Does the Underground Economy Hold Back Financial Deepening? Evidence from the Italian Credit Market

The paper investigates the relationship between underground activities and financial deepening. The access to external finance requires entrepreneurs to disclose credible information through formal documentation. This requirement may be impossible to oblige to for many informal producers who lack a proper book-keeping of their operations. For the same reason irregular workers may find difficult to borrow for financing both consumption and housing purchase. Using panel data on Italian regional credit markets we find a strong negative impact of the share of irregular employment on outstanding credit to the private sector. According to our estimates a shift of 1 per cent of the employees from regular activities to irregular ones corresponds to a decline of about 2 percentage points in the volume of business lending and of 0.3 percentage points in outstanding credit to households, both expressed as ratios to GDP. Conversely, the feedback effects from financial deepening to the size of the informal sector are weak and statistically not significant. Through a difference-in-difference approach exploiting the regularisation program for immigrant workers launched in 2002 we also identify a negative effect of the irregular labour on banks' entry decisions in the local credit markets, now defined in terms of provinces.irregular employment, bank lending, school drop-out, entry, branching, regularisation programme

Poéticas Biográficas do Corpo Explantado: Notas Sobre Três Ensaios Visuais Brasileiros

O presente texto propõe uma reflexão sobre as imagens do corpo feminino através dos ensaios visuais de três artistas brasileiras contemporâneas: Karka Keiko, Fiamma Viola e Maria Luísa Andrade. Os apontamentos tecidos às imagens estão interligados por três notas principais: a primeira discute as tematizações do corpo feminino que figuram nos contextos midiáticos, artísticos e culturais compondo uma agenda de pesquisa propriamente feminista; a segunda observa como as artistas emprestam seus corpos explantados, submetidos aos procedimentos cirúrgicos, para a construção de um trabalho de elaboração criativa e narrativa de si através das imagens; e a terceira traça os pontos de ruptura estético-políticos provocados pelas imagens ensaísticas indicando o recurso poético como um gesto de resistência em uma sociedade inundada por selfies. Ao desenvolver a discussão, é possível observar como este tipo de conteúdo circula tanto nas elaborações visuais e artísticas das galerias e museus, quanto na forma de postagens, através de conhecidos sites de redes sociais, de modo a adquirir maior alcance do olhar público. Capazes de instaurar a criação de uma cena enunciativa voltada para as telas, os corpos das mulheres submetidos ao explante mamário propõem refletir acerca das novas formas de vínculos do olhar sobre o corpo feminino.This text proposes a reflection about the images of the female body through the visual essays of three Brazilian artists: Karka Keiko, Fiamma Viola and Maria Luísa Andrade. Three main annotations were made to the images under analysis: the first discusses the themes of the female body that figure in the media, artistic and cultural contexts that make up a specifically feminist research agenda; the second observes how the artists lend their explanted bodies, submitted to surgical procedures, to build a work of creative and narrative elaboration of themselves through the images; and the third, traces the aesthetic-political breaking points caused by the essayistic images indicating the poetic resource as a gesture of resistance in a society flooded with selfies. In developing the discussion, we can observe that this content travels both in visual and artistic elaborations, at galleries and museums, and in the form of postings, through renowned digital platforms and social networks to expand the reach of the public gaze. They can create an enunciative scene on the screens, and the bodies of women who have undergone breast explantation suggest a reflection on the new forms of linking the gaze on the female body

La Chirurgia maxillo-facciale nei bambini: prevenzione e terapia

Purpose: to prevent deficits of maxillary and mandibular growth in case of fractures of the oral and maxillofacial area in children. In fact, it is known that every traumatic event on the facial grown’s centers can alter the maxillofacial development. It is very important to carry out a prompt diagnosis and than warrant the right treatment for the patient to heal him and to prevent deficits of facial growth. So, in this work, we focused the several specific surgical and non-surgical techniques necessary to treat the little patients preventing deficits of facial growth. Methods: In the Maxillofacial Surgery Department of the University of Sassari, from 2004 to 2009, we surgically treated 16 cases of pediatric facial fractures: 8 cases of mandibular fractures, 4 cases of zygomatic fractures, 2 cases of orbital fractures and 2 cases of maxillary fractures. Results: All these cases were successfully treated. Every patients are subjected to a follow up to early find possible complications and to solve them. Conclusions: We think that a scrupulous therapeutic plan is required to achieved an ideal treatment of a child with trauma, to warrant a right facial growth

