RUSSIAN INFORMATION WAR

On November 14, 2023, Dr. Maria Miron presented the Russian Information War for this year’s West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points discussed were the origin of the Russian information war, Russia’s objectives, and the actors involved in Russia’s information war.   Received: 01-14-2024 Revised: 01-26-202

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Being currently under the pressure of the various imbalances induced in the natural and social environment and faced with the deficiency of its own incremental growth, the economic system – which is exclusively focused on the economic performance – is currently going through a stage of global structural changes meant to connect it to the simple values of the community, society and even humanity as a requirement for its survival and development through the sustainable competitive advantage. Taking into consideration that globalization tends to quickly standardize technologies and to equalize the rates of profits, the area of competitive advantage is extended beyond the area of economic factors (product differentiation, cost reduction, etc.) in interferential areas, where factors such as social responsibility assumed by corporations become levers to increase competitiveness. Corporate social responsibility circumscribes the company’s set of obligations to the stakeholders (individuals, groups or organizations that are directly or indirectly affected by the actions, goals and policies of the corporation) in a certain system of reference. The multiple groups that make up the reference society of a corporation lead to a multitude of expectations. The legitimacy of these expectations embraces various degrees of validity. Responsibility is a continuous dynamic process meant to harmonize and balance the interests of various groups and the roles they play in relation to and for the purpose of the common good. So far, no system of indicators has been unanimously accepted and no methodology has been crystallized for measuring the effect of the social effort made in the sphere of social responsibility. Nevertheless, research performed over the past years has shown that an ethical behaviour involved in the issues of the natural, social and business environment has an obvious positive influence on the reputation and sales of the corporations. The corporations’ competitive strategies should include – apart from specific goals such as market share, product differentiation or smart promotion – the goal of harmonizing stakeholder expectations. In this context, the commitment to social responsibility becomes an important pillar in gaining the partners’ and the public’s confidence, along with a recognition that would strengthen the company’s market position and its commitment to a competitive sustainable approach.responsibility, social performance, sustainability, competitive advantage

Multi-speed Europe? An Analysis of the Real Convergence within the European Union

Reaching an appropriate level of economic, social and territorial convergence has been a strategic goal for European policy and decision-makers. The author’s first assumption is that although in the early stages of the regional project, the Member States had similar growth and development levels, with the advancement of the integration process, the development asymmetries increased. In this paper, the authors stress the fact that the European decision-makers and researchers have become more and more interested to study if the Member States of the European Union meet the criteria for certain types of convergence: nominal, real, legal, structural and institutional. This paper brings to the fore-front the process of real convergence, trying to respond to the question if the Member States are catching-up, or are diverging. Moreover, taking into consideration the enlargement of the European Union with the countries from Central and Eastern Europe, we have studied the main trends within this group of countries. In this respect, we have calculated the σ and β convergence for three geographical clusters of countries: Central Eastern, North Western and Southern Europe. The results obtained show that the economies of the New Member States increased faster than those of the North-Western countries, experiencing a significant speed of convergence. In contrast, the North-Western countries recorded a negative pace in terms of convergence and significant discrepancies between them. In conclusion, the paper shows that the desiderate of real convergence becomes more and more difficult to achieve as while the Central and Eastern Europe states make important steps in reducing the disparities between them and also catching up with the European Union’s average, the Southern Europe countries are diverging.   Keywords: European Union, real convergence, σ-convergence, β-convergenc

Гaмартома гипоталамуса. Клинический случай

Hypotalamic hamartoma. Case reportEste prezentat un copil, băiat de 8 ani diagnosticat de la vârsta de 6 ani cu epilepsie focală prezentată prin convulsii gelastice. La Investigarea prin Rezonanţă Magnetică cerebrală multiplanară s-a depistat o tumefi ere bine delimitată în regiunea inferioară a hipotalamusului, cu implicarea corpului mamilar drept, cu semnal identic materiei cenuşii în toate secvenţele, imagistic caracteristic pentru hamartom hipotalamic.  Гaмартома гипоталамуса. Клинический случа

