I diritti sociali degli stranieri in Italia e in Francia. Profili di diritto pubblico comparato

openLo studio prende in esame i diritti sociali degli stranieri in Italia ed in Francia con l’intento di metterne in luce, in prospettiva comparatistica, gli elementi strutturali, i problemi di bilanciamento, le fonti normative e la concreta attuazione sul piano della garanzia delle posizioni soggettive. Più in generale, la tesi propone una riflessione sull’attuale valenza della declinazione sociale del binomio cittadinanza-diritti nell’era della globalizzazione, del pluralismo e dell’integrazione degli ordinamenti giuridici.Dottorato di ricerca in Diritto pubblico comparato e dell'Unione Europeaembargoed_20150921Zonca, Elena Valentin

Simultaneous CO2 reduction and NADH regeneration using formate and glycerol dehydrogenase enzymes co-immobilized on modified natural zeolite

In this work, the co-immobilization of formate dehydrogenase (FDH) and glycerol dehydrogenase (GlyDH) enzymes is proposed to reduce CO(2) into formic acid, an important chemical intermediate. The reduction of carbon dioxide is carried out by FDH to obtain formic acid, simultaneously, the GlyDH regenerated the nicotinamide cofactor in the reduced form (NADH) by the oxidation of glycerol into dihydroxyacetone. Natural zeolite was selected as immobilization support given its good properties and low cost. The natural zeolite was modified with subsequent acid-alkaline attacks to obtain a mesostructurization of the clinoptilolite. The two enzymes were co-immobilized on clinoptilolite, previously hetero-functionalized with amino and glyoxyl groups. The distribution of the enzymes was confirmed by fluorescence microscopy analysis. Furthermore, a great increase in the retained activity for the formate dehydrogenase enzyme was noted, passing from 18% to 89%, when the mesostructured clinoptilolite was used as support. The immobilization yield of formate dehydrogenase and glycerol dehydrogenase is around 100% with all the supports studied. The promising results suggest a possible development of this procedure in enzyme immobilization and biocatalysis. The biocatalysts were characterized to find the optimal pH and temperature. Furthermore, a thermal stability test at 50 °C was carried out on both enzymes, in free and immobilized forms. Finally, it was shown that the biocatalyst is effective in reducing CO(2), both by using the cofactor in the reduced form (NADH) or the oxidized form (NAD(+)), obtaining NADH through the regeneration with glycerol in this latter case

Exploring the role of immune pathways in the risk and development of depression in adolescence : research protocol of the IDEA-FLAME study

Extensive research suggests a role for the innate immune system in the pathogenesis of depression, but most of the studies are conducted in adult populations, in high-income countries and mainly focus on the study of inflammatory proteins alone, which provides only a limited understanding of the immune pathways involved in the development of depression. The IDEA-FLAME study aims to identify immune phenotypes underlying increased risk of developing depression in adolescence in a middle-income country. To this end, we will perform deep-immunophenotyping of peripheral blood mononuclear cells and RNA genome-wide gene expression analyses in a longitudinal cohort of Brazilian adolescents stratified for depression risk. The project will involve the 3-year follow-up of an already recruited cohort of 150 Brazilian adolescents selected for risk/presence of depression on the basis of a composite risk score we developed using sociodemographic characteristics (50 adolescents with low-risk and 50 with high-risk of developing depression, and 50 adolescents with a current major depressive disorder). We will 1) test whether the risk group classification at baseline is associated with differences in immune cell frequency, phenotype and functional status, 2) test whether baseline immune markers (cytokines and immune cell markers) are associated with severity of depression at 3-year follow-up, and 3) identify changes in gene expression of immune pathways over the 3-year follow-up in adolescents with increased risk and presence of depression. Because of the exploratory nature of the study, the findings would need to be replicated in a separate and larger sample. Ultimately, this research will contribute to elucidating key immune therapeutic targets and inform the development of interventions to prevent onset of depression among adolescents

The Simons Observatory: Galactic Science Goals and Forecasts

Observing in six frequency bands from 27 to 280 GHz over a large sky area, the Simons Observatory (SO) is poised to address many questions in Galactic astrophysics in addition to its principal cosmological goals. In this work, we provide quantitative forecasts on astrophysical parameters of interest for a range of Galactic science cases. We find that SO can: constrain the frequency spectrum of polarized dust emission at a level of $\Delta\beta_d \lesssim 0.01$ and thus test models of dust composition that predict that $\beta_d$ in polarization differs from that measured in total intensity; measure the correlation coefficient between polarized dust and synchrotron emission with a factor of two greater precision than current constraints; exclude the non-existence of exo-Oort clouds at roughly 2.9$\sigma$ if the true fraction is similar to the detection rate of giant planets; map more than 850 molecular clouds with at least 50 independent polarization measurements at 1 pc resolution; detect or place upper limits on the polarization fractions of CO(2-1) emission and anomalous microwave emission at the 0.1% level in select regions; and measure the correlation coefficient between optical starlight polarization and microwave polarized dust emission in $1^\circ$ patches for all lines of sight with $N_{\rm H} \gtrsim 2\times10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$. The goals and forecasts outlined here provide a roadmap for other microwave polarization experiments to expand their scientific scope via Milky Way astrophysics.Comment: Submitted to AAS journals. 33 pages, 10 figure

