University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
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Alterations in iron status predict cardiac response to blood transfusion in -thalassemia major
No full textDespite significant advancements in the management of thalassemia, cardiac complications still represent a leading cause of disability and death. Heart dysfunction, although mainly related to myocardial iron overload (IO), might already manifest when the homeostasis of circulating iron species is altered. This study aimed to investigate the presence of heart function changes in relation to scheduled blood transfusions (BT) in transfusion-dependent thalassemic patients, to identify alterations in cardiac function early after BT or within a 7-10 days interval. Twenty patients (8 females; average age 41.65 years), followed at the Center for Hereditary Anemias, University Hospital of Modena, were enrolled to perform an echocardiographic evaluation (ECE) before scheduled BT (T0), a targeted ECE immediately after the transfusion (Tearly), and a targeted ECE 7-10 days thereafter (Tlate). Medical history, biochemical data, and parameters related to iron status including serum levels of labile plasma iron (LPI), non-transferrin-bound iron (NTBI), and 3 year-average serum ferritin, were collected to assess predictors of transfusion-related cardiac changes. Global longitudinal strain (GLS) at baseline was worse, on average, in patients with higher ferritin or lower serum calcium; early post-transfusion GLS improved significantly in patients with ferritin>1500 ng/mL or albumin-corrected calcium mg/dL, whereas it remained stable in control groups. Notably, several early post-transfusion changes could be consistently predicted by variables related to iron homeostasis or transfusion status. Cardiac MRI T2* showed moderate IO in only one patient. In conclusion, -thalassemic patients with hyperferritinemia or hypocalcemia are likely those who benefit most from BT in terms of systolic function. Even in the absence of overt myocardial IO, alterations in circulating iron status predict early dysfunctions in cardiac response after scheduled blood transfusion
A systematic review on life cycle assessment (LCA) of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and MXenes
No full textLife Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly recognized as an effective tool for evaluating the environmental sustainability of emerging chemicals. While metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and MXenes show exceptional functional properties for applications such as carbon capture, catalysis, and energy storage, their environmental impacts remain underexplored and fragmented across the literature. Given the rapid expansion of research into MOFs and MXenes, and the growing emphasis on sustainability in materials science, this review is both timely and necessary to consolidate existing LCA efforts and guide future assessments toward more holistic and standardized approaches. This systematic review examines 26 papers applying LCA to MOFs and MXenes, highlighting environmental hotspots, methodological limitations, and trade-offs between functional performance and sustainability. For MOFs, solvent use and energy-intensive synthesis dominate environmental burdens, while the impacts of MXenes—particularly Ti3C2Tx—are chiefly tied to the high electricity demand and hazardous etchants. Most studies adopt cradle-to-gate boundaries and rely on lab-scale data, limiting their relevance for industrial-scale deployment. Additionally, current MXene LCAs focus narrowly on Ti-based systems, overlooking the broader material family. This review underscores the need for standardized LCA approaches, integration of toxicity and functional performance metrics, expanded coverage of life cycle stages and synthesis routes to support the sustainable development of these advanced materials. Future research should expand life cycle coverage, integrate toxicity and performance metrics, and address methodological gaps to better align environmental assessments with material innovation
Robust Trajectory Generation and Control for Quadrotor Motion Planning With Field-of-View Control Barrier Certification
No full textMany approaches to multi-robot coordination are susceptible to failure due to communication loss and uncertainty in estimation. We present a real-time communication-free distributed navigation algorithm certified by control barrier functions, that models and controls the onboard sensing behavior to keep neighbors in the limited field of view for position estimation. The approach is robust to temporary tracking loss and directly synthesizes control to stabilize visual contact through control Lyapunov-barrier functions. The main contributions of this letter are a continuous-time robust trajectory generation and control method certified by control barrier functions for distributed multi-robot systems and a discrete optimization procedure, namely, MPC-CBF, to approximate the certified controller. In addition, we propose a linear surrogate of high-order control barrier function constraints and use sequential quadratic programming to solve MPC-CBF efficiently
