Logistica e politiche di sviluppo pubbliche 2007-2013

L’obiettivo del lavoro è presentare i risultati dell’ Osservatorio sulle Politiche di Sviluppo per i Trasporti e la Logistica che gestisce SRM - Studi e Ricerche per il Mezzogiorno. I risultati sono stati presentati annualmente alle riunioni trascorse del SIET (Napoli, Sassari, Trieste, Roma, Me ssina). L’obiettivo è quello di delineare un quadro degli investimenti relativi al settore dei trasporti e della logistica nel Mezzogiorno con particolare riferimento a quanto previsto dal Quadro Strategico Nazionale (QSN) 2007 - 2013. Nell’ambito di questa programmazione, infatti, ricadono non solo le singole previsioni a carattere regionale (POR) ma anche un Programma a valenza multiregionale specificatamente dedicati al comparto in esame (PON Reti e Mobilità 2007 - 2013). Per meglio delineare il contesto di riferimento sono state, inoltre, considerate le previsioni dell’Agenda 2000 - 2006 soffermandosi, in particolar modo, sui risultati raggiunti a chiusura della stessa. In merito a quest’ultima va detto che il Quadro Comunitario di Sostegno (QCS) 2000 - 2006, al pari dell’attuale programmazione, prevedeva anch’essa tanto delle politiche regionali (POR) quanto una cornice multi regionale (PON Trasporti 2000 - 2006) e l’analisi dell’andamento di tali programmi, oltre a quella degli effetti conseguiti, può essere vist a come un utile strumento per meglio parametrare le performances degli interventi attualmente in corso. Dal confronto, infatti, è possibile trarre utili informazioni circa l’utilizzo dei fondi disponibili con riferimento non solo alle entità stanziate ma a nche alle scelte di allocazione delle stesse in termini di tipologia di opere e territori destinatari. Lo studio svolto, focalizzato sulle aree della Convergenza (Calabria, Campania, Puglia e Sicilia), ha inteso quindi indagare da un lato su quanto inizialmente previsto (in termini tanto finanziari quanto di interventi fisici da realizzare) e, dall’altro, s ui principali risultati raggiunti, cosi come contenuto nei Rapporti d’Esecuzione disponibili. Per l’agenda 2000 - 2006, sono stati analizzati per lo più i dati di chiusura dei Programmi. Il PON Trasporti ha fatto registrare un overbooking tanto negli impegni di spesa quanto nei pagamenti: i dati della Ragioneria Generale dello Stato per il monitoraggio degli interventi comunitari riportano, infatti, un’attuazione finanziaria che, al 30 giugno 2010, raggiunge il 114,2% in termini di pagamenti effettuati. Anche secondo le informazioni contenute nei Rapporti Finali di Esecuzione, l’Agenda 2000 - 2006 si è conclusa con rilevanti risultati. Prendendo come riferimento il PON Trasporti 2000 - 2006 si registrano, infatti, performance realizzative che hanno permesso il rag giungimento dell’impatto stabilito con quote di pagamento che toccano e superano la totalità dell’importo stanziato. Ottimi risultati si registrano a nche per i Programmi Regionali analizzati che, dal canto loro, se si escludono i progetti rinviati alla nuo va programmazione, hanno spesso riportato un'analoga situazione con il completo raggiungimento degli obiettivi prefissati in termini realizzazione fisica e di impatto e con un overbooking della spesa relativa. Per quanto concerne, invece, i Programmi 2007 - 2013, dai Rapporti d’Esecuzione disponibili emerge come, in linea generale, inizino a registrarsi i primi risultati di spesa pur se, in termini di realizzazione fisica degli interventi, nella maggior parte dei casi, non si evidenziano performance particolarmente significative; ciò è dovuto per lo più al fatto che le attività svolte hanno per molto tempo riguardato la fase di progettazione degli interventi che hanno, quindi, visto l’avvio in ritardo rispetto alle tempistiche ottimali. Il PON Reti e mobilità, dal canto suo, secondo gli ultimi dati disponibili della Ragioneria Generale dello Stato (al 30 giugno 2012) fa registrare pagamenti per una quota pari a solo il 20,5% del totale disponibile. Vengono, infine, riportate alcune informazioni sulla n uova Agenda di programmazione 2014 - 2020, oltre ad alcune considerazioni generali sul particolare contesto che fa da sfondo all’attuazione delle politiche comunitarie, soffermando l’attenzione su quelle che possono essere delle possibili strade per il loro rilancio

