Photo-current in TIPS pentacene single crystals

Goal of this thesis is the study of the ultraviolet-visible photocurrent response in TIPS Pentacene single crystals, but also a description of the experimental method used to reach said objective. Emphasize is put on the approach utilized that this work imposed on us because of the challenges that arose. After preparing our organic semiconductor crystals, with the deposition of metal electrodes, our first measurement revealed that our initial experimental apparatus was not ideal to study the energy levels of a OSC, due to the slow and weak photocurrent response that many organic semiconductors have. A LabView program was therefore developed in order to aid us in the construction of the photocurrent spectrum of our TIPS Pentacene single crystals

Arretium or Arezzo? A Neural Approach to the Identification of Place Names in Historical Texts

This paper presents the application of a neural architecture to the identification of place names in English historical texts. We test the impact of different word embeddings and we compare the results to the ones obtained with the Stanford NER module of CoreNLP before and after the retraining using a novel corpus of manually annotated historical travel writings

Collider signals of brane fluctuations

Assuming that we live on a non rigid brane with TeV-scale tension, the scalar fields that control the coordinates of our brane in the extra dimensions give rise to missing energy signals at high-energy colliders with a characteristic angular and energy spectrum, identical to the one due to graviton emission in 6 extra dimensions. LEP bounds and LHC capabilities are analyzed.Comment: 8 pages. v2: ref.s added, misprints fixed. v3: footnote about string "predictions" for branon/graviton rates added at pag.

b -> s gamma in a calculable model of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking

In a recently proposed extension of the Standard Model with a compact extra dimension of size R we compute the leading corrections, of relative order (m_t R)^2, to the Branching Ratio B -> X_s gamma. For 1/R = 370 \pm 80 GeV, the branching ratio is increased in a significant way relative to the SM, although not al level of being inconsistent with present measurements.Comment: 14 pages, Latex, 2 eps figures, minor changes, to appear on Nucl.Phys.

Neutrino oscillations and large extra dimensions

Assuming that right-handed neutrinos exist and propagate in some large extra dimensions, we attempt to give a comprehensive description of the phenomenology of neutrino oscillations. A few alternative explanations of the atmospheric neutrino anomaly emerge, different from the standard nuMu --> nuTau or nuMu --> nuSterile interpretations. Constraints from nucleosynthesis and supernova 1987a are discussed. The constraints from SN1987a indicates a maximum radius of any extra dimension of about 1 Angstrom.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. Version 2: misprints fixed, ref.s added, conclusions modified: at least in minimal models the maximal radius of large extra dimensions where right-handed neutrinos can propagate must be smaller than an atom in order to satisfy bounds from the 1987 supernov

The epidemiology of malignant mesothelioma in women: gender differences and modalities of asbestos exposure

INTRODUCTION: The epidemiology of gender differences for mesothelioma incidence has been rarely discussed in national case lists. In Italy an epidemiological surveillance system (ReNaM) is working by the means of a national register. METHODS: Incident malignant mesothelioma (MM) cases in the period 1993 to 2012 were retrieved from ReNaM. Gender ratio by age class, period of diagnosis, diagnostic certainty, morphology and modalities of asbestos exposure has been analysed using exact tests for proportion. Economic activity sectors, jobs and territorial distribution of mesothelioma cases in women have been described and discussed. To perform international comparative analyses, the gender ratio of mesothelioma deaths was calculated by country from the WHO database and the correlation with the mortality rates estimated. RESULTS: In the period of study a case list of 21 463 MMs has been registered and the modalities of asbestos exposure have been investigated for 16 458 (76.7%) of them. The gender ratio (F/M) was 0.38 and 0.70 (0.14 and 0.30 for occupationally exposed subjects only) for pleural and peritoneal cases respectively. Occupational exposures for female MM cases occurred in the chemical and plastic industry, and mainly in the non-asbestos textile sector. Gender ratio proved to be inversely correlated with mortality rate among countries. CONCLUSIONS: The consistent proportion of mesothelioma cases in women in Italy is mainly due to the relevant role of non-occupational asbestos exposures and the historical presence of the female workforce in several industrial settings. Enhancing the awareness of mesothelioma aetiology in women could support the effectiveness of welfare system and prevention policies

