The Introduction of the “Balanced Budget” Principle into the Italian Constitution: What Perspectives for the Financial Autonomy of Regional and Local Governments?

This paper analyses the impact on regional and local authorities of Articles 117 and 119 of the Italian Constitution as amended by Constitutional Law no. 1/2012. In particular, it attempts to verify whether the new formulation of these constitutional provisions materializes the risk of a significant reduction in the financial autonomy of both Regions and Local Governments. With the constitutional reform the legislative competence of “harmonization of public account” has become an exclusive State competence, the “balanced budget” principle has been extended to Regions and local authorities and public borrowing has been broadly prohibited. What is the actual significance of the changes introduced by Constitutional Law no. 1/2012 for the financial autonomy of Italian sub-national authorities? Is it time to recognise that the goals of financial independence of Italian fiscal federalism, launched by the reform of Title V of the IC, must give way to a new organization of public finance, where a central role is played by the central government in order to comply with the financial constraints arising from new challenges of the European economic integration process

Toddlers' pointing when joint attention is obstructed

The aim of this study was to examine toddlers' ability to take their social partner's line of sight into account when engaging in joint attention. If pointing involves an understanding of the relationship between seeing and knowing, then specific modifications in communication should appear when joint attention is obstructed. In this study, obstacles were introduced in order to manipulate object visibility for the toddler's social partner. Thirty-two toddlers aged 18-23, 24-29, and 30-36 months were tested with an adult social partner and two animated clown mannequins

Superconductivity with s and p-symmetries in an extended Hubbard model with correlated hopping

We consider a generalized Hubbard model with on-site and nearest-neighbour repulsions U and V respectively, and nearest-neighbour hopping for spin up (down) which depends on the total occupation n_b of spin down (up) electrons on both sites involved. The hopping parameters are t_{AA}, t_{AB} and t_{BB} for n_b=0,1,2 respectively. We briefly summarize results which support that the model exhibits s-wave superconductivity for certain parameters and extend them by studying the Berry phases. Using a generalized Hartree-Fock(HF) BCS decoupling of the two and three-body terms, we obtain that at half filling, for t_{AB}<t_{AA}=t_{BB} and sufficiently small U and V the model leads to triplet p-wave superconductivity for a simple cubic lattice in any dimension. In one dimension, the resulting phase diagram is compared with that obtained numerically using two quantized Berry phases (topological numbers) as order parameters. While this novel method supports the previous results, there are quantitative differences.Comment: Latex file, 14 pages, 2 postscript figure

Photography as Translation. Visual Meaning, Digital Imaging, Trans-Mediality

The idea of envisaging photography through the concept of translation is based on the work of Umberto Eco on literary translation (2003) and its application to the cinema by Nicola Dusi (2003). In this article, the author seeks to clarify the terms and limits of this idea, all the while paying attention to debates surrounding the iconic sign and to issues raised by the coming of digital photography.C’est aux recherches d’Umberto Eco (2003) sur la traduction littéraire, lesquelles ont inspiré le travail de Nicola Dusi sur le cinéma (2003) que l’on doit l’idée de s’intéresser à la photographie depuis la perspective de la traduction. Dans cet article, l’auteur clarifie les termes et limites qui rendent la chose possible et porte une attention particulière aux débats sémiotiques liés au signe iconique et aux questions entourant la photographie numérique

An analysis of the business model adopted by earth-observation satellite companies in the newspace era - the cases of planet labs, spire global and blacksky technology

This report explores the evolutions in the satellite industry with an in-depth analysis of the business model adopted by NewSpace Earth Observation (EO) companies. The results indicate that EO companies offer an increasingly important customer value proposition based on the use of small satellites and artificial intelligence, but the market is still in a growing phase. The authors described strategic choices and vulnerabilities, presented three case studies, and provided some recommendations. Key recommendations to improve the business model enclose developing a hybrid model for operations, identifying a target customer segment, and diversifying the revenue streams

Cellular and molecular components of the atherosclerotic process: Primary colture and characterization of human vascular smooth muscle cells from carotid artery