Stacked optical antennas for plasmon propagation in a 5 nm-confined cavity

The sub-wavelength concentration and propagation of electromagnetic energy are two complementary aspects of plasmonics that are not necessarily co-present in a single nanosystem. Here we exploit the strong nanofocusing properties of stacked optical antennas in order to highly concentrate the electromagnetic energy into a 5 nm metal-insulator-metal (MIM) cavity and convert free radiation into guided modes. The proposed nano-architecture combines the concentration properties of optical nanoantennas with the propagation capability of MIM systems, paving the way to highly miniaturized on-chip plasmonic waveguiding

Cyclooxygenase-2-Derived Prostacyclin Protective Role on Endotoxin-Induced Mouse Cardiomyocyte Mortality

Cardiovascular dysfunction characterizes septic shock, inducing multiple organ failure and a high mortality rate. In the heart, it has been shown an up-regulation of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expressions with subsequent overproduction of nitric oxide (NO) and eicosanoids. This study is focused on the links between these products of inflammation and cell loss of mouse cardiomyocytes during treatment by the Salmonella typhimurium lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in presence or in absence of NOS or COX inhibitors. LPS induced RelA/NF-κB p65 activation, iNOS and COX-2 up-regulations, resulting in NO and prostacyclin releases. These effects were reversed by the NO-synthase inhibitor and increased by the specific COX-2 inhibitor. Immunostainings with FITC-conjugated anti-Annexin-V and propidium iodide and caspase 3/7 activity assay showed that cardiomyocyte necrosis was inhibited by L-NA during LPS treatment challenge, while apoptosis was induced in presence of both LPS and NS-398. No effect on LPS cellular injury was observed using the specific cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) inhibitor, SC-560. These findings strongly support the hypothesis of a link between iNOS-dependent NO overproduction and LPS-induced cell loss with a selective protective role allotted to COX-2 and deriving prostacyclins

Procalcitonin biomarker kinetics fails to predict treatment response in perioperative abdominal infection with septic shock

International audienceIntroduction: Procalcitonin (PCT) biomarker is suggested to tailor antibiotic therapy in the medical intensive care unit (ICU) but studies in perioperative medicine are scarce. The aim of this study was to determine whether PCT reported thresholds are associated with the initial treatment response in perioperative septic shock secondary to intra-abdominal infection. Methods: This single ICU, observational study included patients with perioperative septic shocks secondary to intra-abdominal infection. Demographics, PCT at days 0, 1, 3, 5, treatment response and outcome were collected. Treatment failure included death related to the initial infection, second source control treatment or a new onset intra-abdominal infection. The primary endpoint was to assess whether PCT thresholds (0.5 ng/ml or a drop from the peak of at least 80%) predict the initial treatment response. Results: We included 101 consecutive cases. Initial treatment failed in 36 patients with a subsequent mortality of 75%. Upon admission, PCT was doubled when treatment ultimately failed (21.7 ng/ml +/- 38.7 vs. 41.7 ng/ml +/- 75.7; P = 0.04). Although 95% of the patients in whom PCT dropped down below 0.5 ng/ml responded to treatment, 50% of the patients in whom PCT remained above 0.5 ng/ml also responded successfully to treatment. Moreover, despite a PCT drop of at least 80%, 40% of patients had treatment failure. Conclusions: In perioperative intra-abdominal infections with shock, PCT decrease to 0.5 ng/ml lacked sensitivity to predict treatment response and its decrease of at least 80% from its peak failed to accurately predict treatment response. Studies in perioperative severe infections are needed before using PCT to tailor antibiotic use in this population

Labor-associated gene expression in the human uterine fundus, lower segment, and cervix

