MicroRNAs delivery into human cells grown on 3D-printed PLA scaffolds coated with a novel fluorescent PAMAM dendrimer for biomedical applications

Many advanced synthetic, natural, degradable or non-degradable materials have been employed to create scaffolds for cell culture for biomedical or tissue engineering applications. One of the most versatile material is poly-lactide (PLA), commonly used as 3D printing filament. Manufacturing of multifunctional scaffolds with improved cell growth proliferation and able to deliver oligonucleotides represents an innovative strategy for controlled and localized gene modulation that hold great promise and could increase the number of applications in biomedicine. Here we report for the first time the synthesis of a novel Rhodamine derivative of a poly-amidoamine dendrimer (G = 5) able to transfect cells and to be monitored by confocal microscopy that we also employed to coat a 3D-printed PLA scaffold. The coating do not modify the oligonucleotide binding ability, toxicity or transfection properties of the scaffold that is able to increase cell proliferation and deliver miRNA mimics (i.e., pre-mir-503) into human cells. Although further experiments are required to optimize the dendrimer/miRNA ratio and improve transfection efficiency, we demonstrated the effectiveness of this promising and innovative 3D-printed transfection system to transfer miRNAs into human cells for future biomedical applications. © 2018, The Author(s)

SERENA Science Operations Review

Issue: 2 , Revision: 1 , Date: 30/10/2015, delivered to ASI HQThis document describes the global set of operative rules, constraints, features and top level procedures for the execution of SERENA operations, and it describes the scientific rationale behind the optimal observing strategy. The SERENA instrument is composed by four units, ELENA, STROFIO and PICAM may operate independently, while MIPA is dependent by ELENA powering; SERENA has a good flexibility in order to operate in different modes and configurations that could fit the allocated power and telemetry budget. Nevertheless for reaching the full science goals, the four units should operate at the same time, when compatible with system constraints

L’impatto dell’effetto imitativo sulle politiche di bilancio

This study investigates the association between peer effects and earnings smoothing amongst private Italian firms. Previous stud-ies provide compelling evidence that earnings smoothing is common practice amongst privately held European firms. A practice which is also spread amongst private Italian firms. Yet, the underlying assumption of this stream of empirical research is that firms engage in earnings smoothing practice independently of their peers’ choice, despite the extant theoretical literature has been long recognising the important role of mimicking competitors. We provide a bridge between these two streams of research by focus-ing on a sample of private Italian firms during the period 2014-2019. We adopt a two-stage-least square approach in which peer’s idiosyncratic EBITDA serves as instrumental variable for peers’ earnings smoothing. In line with our expectations built upon the rivalry theory, we document that the association between peers’ effects and earnings smoothing practices is statistically significant and economically meaningful. This result withstands a battery of alternative tests where we adopt different proxies for both earnings smoothing and the set of independent variables of our multivariate analysis. Our findings also confirm the pres-ence of a positive association between earnings smoothing and other factors that are traditionally documented in prior studies: lev-erage, sales growth, age, absence of prior year losses. Yet, peer effects appear to play a primary role amongst these factors. Overall, our study suggests that when private firms engage in earnings smoothing practices the distorting effects on the quality of financial reporting are not limited to their financial statements, but they worryingly spread over the financial statements of their competitors. Under these circumstances, mimicking peers is a severe obstacle against the representation of a true and fair view, which still represents the goal of financial reporting. This perspective has important implications for regulators and external con-trols that aim at increasing the level of enforcement of financial reporting rules. And identifying the distinctive features of the most imitated firms becomes fundamental in this respect. Future research can further explore this relation to identify the factors that can mitigate the influence of peers or assess the influence of peers on other reporting practices such as real earnings management

SERENA Power Constraints

Issue: 2 , Revision: 1 , date: 30/10/2015, Delivered to ASI HQThis document describes the global set of operative rules, constraints, features and top level procedures for the execution of SERENA operations, and it describes the scientific rationale behind the optimal observing strategy. The SERENA instrument is composed by four units, ELENA, STROFIO and PICAM may operate independently, while MIPA is dependent by ELENA powering; SERENA has a good flexibility in order to operate in different modes and configurations that could fit the allocated power and telemetry budget. Nevertheless for reaching the full science goals, the four units should operate at the same time, when compatible with system constraints

An orientation-based unification of young jetted AGN: the case of 3C 286

In recent years, the old paradigm according to which only high-mass black holes can launch powerful relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) has begun to crumble. The discovery of $\gamma$-rays coming from narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s), usually considered young and growing AGN harboring a central black hole with mass typically lower than 10$^8$ M$_\odot$, indicated that also these low-mass AGN can produce powerful relativistic jets. The search for parent population of $\gamma$-ray emitting NLS1s revealed their connection with compact steep-spectrum sources (CSS). In this proceeding we present a review of the current knowledge of these sources, we present the new important case of 3C 286, classified here for the fist time as NLS1, and we finally provide a tentative orientation based unification of NLS1s and CSS sources.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. Proceeding of the conference "Quasars at all cosmic epochs", held in Padova, April 2-7, 2017, published on Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science