L’evoluzione della struttura delle fonti di finanziamento nelle imprese italiane
No full textTitle: The Evolution of Financing Structures in Italian Firms
Abstract: This paper investigates the evolution of the diversification of financing sources and its relationship with the growth of Italian non-financial firms. Using an unbalanced panel of 98,554 firms over the period 2014–2023 drawn from the AIDA database, we combine descriptive evidence and panel data regressions to examine changes in firms’ financial structures and the relationship between the share of bank credit, relative to alternative financing channels, and firm growth, accounting for firm size heterogeneity. Descriptive evidence shows that, despite an increase in capitalization and a shift towards medium- and long-term debt instruments, Italian firms’ financing structures remain highly concentrated, with bank credit continuing to represent the main source of external financing, especially among micro and small firms. Regression results indicate that the relationship between the composition of financing sources and firm growth varies by firm size. A greater reliance on bank debt is associated with slower growth for micro and small firms, suggesting the presence of tighter financial constraints, while it is neutral or mildly positive for large firms, consistent with more stable access to bank financing. Overall, the findings provide relevant policy implications for initiatives aimed at strengthening capital markets and expanding firms’ access to non-bank finance, particularly for SMEs, in line with the goals of the Capital Markets Union
SCoRE: Streamlined corpus-based relation extraction using multi-label contrastive learning and Bayesian kNN
No full textThe growing demand for efficient knowledge graph (KG) enrichment leveraging external corpora has intensified interest in relation extraction (RE), particularly under low-supervision settings. To address the need for adaptable and noise-resilient RE solutions that integrate seamlessly with pre-trained large language models (PLMs), we introduce SCoRE, a modular and cost-effective sentence-level RE system. SCoRE enables easy PLM switching, requires no finetuning, and adapts smoothly to diverse corpora and KGs. By combining supervised contrastive learning with a Bayesian k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN) classifier for multi-label classification, it delivers robust performance despite the noisy annotations of distantly supervised corpora. To improve RE evaluation, we propose two novel metrics: Correlatin Structure Distance (CSD), measuring the alignment between learned relational patterns and KG structures, and Precision at R (P@R), assessing utility as a recommender system. We also release Wiki20d, a benchmark dataset replicating real-world RE conditions where only KG-derived annotations are available. Experiments on five benchmarks demonstrate that SCoRE matches or slightly surpasses state-of-the-art methods (average gains of +3.2 in micro-F1 and +5.9 in macro-F1 against fully reproducible baselines), while reducing the training burden by more than an order of magnitude (approximate to 99% lower energy consumption in kWh) Further analyses reveal that increasing model complexity, as seen in prior work, degrades performance, highlighting the advantages of SCoRE's minimal design. Combining efficiency, modularity, and scalability, SCoRE stands as an optimal choice for real-world RE applications
Caratterizzazione del ruolo della piccola proteina da shock termico HSPB3 durante il differenziamento di neuroni motori e cellule del muscolo scheletrico e durante la maturazione delle giunzioni neuromuscolari