Background Preterm labor, failure to progress, and postpartum hemorrhage are the common causes of maternal and neonatal mortality or morbidity. All result from defects in the complex mechanisms controlling labor, which coordinate changes in the uterine fundus, lower segment, and cervix. We aimed to assess labor-associated gene expression profiles in these functionally distinct areas of the human uterus by using microarrays. Methods and Findings Samples of uterine fundus, lower segment, and cervix were obtained from patients at term (mean +/- 6 SD = 39.1 +/- 0.5 wk) prior to the onset of labor (n = 6), or in active phase of labor with spontaneous onset (n = 7). Expression of 12,626 genes was evaluated using microarrays ( Human Genome U95A; Affymetrix) and compared between labor and non-labor samples. Genes with the largest labor-associated change and the lowest variability in expression are likely to be fundamental for parturition, so gene expression was ranked accordingly. From 500 genes with the highest rank we identified genes with similar expression profiles using two independent clustering techniques. Sets of genes with a probability of chance grouping by both techniques less than 0.01 represented 71.2%, 81.8%, and 79.8% of the 500 genes in the fundus, lower segment, and cervix, respectively. We identified 14, 14, and 12 those sets of genes in the fundus, lower segment, and cervix, respectively. This enabled networks of coregulated and co-expressed genes to be discovered. Many genes within the same cluster shared similar functions or had functions pertinent to the process of labor. Conclusions Our results provide support for many of the established processes of parturition and also describe novel-to-labor genes not previously associated with this process. The elucidation of these mechanisms likely to be fundamental for controlling labor is an important prerequisite to the development of effective treatments for major obstetric problems - including prematurity, with its long-term consequences to the health of mother and offspring

Membrane Microvesicles as Actors in the Establishment of a Favorable Prostatic Tumoral Niche: A Role for Activated Fibroblasts and CX3CL1-CX3CR1 Axis

Tumor microenvironment is enriched in plasma membrane microvesicles (MV) shed from all cell types that constitute the tumor mass, reflecting the antigenic profile of the cells they originate from. Fibroblasts and tumor cells mutually communicate within tumor microenvironment. Recent evidences suggest that tumor-derived MVs (TMV) exert a broad array of biological functions in cell-to-cell communication. To elucidate their role in cancer-to-fibroblast cell communication, TMV obtained from two prostate carcinoma cell lines with high and weak metastatic potential (PC3 and LnCaP, respectively) have been characterized. TMV exhibit matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) and extracellular MMP inducer at their surface, suggesting a role in extracellular matrix degradation. Moreover, TMV not only induce the activation of fibroblasts assessed through extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 phosphorylation and MMP-9 up-regulation, increase motility and resistance to apoptosis but also promote MV shedding from activated fibroblasts able in turn to increase migration and invasion of highly metastatic PC3 cells but not LnCaP cells. PC3 cell chemotaxis seems, at least partially, dependent on membrane-bound CX3CL1/fractalkine ligand for chemokine receptor CX3CR1. The present results highlight a mechanism of mutual communication attributable not only to soluble factors but also to determinants harbored by MV, possibly contributing to the constitution of a favorable niche for cancer development. [Cancer Res 2009;69(3):785–93

Sister Mary Joseph's Nodule at a University Teaching Hospital in Northwestern Tanzania: A Retrospective Review of 34 cases.

Sister Mary Joseph's nodule is a metastatic tumor deposit in the umbilicus and often represents advanced intra-abdominal malignancy with dismal prognosis. There is a paucity of published data on this subject in our setting. This study was conducted to describe the clinicopathological presentation and treatment outcome of this condition in our environment and highlight challenges associated with the care of these patients, and to proffer solutions for improved outcome. This was a retrospective study of histologically confirmed cases of Sister Mary Joseph's nodule seen at Bugando Medical Centre between March 2003 and February 2013. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. A total of 34 patients were enrolled in the study. Males outnumbered females by a ratio of 1.4:1. The vast majority of patients (70.6%) presented with large umbilical nodule > 2 cm in size. The stomach (41.1%) was the most common location of the primary tumor. Adenocarcinoma (88.2%) was the most frequent histopathological type. Most of the primary tumors (52.9%) were poorly differentiated. As the disease was advanced and metastatic in all patients, only palliative therapy was offered. Out of 34 patients, 11 patients died in the hospital giving a mortality rate of 32.4%. Patients were followed up for 24 months. At the end of the follow-up period, 14(60.9%) patients were lost to follow-up and the remaining 9 (39.1%) patients died. Patients survived for a median period of 28 weeks (range, 2 to 64 weeks). The nodule recurred in 6 (26.1%) patients after complete excision. Sister Mary Joseph's nodule of the umbilicus is not rare in our environment and often represents manifestation of a variety of advanced intra-abdominal malignancies. The majority of the patients present at a late stage and many with distant metastases. The patient's survival is very short leading to a poor outcome. Early detection of primary cancer at an early stage may improve the prognosis

