Heterogeneity of Microglial Activation in the Innate Immune Response in the Brain

The immune response in the brain has been widely investigated and while many studies have focused on the proinflammatory cytotoxic response, the brain’s innate immune system demonstrates significant heterogeneity. Microglia, like other tissue macrophages, participate in repair and resolution processes after infection or injury to restore normal tissue homeostasis. This review examines the mechanisms that lead to reduction of self-toxicity and to repair and restructuring of the damaged extracellular matrix in the brain. Part of the resolution process involves switching macrophage functional activation to include reduction of proinflammatory mediators, increased production and release of anti-inflammatory cytokines, and production of cytoactive factors involved in repair and reconstruction of the damaged brain. Two partially overlapping and complimentary functional macrophage states have been identified and are called alternative activation and acquired deactivation. The immunosuppressive and repair processes of each of these states and how alternative activation and acquired deactivation participate in chronic neuroinflammation in the brain are discussed

Problematic merging and cartels: a collusion risk factors analysis

The economic literature acknowledges that market factors and corporate decisions may increase the likelihood that various forms of collusive agreements will be successful. In order to identify collusive behaviours, the European Commission proposes merger control and anti-cartel decisions. The European Commission's actions are occasionally seen as case-driven, and antitrust intervention is frequently carried out too slowly. We propose a novel approach to evaluate the features of a manufacturing sector that can be considered as a warning for future infractions. We investigate, in terms of decision rules, the relationship between risk indicators and the detection of collusive behaviour using the Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA). Data refer to various institutional sources concerning different manufacturing sectors from 5 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom). Making use of a "Hybrid" information system, taking into account the conditional attributes' original numerical values, and classifying decision attributes in a less granular way, allows a more straightforward interpretation of the results. The size of the firm and market concentration seem to be the most crucial factors when it comes to mergers, while unexpectedly, market stability and asymmetry seem to be less important for spotting collusion

Supporting mathematical learning: Effective instruction, assessment, and student activities

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A multi criteria study of collusion risk factors

Market features can be considered as forerunners of the European Commission’s actions aimed at recognizing collusive behaviours. To identify information that might support the Commission in the exercise of its role of antitrust authority we propose a multi criteria approach. Its focus is on the manufacturing sector and the aim is also to prevent undesired behaviours. Market sector features, such as price-cost margin or market entrance rate, are linked to the likelihood of a collusive behaviour in the sector in terms of “implications rules” by means of Dom- inance-based Rough Set Approach. Data come from institutional sources concerning different manufacturing sectors from five countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom) from 2000 to 2010