549 research outputs found
Three Essays on Behavioral Economics
No full textNowadays, behavioral economics has lured the attention of an increasing number of economists. This is due to the recent financial crisis of 2007-09 that forced economists to realize that psychological biases could modifiy rational equilibria since, on avarage, arbitrageurs are not always able to bring back the economy to the rational path. Taking into account limits of arbitrage and limits in cognitive capacities, an economy can be vulnerable to the sensitiveness of agents to new information. If this sensitiveness is of a certain size, such that arbitrageurs behavior is negligible, then sensitive agents (also called local thinkers in the following essays) can enter into the formation of an equilibrium modifying its dynamics
The microbiota-gut-brain axis: characterization of the gut microbiota in neurological disorders
No full textThe human gut microbiota plays a crucial role in the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract and its alteration can lead to gastrointestinal abnormalities and inflammation. Additionally, the gut microbiota modulates central nervous system (CNS) activities affecting several aspect of host physiology. Motivated by the increasing evidences of the role of the gut microbiota in the complex set of interactions connecting the gut and the CNS, known as gut-brain axis, in this Ph.D. thesis we asked whether the gastrointestinal abnormalities and inflammation commonly associated with neurological disorders such as Rett syndrome (RTT) and Autism could be related to alterations of the bacterial and fungal intestinal microbiota.
First, since only few reports have explored the fungal component of the gut microbiota in health and disease, we characterized the gut mycobiota in a cohort of healthy individuals, in order to reduce the gap of knowledge concerning factors influencing the intestinal microbial communities. Next, we compared the gut microbiota of three cohorts of healthy, RTT and autistic subjects to investigate if these neurological disorders harbour alterations of the gut microbiota. Culture-based and metataxonomics analysis of the faecal fungal populations of healthy volunteers revealed that the gut mycobiota differs in function of individuals’ life stage in a gender-related fashion. Different fungal species were isolated showing phenotypic adaptation to the intestinal environment. High frequency of azoles resistance was also found, with potential clinical significance.
It was further observed that autistic subjects are characterized by a reduced incidence of Bacteroidetes and that Collinsella, Corynebacterium, Dorea and Lactobacillus were the taxa predominating in the gut microbiota of autistic subjects. Constipation has been associated with different bacterial patterns in autistic and neurotypical subjects, with constipated autistic individuals characterized by higher levels of Escherichia/Shigella and Clostridium cluster XVIII than constipated neurotypical subjects. RTT is a neurological disorder caused by loss-of-function mutations of MeCP2 and it is commonly associated with gastrointestinal dysfunctions and constipation. We showed that RTT subjects harbour bacterial and fungal microbiota altered from those of healthy controls, with a reduced microbial richness and dominated by Bifidobacterium, different Clostridia and Candida. The alterations of the gut microbiota observed did not depend on the constipation status of RTT subjects while this microbiota produced altered SCFAs profiles potentially contributing to the constipation itself. Phenotypical and immunological characterizations of faecal fungal isolates from RTT subjects showed Candida parapsilosis as the most abundant species isolated in RTT, genetically unrelated to healthy controls’ isolates and with elevated resistance to azoles. Furthermore these isolates induced high levels of IL-10 suggesting increased tolerance and persistence within the host. Finally, the importance of multiple sequence alignment (MSA) accuracy in microbiome research was investigated comparing three implementations of the widely used NAST algorithm. By now, different implementations of NAST have been developed but no one tested the performances and the accuracy of the MSAs generated with these implementations. We showed that micca, a new bioinformatics pipeline for metataxonomics data improves the quality of NAST alignments by using a fast and memory efficient reimplementation of the NAST algorithm
A first introduction to S-Transitional Lotteries
No full textIn this paper I shall introduce a new method by which it is possible to study the dynamical decision maker's behaviour. It can be tought of as an application of the S -Linear Algebra of Professor David Carfì, thus this theory it is assumed to be known. I shall focus on the Feynman's propagator and thus the Feynman-Strati propagator. The latter stems form the former. It will be of utmost importance so as to give a meaning to both the evolution
and the H-operator by which I shall derive the probability density of this kind of tempered distributio
Microbiota-targeted therapies in inflammation resolution
No full textGut microbiota has been shown to systemically shape the immunological landscape, modulate homeostasis and play a role in both health and disease. Dysbiosis of gut microbiota promotes inflammation and contributes to the pathogenesis of several major disorders in gastrointestinal tract, metabolic, neurological and respiratory diseases. Much effort is now focused on understanding host-microbes interactions and new microbiota-targeted therapies are deeply investigated as a means to restore health or prevent disease.This review details the immunoregulatory role of the gut microbiota in health and disease and discusses the most recent strategies in manipulating individual patient's microbiota for the management and prevention of inflammatory conditions
Nuove determinazioni del sesso e della statura degli individui 1 e 4 del Paleolitico Superiore della grotta di San Teodoro.