423— The Relationship Between Social Inequality and COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality

This poster will analyze World Bank and World Health Organization data to examine the relationship between inequality and COVID-19 morbidity and mortality globally. The analyzed data includes, the total number of COVID-19 cases, COVID-19 deaths, percentage of total cases per population size, and the Gini coefficient (the measure of income inequality) for each country. This poster will present graphs comparing the percentage of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 deaths per a country’s population in relationship to their Gini coefficient to explore the relationship between inequality and the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in nation-states

Fine-Tuning Sign Language Translation Systems Through Deep Reinforcement Learning

Sign language is an important communication tool for a vast majority of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) people. Data collected by the World Health organization states that there are 466 million people currently with hearing loss and that number could rise to 630 million by 2030 and over 930 million by 2050 \cite{DHH1}. Currently there are millions of sign language speakers around the world who utilize this skill on a daily basis. Bridging the gap between those who communicate solely with a spoken language and the DHH community is an ever-growing and omnipresent need. Unfortunately, in the field of natural language processing, sign language recognition and translation lags far behind its spoken language counterparts. The following research will seek to successfully leverage the field of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to make a significant improvement in the task of Sign Language Translation (SLT) with German Sign Language videos to German text sentences. To do this three major experiments are conducted. The first experiment examines the effects of Self-critical Sequence Training (SCST) when fine-tuning a simple Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) based sequence-to-sequence model. The second experiment takes the same SCST algorithm and applies it to a more powerful transformer based model. And the final experiment utilizes the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) algorithm alongside a novel fine-tuning process on the same transformer model. By using this approach of estimating the reward signal and normalization while optimizing for the model\u27s test-time greedy inference procedure we aim to establish a new or comparable SOTA result on the RWTH-PHOENIX-Weather-2014 T German sign language dataset

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedetto XVI : verso una teologia positiva, incarnata e crocifissa

Celem teologii według Josepha Ratzingera jest przedstawienie jasnej i przystępnej wykładni wiary, której bezpośrednim adresatem jest człowiek współczesny. Dlatego Ratzinger nie stworzył żadnego systemu teologicznego, pozwalającego jak najlepiej przedstawić prawdy wiary w sposób zrozumiały dla człowieka żyjącego dziś. Właśnie dzięki przystępności swojej syntezy teologicznej oraz ze względu na wymiar katechetyczny i głębię refleksji Ratzinger zdobył uprzywilejowane miejsce wśród najwybitniejszych teologów posoborowych. Podczas gdy w epoce pochrześcijańskiej stawia się pod znakiem zapytania całośćzagadnienia wiary, a nie tylko pewne jej prawdy, Ratzinger przedstawia kwestię „wiara–wiedza”, „wierzyć–wiedzieć” w nowym świetle. Ratzinger chciał uwolnić wiarę od kompleksów wobec rozumu, twierdząc, że wiara i zwątpienie tkwią jednakowo w człowieku wierzącym i niewierzącym. Podczas gdy dla pierwszych wiara pojawia się wbrew wątpliwościom, dla drugich jawi się ona, ale za pomocą i w formie wątpliwości. W hermeneutyce jego teologii znajdujemy propozycję teologii pozytywnej, wcielonej i ukrzyżowanej.The aim of theology, according to Joseph Ratzinger, is to provide a clear and accessible interpretation of faith, which is directly addressed to contemporaryman. Therefore, Ratzinger did not create any theological system that would make it possible to present the truths of faith in the best way possible and in a way that is understandable to the man living today. It is precisely because of the accessibility of his theological synthesis and because of the catechetical dimension and the depth of his reflection that Ratzinger has gained a privileged place among the most eminent post-conciliar theologians. While in the post-Christian era the whole question of faith is called into question, not just certain truths of it, Ratzinger presents the question of “faith-knowledge”, “believe-knowledge” in a new light. Ratzinger wanted to free faith from complexes in front of reason, claiming that faith and doubt are equally present in believers and non-believers. While for the former, faith appears against doubts, for the latter, it appears, but with the help and in the form of doubt. In the hermeneutics of his theology, we find a proposal of positive, incarnate and crucified theology.&nbsp