Archivio Istituzionale della Ricerca- Università del Piemonte Orientale
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Financial constraints, institutional quality and import trade flows: An empirical investigation on Italian manufacturing SMEs
No full textThis work investigates the relation between local institutions and international business, considering the Italian manufacturing industry and SMEs’ import trade flows between 2015 and 2019. In detail, we test the hypothesis of whether courts’ inability to enforce contracts can amplify uncertainty on the market, discouraging foreign suppliers from performing international transactions. We interpret these expectations in terms of financial constraints, imagining that the quality of a legal system limits firms’ access to local financial resources, which are essential to guarantee such operations. The proposed hypothesis is assessed considering alternative explanations that might characterize importers: absence of ex-ante business networks on the global market (i), expected bankruptcy risks (ii) and asymmetric information (iii). Results are consistent to several robustness tests and, according to the collected evidence, we cannot reject the hypothesis that judicial quality might represent an institutional barrier to local SMEs, preventing their international business strategies
Lactobacillus probiotic cell-free supernatants and vitamin D influence interleukin-6 production and mitigate oral periodontopathogens-induced cytotoxicity in FaDu cells
Get PDFOral eubiosis is of utmost importance for local and systemic health. Consolidated habits, as excessive alcohol consumption, smoke, inappropriate oral hygiene, and western diet, exert detrimental effects on oral microbiota composition and function. This leads to caries, gingivitis, and periodontitis, also increasing the risk of preterm births, inflammation, and cancer. Thus, effective tools to contain pathobiont overgrowth and virulence and restore oral eubiosis are needed. Therefore, the effects of Limosilactobacillus reuteri LRE11, Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus LR04, Lacticaseibacillus casei LC04, and their co-culture cell-free supernatants (CFSs), produced in both conventional MRS medium and a novel animal derivative-free medium named TIL, along with vitamin D, were assessed on the viability and interleukin (IL)-6 production of oral epithelial FaDu cells infected with Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, Fusobacterium nucleatum, and Porphyromonas gingivalis. The CFS proteomic, short chain fatty acid, and lactic acid contents were also investigated. Interestingly, probiotic CFSs and vitamin D differentially reduced the infected cell IL-6 production and counteracted the infection-induced cytotoxicity. Taken together, these results suggest that probiotics and vitamin D can reverse pathogen-induced cell damage. Since probiotic CFS effect is both strain and growth medium composition dependent, further experiments are required to deepen the probiotic and vitamin D synergic activity in this context
Role of Social Workers Concerning Forced Migration in Greece and Italy
No full textThis chapter explores the challenges for social work practice with forcibly displaced migrants in two key gateway countries to Europe: Greece and Italy. The first part briefly examines the main features of the practice of rights-based work within an increasingly repressive framework in Greece, both at the entry points and in the reception sites to which asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors are transferred. The second part of the chapter reviews the evolution of the Italian reception and integration system over the last 20 years, critically analyzing social work practices that balance support and control within the multi-level governance system.
It also presents a positive model of public response to the training and support of voluntary guardians of unaccompanied minors in the Italian Piedmont region, led by universities and the regional ombudsman for children and young people.
The chapter outlines how social work principles and interventions aimed at the welfare of asylum seekers collide with restrictive control and deportation policies in both countries, reflecting on the risks of discriminatory practices and ethical dilemmas for social workers in reception centers. The text concludes with implications for the future of social work practice, research, and education
Butyrate and probiotic metabolites counteract colorectal cancer progression: insights into β-catenin pathway, autophagy and immune crosstalk