Calcitonin gene-related peptide antagonists in pregnancy: a disproportionality analysis in VigiBase®

Background Current evidence on the safety of calcitonin gene–related peptide antagonists (CGRP-A) in pregnancy for the treatment of both episodic and chronic migraine is scarce and does not yet provide definitive information. By querying VigiBase$^{®}$, the World Health Organization global pharmacovigilance database, this study aimed to detect differences in the reporting frequency between CGRP-A and triptans in relation to pregnancy. Methods Disproportionality analyses on de-duplicated safety reports collected in VigiBase$^{®}$ as of 31.05.2023 reporting exposure to CGRP-A in pregnancy with or without pregnancy outcomes. A Reporting Odds Ratio (ROR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was used as a measure of disproportionality and the threshold for the detection of a signal of disproportionate reporting was set with a 95% CI lower limit > 1. Findings Four hundred sixty-seven safety reports reported exposure to CGRP-A in pregnancy, mostly originating from the United States of America (360/467, 77%), more frequently reported by patients (225/467, 48%), who were mainly females (431/467, 92%), and more frequently reported exposure to CGRP-A during pregnancy (400/467, 86%). Compared to triptans, no signals of disproportionate reporting were detected with CGRP-A either for the overall reporting of pregnancy-related safety reports (ROR 0.91, 95% CI 0.78–1.06), for the reporting of pregnancy outcomes (maternal and/or foetal/neonatal, ROR 0.54, 95% CI 0.45–0.66), or for the reporting of foetal/neonatal outcomes (ROR 0.53, 95% CI 0.41–0.68). Conclusions This study showed that, to date, there are no signals of increased reporting with CGRP-A compared to triptans in relation to pregnancy in VigiBase$^{®}$. Future pharmacovigilance studies are needed to confirm these findings

Safety profile of monoclonal antibodies targeting the calcitonin gene-related peptide system in pregnancy: Updated analysis in VigiBase®

Background: Safety data on the use of migraine preventive monoclonal antibodies targeting the calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) system in pregnancy are limited. Methods: Updated pharmacovigilance assessment of the safety reports related to pregnancy associated with erenumab, galcanezumab, fremanezumab and eptinezumab, retrieved from VigiBase® as of 31 December 2021. As primary outcome, the whole group of monoclonal antibodies targeting the CGRP system was considered and sex and age subgroup disproportionality analyses using the reporting odds ratio (ROR) were conducted. Results: 286 safety reports were found: 116 (40.6%) on erenumab, 125 (43.7%) on galcanezumab, 39 (13.6%) on fremanezumab, 6 (2.1%) on eptinezumab. One hundred and forty-nine (52.1%) safety reports reported only drug exposure in relation to pregnancy while 137 (47.9%) also included ≥1 pregnancy outcomes: maternal outcomes (n = 64), spontaneous abortion (n = 63), foetal growth restriction (n = 1), prematurity (n = 8), neonatal outcomes (n = 13), and poor breastfeeding (n = 1). No specific patterns of maternal, foetal and neonatal toxicity were observed. Spontaneous abortion was not disproportionally more frequently reported with erenumab, galcanezumab, fremanezumab and eptinezumab compared with the entire database (ROR 1.1, 95% confidence interval, CI, 0.8–1.5), the entire database since 2018 (ROR 1.3, 95% CI 1.0–1.8), and triptans (ROR 1.2, 95% CI 0.8–1.9). Conclusions: This updated safety analysis on erenumab, galcanezumab, fremanezumab and eptinezumab in pregnancy showed no signals of foeto-maternal toxicity according to VigiBase® safety reports

Quantitative analysis of fentanyl, several analogues and metabolites in urine by parallel artificial liquid membrane extraction and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry analysis

