Istituto Universitario Di Studi Superiori Di Pavia

About: Istituto Universitario Di Studi Superiori Di Pavia is a education organization based out in Pavia, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Pulsar & Neutron star. The organization has 162 authors who have published 566 publications receiving 22605 citations.

Ribosomes as a nexus between translation and cancer progression: Focus on ribosomal Receptor for Activated C Kinase 1 (RACK1) in breast cancer.

Abstract: Ribosomes coordinate spatiotemporal control of gene expression, contributing to the acquisition and maintenance of cancer phenotype. The link between ribosomes and cancer is found in the roles of individual ribosomal proteins in tumorigenesis and cancer progression, including the ribosomal protein, receptor for activated C kinase 1 (RACK1). RACK1 regulates cancer cell invasion and is localized in spreading initiation centres, structural adhesion complexes containing RNA binding proteins and poly-adenylated mRNAs that suggest a local translation process. As RACK1 is a ribosomal protein directly involved in translation and in breast cancer progression, we propose a new molecular mechanism for breast cancer cell migration and invasion, which considers the molecular differences between epithelial and mesenchymal cell profiles in order to characterize and provide novel targets for therapeutic strategies. Hence, we provide an analysis on how ribosomes translate cancer progression with a final focus on the ribosomal protein RACK1 in breast cancer.

XMM-Newton observation of the persistent Be/NS X-ray binary pulsar RX J0440.9+4431

Abstract: Many X-ray accreting pulsars have a soft excess below 10 keV. This feature was also detected in faint sources and at low luminosity levels, suggesting that it is an ubiquitous phenomenon. For the high luminosity pulsars (LX > 10 36 erg s −1 ), the fit to this component with thermal emission models usually provides low temperatures (kT 100 s) Be accreting pulsars the observed excess can be modeled with a rather hot (kTBB > 1 keV) black-body component of small area (RBB < 0.5 km), which can be interpreted as emission from the NS polar caps. In this paper, we present an analysis of an XMM-Newton observation of the Galactic Be pulsar RX J0440.9+4431, which is a poorly studied member of this class of sources. We find a best-fit period of P = 204.96 ± 0.02 s, which implies an average pulsar spin-down over the past 13 years of ˙ P � 6 × 10 −9 ss −1 . The estimated source luminosity is LX ∼ 8 × 10 34 erg s −1 , which is higher by a factor of less than ten compared to those obtained in the first source observations, but almost two orders of magnitude lower than those measured during the few outbursts that have been detected most recently. The source spectrum can be described with a power-law and black-body model, with kTBB = 1.34 ± 0.04 keV and RBB = 273 ± 16 m, suggesting a polar-cap origin of this component. Our results support the classification of RX J0440.9+4431 as a persistent Be/NS pulsar, and confirm that the hot black-body spectral component is a common property of this class of sources.

Seismic intensity measures for risk assessment of bridges

Abstract: In performance-based seismic assessment, structural response is characterised using fragility functions based on a seismic intensity measure (IM). IMs are typically related to the characteristics of ground shaking and structural dynamic properties, with the spectral acceleration at the first and dominant mode of vibration, Sa(T1), being a popular choice for buildings. In bridge structures, where no single dominant mode typically exists for bridges with some degree of irregularity, the use of Sa(T1) may be inefficient (i.e. large dispersion) due to multi-modal transverse response. To avoid having to choose a single bridge mode when using Sa(T1) and to appease the needs of bridge portfolio assessment, peak ground acceleration (PGA) can often be the IM used for bridge fragility functions in some countries. This study examines the efficient assessment of simple bridge structures characteristic of the European context by exploring different IMs based on Sa(T), peak ground velocity (PGV) or a recent candidate average spectral acceleration, AvgSa. Several case study bridges are evaluated via multiple stripe analysis with hazard-consistent ground motion records. The results indicate that PGA and PGV are indeed inefficient IMs compared to other IMs of similar complexity, especially at serviceability limit states, for the bridge structures examined. Also, a relatively casual record selection strategy is seen to not be suitable for risk assessment of bridges and can result in notable differences in risk. In contrast, AvgSa, which is an IM based on a simple combination of Sa(T) values across a range of periods, showed very good predictive power and robustness in terms of its risk estimates across all ranges of structural response. This was observed for the structure-specific IMs in addition to the group IMs used for assessing multiple structures with the same ground motion records. This study has thus shown these AvgSa-based IMs to be an appealing choice to consider for further examination in future fragility function and risk model development for bridge structures.

High gamma response tracks different syntactic structures in homophonous phrases.

Abstract: Syntax is a species-specific component of human language combining a finite set of words in a potentially infinite number of sentences. Since words are by definition expressed by sound, factoring out syntactic information is normally impossible. Here, we circumvented this problem in a novel way by designing phrases with exactly the same acoustic content but different syntactic structures depending on the other words they occur with. In particular, we used phrases merging an article with a noun yielding a Noun Phrase (NP) or a clitic with a verb yielding a Verb Phrase (VP). We performed stereo-electroencephalographic (SEEG) recordings in epileptic patients. We measured a different electrophysiological correlates of verb phrases vs. noun phrases in multiple cortical areas in both hemispheres, including language areas and their homologous in the non-dominant hemisphere. The high gamma band activity (150-300 Hz frequency), which plays a crucial role in inter-regional cortical communications, showed a significant difference during the presentation of the homophonous phrases, depending on whether the phrase was a verb phrase or a noun phrase. Our findings contribute to the ultimate goal of a complete neural decoding of linguistic structures from the brain.