The epidemiology of malignant mesothelioma in women: gender differences and modalities of asbestos exposure

ntroduction The epidemiology of gender differences for mesothelioma incidence has been rarely discussed in national case lists. In Italy an epidemiological surveillance system (ReNaM) is working by the means of a national register. Methods Incident malignant mesothelioma (MM) cases in the period 1993 to 2012 were retrieved from ReNaM. Gender ratio by age class, period of diagnosis, diagnostic certainty, morphology and modalities of asbestos exposure has been analysed using exact tests for proportion. Economic activity sectors, jobs and territorial distribution of mesothelioma cases in women have been described and discussed. To perform international comparative analyses, the gender ratio of mesothelioma deaths was calculated by country from the WHO database and the correlation with the mortality rates estimated. Results In the period of study a case list of 21 463 MMs has been registered and the modalities of asbestos exposure have been investigated for 16 458 (76.7%) of them. The gender ratio (F/M) was 0.38 and 0.70 (0.14 and 0.30 for occupationally exposed subjects only) for pleural and peritoneal cases respectively. Occupational exposures for female MM cases occurred in the chemical and plastic industry, and mainly in the non-asbestos textile sector. Gender ratio proved to be inversely correlated with mortality rate among countries. Conclusions The consistent proportion of mesothelioma cases in women in Italy is mainly due to the relevant role of non-occupational asbestos exposures and the historical presence of the female workforce in several industrial settings. Enhancing the awareness of mesothelioma aetiology in women could support the effectiveness of welfare system and prevention policie

Letter concerning:‘Response to:‘The epidemiology of malignant mesothelioma in women: gender differences and modalities of asbestos exposure’by Marinaccio et al’

Finkelstein1 invited physicians and researchers interested in mesothelioma to investigate on past usage of talcum powders by affected people. In Italy, asbestos contamination in talc for industrial use has been documented,2 and, as he underlines tremolite contamination at low levels of cosmetic and pharmaceutical talc has been reported in USA by Blount3 and Gordon and colleagues.4 In the Italian National Mesothelioma Register (ReNaM), the analysis of intensive exposure to talc has been evaluated with respect to occupational and environmental history. The catalogue of possible asbestos exposure circumstances (a tool for the interviewers) reports the potential presence of industrial talcs in quarries or mines working activities, in leather tanning and in rubber industries. The use of intensive cosmetic talc for personal use is evaluated by means of a structured questionnaire,5 as reported in the ReNaM guidelines (see https://www.inail.it/cs/internet/docs/all-linee-guida-renam.pdf?section=attivita, p82, p98, in Italian). In our paper regarding gender differences in mesothelioma epidemiology,6 we have presented figures referring to 21 463 MM cases detected by ReNaM with a diagnosis between 1993 and 2012. Among female case list (6087 cases), 4374 cases (71.9%) have been interviewed for defining exposure. During the interview, 30 MM female cases referred an intensive use of talc in the context of occupational or life habits. For five of them, the regional centre has identified an exposure to asbestos due to intensive talc use, classifying such modality of exposure as ‘leisure activities’ (see ReNaM guidelines5). For the remaining 25 cases, an occupational exposure to asbestos in other working (or familiar or environmental) circumstances has been identified and coded. Registry data such as those provided by ReNaM cannot provide estimates of the mesothelioma risk associated with any particular exposure circumstance. We plan to include talc exposure at work and cosmetic talc usage in the analyses of a case–control study on pleural mesothelioma currently under way. A specific survey to compare and discuss how the modalities of exposure to talc have been evaluated in patients with mesothelioma in countries where epidemiological surveillance systems are active could improve knowledge and support prevention policies

Peculiarities of presentation and evolution over time of Hashimoto's thyroiditis in children and adolescents with Down's syndrome

Studies concerning presentation and evolution over time of Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) in children with Down's syndrome (DS) are few, are based on limited study populations and do not include control HT groups without DS. The aim of this multicenter study was to shed further light on the relationships between DS and HT in childhood

Phosphorylation-regulated degradation of the tumor-suppressor form of PED by chaperone-mediated autophagy in lung cancer cells

PED/PEA-15 is a death effector domain (DED) family member with a variety of effects on cell growth and metabolism. To get further insight into the role of PED in cancer, we aimed to find new PED interactors. Using tandem affinity purification, we identified HSC70 (Heat Shock Cognate Protein of 70kDa)-which, among other processes, is involved in chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA)-as a PED-interacting protein. We found that PED has two CMA-like motifs (i.e., KFERQ), one of which is located within a phosphorylation site, and demonstrate that PED is a bona fide CMA substrate and the first example in which phosphorylation modifies the ability of HSC70 to access KFERQ-like motifs and target the protein for lysosomal degradation. Phosphorylation of PED switches its function from tumor suppression to tumor promotion, and we show that HSC70 preferentially targets the unphosphorylated form of PED to CMA. Therefore, we propose that the up-regulated CMA activity characteristic of most types of cancer cell enhances oncogenesis by shifting the balance of PED function toward tumor promotion. This mechanism is consistent with the notion of a therapeutic potential for targeting CMA in cancer, as inhibition of this autophagic pathway may help restore a physiological ratio of PED form