No full textHSPB3 è ritenuta il membro più atipico tra le piccole proteine da shock termico (HSPB). Le HSPB sono chaperoni ATP-indipendenti coinvolti nella risposta cellulare allo stress e al ripiegamento scorretto delle proteine. A differenza di altri membri della stessa famiglia, HSPB3 non viene indotta in risposta a stress termico e presenta una limitata attività di chaperon. La sua espressione è ristretta a pochi tipi cellulari, principalmente motoneuroni (MN) e cellule del muscolo scheletrico. Inoltre, HSPB3 è assente in cellule staminali pluripotenti e nei mioblasti in fase di replicazione, mentre viene espressa durante la miogenesi. La sua rimozione altera l’attivazione del programma trascrizionale miogenico, compromettendo il differenziamento delle cellule muscolari. Non è ancora chiaro invece se e come HSPB3 sia coinvolta anche durante il differenziamento dei MN. Tuttavia, varianti genetiche di HSPB3 sono associate a neuropatia motoria ereditaria distale, malattia di Charcot-Marie-Tooth di tipo 2 e miopatia congenita con segni di neuropatia, evidenziando la necessità di capire meglio le sue funzioni fisiologiche nel sistema neuromuscolare. Le patologie associate con varianti di HSPB3 sono caratterizzate da cicli ripetuti di denervazione e reinnervazione muscolare che destabilizzano le giunzioni neuromuscolari e portano alla degenerazione dei MN. Poiché il differenziamento postnatale di MN e miociti è essenziale per il mantenimento e la rigenerazione del sistema neuromuscolare, lo scopo di questa tesi è comprendere se HSPB3 sia coinvolta nel differenziamento dei MN e nella formazione delle giunzioni neuromuscolari, e come le sue mutazioni contribuiscano allo sviluppo delle patologie. Attraverso CRISPR/Cas9 è stato rimosso il gene HSPB3 in cellule staminali pluripotenti indotte (iPSC) e sono anche state generate linee di iPSC portatrici di varianti patogeniche in omozigosi (HSPB3-R116P e HSPB3-Y118H). Si è osservato che l’espressione di HSPB3 è indotta durante il differenziamento delle iPSC in MN e che la sua rimozione o mutazione altera l’espressione di geni essenziali per lo sviluppo dei MN, riducendo la complessità dell’arborizzazione dendritica. La perdita di HSPB3 modifica anche il trascrittoma durante il differenziamento delle cellule muscolari, riducendo l’espressione di componenti chiave della matrice extracellulare e delle giunzioni neuromuscolari, e di geni che promuovono la rigenerazione muscolare. Di conseguenza, si è osservato che l’assenza di HSPB3 compromette la maturazione delle giunzioni neuromuscolari in co-colture di MN e miociti derivati da iPSC. Questi risultati suggeriscono che HSPB3 svolge un ruolo fondamentale nello sviluppo delle giunzioni neuromuscolari, promuovendo il differenziamento postnatale di MN e miociti. Inoltre, rimuovere HSPB3 esclusivamente nei MN è stato sufficiente a ritardare la maturazione delle giunzioni, evidenziandone la funzione cruciale a livello neuronale. In seguito, sono stati effettuati esperimenti di microscopia, spettrometria di massa e immunoprecipitazione della cromatina per studiare i meccanismi molecolari alla base della funzione di HSPB3, rivelando che HSPB3 partecipa al rimodellamento della cromatina nelle fasi iniziali del differenziamento. Questi risultati suggeriscono che la disregolazione dell’espressione o della funzione di HSPB3, dovuta a varianti patogeniche, comprometta la regolazione trascrizionale nei MN e nelle cellule muscolari, alterando la ramificazione dendritica, la comunicazione neuronale e ritardando la maturazione delle giunzioni neuromuscolari. Una ridotta plasticità delle giunzioni neuromuscolari durante l’invecchiamento potrebbe quindi aumentare la vulnerabilità del sistema neuromuscolare a stress e lesioni, accelerandone la degenerazione.HSPB3 is considered the most deviating member of the small heat shock protein family (sHSP or HSPB). HSPBs are ATP-independent chaperones that participate in the cellular response to stress and protein misfolding. Unlike other sHSPs, HSPB3 is not upregulated in response to heat shock and exhibits a limited chaperone activity. Its expression is restricted to a few cell types, primarily skeletal muscle cells (SkMCs), and motor neurons (MNs). Moreover, HSPB3 is absent in pluripotent stem cells and proliferating myoblasts, while it is upregulated during myogenesis. Importantly, its loss impairs the activation of myogenic transcriptional program, thus compromising SkMC differentiation. Whether and how HSPB3 may also play a role during MN differentiation is currently unknown. Yet, genetic variants of HSPB3 are associated with distal hereditary motor neuropathy (dHMN), Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2 (CMT2), and congenital myopathy with neuropathy signs, highlighting the need to better elucidate its physiological functions at the level of the neuromuscular system. The diseases associated with HSPB3 variants are characterized by repeated cycles of muscle denervation and reinnervation that destabilize the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), leading to degeneration of MNs. Since postnatal differentiation of MNs and SkMCs is essential for the maintenance and regeneration of the neuromuscular system, this thesis aimed to understand if HSPB3 participates in MN differentiation and in the build-up of NMJs and how its mutations contribute to disease onset. Using CRISPR/Cas9, we