The Identifying Depression Early in Adolescence Risk Stratified Cohort (IDEA-RiSCo): Rationale, Methods, and Baseline Characteristics

Background: The characterization of adolescents at high risk for developing depression has traditionally relied on the presence or absence of single risk factors. More recently, the use of composite risk scores combining information from multiple variables has gained attention in prognostic research in the field of mental health. We previously developed a sociodemographic composite score to estimate the individual level probability of depression occurrence in adolescence, the Identifying Depression Early in Adolescence Risk Score (IDEA-RS).Objectives: In this report, we present the rationale, methods, and baseline characteristics of the Identifying Depression Early in Adolescence Risk Stratified Cohort (IDEA-RiSCo), a study designed for in-depth examination of multiple neurobiological, psychological, and environmental measures associated with the risk of developing and with the presence of depression in adolescence, with a focus on immune/inflammatory and neuroimaging markers.Methods: Using the IDEA-RS as a tool for risk stratification, we recruited a new sample of adolescents enriched for low (LR) and high (HR) depression risk, as well as a group of adolescents with a currently untreated major depressive episode (MDD). Methods for phenotypic, peripheral biological samples, and neuroimaging assessments are described, as well as baseline clinical characteristics of the IDEA-RiSCo sample.Results: A total of 7,720 adolescents aged 14–16 years were screened in public state schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil. We were able to identify individuals at low and high risk for developing depression in adolescence: in each group, 50 participants (25 boys, 25 girls) were included and successfully completed the detailed phenotypic assessment with ascertainment of risk/MDD status, blood and saliva collections, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Across a variety of measures of psychopathology and exposure to negative events, there was a clear pattern in which either the MDD group or both the HR and the MDD groups exhibited worse indicators in comparison to the LR group.Conclusion: The use of an empirically-derived composite score to stratify risk for developing depression represents a promising strategy to establish a risk-enriched cohort that will contribute to the understanding of the neurobiological correlates of risk and onset of depression in adolescence

Cittadinanza sociale e diritti degli stranieri. Profili comparatistici

La relazione tra diritti sociali, cittadinanza e condizione giuridica dello straniero rappresenta un tema di rilevante interesse per la presenza di problematiche giuridiche inedite nel contesto dei sistemi di welfare europei. Tradizionalmente concepiti sull\u2019idea di una comunit\ue0 redistributiva nazionale, essi devono confrontarsi, da un lato, con il proiettarsi del paradigma dell\u2019appartenenza oltre i confini statuali e, dall\u2019altro, con l\u2019accresciuta rilevanza del fenomeno migratorio, soprattutto in periodi di crisi economica. Se da una parte \ue8 frequente la tendenza a pensare che gli \u201caltri\u201d erodano la solidariet\ue0 tra i cittadini, dall\u2019altra la crisi della dialettica tra cittadinanza e Stato-nazione contribuisce a definire i concetti di cittadino e straniero come categorie giuridiche variabili, rendendo sempre meno consistente la linea di demarcazione che identifica \u2013 e separa \u2013 \u201cnoi\u201d e gli \u201caltri\u201d. In un\u2019epoca caratterizzata da fenomeni di tipo transnazionale e globale, appare necessario problematizzare la statica dicotomia cittadino-straniero e arricchirla con ulteriori livelli di analisi, che prendano in considerazione il complesso moltiplicarsi delle posizioni giuridiche intermedie tra le due categorie, specialmente nella loro declinazione sociale. Lo schema comparativo proposto nel volume \ue8 relativo ad alcuni tratti peculiari della cittadinanza sociale nelle esperienze di Regno Unito, Francia e Italia. La comparazione costituisce uno strumento essenziale per cogliere i profili dinamici e gli snodi critici della ricerca che qui si propone soprattutto attraverso l\u2019utilizzo di diverse metodologie, quali l\u2019approccio storico-comparativo e l\u2019implementazione delle relazioni fra diritto comparato e socio-legal studies