Introduction The last years were characterized by several studies proceeding to understand SMC heterogeneity. Animal models of rat or rabbit IT after endothelial lesion are presently the most studied models for atherosclerotic plaque formation and have been useful in order to understand several biological features of SMCs. The disadvantages of animal models are that there is no possibility to reproduce the same history of pathogenesis in animals as that in man. There is no perfect animal model that completely replicates all stages of human atherosclerosis. Howevere, identification of particular SMCs subpopulation in human arteries represents a difficult challenge for understandable reason, such us material availability and experiment standardization. The relevance of SMC heterogenity to human disease still remains to be demonstrated. Aim Aim of this study is to obtain primary culture of human vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) from both atherosclerotic and no-atherosclerotic carotid artery, to investigare human SMC heterogeneity. Moreover, the possibility to isolate o SMC subpopulations, from a single human artery, could be usefull to verify the hypothesis that distinct SMC subtypes are involved in atherosclerosis pathogenesis and progression. Materials, Methods and Results Thanks to a collaboration between our laboratory and the Vascular Surgery’s group of Sant’Anna Hospital(University of Ferrara) leading by Francesco Mascoli, we had the possibility to obtain samples of atherosclerotic and noatherosclerotic human carotid artery from patients undergone to carotid endarterectomy. From these specimens we proceeded with tissue explantation in order to obtain primary colture of vascular smooth muscle cells both from no-atherosclerotic and atherosclerotic carotid artery. Cells obtained by tissue explantation were tested by immunoflurescences staining in order to verify the presence of alfa smooth muscle actin, a specific marker of vascular smooth muscle cells. Once we verified the nature of our cells through the presence of alfa smooth muscle actin we have tried to divide the atherosclerotic artery in media and plaque and than proceeding tissue explatation only with media or only with plaque or with complete lesion. We have found out that only from the complete lesion (media +plaque) we have obtained cellular outgrowth, while media and plaque alone has not gave cells at all. From these results we were started to understand which tissue, between media and plaque was the proliferative ones. In order to obtain this data we have proceeded with an experiment of cocolture using transwell insert, wich allows media and plaque to stay phisically separeted but to share the same medium. After these experiments, we have found out that the proliferative tissue was the media but plaque presence was a “condicio sine qua non” for cellular outgrowth in atherosclerotic carotid artery. We have compared cells coming from non atherosclerotic media with the ones coming from atherosclerotic artery: early, we have found out the morphological differences: cells from non atherosclerotic media was large and grew up in a monolayer even at confluence, while cells from atherosclerotic media was small and elongated and, at confluence, grew up forming a multilayer net. We have analyzed the cells also using immunofluorescences finding out that large cells(coming from no-atherosclerotic artery), had much alfa smooth muscle actin and did not shown Desmin, or S100A4(a marker of atheroma prone cells in porcine model of atherosclerosis), but show SMMHC. Small cells (coming from atherosclerotic artery), instead, had less alfa smooth muscle actin compared to large cells, and did not shown desmin and SMMHC but show an high production of S100A4. We also have tried to add plaque in tissue explantation of no-atherosclerotique media and the outgrownig from these experiments was small and by immunofluorescence shown the presences of S100A4. These are only preliminary data. The presence of the mRNA of these markers was analyzed by using RT-PCR. For further information about the differences between these two celluar populations we led a microarray experiment using biological material coming from three patiences. We discovered that there are 375 genes modulated in the two populations; these genes are involved in several biological pathways, in particular inflammation and cellular development. In conclusion we found that there are two kind of cellular populations in human artery with atherosclerotic lesion, they have some important differences that could explain why cells change phenotype and migrate in to the intima. Cells from atherosclerotic artery are strictly dependent of plaque presences that act on on them as a magnet. We identify a group of genes that can help us to understand what are the steps of phenotypical modulation. Presence of plaque nearby no-atherosclerotic artery can switch the cells from a large phenotype to a Small Phenotype (this preliminary data is confirmed by the presence in cells, outgrowed from no-atherosclerotic artery in presece of plaque, of S100A4

Sociocultural and Socioeconomic Determinants of Organ Donation

Recent research has indicated that community-level characteristics are predictive of donor designation in a given region. This current study extends the body of this work to consider the potential impact of regional level sociocultural and socioeconomic determinants of health on measures of Organ Procurement Organizations’ (OPOs) success at facilitating organ transplants. Using select indicators from The National County Health Rankings dataset, county-level indicators were aggregated to provide estimates of health within each of the 57 national OPOs donation areas. Significant associations were documented.https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/research_posters/1010/thumbnail.jp