generated HSPB3 knockout (KO) induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), as well as iPSC lines carrying homozygous disease-associated variants (HSPB3-R116P and HSPB3-Y118H). We observed that HSPB3 expression is induced during iPSC differentiation into MNs, and that its loss or mutation deregulates the expression of gene pathways critical for MN development, resulting in defective dendritic arborization. HSPB3 KO also altered the transcriptome of differentiating SkMCs, downregulating the expression of key components of the extracellular matrix and NMJs, as well as genes that sustain muscle regeneration. As a result, HSPB3 KO impaired the maturation of NMJs in iPSC-derived co-cultures of MNs and SkMCs. These results suggest that HSPB3 plays a crucial role in the build-up of NMJs by promoting the postnatal differentiation of MNs and SkMCs. Importantly, deleting HSPB3 selectively in MNs was sufficient to delay NMJ maturation, highlighting its critical function at the level of MNs. We then sought to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying HSPB3 function. Combining microscopy, mass spectrometry, and chromatin-immunoprecipitation, we found that HSPB3 participates in chromatin remodeling during the early steps of differentiation. Based on our results, we propose that dysregulation of HSPB3 expression or function, due to pathogenic variants, impairs the transcriptional regulation in MNs and SkMCs, thereby affecting dendritic arborization, neuronal communication and ultimately delaying the build-up of NMJs. Reduced NMJ plasticity during aging may thus enhance the vulnerability of the neuromuscular system to stress and damage, accelerating its degeneration
Quale futuro per la prova biometrica? Riflessioni al crocevia tra garanzie dell’individuo e accertamento penale
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Gradient-sign Masking for Task Vector Transport Across Pre-Trained Models
No full textWhen a new release of a foundation model is published, practitioners typically need to repeat fine-tuning, even if the same task was already tackled in the previous version. A promising alternative is to reuse the parameter changes (i.e., task vectors) that capture how a model adapts to a specific task. However, these vectors often fail to transfer across different pre-trained models because their parameter spaces are misaligned. In this work, we show that successful transfer depends strongly on the gradient-sign structure of the new model. Based on this insight, we propose GradFix, which approximates the ideal sign structure and leverages it to transfer knowledge using only a handful of labeled samples. Notably, this requires no additional fine-tuning: we only compute a few target-model gradients without parameter updates and mask the source task vector accordingly. This yields an update that is locally aligned with the target loss landscape, effectively rebasing the task vector onto the new pre-training. We provide a theoretical guarantee that our method ensures first-order descent. Empirically, we demonstrate significant performance gains on vision and language benchmarks, consistently outperforming naive task vector addition and few-shot fine-tuning. We further show that transporting task vectors improves multi-task and multi-source model merging. Code is available at https://github.com/fillo-rinaldi/GradFix
Effetti di plasma indotti dal fascio di elettroni nei materiali funzionali
No full textQuesto lavoro studia l’interazione tra un fascio di elettroni ad alta energia (100–300 keV) e materiali funzionali sottili in condizioni TEM/STEM, collegando i processi quantomeccanici di scattering all’evoluzione macroscopica della carica, del potenziale e della conducibilità indotta dall’irraggiamento. L’obiettivo è sviluppare un modello auto-consistente multiscala che connetta l’equazione di Schrödinger con il trasporto di carica e l’accoppiamento di Poisson, chiarendo come un dielettrico neutro possa evolvere, sotto il fascio, in un sistema quasi conduttivo di tipo plasma.
A partire dalla formulazione stazionaria relativisticamente corretta dell’equazione di Schrödinger, sono state derivate le ampiezze di scattering elastico, di eccitazione e di ionizzazione all’interno dell’Approssimazione di Born al primo ordine. I calcoli, condotti per l’idrogeno, mostrano che lo scattering elastico domina tra 100 e 300 keV, mentre i processi anelastici aumentano con la perdita di energia del fascio e la densità di corrente. Il modello distingue fra illuminazione a onda piana e a onda sferica, quest’ultima rappresentando le sonde focalizzate in STEM: la formulazione sferica prevede una minore intensità di scattering e asimmetrie nel pattern di diffrazione dovute al disallineamento del fascio.
