomorphisms, form a finite set. This has been known as the Iitaka-Severi conjecture, and is nowdays an established result, in virtue of some recent advances in the theory of pluricanonical maps. We study the question of finding some effective estimate for the finite number of maps, and to this aim we provide some update and refinement of the classical treatment of the subject.Comment: 20 pages, to appear in Collectanea Mathematic

A characterization of the symmetric square of a curve

In this paper a new intrinsic geometric characterization of the symmetric square of a curve and of the ordinary product of two curves is given. More precisely it is shown that the existence on a surface of general type S of irregularity q of an effective divisor D having self-intersection D^2>0 and arithmetic genus q implies that S is either birational to a product of curves or to the second symmetric product of a curve.Comment: International Mathematics Research Notices 201

Long-term comparative analysis of no evidence of disease activity (NEDA-3) status between multiple sclerosis patients treated with natalizumab and fingolimod for up to 4 years

Comparative effectiveness of natalizumab and fingolimod over a follow-up longer than 2 years has been not addressed yet

Metabolomic characterization of commercial, old, and red-fleshed apple varieties

In this study, a metabolomic investigation was presented to correlate single polyphenolic compounds in apple pulp with quality characteristics such as antioxidant activity and content of phenolic compounds and anthocyanins in apple skin. Since the concentration of these compounds is influenced by environmental factors, the twenty-two apple cultivars originate from the same site. The polyphenolic compounds were analyzed by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS). The antioxidant activity, phenolic content, and anthocyanins were evaluated on the sunny and the shady sides of apple skin by spectrometric assays. In old apple varieties, the measured parameters were higher than in the commercial and red-fleshed varieties. By contrast, the profile of flavan-3-ols and anthocyanins was variable amongst commercial and red-fleshed varieties. The partial least square (PLS) method was applied to investigate the association between the skin proprieties and the metabolic profile of the pulp. The highest coefficients of determination in prediction (Q2) were obtained for compounds quantified in old cultivars. These results provided information to define the old apple varieties as a reliable group based on the pathway of the antioxidant compounds and anthocyanins content. Our results show the possibility to find cultivars with promising health features based on their content of polyphenols suitable for commercialization or breedin

Dysregulation of a Subset of Circulating and Vesicle-Associated miRNA in Pancreatic Cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive neoplasia, characterized by early metastasis, low diagnostic rates at early stages, resistance to drugs, and poor prognosis. There is an urgent need to better characterize this disease in order to identify efficient diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers. Since microRNAs (miRNAs) contribute to oncogenesis and metastasis formation in PDAC, they are considered potential candidates for fulfilling this task. In this work, the levels of two miRNA subsets (involved in chemoresistance or with oncogenic/tumor suppressing functions) were investigated in a panel of PDAC cell lines and liquid biopsies of a small cohort of patients. We used RT-qPCR and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) to measure the amounts of cellular- and vesicle-associated, and circulating miRNAs. We found that both PDAC cell lines, also after gemcitabine treatment, and patients showed low amounts of cellular-and vesicle-associated miR-155-5p, compared to controls. Interestingly, we did not find any differences when we analyzed circulating miR-155-5p. Furthermore, vesicle-related miR-27a-3p increased in cancer patients compared to the controls, while circulating let-7a-5p, miR-221-3p, miR-23b-3p and miR-193a-3p presented as dysregulated in patients compared to healthy individuals. Our results highlight the potential clinical significance of these analyzed miRNAs as non-invasive diagnostic molecular tools to characterize PDAC

Correction to: The role of molecular imaging in the frame of the revised dementia with Lewy body criteria

In the article mentioned above all authors were assigned affiliation 14, which is wrong. Affiliation 14 belongs only to author Agostino Chiaravalloti

Phylogenetic conservation of Trop-2 across species—rodent and primate genomics model anti-Trop-2 therapy for pre-clinical benchmarks

A phylogenetic conservation analysis of Trop-2 across vertebrate species showed a high degree of sequence conservation, permitting to explore multiple models as pre-clinical benchmarks. Sequence divergence and incomplete conservation of expression patterns were observed in mouse and rat. Primate Trop-2 sequences were found to be 95%–100% identical to the human sequence. Comparative three-dimension primate Trop-2 structures were obtained with AlphaFold and homology modeling. This revealed high structure conservation of Trop-2 (0.66 ProMod3 GMQE, 0.80–0.86 ± 0.05 QMEANDisCo scores), with conservative amino acid changes at variant sites. Primate TACSTD2/TROP2 cDNAs were cloned and transfectants for individual ORF were shown to be efficiently recognized by humanized anti-Trop-2 monoclonal antibodies (Hu2G10, Hu2EF). Immunohistochemistry analysis of Macaca mulatta (rhesus monkey) tissues showed Trop-2 expression patterns that closely followed those in human tissues. This led us to test Trop-2 targeting in vivo in Macaca fascicularis (cynomolgus monkey). Intravenously injected Hu2G10 and Hu2EF were well tolerated from 5 to 10 mg/kg. Neither neurological, respiratory, digestive, urinary symptoms, nor biochemical or hematological toxicities were detected during 28-day observation. Blood serum pharmacokinetic (PK) studies were conducted utilizing anti-idiotypic antibodies in capture-ELISA assays. Hu2G10 (t1/2 = 6.5 days) and Hu2EF (t1/2 = 5.5 days) were stable in plasma, and were detectable in the circulation up to 3 weeks after the infusion. These findings validate primates as reliable models for Hu2G10 and Hu2EF toxicity and PK, and support the use of these antibodies as next-generation anti-Trop-2 immunotherapy tools

Potential Scattering in Dirac Field Theory

We develop the potential scattering of a spinor within the context of perturbation field theory. As an application, we reproduce, up to second order in the potential, the diffusion results for a potential barrier of quantum mechanics. An immediate consequence is a simple generalization to arbitrary potential forms, a feature not possible in quantum mechanics.Comment: 7 page