ProNGF is a cell-type specific mitogen for adult hippocampal and for induced neural stem cells

The role of proNGF, the precursor of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), on the biology of adult neural stem cells (aNSCs) is still unclear. Here I analyzed adult hippo-campal neurogenesis in AD11 transgenic mice, in which the constitutive expression of anti-NGF antibody leads to an imbalance of proNGF over mature NGF. I found in-creased proliferation of progenitors but a reduced neurogenesis in the AD11 DG- hippocampus (HP-DG). Also in vitro, AD11 hippocampal neural stem cells (NSCs) pro-liferated mo...

Topics in composite models and dark matter phenomenology

We investigate models of composite dark matter in which the dark matter candidate arises naturally as an accidentally stable bound state of a confining dynamics and with observable signatures in a wide variety of experiments. In the first part of the thesis we introduce and explore a new class of models with dark fermions in the adjoint repre- sentation of the confining gauge group. The low energy dynamics and the cosmological history are peculiar and provide a dark matter candidate with prop...

Block rational Krylov methods for matrix equations and matrix functions

In this thesis, we describe block rational Krylov subspaces, highlighting their correspondence with rational matrices and generalizing important properties that apply to the non-block case. We develop procedures based on block rational Krylov subspaces for solving Sylvester and tensor Sylvester equations, computing functions of Hermitian hierarchically semiseparable (HSS) matrices, and applying functions of Hermitian matrices to block vectors.In the context of Sylvester equations with low-ran...

Peasants prefiguring agroecology, critical pedagogy and peasant feminism: a participatory action research project with the Kenyan Peasants League

Polarizable QM/MM Approaches for Molecular Excited States in Complex Environments

Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), Book of the Cure, Categories (al-Maqūlāt), Part I: Introduction and Translation

«A conquistare la rossa primavera»? Resistenza e antifascismo durante la «Seconda Repubblica» (1993-2009): celebrazioni, ideologia, pratica politica, quotidiani, programmi televisivi, documentari, film e canzoni”

Essays on International Migration using Big Data Analytics

How can social big data help to understand issues related to international migration? Official data such as census, survey and administrative data have been traditionally the main data source to study migration. However, these data have some limitations. They are inconsistent across different nations because countries employ different definitions of international migration and characterisations of migrants. Moreover, collecting traditional data is costly and time consuming, thus tracking...

An Eutherian-Specific MicroRNA controls the translation of Satb2 in a model of cortical differentiation