The Evolution of Trade and Technological in the Italian regions

The deepening of the integration process with the acceleration of the Single European Market (SEM), the forthcoming adoption of a single currency together with the political plans of eastwards enlargement of the European Union (EU%29 rise problems of disparities and inequalities between and within member states. The existence of cross-border imbalances within the EU area and the relevance of the issue for a successful socio-economic integration have been widely pointed out by the literature. The convergence in GDP levels across the EU regions registered up to the 1970s slowed down in the 1980s and started to reverse in the early 1990s. The awareness of this phenomenon has promoted the flourishing of socio-economic investigations based on the region as a territorial unit of analysis in order to better understand local dynamics driving convergence/divergence processes. Amidst the more general globalisation trend, localised knowledge spillovers and geographical concentration of economic activity seem to underlie these processes. In fact, despite of the fast pace of technological change and the massive reduction of space and time constrains, geographical agglomeration matters more than ever before for the purpose of global competitiveness. If the geographical perspective has shifted from the national to the regional level in the investigation of growth differentials, it has also turned out that innovative capabilities account for a good deal in explaining inter-regional disparities. The latter seem to greatly depend upon local innovative capacities, without, however, disregarding economic-structural and institutional factors. Structural and innovative processes are closely connected and mutually reinforced by virtuous and vicious circles%2C characterising respectively “success stories” of rapid industrial and technological development and catching up, and “falling behind” models of insufficient structural change and lack of organisational flexibility and systemic interaction. Within the European arena, the heterogeneous socio-economic conditions of the Italian regions are a clear example of intra-border imbalances. In the Italian peninsula, the north-south gap, reflected in the distinction between most advanced and less favoured regions, calls for a better understanding of both structural and technological profiles of the regional sectoral systems. By providing further insight into the convergence/divergence processes of regional industrial systems in Italy, this paper will attempt to identify production and innovative potentials developed within each regional unit. The ultimate aim is to explain current leading and lagging-behind conditions as well as to focus on the developing trajectories of consolidation and redefinition of regional competitive positions. For this purpose, economic, technological and locational factors will be evaluated. As the heterogeneity of the Italian regional systems is far to be an exception in the EU, the results of this analysis and their policy implications may well be relevant to the domestic realities of other member states. Going into the details of the analysis, the paper tests the hypothesis of whether technology effort impacts on regional internationalisation (understood in terms of international trade) over time. In doing so, the evolution of sectoral trade specialisation is sketched in order to evaluate the trajectories of regional competitive patterns. The emphasis on the sectoral aspects shed some light on the knowledge exchange and learning underlying trade flows. Moreover, in order to evaluate the significance of cross-regional differences in this context, the investigation goes further by identifying regional profiles of production structure.

Experimental pharmacological research regarding some newly synthesized benzamides on central nervous system functions

Three newly synthesized benzamides by the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry of the Faculty of pharmacy from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy „Carol Davila” Bucharest were tested in order to determine whether these new molecules have similar effects on the central nervous system as those already in therapeutic use belonging to the same chemical group, such as tiapride (neuroleptic) or lidocaine (local anaesthetic). Tests were carried out on NMRI mice which were given new compounds, conventionally named I5C, I14C, and II5C in a dose of 1/20 of the lethal dose 50% (LD50), as previously determined. They received this treatment daily for 21 days. The evasive–investigating capacity of mice was determined using the platform test, and the motor activity using an Activity cage device. The results have shown that compounds I5C and II5C decrease the investigation capacity of the mice; and compound I5C inhibits motor activity, while II5C stimulates it. Thus we concluded that only compounds I5C and II5C have a neuroleptic potential that might be investigated further

Thermodynamics of beta-amyloid fibril formation

Amyloid fibers are aggregates of proteins. They are built out of a peptide called $\beta$--amyloid (A$\beta$) containing between 41 and 43 residues, produced by the action of an enzyme which cleaves a much larger protein known as the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP). X-ray diffraction experiments have shown that these fibrils are rich in $\beta$--structures, whereas the shape of the peptide displays an $\alpha$--helix structure within the APP in its biologically active conformation. A realistic model of fibril formation is developed based on the seventeen residues A$\beta$12--28 amyloid peptide, which has been shown to form fibrils structurally similar to those of the whole A$\beta$ peptide. With the help of physical arguments and in keeping with experimental findings, the A$\beta$12--28 monomer is assumed to be in four possible states (i.e., native helix conformation, $\beta$--hairpin, globular low--energy state and unfolded state). Making use of these monomeric states, oligomers (dimers, tertramers and octamers) were constructed. With the help of short, detailed Molecular Dynamics (MD) calculations of the three monomers and of a variety of oligomers, energies for these structures were obtained. Making use of these results within the framework of a simple yet realistic model to describe the entropic terms associated with the variety of amyloid conformations, a phase diagram can be calculated of the whole many--body system, leading to a thermodynamical picture in overall agreement with the experimental findings. In particular, the existence of micellar metastable states seem to be a key issue to determine the thermodynamical properties of the system

