The Italian primary school-size distribution and the city-size: a complex nexus

We characterize the statistical law according to which Italian primary school-size distributes. We find that the school-size can be approximated by a log-normal distribution, with a fat lower tail that collects a large number of very small schools. The upper tail of the school-size distribution decreases exponentially and the growth rates are distributed with a Laplace PDF. These distributions are similar to those observed for firms and are consistent with a Bose-Einstein preferential attachment process. The body of the distribution features a bimodal shape suggesting some source of heterogeneity in the school organization that we uncover by an in-depth analysis of the relation between schools-size and city-size. We propose a novel cluster methodology and a new spatial interaction approach among schools which outline the variety of policies implemented in Italy. Different regional policies are also discussed shedding lights on the relation between policy and geographical features.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Massive Neutrinos and the Higgs Mass Window

If neutrino masses are produced by a see-saw mechanism the Standard Model prediction for the Higgs mass window (defined by upper (perturbativity) and lower (stability) bounds) can be substantially affected. Actually the Higgs mass window can close completely, which settles an upper bound on the Majorana mass for the right-handed neutrinos, $M$, ranging from $10^{13}$ GeV for three generations of quasi-degenerate massive neutrinos with $m_\nu\simeq 2$ eV, to $5\times 10^{14}$ GeV for just one relevant generation with $m_\nu\simeq 0.1$ eV. A slightly weaker upper bound on $M$, coming from the requirement that the neutrino Yukawa couplings do not develop a Landau pole, is also discussed.If neutrino masses are produced by a see-saw mechanism the Standard Model prediction for the Higgs mass window (defined by upper (perturbativity) and lower (stability) bounds) can be substantially affected. Actually the Higgs mass window can close completely, which settles an upper bound on the Majorana mass for the right-handed neutrinos, $M$, ranging from $10^{13}$ GeV for three generations of quasi-degenerate massive neutrinos with $m_\nu\simeq 2$ eV, to $5\times 10^{14}$ GeV for just one relevant generation with $m_\nu\simeq 0.1$ eV. A slightly weaker upper bound on $M$, coming from the requirement that the neutrino Yukawa couplings do not develop a Landau pole, is also discussed

An Updated Review of Bioactive Peptides from Mushrooms in a Well-Defined Molecular Weight Range

Here, we report the current status of the bioactive peptides isolated and characterized from mushrooms during the last 20 years, considering ‘peptide’ a succession from to 2 to 100 amino acid residues. According to this accepted biochemical definition, we adopt ~10 kDa as the upper limit of molecular weight for a peptide. In light of this, a careful revision of data reported in the literature was carried out. The search revealed that in the works describing the characterization of bioactive peptides from mushrooms, not all the peptides have been correctly classified according to their molecular weight, considering that some fungal proteins (>10 kDa MW) have been improperly classified as ‘peptides’. Moreover, the biological action of each of these peptides, the principles of their isolation as well as the source/mushroom species were summarized. Finally, this review highlighted that these peptides possess antihypertensive, antifungal, antibiotic and antimicrobial, anticancer, antiviral, antioxidant and ACE inhibitory properties

The Standard Model instability and the scale of new physics

We apply a general formalism for the improved effective potential with several mass scales to compute the scale M of new physics which is needed to stabilize the Standard Model potential in the presence of a light Higgs. We find, by imposing perturbativity of the new physics, that M can be as large as one order of magnitude higher than the instability scale of the Standard Model. This implies that, with the present lower bounds on the Higgs mass, the new physics could easily (but not necessarily) escape detection in the present and future accelerators.Comment: latex2e, 12 pages, 3 figure

Ultraviolet Fixed Points in Gauge and SUSY Field Theories in Extra Dimensions

We consider gauge field theories in $D>4$ following the Wilson RG approach and show that they possess the ultraviolet fixed points where the gauge coupling is dimensionless in any space-time dimension. At the fixed point the anomalous dimensions of the field and vertex operators are known exactly. These fixed points are nonperturbative and correspond to conformal invariant theories. The same phenomenon also happens in supersymmetric theories with the Yukawa type interactions.Comment: LaTeX, 10pp. v2: Comments and references adde

Stroke subtypes and their possible implication in stroke prevention drug strategies

