Spatial patterns of innovation and trade competitiveness

A renewed concern has been growing recently for the role that the spatial organisation of innovation and production plays in determining trade performances. Purely technological externalities can be seen as a core component of this process, and their degree of influence can be investigated in terms of how factors that shape the structure of the innovative activity are definite in space. In the present paper we explore the relationship between technological and trade performances by focusing on the spatial configuration of different structures of the innovative activity in high technology industries in Italy. The data used in the analysis are based on the European Patent Office data base and on trade statistics from the five digit S.I.T.C. classification, and are spatially referenced to the Italy NUT 3 regional partition. Technological and knowledge externalities are modelled through the use of information associated to the connectivity structure of the geographical system under study. The analysis is ultimately aimed at investigating how technology factors evolve with respect to specific and space related carachteristics of the industrial context giving rise to cumulativeness of technology advantages, and to what extent these factors appear to affect trade competitiveness in specific industries. Keywords: spatial externalities. spatial innovation systems. trade competitiveness

Traditional Wisdom and Monte Carlo Tree Search Face-to-Face in the Card Game Scopone

We present the design of a competitive artificial intelligence for Scopone, a popular Italian card game. We compare rule-based players using the most established strategies (one for beginners and two for advanced players) against players using Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) and Information Set Monte Carlo Tree Search (ISMCTS) with different reward functions and simulation strategies. MCTS requires complete information about the game state and thus implements a cheating player while ISMCTS can deal with incomplete information and thus implements a fair player. Our results show that, as expected, the cheating MCTS outperforms all the other strategies; ISMCTS is stronger than all the rule-based players implementing well-known and most advanced strategies and it also turns out to be a challenging opponent for human players.Comment: Preprint. Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transaction on Game

CMOS-Compatible Room-Temperature Rectifier Toward Terahertz Radiation Detection

In this paper, we present a new rectifying device, compatible with the technology of CMOS image sensors, suitable for implementing a direct-conversion detector operating at room temperature for operation at up to terahertz frequencies. The rectifying device can be obtained by introducing some simple modifications of the charge-storage well in conventional CMOS integrated circuits, making the proposed solution easy to integrate with the existing imaging systems. The rectifying device is combined with the different elements of the detector, composed of a 3D high-performance antenna and a charge-storage well. In particular, its position just below the edge of the 3D antenna takes maximum advantage of the high electric field concentrated by the antenna itself. In addition, the proposed structure ensures the integrity of the charge-storage well of the detector. In the structure, it is not necessary to use very scaled and costly technological nodes, since the CMOS transistor only provides the necessary integrated readout electronics. On-wafer measurements of RF characteristics of the designed junction are reported and discussed. The overall performances of the entire detector in terms of noise equivalent power (NEP) are evaluated by combining low-frequency measurements of the rectifier with numerical simulations of the 3D antenna and the semiconductor structure at 1 THz, allowing prediction of the achievable NEP

Terahertz rectifyier for integrated image detector

We present a new CMOS compatible direct conversion terahertz detector operating at room temperature. The rectenna consists in a truncated conical helix extruded from a planar spiral and connected to a nanometric metallic whisker at one of its edges. The whisker reaches the semiconductor substrate that constitutes the antenna ground plane. The rectifying device can be obtained introducing some simple modifications of the charge storage well in conventional CMOS APS devices, making the proposed solution easy to integrate with existing imaging systems. No need of scaling toward very scaled and costly technological node is required, since the CMOS only provides the necessary integrated readout electronics. On-wafer measurements of RF characteristics of the designed rectifying junction are reported and discussed

Analytical Validation of Two Assays for Equine Ceruloplasmin Ferroxidase Activity Assessment