I processi di ionizzazione invece generano elettroni e ioni liberi che modificano il campo elettrico locale. La regione irradiata è modellata come un disco sottile in cui generazione, ricombinazione, diffusione e deriva sono descritte da equazioni di trasporto–Poisson accoppiate. Da queste si ottiene una conducibilità efficace proporzionale alle mobilità e alle densità dei portatori. In condizioni stazionarie quasi-neutre il sistema mostra un comportamento Ohmico, e la conducibilità emerge dalle dinamiche microscopiche senza essere imposta come costante del materiale.
La novità del lavoro risiede nel legame tra teoria quantistica dello scattering e trasporto continuo, fornendo una relazione quantitativa fra le sezioni d’urto di ionizzazione e la conducibilità indotta dal fascio. Il modello offre: (i) una base microscopica per la generazione di carica, (ii) una descrizione continua dell’evoluzione del potenziale, e (iii) relazioni predittive che collegano le probabilità di ionizzazione al comportamento elettrico emergente del campione.
La ricerca combina derivazioni analitiche e simulazioni in Mathematica per il calcolo degli integrali di scattering, della cinematica relativistica e delle soluzioni stazionarie del sistema trasporto–Poisson. Questo approccio collega i processi atomici alle proprietà macroscopiche di conduzione, fornendo una base rigorosa per comprendere gli effetti di plasma e le transizioni di conducibilità indotte dal fascio in microscopia elettronica. Sono in preparazione due articoli: Comparison Between Spherical and Plane Wave Scattering on a Hydrogen Atom e Inelastic Electron–Sample Scattering and Beam-Induced Conductivity in TEM/STEM. La tesi sarà consegnata entro dicembre 2025.This work investigates the interaction between a high-energy electron beam (100–300 keV) and thin functional materials under TEM/STEM conditions, linking quantum-mechanical scattering with the macroscopic evolution of charge, potential, and conductivity induced by irradiation. The goal is to build a self-consistent multiscale framework connecting the Schrödinger equation to charge transport and Poisson coupling, clarifying how an initially neutral dielectric can evolve into a quasi-conductive, plasma-like system.
Starting from the relativistically corrected stationary Schrödinger equation, elastic, excitation, and ionization amplitudes were derived within the First Born Approximation. Analytical and numerical calculations were performed for hydrogen, chosen for its tractability and relevance to light-element materials. Results show that elastic scattering dominates across 100–300 keV, while inelastic processes increase with beam energy loss and current density. The model distinguishes between plane-wave and spherical-wave illumination, the latter describing focused STEM probes. The spherical formulation predicts reduced scattering intensity and asymmetries in the diffraction pattern caused by probe misalignment, which are absent in the plane-wave case.
Microscopic ionization processes progressively transform the target, producing free electrons and ions that alter the local electric field. The irradiated region is modeled as a thin disk where charge generation, recombination, diffusion, and drift are described by coupled transport–Poisson equations. From these, the total current density naturally defines an effective conductivity proportional to the sum of charge carrier mobilities and densities. Under quasi-neutral steady-state conditions, the system exhibits Ohmic behavior, and the macroscopic conductivity emerges from the microscopic dynamics rather than being imposed as a material constant.
The novelty of this work lies in bridging quantum scattering theory with continuum transport, establishing a quantitative relation between ionization cross sections and beam-induced conductivity. The framework provides: (i) a microscopic foundation for charge generation in irradiated matter, (ii) a continuum model for charge redistribution and potential evolution, and (iii) predictive relations linking ionization probabilities to the emergent electrical behavior of the sample.
The research combines analytical derivations with extensive Mathematica simulations for the numerical computation of quantum scattering integrals, relativistic kinematics, and steady-state solutions of the transport–Poisson system. Two journal papers are in preparation: “Comparison Between Spherical and Plane Wave Scattering on a Hydrogen Atom” and “Inelastic Electron–Sample Scattering and Beam-Induced Conductivity in TEM/STEM.” This unified approach connects atomic-scale scattering to macroscopic conduction phenomena, providing a rigorous basis for understanding beam-induced plasma effects and conductivity transitions in electron microscopy. The complete PhD thesis will be submitted by December 2025