L'infezione da HIV-1 resta ancora oggi una delle principali problematiche nell'ambito della sanità mondiale, con circa 35 milioni di individui infetti in tutto il mondo. L'introduzione della terapia antiretrovirale combinata (cART) ha drasticamente modificato l’evoluzione di questa infezione, che da patologia a sviluppo terminale dopo alcuni anni dalla trasmissione, è diventata una patologia cronica con una lunga aspettativa di vita per i pazienti. Tuttavia, la cART non è in grado di eradicare l’infezione e nei pazienti HIV-infetti trattati è possibile notare un aumento della comparsa di comorbidità, tra le quali le più frequentemente riscontrate sono lesioni al sistema nervoso centrale, ai reni, al tessuto osseo, al fegato e al sistema cardiovascolare. I danni al sistema cardiocircolatorio derivano da una serie di concause virologiche, comportamentali, ambientali e farmacologiche che alterano la parete vascolare, il metabolismo dei lipidi e la regolazione della coagulazione, inducendo la formazione di lesioni strutturali di tipo aterosclerotico che sono alla base dell’aumentata incidenza di infarti, ictus e alterazioni del circolo osservabili nei pazienti HIV-positivi. Dalla recente letteratura è emerso come l’omeostasi del tessuto endoteliale sia regolata anche a livello delle cellule staminali mesenchimali (MSC) presenti nella parete vascolare. Per questo abbiamo voluto analizzare possibili effetti dell’infezione di HIV, delle sue proteine e di alcune molecole antiretrovirali sulla vitalità e sul differenziamento delle MSC purificate dalla parete arteriosa umana. I risultati ottenuti indicano come l’infezione da HIV e l’azione delle proteine gp120 e Tat attivino il meccanismo di apoptosi nelle MSC e una profonda alterazione nel differenziamento verso la filiera adipocitaria e verso quella endoteliale. Inoltre, alcune molecole ad azione antiretrovirale (in particolare specifici inibitori della proteasi virale) sono in grado bloccare il differenziamento delle MSC verso le cellule endoteliali. Dall’insieme di queste osservazioni emergono nuovi meccanismi patogenetici correlati al danno cardiovascolare riscontrato nei pazienti HIV-positivi. / HIV-1 infection remains nowadays a major problem of health worldwide. The introduction of a combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) has greatly improved life expectancy of HIV-infected patients. However, cART cannot eradicate the infection and HIV-infected patients show different comorbidities, like central nervous system lesions, osteoporosis, renal and liver dysfunction and cardiovascular pathologies. Cardiovascular damages come from viral mechanisms and pharmacological interactions and their frequency is enhanced in HIV-positive patients. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are very important for endothelial homeostasis, therefore we decided to analyze the effects of HIV and cART in these cells. Our results show that HIV-1 and its proteins gp120 and Tat increase MSC apoptosis and alter MSC differentiation towards endothelial and adipogenic lineages. Moreover, also antiretroviral molecules, in particular protease inhibitors, disrupt MSC differentiation regulation.