: Ceruloplasmin (Cp) assessment in biological samples exploits the oxidase activity of this enzyme against several substrates, such as p-phenylenediamine (p-P), o-dianisidine (o-D) and, most recently, ammonium iron(II) sulfate (AIS). Once developed in humans, these assays are often used in veterinary medicine without appropriately optimizing in the animal species of interest. In this study, two assays using AIS and o-D as substrates have been compared and validated for Cp oxidase activity assessment in horse's plasma. The optimization of the assays was performed mainly by varying the buffer pH as well as the buffer and the substrate molar concentration. Under the best analytical conditions obtained, the horse blood serum samples were treated with sodium azide, a potent Cp inhibitor. In the o-D assay, 500 µM sodium azide treatment completely inhibits the enzymatic activity of Cp, whereas, using the AIS assay, a residual analytical signal was still present even at the highest (2000 µM) sodium azide concentration. Even though the analytical values obtained from these methods are well correlated, the enzymatic activity values significantly differ when expressed in Units L-1. A disagreement between these assays has also been detected with the Bland-Altman plot, showing a progressive discrepancy between methods with increasing analytical values

Two qubits entanglement dynamics in a symmetry-broken environment

We study the temporal evolution of entanglement pertaining to two qubits interacting with a thermal bath. In particular we consider the simplest nontrivial spin bath models where symmetry breaking occurs and treat them by mean field approximation. We analytically find decoherence free entangled states as well as entangled states with an exponential decay of the quantum correlation at finite temperature.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Fluorescence Spectroscopy for the Diagnosis of Endometritis in the Mare

By exploiting the PMN property to produce high quantities of oxygen peroxide to neutralize pathogens, the oxygen peroxide content of uterine cells was measured to diagnose endometritis. After preliminary in vitro studies in which endometrial cells from slaughtered mares were mixed with leukocytes from peripheral blood, endometrial samples were collected by uterine flushing from mares before insemination. Staining endometrial cells with H2DCF‐DA was combined with hydroethidine to normalize the fluorescence intensity with the cellular content of the sample. Stained cell smears were assumed as the gold standard of endometritis, and based on this assay, the samples were considered positive (C+) and negative (C−) for endometritis. The amount and the turbidity of fluid recovered by uterine flushing were significantly (p < 0.01) higher in C+ than in C−. Moreover, the oxygen peroxide content of the endometrial cells was significantly higher in the C+ than in the C− group (6.31 ± 1.92 vs. 3.12 ± 1.26, p = 0.001). Using the value of 4.4 as the cutoff level of this fluorescence cytology assay, it was found that only one C− sample exceeded the cutoff level (false positives = 7.7%) while three C+ samples showed values below the cutoff level (false negative = 11.5%)

Canine oral malignant melanoma: genomic and immunohistochemical approaches to better characterize the metastatic dissemination to the lymph node

Malignant melanoma is the most common malignant tumour of the oral cavity in the dog, with high rate of metastatic dissemination to the regional lymph nodes and distant organs. There is significant overlap in regards of biologic behaviour, histological appearance and genomic alterations between canine and human OMMs. Therefore, the dog is considered a good preclinical model for this deadly tumour. In the first part of this study we aimed to identify genes that are involved in the metastatic dissemination of canine OMMs by microarray mRNA profiling of 4 pairs of primary tumours and their lymph nodal metastases. These genes could represent a future target for the control and hopefully treatment of the metastatic disease. We pointed out the presence of several genes displaying different expression between the primary and the metastatic tumour. In particular, Rac1 seems to play a key role in the dissemination of melanoma cells to the lymph node, most likely due to its regulatory activity of cell motility. In the second part of the study we assessed the potential improvement of detection of lymphatic invasion in canine primary OMMs by using immunohistochemistry for Prox-1, as the detection of lymphatic invasion in a primary tumour is generally considered an unfavourable prognostic factor for several cancers, including human and canine OMMs. We also tried to prove direct correlation between the presence of lymphatic invasion in the primary tumour and regional lymph node metastasis. Our results showed that Prox-1 IHC is not able to enhance detection of lymphatic invasion in the primary site and that the sensitivity of detection of lymphatic invasion in predicting lymph nodal metastasis is low (46.7%), despite high specificity (97%). Finally, we pointed out the presence of interobserver variability in detecting lymphatic invasion in canine primary OMMs, most likely due to interpretative variation