No full textIl nuovo studio dei resti scheletrici degli individui 1 e 4 rinvenuti negli strati del Paleolitico Superiore della grotta di San Teodoro (ME) dimostra che sono entrambi di sesso femminile e non maschile come si riteneva fino a oggi
SISMICA A RIFLESSIONE BI-CANALE PER LA DETERMINAZIONE DELLE VELOCITÀ DEGLI STRATI SEDIMENTARI.
No full textABSTRACT La determinazione delle velocità degli strati sedimentari è necessaria per poter posizionare gli orizzonti spazialmente e non solo temporalmente come accade normalmente nella sismica a riflessione. Le velocità possono essere determinate o eseguendo delle misure in foro ottenendo così un “profilo verticale” di velocità quasi continuo ovvero eseguendo misure sismiche a rifrazione. Il presente studio è scaturito dall’ esigenza occorsa durante la fase di interpretazione geologico-geofisica dei dati di recenti campagne di sismica ad alta risoluzione svolte presso l’isola di Ischia ed il litorale ovest di Napoli. In entrambi i casi analizzati sono presenti numerosi pozzi esplorativi per cui con il metodo proposto è possibile relazionare anche geometricamente i dati di terra e di mare. Nel presente lavoro, dopo l’analisi del problema dal punto di vista teorico, presentiamo un semplice metodo per la determinazione delle velocità per N strati nella sismica marina per riflessione, a basse e medie profondità. Il metodo proposto si basa sull’utilizzo di un secondo idrofono in “layback” dell’ ordine del centinaio di metri, collegato ad un secondo canale di registrazione. Il metodo è particolarmente utile quando le sorgenti impiegate sono del tipo Sparker ed Uniboom poiché esse sono dotate di buona risoluzione ed alta penetrazione. I parametri necessari per la determinazione della velocità vengono misurati sul sismogramma corrispondente per ciascuno dei due canali di registrazione ed elaborati con un programma di calcolo che si basa su relazioni ricavate adottando alcune semplificazioni
germ. *bindō ‘legame’
No full textRedazione della voce *bindō e commento storico-etimologico. La voce è strutturata in base alla ricostruzione della stratigrafia, in area romanza, degli esiti di germ. *bindō. In particolare, in base a parametri formali e semantici, si individuano tre strati cronologicamente distinti per la penetrazione della voce in area italiana: uno tardo-germanico (it. bend-), uno gotico (it. band-) e uno longobardo (it. bind-)
The Moncucco quarry : a key area to understand the Messinian evolution of the Torino Hill, tertiary Piemonte Basin, NW-Italy
No full textIrace Andrea, Clari Pier Angelo, Dela Pierre Francesco, Bicchi Erica, Cavagna Simona, Festa Andrea. The Moncucco quarry : a key area to understand the Messinian evolution of the Torino Hill, tertiary Piemonte Basin, NW-Italy. In: Documents des Laboratoires de Géologie, Lyon, n°156, 2002. STRATI 2002. 3ème congrès français de stratigraphie. Lyon, 8-10 juillet 2002. pp. 131-132
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