Effect of multiple episodes of Acute Kidney Injury on mortality:an observational study

Background Patients who survive an episode of acute kidney injury (AKI) are more likely to have further episodes of AKI. AKI is associated with increased mortality, with a further increase with recurrent episodes. It is not clear whether this is due to AKI or as a result of other patient characteristics. The aim of this study was to establish whether recurrence of AKI is an independent risk factor for mortality or if excess mortality is explained by other factors. Methods This observational cohort study included adult people from the Tayside region of Scotland, with an episode of AKI between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2009. AKI was defined using the creatinine-based Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes definition. Associations between recurrent AKI and mortality were examined using a Cox proportional hazards model. Results Survival was worse in the group identified to have recurrent AKI compared with those with a single episode of AKI [hazard ratio = 1.49, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.37–1.63; P

Crizotinib-induced antitumour activity in human alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma cells is not solely dependent on ALK and MET inhibition

BACKGROUND: Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most commonly diagnosed malignant soft tissue tumour in children and adolescents. Aberrant expression of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK) and MET gene has been implicated in the malignant progression of RMS, especially in the alveolar subtype. This observation suggests that crizotinib (PF-02341066), a kinase inhibitor against ALK and MET, may have a therapeutic role in RMS, although its antitumour activity in this malignancy has not yet been studied. METHODS: RH4 and RH30 alveolar RMS (ARMS) cell lines were treated with crizotinib and then assessed by using proliferation, viability, migration and colony formation assays. Multiple approaches, including flow cytometry, immunofluorescence, western blotting and siRNA-based knock-down, were used in order to investigate possible molecular mechanisms linked to crizotinib activity. RESULTS: In vitro treatment with crizotinib inhibited ALK and MET proteins, as well as Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 Receptor (IGF1R), with a concomitant robust dephosphorylation of AKT and ERK, two downstream kinases involved in RMS cell proliferation and survival. Exposure to crizotinib impaired cell growth, and accumulation at G2/M phase was attributed to an altered expression and activation of checkpoint regulators, such as Cyclin B1 and Cdc2. Crizotinib was able to induce apoptosis and autophagy in a dose-dependent manner, as shown by caspase-3 activation/PARP proteolytic cleavage down-regulation and by LC3 activation/p62 down-regulation, respectively. The accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) seemed to contribute to crizotinib effects in RH4 and RH30 cells. Moreover, crizotinib-treated RH4 and RH30 cells exhibited a decreased migratory/invasive capacity and clonogenic potential. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide a further insight into the molecular mechanisms affected by crizotinib in ARMS cells inferring that it could be a useful therapeutic tool in ARMS cancer treatment

Collective oscillations in disordered neural networks

We investigate the onset of collective oscillations in a network of pulse-coupled leaky-integrate-and-fire neurons in the presence of quenched and annealed disorder. We find that the disorder induces a weak form of chaos that is analogous to that arising in the Kuramoto model for a finite number N of oscillators [O.V. Popovych at al., Phys. Rev. E 71} 065201(R) (2005)]. In fact, the maximum Lyapunov exponent turns out to scale to zero for N going to infinite, with an exponent that is different for the two types of disorder. In the thermodynamic limit, the random-network dynamics reduces to that of a fully homogenous system with a suitably scaled coupling strength. Moreover, we show that the Lyapunov spectrum of the periodically collective state scales to zero as 1/N^2, analogously to the scaling found for the `splay state'.Comment: 8.5 Pages, 12 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Spectroscopy of an AdS Reissner-Nordstrom black hole

In the framework of black hole spectroscopy, we extend the results obtained for a charged black hole in an asymptotically flat spacetime to the scenario with non vanishing negative cosmological constant. In particular, exploiting Hamiltonian techniques, we construct the area spectrum for an AdS Reissner-Nordstrom black hole.Comment: 21 pages, enhanced conclusions, references adde