No full textGenetic alterations in the WNT/β-Catenin pathway play a pivotal role in colorectal cancer (CRC) development, leading to β-Catenin accumulation and nuclear translocation, which drives tumor proliferation and migration. The gut microbiota has emerged as a key player in CRC progression, with dysbiosis creating a pro-inflammatory environment and metabolic disruptions that impact autophagy, a crucial process for intestinal homeostasis that is often deregulated in cancer. Here, we investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying the anti-proliferative effects of butyrate, a microbiota-derived short-chain fatty acid, with a specific focus on autophagy. Butyrate inhibits proliferation by inducing autophagy-mediated degradation of β-Catenin. To establish translational relevance, we further assess the ability of the probiotic strain Lactiplantibacillus plantarum OC01 to inhibit CRC progression. Our findings highlight the functional role of autophagy in mediating the protective and anticancer effects of probiotic metabolites. This suggests that probiotic-based strategies enhancing autophagy could serve as promising adjuvant therapies, particularly for CRC patients harboring WNT pathway mutations. Given the critical role of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in shaping the tumor microenvironment (TME), we also evaluate the impact of L. plantarum OC01 metabolites on macrophage polarization, and how it influences cancer cell proliferation and migration. Our results demonstrate that L. plantarum OC01 metabolites can modulate the TME, shifting TAMs toward a more inflammatory and anti-tumoral phenotype. Overall, our study point out the therapeutic potential of microbiota-derived metabolites in CRC management. By targeting key pathways such as WNT/β-Catenin and reshaping the TME, butyrate and probiotics emerge as promising candidates for novel CRC treatment strategies
Intracoronary adjunctive therapies for ST-elevation myocardial infarction: a network meta-analysis of trials
No full textAims: This network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluates the comparative safety and efficacy of intra-coronary (IC) pharmacological and procedural treatments - on top of balloon angioplasty and stent placement - on clinical outcomes and surrogate endpoints of coronary microvascular obstruction (CMVO) in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Methods and results: Two electronic databases were searched for eligible studies. Primary efficacy endpoints included all-cause mortality, non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI), and heart failure (HF) hospitalization. Primary safety endpoints included peri-procedural arrhythmias including atrioventricular blocks (AVBs) and ventricular fibrillation/sustained ventricular tachycardia (VF/SVT), any bleeding, and stroke. Secondary efficacy endpoints included the occurrence of post-procedural thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) flow grade 0-2 and ST-segment resolution.A total of 64 RCTs involving 27,243 patients were included. In mixed comparisons, no treatment significantly reduced the incidence of primary efficacy endpoints compared to conventional primary PCI during a mean follow-up of 8 months. Several treatments significantly reduced the occurrence of post-PCI TIMI 0-2 flow grade [adenosine: 0.40 (odds ratio), (95% Confidence Interval 0.24-0.68); verapamil: 0.22 (0.07-0.69); tirofiban:0.43 (0.27-0.71); manual thrombus aspiration (TA): 0.61 (0.45-0.82); fibrinolytic + manual TA: 0.24 (0.12-0.48); tirofiban + manual TA: 0.32 (0.14-0.75)], compared to conventional primary PCI. IC administration of tirofiban increased the risk of any bleeding [incidence rate ratio: 1.65 (1.11-2.45)], while IC adenosine increased the risk of peri-procedural AVBs [OR: 2.80 (1.14-6.84)].Nicorandil reduced the incidence of peri-procedural VF/SVT [OR: 0.31 (0.12-0.81)]. Conclusions: Adjunctive IC treatments during primary PCI do not influence hard clinical outcomes compared to conventional therapy within a mean 8-month follow-up, although several of them lead to an improvement in surrogate endpoints of CMVO
“La letteratura afroamericana e il canone dell’americanistica italiana, 1945-1990.”
No full textIl saggio traccia il contributo dell’americanistica accademica italiana al dibattito sull’immaginario razziale italiano. Passando in rassegna la presenza della letteratura afroamericana e del suo discorso critico sulla prima rivista ufficiale dedicata agli studi americani e nell’editoria specialistica di una disciplina universitaria neo-nata negli anni Cinquanta, cerco di individuare se, come e quando, all’interno di un campo di studi in formazione, abbia preso forma un discorso critico sui processi di razzializzazione innescato dall’elaborazione teorica e metodologica della rappresentazione letteraria delle politiche razziali statunitensi
The Flux and the Fragment: Eleanor Clark's Rome for Wandering Intellectuals
Get PDFThis essay discusses Eleanor Clark’s 1952, Rome and a Villa as a book that, in the immediate postwar years, promoted new interest for Italy in the U.S., successfully reaching out to both intellectual élites and larger reading groups. It shows that, by redirecting modernist narrative techniques and interpretive methodologies from textual to architectural, historical, and cultural analysis, Clark pioneered the transition from literary to cultural criticism. The essay argues that, in examining the deep history of “the idea of Rome,” the author claimed as its unifying force a transhistorical poetic principle revealed in the condensation of classicism and modernism displayed in the city’s architecture and expressed in its language and social life. Clark mobilized that principle to read the city against the grain of the symbolic uses of the Roman ruins in fascist propaganda and in the postwar media-driven industry of transatlantic tourism
Follia, crudeltà, (dis)umanità
No full textThe article explores the relationship between madness and right in the work of Beccaria and the Verri brothers, the problem of unnecessary cruelty and, more generally, the Hobbesian legacy in the anthropology of the Enlightenment