Categorifying the ZX-calculus

We build a symmetric monoidal and compact closed bicategory by combining spans and cospans inside a topos. This can be used as a framework in which to study open networks and diagrammatic languages. We illustrate this framework with Coecke and Duncan's zx-calculus by constructing a bicategory with the natural numbers for 0-cells, the zx-calculus diagrams for 1-cells, and rewrite rules for 2-cells.Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2017, arXiv:1802.0973

Adenosine signaling in airways: Toward a promising antiasthmatic approach

Adenosine participates to asthma physiopathology by signaling through more than just one receptor subtype. Defining the role of each receptor is complicated by evidence that often results obtained on rodents do not coincide with human studies, but what emerges is that an important condition to establish hyperresponsiveness to adenosine in any species of sensitized animals is the exposure to allergen; this feature appears to be very similar to the human situation, since allergic humans regularly undergo exposure to allergen. Furthermore, A2B in humans, but A3 receptor in rodents, would mediate, indirectly, the bronchoconstriction in response to adenosine and would play the main role in adenosine-induced airway inflammation and airway hyperreactivity. On the other hand, A1 receptor over-expressed on asthmatic airways would mediate a direct adenosine bronchoconstrictor effect. Antagonists and agonists to adenosine receptors have been considered as antiasthmatic drugs but often their development has been limited by unwanted effects. Preventing adenosine accumulation in airways should be considered as a novel promising antiasthmatic strategy

Gastrointestinal neuromuscular apparatus: An underestimated target of gut microbiota

Over the last few years, the importance of the resident intestinal microbiota in the pathogenesis of several gastro- intestinal diseases has been largely investigated. Growing evidence suggest that microbiota can influence gastro- intestinal motility. The current working hypothesis is that dysbiosis-driven mucosal alterations induce the production of several inflammatory/immune mediators which affect gut neuro-muscular functions. Besides these indirect mucosal-mediated effects, the present review highlights that recent evidence suggests that microbiota can directly affect enteric nerves and smooth muscle cells functions through its metabolic products or bacterial molecular components translocated from the intestinal lumen. Toll- like receptors, the bacterial recognition receptors, are expressed both on enteric nerves and smooth muscle and are emerging as potential mediators between microbiota and the enteric neuromuscular apparatus. Furthermore, the ongoing studies on probiotics support the hypothesis that the neuromuscular apparatus may represent a target of intervention, thus opening new physiopathological and therapeutic scenarios

La representación verbal y visual de la belleza y la fealdad en dos ensayos editados por Umberto Eco

El presente artículo se propone recorrer algunas etapas del fascinante viaje realizado por Umberto Eco en dos ensayos editados por él, Historia de la belleza (2004) e Historia de la fealdad (2007), y destacar los recursos con los cuales, en un admirable trenzado de imágenes y palabras, realiza un recorrido por la cultura occidental desde un punto de vista iconográfico y la comenta en el plano filosófico y literario. Con un acercamiento interdisciplinar e intertextual y mediante una escritura a partir de caracteres hipertextuales se invita al lector a profundizar en interesantes aspectos temáticos y a reflexionar sobre su modalidad de representación verbal y visual

Signacula ex aere. La collezione Milani del Museo Nazionale di Parma

Si propone un nuovo studio dei sigilli romani in bronzo un tempo parte della raccolta Milani conservati presso il Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Parma. La ricerca, che si è avvalsa nella sua prima fase dello spoglio dei documenti d’archivio presso il museo parmense, si è poi concentrata sulla documentazione dei manufatti e sui confronti provenienti dalle fonti epigrafiche.This paper presents a new study of the Roman bronze seals that were once part of the Milani Collection and are now preserved in the National Archeological Museum of Parma. In the first place, the museum’s archive documents were studied; this was followed by a detailed analysis of the seals and the results were compared to epigraphic sources

A Roy Model of Social Interactions

We develop a Roy model of social interactions in which individuals sort into peer groups based on comparative advantage. Two key results emerge: First, when comparative advantage is the guiding principle of peer group organization, the effect of moving a student into an environment with higher-achieving peers depends on where in the ability distribution she falls and the effective wages that clear the social market. In this sense our model may rationalize the widely varying estimates of peer effects found in the literature without casting group behavior as an externality in agents’ objective functions. Second, since a student’s comparative advantage is typically unobserved, the theory implies that important determinants of individual choice operate through the error term and may, even under random assignment, be correlated with the regressor of interest. As a result, linear in means estimates of peer effects are not identified. We show that the model’s testable prediction in the presence of this confounding issue–an individual’s ordinal rank predicts her behavior, ceteris paribus–is borne out in two data setssocial interactions; peer effects; roy model; idenitification