Thrombotic strokes can affect large or small arteries in the brain. Drugs to prevent atherosclerosis complication such as thrombotic strokes, should be drugs able to prevent the accumulation of intravascular fat, reduce vascular proliferation, decrease blood pressure levels with the resulting shear stress, reduce platelet aggregation, and possibly partially or totally reverse carotid plaques. Any of the commonly used antihypertensive drugs lower the incidence of stroke, with larger reductions in BP resulting in larger reductions in risk. Experimental and clinical data suggest that reducing the activity of the renin-angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS) may have beneficial effects beyond the lowering of blood pressure to reduce stroke incidence. In clinical trials, statins consistently reduced the risk of ischemic stroke in patients with or without CHD whereas the data on the effects of other lipid modifying drugs on stroke risk are limited. Approximately 25% of strokes are recurrent. Antiplatelet therapy is indicated for the prevention of recurrent stroke in patients with a history of noncardioembolic minor stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA). Although clinicians may choose acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) as first-line therapy for secondary prevention, clinical guidelines and evidence from trials suggest that ASA may not be the most effective strategy. A recent review discussed results from clinical trials that have compared the efficacy of ASA monotherapy versus ASA + extended release dipyridamole in secondary stroke prevention. Therefore it is difficult to extrapolate the real benefit of pharmacological prevention strategies against atherothrombotic subtype for excellence in the TOAST classification subtype that is represented by the LAAS and also with regard to lacunar subtype as an expression of lipohyalinosis process which is a further aspect of atherosclerosis

N6L pseudopeptide interferes with nucleophosmin protein-protein interactions and sensitizes leukemic cells to chemotherapy.

Abstract NPM1 is a multifunctional nucleolar protein implicated in several processes such as ribosome maturation and export, DNA damage response and apoptotic response to stress stimuli. The NPM1 gene is involved in human tumorigenesis and is found mutated in one third of acute myeloid leukemia patients, leading to the aberrant cytoplasmic localization of NPM1. Recent studies indicated that the N6L multivalent pseudopeptide, a synthetic ligand of cell–surface nucleolin, is also able to bind NPM1 with high affinity. N6L inhibits cell growth with different mechanisms and represents a good candidate as a novel anticancer drug for a number of malignancies of different histological origin. In this study we investigated whether N6L treatment could drive antitumor effect in acute myeloid leukemia cell lines. We found that N6L binds NPM1 at the N-terminal domain, co-localizes with cytoplasmic, mutated NPM1, and interferes with its protein-protein associations. N6L toxicity appears to be p53 dependent but interestingly, the leukemic cell line harbouring the mutated form of NPM1 is more resistant to treatment, suggesting that NPM1 cytoplasmic delocalization confers protection from p53 activation. Moreover, we show that N6L sensitizes AML cells to doxorubicin and cytarabine treatment. These studies suggest that N6L may be a promising option in combination therapies for acute myeloid leukemia treatment

Real-Life Clinical Data of Cabozantinib for Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Introduction: Cabozantinib has been approved by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) previously treated with sorafenib. Cabozantinib is also being tested in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors in the frontline setting. Real-life clinical data of cabozantinib for HCC are still lacking. Moreover, the prognostic factors for HCC treated with cabozantinib have not been investigated. Methods: We evaluated clinical data and outcome of HCC patients who received cabozantinib in the legal context of named patient use in Italy. Results: Ninety-six patients from 15 centres received cabozantinib. All patients had preserved liver function (Child-Pugh A), mostly with an advanced HCC (77.1%) in a third-line setting (75.0%). The prevalence of performance status (PS) > 0, macrovascular invasion (MVI), extrahepatic spread, and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) >400 ng/mL was 50.0, 30.2, 67.7, and 44.8%, respectively. Median overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival were 12.1 (95% confidence interval 9.4-14.8) and 5.1 (3.3-6.9) months, respectively. Most common treatment-related adverse events (AEs) were fatigue (67.7%), diarrhoea (54.2%), anorexia (45.8%), HFSR (43.8%), weight loss (24.0%), and hypertension (24.0%). Most common treatment-related Grade 3-4 AEs were fatigue (6.3%), HFSR (6.3%), and increased aminotransferases (6.3%). MVI, ECOG-PS > 0, and AFP >400 ng/mL predicted a worse OS. Discontinuation for intolerance and no new extrahepatic lesions at the progression were associated with better outcomes. Conclusions: In a real-life Western scenario (mostly in a third-line setting), cabozantinib efficacy and safety data were comparable with those reported in its registration trial. Data regarding the prognostic factors might help in patient selection and design of clinical trials

The effective potential in the presence of several mass scales

We consider the problem of improving the effective potential in mass independent schemes, as e.g. the \MSbar or \DRbar renormalization scheme, in the presence of an arbitrary number of fields with $\phi$-dependent masses $M_i(\phi_c)$. We use the decoupling theorem at the scales $\mu_i=M_i(\phi_c)$ such that the matching between the effective (low energy) and complete (high energy) one-loop theories contains no thresholds. We find that for any value of $\phi_c$, there is a convenient scale $\mu^*\equiv\min_i\{M_i(\phi_c)\}$, at which the loop expansion has the best behaviour and the effective potential has the least $\mu$-dependence. Furthermore, at this scale the effective potential coincides with the (improved) tree-level one in the effective field theory. The decoupling method is explicitly illustrated with a simple Higgs-Yukawa model, along with its relationship with other decoupling prescriptions and with proposed multi-scale renormalization approaches. The procedure leads to a nice suppression of potentially large logarithms and can be easily adapted to include higher-loop effects, which is explicitly shown at the two-loop level.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, 6 ps figure