La contaminazione chimica rappresenta uno dei rischi principali per la sicurezza alimentare e può arrecare anche gravi danni alla salute umana. Rientrano in questa tesi di dottorato tre famiglie di contaminanti: Micotossine, Metalli e Insetticidi. La ricerca di aflatossina B1 è stata effettuata su 90 confezioni di farina, sia biologici sia convenzionali. La presenza della micotossina è stata rilevata solo nelle farine di mais. Solo un campione di produzione convenzionale ha superato il limite di 2 ppb definito per legge. Il dato di maggior rilievo è stato che il quantitativo di 5 grammi di campionamento si è dimostrato non rappresentativo sul totale della confezione commerciale di farina. Più attendibile si è invece dimostrato un campionamento di 20 grammi. L’aflatossina M1 è stata ricercata in 58 campioni di latte di cui 35 sono risultati positivi. Tuttavia, i livelli riscontrati erano costantemente inferiori al limite previsto per legge. Sono stati sottoposti a estrazione e purificazione, e analizzati con metodica HPLC-FL per la ricerca di Ocratossina A, 114 campioni di bile, 35 campioni di plasma, 40 campioni di rene prelevati da polli in Giordania. Le analisi hanno fornito risultati costantemente negativi. Sono stati analizzati 72 campioni (30 di muscolo, 29 di fegato e 13 di rene) prelevati da 30 bovini nel macello di Irbid (Giordania), di età compresa tra 8 e 30 mesi e provenienti da allevamenti diversi, per la ricerca di 13 elementi essenziali e non essenziali. In questo studio nessun campione supera i livelli massimi stabiliti dalla normativa europea per quanto riguarda gli elementi considerati. Infine, sono stati analizzati 37 campioni di latte ovino e 31 campioni di latte bovino, prelevati in Giordania in diversi allevamenti, per la ricerca di 4 neonicotinoidi (imidacloprid, acetamiprid, thiamethoxam e thiacloprid). I campioni, analizzati con sistema HPLC/MS/MS, sono risultati costantemente negativi ai quattro neonicotinoidi ricercati. / The safety of animal origin products and human food are crucial for consumers. One of the main risks for food security is represented by the chemical contamination of food, which can cause serious harm to human health . Three chemical contaminants were studied: Mycotoxins, Metals and Pesticides. The experimental test for aflatoxin B1 was conducted on 90 organic and conventional flour. This study shows that only corn flour samples were positive for AFB1 and only one sample exceeded the limit of 2 ppb defined by law. This study shows that a quantity of 5 grams of flour sample is not representative for a 1 kg flour commercial package. We find that 20 grams are more reliable. The experimental test for aflatoxin M1 was conducted on 58 milk samples, and 35 were positive for AFM1. The concentration of AFM1 in these samples never exceeded the level required by law. Different tissue samples were collected from chickens in Jordan including 114 samples of bile, 35 plasma samples and 40 samples of kidney. All samples were subjected to extraction and purification, and subsequently analyzed by HPLC-FL, for Ochratoxin A. The analysis gave consistently negative results. We analyzed 72 samples (30 muscle, 29 liver and 13 kidney) taken from 30 cattle in the slaughterhouse of Irbid (Jordan) and from different farms, aged between 8 and 30 months, for the detection of 13 essential and non-essential elements. In this study, no sample exceeded the maximum levels set by European legislation. Finally, we analyzed 37 samples of sheep milk and 31 of cow milk, taken from different farms in Jordan, to search for the neonicotinoids: imidacloprid, acetamiprid, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam. The samples were analyzed by HPLC/MS/MS. In all samples the neonicotinoids were no detectable.

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is the cause of cervical cancers (among these, adenocarcinoma, AdCa) and is associated to a subgroup of oropharyngeal carcinomas (OPSCCs). Even if the risk for cancer development is linked to the infection by some viral genotypes, mainly HPV16 and 18, viral DNA alone seems not to be sufficient for diagnosis. Moreover, the role of the virus in OPSCCs has not been totally clarified yet. In the first part of the thesis, the performances concerning viral genotyping in clinical cervical samples of a new pyrosequencing-based test and a well-known hybridization-based assay have been compared. Similar results between the methods have been obtained. However, the former showed advantages in detecting intratype variants, higher specificity and a broader spectrum of detectable HPV types. The second part deals with the evaluation of virological markers (genotyping, viral oncoproteins expression, viral load, physical state and CpG methylation of HPV16 genome) in the diagnosis/prognosis of cervical AdCa and HPV-associated OPSCCs. HPV16 has been confirmed the most prevalent genotype in both the populations. Interestingly, the mean methylation frequency of viral DNA at the early promoter showed the tendency to be associated to invasion for cervical AdCa and to a worse prognosis for OPSCCs, suggesting a promising role as diagnostic/prognostic biomarker. The experiments of the third part were performed at the DKFZ in Heidelberg (Germany) and dealt with the analysis of the response to IFN-k transfection in HPV16-positive cervical cancer and head&neck carcinoma cell lines to evaluate its potential role as new treatment. After 24h, we observed increased IFN-b expression which lead to the up-regulation of genes involved in the antigens presentation pathway (MHC class I and immunoproteasome) and antiviral response as well, in particular in cervical cancer cell lines. This fact suggested also the presence of different HPV-mediated carcinogenic pathways between the two anatomical districts. / Il Papillomavirus umano (HPV) è causa dei carcinomi della cervice uterina (tra cui adenocarcinomi, AdCa) ed è associato ad un sottogruppo di tumori dell’orofaringe (OPSCCs). Nonostante il rischio di sviluppo di tumore sia associato all’infezione da parte di alcuni genotipi virali, principalmente HPV16 e 18, il DNA virale da solo sembra non essere sufficiente in campo diagnosico. Inoltre, per tumori orofaringei il ruolo del virus non è ancora del tutto chiaro. Nella prima parte della tesi, sono state confrontate le performance riguardo la genotipizzazione di HPV su campioni clinici cervicali di una tecnica innovativa, basata su amplificazione e pirosequenziamento, e una di routine, basata su amplificazione e ibridazione inversa. Lo studio ha evidenziato performance simili tra le due metodiche, sottolineando per il sequenziamento una maggiore specificità e capacità di rilevare varianti intratipo. Nella seconda parte sono stati analizzati marker virologici (genotipizzazione, espressione delle oncoproteine virali, carica virale, stato fisico e metilazione del genoma di HPV16) in funzione dei dati clinici disponibili, per un possibile impiego nella diagnosi/prognosi di AdCa cervicali e OPSCCs HPV-associati. HPV16 si è confermato il genotipo prevalente in entrambe le popolazioni. La frequenza di metilazione nel promotore precoce virale ha mostrato una tendenza ad essere associata ad invasione negli AdCa, e ad una prognosi peggiore negli OPSCCs, emergendo come il più promettente marker diagnostico/prognostico. La terza parte, svolta presso il DKFZ di Heidelberg (Germania), ha visto l’analisi della risposta alla transfezione di IFN-k in linee cellulari tumorali HPV16-positive della cervice uterina e della regione testa-collo, per valutarne l’impiego terapeutico. Dopo 24h, è stato osservato un incremento dell’espressione di IFN-b e, di conseguenza, una up-regolazione dei geni coinvolti nella presentazione antigenica (MHC classe I ed immunoproteasoma) e nella risposta antivirale, specialmente nelle cellule cervicali, suggerendo la presenza di diversi meccanismi patogenetici tra tumori HPV-positivi dei due distretti anatomici.

