When words matter: narratives and strategies in the Italian Jobs Act (2014–2016)

With the reforms of the so-called \u2018Jobs Act\u2019 (JA), Italy aimed to structurally reform its labour market and income-support system, through recalibration (i.e. a mix of both expansionary and retrenching measures) for old social policy risks, and some expansionary measures to face new social risks. The JA also became the symbol of opposite views about the Italian welfare state, being itself a reason for ideolo- gical conflict and coalition reshuffling in the Italian left. Ultimately, its increasing personalization around Renzi\u2019s divisive figure detracted from its functional and substantive matter. Hence, the JA reform provides an unparalleled vantage point to investigate the role of narrative stories in shaping policy contents and reforms. The paper aims to contribute to the literature on social policy reforms by com- bining a focus on narrative stories with the analytical perspective of the Multiple Stream Framework. Through qualitative analysis of offi- cial documents, of more than 500 newspaper articles and of selected in-depth interviews to key informants, this paper reconstructs the narratives about the JA reform, considering both the supporters and the challengers. Building on the Multiple Stream Framework, the paper focuses in particular on whether and how policy entrepreneurs took advantage of windows of opportunity by shaping the narrative stories. Results are twofold. First, the paper shows the variations of social policy reform narratives across actors. Second, it demonstrates the crucial role of policy entrepreneurs in shaping narrative stories as a strategy to couple the streams of problem, policy and politics

Quantum state decorrelation

We address the general problem of removing correlations from quantum states while preserving local quantum information as much as possible. We provide a complete solution in the case of two qubits, by evaluating the minimum amount of noise that is necessary to decorrelate covariant sets of bipartite states. We show that two harmonic oscillators in arbitrary Gaussian state can be decorrelated by a Gaussian covariant map. Finally, for finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, we prove that states obtained from most cloning channels (e.g., universal and phase-covariant cloning) can be decorrelated only at the expense of a complete erasure of information about the copied state. More generally, in finite dimension, cloning without correlations is impossible for continuous sets of states. On the contrary, for continuos variables cloning, a slight modification of the customary set-up for cloning coherent states allows one to obtain clones without correlations.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, RevTex

A minimum-disturbing quantum state discriminator

We propose two experimental schemes for quantum state discrimination that achieve the optimal tradeoff between the probability of correct identification and the disturbance on the quantum state.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, OSID style. Submitted to the special issue of "Open Systems and Information Dynamics", Proceedings of the "38th Symposium on Mathematical Physics", Torun, Poland, June 200

Characterization of tomographically faithful states in terms of their Wigner function

A bipartite quantum state is tomographically faithful when it can be used as an input of a quantum operation acting on one of the two quantum systems, such that the joint output state carries a complete information about the operation itself. Tomographically faithful states are a necessary ingredient for tomography of quantum operations and for complete quantum calibration of measuring apparatuses. In this paper we provide a complete classification of such states for continuous variables in terms of the Wigner function of the state. For two-mode Gaussian states faithfulness simply resorts to correlation between the modes.Comment: 9 pages. IOPAMS style. Some improvement

Cytokine release syndrome associated with T-cell-based therapies for hematological malignancies: Pathophysiology, clinical presentation, and treatment

Cytokines are a broad group of small regulatory proteins with many biological functions involved in regulating the hematopoietic and immune systems. However, in pathological conditions, hyperactivation of the cytokine network constitutes the fundamental event in cytokine release syndrome (CRS). During the last few decades, the development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and T-cell therapies has rapidly evolved, and CRS can be a serious adverse event related to these treatments. CRS is a set of toxic adverse events that can be observed during infection or following the administration of antibodies for therapeutic purposes and, more recently, during T-cell-engaging therapies. CRS is triggered by on-target effects induced by binding of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells or bispecific antibody to its antigen and by subsequent activation of bystander immune and non-immune cells. CRS is associated with high circulating concentrations of several pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukins, interferons, tumor necrosis factors, colony-stimulating factors, and transforming growth factors. Recently, considerable developments have been achieved with regard to preventing and controlling CRS, but it remains an unmet clinical need. This review comprehensively summarizes the pathophysiology, clinical presentation, and treatment of CRS caused by T-cell-engaging therapies utilized in the treatment of hematological malignancies

Evidence for the interaction of d-amino acid oxidase with pLG72 in a glial cell line.

Accumulating genetic evidence indicates that the primate-specific gene locus G72/G30 is related to schizophrenia: it encodes for the protein pLG72, whose function is still the subject of controversy. We recently demonstrated that pLG72 negatively affects the activity of human d-amino acid oxidase (hDAAO, also related to schizophrenia susceptibility), which in neurons and (predominantly) in glia is expected to catabolize the neuromodulator d-serine. The d-serine regulation mechanism relying on hDAAO-pLG72 interaction does not match with the subcellular localizations proposed for hDAAO (peroxisomes) and pLG72 (mitochondria). By using glioblastoma U87 cells transfected with plasmids encoding for hDAAO and/or pLG72 we provide convergent lines of evidence that newly synthesized hDAAO, transitorily present in cytosol before being delivered to the peroxisomes, colocalizes and interacts with pLG72 which we propose to be exposed on the external membrane of mitochondria. We also report that newly synthesized cytosolic hDAAO is catalytically active, and therefore pLG72 binding-and ensuing hDAAO inactivation-plays a protective role against d-serine depletion

Information-disturbance tradeoff in estimating a maximally entangled state

We derive the amount of information retrieved by a quantum measurement in estimating an unknown maximally entangled state, along with the pertaining disturbance on the state itself. The optimal tradeoff between information and disturbance is obtained, and a corresponding optimal measurement is provided.Comment: 4 pages. Accepted for publication on Physical Review Letter