Presurgical diagnostic work-up in epilepsy

German Diagnostic Center, Chisinau, the Republic of Moldova, North-Eastern Carpathian Epilepsy Center, Sf. Ioan cel Nou County Emergency Hospital, Suceava, Romania, The IVth Congress of Radiology and Medical Imaging of the Republic of Moldova with international participation, Chisinau, May 31 – June 2, 2018Background: Hippocampal sclerosis is the most common cause of epilepsy in adults. Patients with intractable seizures are evaluated for surgical treatment and preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can help localize epileptogenic lesions. Brain MR imaging using a 3 Tesla scanner and a specially designed “Epilepsy Protocol” and MR Spectroscopy help to evaluate hippocampal volume, internal structures and extensive metabolic impairments which are correlated with the extent of neuropathologic changes in mesial temporal sclerosis. Proton MR Spectroscopy has been shown to be useful in the preoperative evaluation of patients with temporal lobe atrophy, confirming the neuronal dysfunction by detecting low N-acetyl aspartate (NAA). N-acetyl aspartate is almost exclusively concentrated in neurons of the nervous system and has been used as a neuronal marker in 1H-MRS studies. Proton MR Spectroscopy has been shown to be able noninvasively to confirm the epileptogenic hippocampus by showing low levels of N-acetyl aspartate. Content: The presentation reviews the non-invasive epilepsy work-up. Diagnostic work-up in a case of temporal lobe epilepsy from our practice is presented as an illustration. A complex approach including correlation of various factors such as seizure semiology, video-EEG monitoring and brain MRI findings plays a significant role in detecting potential surgical candidates and predicting the outcome of epilepsy surgery. Conclusions: Brain MRI is an important tool in the presurgical epilepsy diagnosis. Specially designed MRI protocols for investigating epilepsy patients significantly increase the chance of detection of epileptogenic lesions

Exploring NMR ensembles of calcium binding proteins: Perspectives to design inhibitors of protein-protein interactions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Disrupting protein-protein interactions by small organic molecules is nowadays a promising strategy employed to block protein targets involved in different pathologies. However, structural changes occurring at the binding interfaces make difficult drug discovery processes using structure-based drug design/virtual screening approaches. Here we focused on two homologous calcium binding proteins, calmodulin and human centrin 2, involved in different cellular functions via protein-protein interactions, and known to undergo important conformational changes upon ligand binding.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In order to find suitable protein conformations of calmodulin and centrin for further structure-based drug design/virtual screening, we performed <it>in silico </it>structural/energetic analysis and molecular docking of terphenyl (a mimicking alpha-helical molecule known to inhibit protein-protein interactions of calmodulin) into X-ray and NMR ensembles of calmodulin and centrin. We employed several scoring methods in order to find the best protein conformations. Our results show that docking on NMR structures of calmodulin and centrin can be very helpful to take into account conformational changes occurring at protein-protein interfaces.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>NMR structures of protein-protein complexes nowadays available could efficiently be exploited for further structure-based drug design/virtual screening processes employed to design small molecule inhibitors of protein-protein interactions.</p

Basis of architectural survey between Geometry and Representation. A first educative approach