The rapid introduction of new psychoactive substances (NPS) has definitively changed the drug market. Among the several NPS that were identified in the last decades, fentanyl and its analogues deserve special attention. These are synthetic opioids with high potency and are associated with increasing number of deaths; for this reason, forensic toxicologists are paying close attention to these analytes and sensitive analytical methods for their detection in biological samples of drug users are needed. The aim of this study was the development of a LC–MS/MS method for the determination of fentanyl, 23 analogues and metabolites in urine by exploiting parallel artificial liquid membrane extraction (PALME). This technique was shown to be particularly suitable for fentanyl extraction and allowed to obtain a high enrichment factor by using a few microliters of organic solvent (1-octanol) immobilized into a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane. The extraction was carried out on a 96 well plate providing high laboratory throughput. The applied strategy allowed to measure concentrations ranging from 0.1 ng mL − 1 for fentanyl and most analogues to 5 ng mL − 1 for metabolites, by using an entry level mass spectrometer. Because of the different concentration levels generally found in real samples, linearity was studied in different ranges i.e. LOQ to 50 ng mL − 1 for parent drugs and LOQ to 200 ng mL − 1 for metabolites. All the validation parameters were found within the imposed limits, and notably matrix effect was not significant for all the analytes, showing the selectivity achieved by PALME extraction

A Dysphoria mundi de Paul B. Preciado: a(r)tivismo e filosofia inadequades ao capitalismo petrosexorracial

Resenha do livro Dysphoria mundi do filósofo e escritor Paul Preciado publicado em 2022 pela Editora Anagrama. Dividido em 7 capítulos por 709 páginas, o autor desenvolve o conceito de capitalismo petrosexorracial e ideias para ações epistêmico-políticas de desidentificação e dissidência dos já antigos e inadequados regimes de subjetivação

The ER stress response mediator ERO1 triggers cancer metastasis by favoring the angiogenic switch in hypoxic conditions

: Solid tumors are often characterized by a hypoxic microenvironment which contributes, through the hypoxia-inducible factor HIF-1, to the invasion-metastasis cascade. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress also leads tumor cells to thrive and spread by inducing a transcriptional and translational program, the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), aimed at restoring ER homeostasis. We studied ERO1 alpha (henceforth ERO1), a protein disulfide oxidase with the tumor-relevant characteristic of being positively regulated by both ER stress and hypoxia. Analysis of the redox secretome indicated that pro-angiogenic HIF-1 targets, were blunted in ERO1-devoid breast cancer cells under hypoxic conditions. ERO1 deficiency reduced tumor cell migration and lung metastases by impinging on tumor angiogenesis, negatively regulating the upstream ATF4/CHOP branch of the UPR and selectively impeding oxidative folding of angiogenic factors, among which VEGF-A. Thus, ERO1 deficiency acted synergistically with the otherwise feeble curative effects of anti-angiogenic therapy in aggressive breast cancer murine models and it might be exploited to treat cancers with pathological HIF-1-dependent angiogenesis. Furthermore, ERO1 levels are higher in the more aggressive basal breast tumors and correlate inversely with the disease- and metastasis-free interval of breast cancer patients. Thus, taking advantage of our in vitro data on ERO1-regulated gene products we identified a gene set associated with ERO1 expression in basal tumors and related to UPR, hypoxia, and angiogenesis, whose levels might be investigated in patients as a hallmark of tumor aggressiveness and orient those with lower levels toward an effective anti-angiogenic therapy

Recipient pre-existing chronic hypotension is associated with delayed graft function and inferior graft survival in kidney transplantation from elderly donors

BackgroundPre-existing chronic hypotension affects a percentage of kidney transplanted patients (KTs). Although a relationship with delayed graft function (DGF) has been hypothesized, available data are still scarce and inconclusive.MethodsA monocentric retrospective observational study was performed on 1127 consecutive KTs from brain death donors over 11 years (2003-2013), classified according to their pre-transplant Mean Blood Pressure (MBP) as hypotensive (MBP ResultsUnivariate analysis showed that a pre-existing hypotension is associated to DGF occurrence (p50 years old donor.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that pre-existing recipient hypotension, and the subsequent hypotension-related DGF, could be considered a significant detrimental factor, especially when elderly donors are involved in the transplant procedure