La Sorveglianza attiva delle paralisi flaccide acute (AFP)in Sardegna nell'obiettivo della eradicazione della poliomielite

Nella storia della salute pubblica, l’umanità sta per raggiungere un importante obiettivo nel controllo delle malattie infettive, obiettivo fino ad ora conquistato solo per il vaiolo. Nel 1988 l’Assemblea Mondiale della Sanità si è infatti proposta di perseguire, tra i suoi obiettivi, la eradicazione della poliomielite attraverso una strategia di base imperneata su a) garanzia di alti livelli di copertura nella popolazione al di sotto dei 5 anni di età con vaccinazione routinaria utilizzando vaccino antipolio orale tipo Sabin; b) attività supplementari di vaccinazione tipo NID (Giornate Nazionali di Immunizzazione) in quei Paesi in cui la copertura di cui al punto a) è inferiore al 90%; c) interventi di “mopping-up” (vaccinazione di tutti i bambini tra 0 e 5 anni, indipendentemente dal loro stato vaccinale) nelle zone in cui si verificano focolai epidemici; d) sorveglianza di tutte le paralisi flaccide acute (AFP) in modo da identificare con certezza ogni caso di poliomielite. Attualmente, i Paesi liberi dalla polio sono oltre 175* (Fig. 1), mentre rimangono ancora critiche le zone dell’Africa occidentale e centrale (comprese il Corno d’Africa) e il sub continente indiano che continuano a notificare il maggior numero di casi di polio. Per ottenere il riconoscimento della certificazione di “polio-free”, ciascun Paese deve documentare, per un periodo di almeno tre anni consecutivi, l’assenza di casi di malattia paralitica da ceppi selvaggi e l’assenza della circolazione ambientale di poliovirus selvagg

Neutral Solar Wind Detector (NSWD) for Solar Orbiter

The Neutral Solar Wind Detector (NSWD), to be flown on board Solar Orbiter, consists of a neutral atom sensor able to detect and characterize (in terms of velocity and direction) the energetic neutrals flowing together the ionised particles within the solar wind, between ∼0.05 keV/nuc and ∼5 keV/nuc. This may be a stand-alone instrument (indicated as high priority augmentation payload in the Solar Orbiter PDD), but it is also suitable for inclusion in the solar wind particle package SWA. The NSWD primary scientific objectives may be summarized as in the following: • observation of neutral solar wind flux; • velocity, density and temperature of the neutral solar wind; • comprehension of solar Ly-α corona, i.e. deduction of solar wind plasma velocity distributions anisotropy perpendicular and along the solar magnetic field lines from neutral solar wind observations; • study of the solar wind acceleration region via the detection of the neutral solar wind hydrogen atoms and investigation of the temporal and spatial details of the solar wind using the co-aligned movement of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft with respect to the solar rotation; • observation of the fast and slow neutral solar wind in different solar conditions, potentially including transitions regions and CMEs; • resolution of the "inner source" pick-up ion puzzle thought to originate from solar wind plasma - dust interaction in the solar atmosphere region within 0.2 AU

Compact steep-spectrum sources as the parent population of flat-spectrum radio-loud NLS1s

Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) are an interesting subclass of active galactic nuclei (AGN), which tipically does not exhibit any strong radio emission. Seven percent of them, though, are radio-loud and often show a flat radio-spectrum (F-NLS1s). This, along to the detection of $\gamma$-ray emission coming from them, is usually interpreted as a sign of a relativistic beamed jet oriented along the line of sight. An important aspect of these AGN that must be understood is the nature of their parent population, in other words how do they appear when observed under different angles. In the recent literature it has been proposed that a specific class of radio-galaxies, compact-steep sources (CSS) classified as high excitation radio galaxies (HERG), can represent the parent population of F-NLS1s. To test this hypothesis in a quantitative way,in this paper we analyzed the only two statistically complete samples of CSS/HERGs and F-NLS1s available in the literature. We derived the black hole mass and Eddington ratio distributions, and we built for the first time the radio luminosity function of F-NLS1s. Finally, we applied a relativistic beaming model to the luminosity function of CSS/HERGs, and compared the result with the observed function of F-NLS1s. We found that compact steep-spectrum sources are valid parent candidates and that F-NLS1s, when observed with a different inclination, might actually appear as CSS/HERGs.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Minor mutations in HIV protease at baseline and appearance of primary mutation 90M in patients for whom their first protease-inhibitor ntiretroviral regimens failed

The association between minor mutations in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) protease at baseline and development of common primary mutation 90M at virological failure (conferring some resistance to all protease inhibitors [PIs]) was evaluated in 93 previously drug-naive patients experiencing failure of their first PI-based antiretroviral regimens. In logistic regression analysis, the probability of accumulating a new 90M mutation at virological failure was associated with the presence at baseline of minor mutation 36I (naturally occurring in ∼25% of HIV clade B and in >80% of HIV non-clade-B viruses) (adjusted odds ratio, 13.5 [95% confidence interval, 1.89–95.6]; P=.009) and, possibly, of 10I/V. This suggests a potential role for the presence of 36I at baseline in predicting the appearance of 90M at virological failure