In the contemporary world, in Europe and specifically in Italy, the Architect gets in contact with a highly stratified urban and territorial context, which is characterized by the presence of a considerable amount of existing building (and heritage). Making clear that the Architect is increasingly working on existing buildings, it is mandatory to open a constructive dialogue with it. This makes it necessary for him to gain knowledge – being it metric, material, technological – of such artefacts before being able to work ‘on’ it. This process takes place through that set of operations, not only technical but also theoretical, which are grouped together under the name of Survey (Ippolito 2016). Thanks to new technologies, survey has been recognized for years as an integrated process of several different techniques and software (e.g. direct measuring with meters, laser-meters, levels; and indirect measuring range/image based). This paper illustrates the learning process – aimed at aforementioned themes – we propose to the architecture students in the first year, as part of the Design and Survey Laboratory (bachelor’s degree in Architecture). The primary focus of the Laboratory is to guide students in studying and using the graphic languages and related fundamental tools, bases both to the phase of the conception of new architectures and of analysis existing building. In this case, architectural Survey comes as a cognitive tool of fundamental importance for the analysis and understanding of the architectural artefact. In this sense, the main objective of the exercises carried out during the Laboratory is to prepare the student by a gradual theoretical and technical path for the direct and indirect operations of survey of a building. During the first semester the course includes a first operation of surveying an architectural drawing (during the exercise of critical redraw of an edited project), giving birth to an ideal scalar approach to the themes of survey, both manual (direct survey) and digital (SP, SfM), which combines and develops horizontal skills (in parallel with the first year Composition Atelier/Technology Laboratory) and vertical ones during the second year of study, the activity of the Geomatics Laboratory. We discuss here the main passages of the path of survey as introduced in the first year through the discussion of an emblematic example from Turin. It flows from the identification of the object, the study of the project drawings, the direct and indirect survey and its representations in order to comprehend and communicate built Architecture

Basis of architectural survey between geometry and representation. A first educative approach

This paper illustrates the educative path – aimed at learning the basis of architectural survey – we propose to the students in the first year, as part of the Drawing and Survey Laboratory (bachelor’s degree in Architecture). The primary focus of the Laboratory is to guide them in studying and using the graphic languages and related fundamental tools. In this case, architectural survey comes as a cognitive tool of fundamental importance for the analysis and understanding of architectural artefacts. The main objective of the exercises carried out during the Laboratory is to prepare student by a gradual theoretical and technical path for the direct and indirect operations of survey. During the first semester the course includes a first operation of surveying an architectural drawing (during the exercise of critical redraw of a published project), giving birth to an ideal scalar approach to the themes of survey, both manual (direct survey) and digital (PR, SfM), which combines and develops horizontal and vertical skills. Here, we discuss the main passages of the path of survey through an emblematic case study from Torino

Hyaluronic Acid Gel-Based Scaffolds as Potential Carrier for Growth Factors : An In Vitro Bioassay on Its Osteogenic Potential

Hyaluronic acid (HA) has been utilized for a variety of regenerative medical procedures due to its widespread presence in connective tissue and perceived biocompatibility. The aim of the present study was to investigate HA in combination with recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein 9 (rhBMP9), one of the most osteogenic growth factors of the BMP family. HA was first combined with rhBMP9 and assessed for the adsorption and release of rhBMP9 over 10 days by ELISA. Thereafter, ST2 pre-osteoblasts were investigated by comparing (1) control tissue culture plastic, (2) HA alone, and (3) HA with rhBMP9 (100 ng/mL). Cellular proliferation was investigated by a MTS assay at one, three and five days and osteoblast differentiation was investigated by alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity at seven days, alizarin red staining at 14 days and real-time PCR for osteoblast differentiation markers. The results demonstrated that rhBMP9 adsorbed within HA scaffolds and was released over a 10-day period in a controlled manner. While HA and rhBMP9 had little effect on cell proliferation, a marked and pronounced effect was observed for cell differentiation. rhBMP9 significantly induced ALP activity, mRNA levels of collagen1α2, and ALP and osteocalcin (OCN) at three or 14 days. HA also demonstrated some ability to induce osteoblast differentiation by increasing mRNA levels of OCN and increasing alizarin red staining at 14 days. In conclusion, the results from the present study demonstrate that (1) HA may serve as a potential carrier for various growth factors, and (2) rhBMP9 is a potent and promising inducer of osteoblast differentiation. Future animal studies are now necessary to investigate this combination approach in vivo