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This article examines the relationship between social cohesion and economic vulnerability in Europe. The analyses are build around two main research hypotheses. The first one argues the existence of a direct and negative association between economic inequality and social cohesion. The second supposition states that this connection is mediated by some factors which include the individualsâ€TM position in the stratification system (i.e. social class). Finally, we believe that welfare state could be relevant because it influences both the relationship between social class and economic vulnerability and the link between social cohesion and economic vulnerability. The empirical analysis –based on the European Social Survey (ESS) carried out in 2003– shows the central role played by the welfare state and the existence of a direct and negative connection between social cohesion and economic vulnerability, only partially mediated by the effect of social class.

This thesis positions itself within the stream of research on self-tracking practices for the management of chronic illnesses. Self-care technologies, such as smartphones and many other mobile health devices, have led to the production of health data of patients outside institutional settings. This shift on the "personal" dimension of data has placed emphasis on self-knowledge practices supported by such technologies and on the concept of patient empowerment. Flanking a clinical trial conducted in north Italy aimed at quantifying the effectiveness and the acceptability of a self-tracking/remote-monitoring platform for type 1 and 2 diabetes patients, this work explores how a particular tool for self-tracking, the "personal experiment", fits in the process of knowledge of the patient with Type 2 Diabetes, exploring how the practice of learning to manage your own diabetes data is a complex activity that involves heterogeneous objects, actors and contexts. The leading research questions in this work were: (1) How do the knowing processes triggered by personal experiments involve patients’ with Type 2 Diabetes situated practices through their bodies, objects, technologies, contexts and relations? (2) How do personal experiments affect the empowerment and motivation of patients with Type 2 Diabetes to maintain a correct lifestyle? (3) How do personal experiments fit in the doctor-patient relationship, affecting existent educational practices and reconfiguring knowledge processes that involve patients with Type 2 Diabetes and their clinicians? By adopting a knowing in practice perspective and a subsequent qualitative research methodologies such as observation, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and co-design workshops, it was possible, firstly, to design a paper prototype of the digital personal experiment, “the notebook”; secondly, considering the notebook as a knowledge artefact allowed to explore the processes through which patients with Type 2 Diabetes learn to manage their disease, observing learning as a situated and emergent activity that involves first and foremost the patient's body, the objects and the power relationship with their clinicians.The main contributions of this thesis are on three different levels: first, analyzing self-knowledge of diabetes as a situated and emergent activity, it proposes to address the gap of studies on health literacy, which limit themselves to measuring what the patient learns as a result of the educational actions carried out by health professionals. Second, analyzing diabetes’ self-knowledge as a process that involves the practical knowledge and reconfigures power relationships between all actors involved, it aims to integrate studies on patient motivation and empowerment which conceive the doctor-patient reflections on patient’s data as a well-defined moment that follows a structured script. The ultimate goal of the thesis is to provide guidance to designers to develop digital personal experiments that are less standardized and more practice-based.

The aim of this research is to analyse the educational gap between native and foreign students in Europe. In last decades, because of the increasing number of immigrants, the sociological literature on the ethnic stratification in education has considerably grown. However, several aspects of the relationship between ethnicity and educational inequality are still under debate. This research is based on the assumption that the gross educational disadvantage of foreign students is due to differences in both achievements and educational choices. I analyse the several dimensions that scholars have identified as being able to influence one of them, or both. The roles played by individual characteristics –micro-level– (such as: social class, cultural background, gender, ethnicity and migration background), by the school context –meso-level– (i.e. peers group, teachers, and the school) and by the institutional context –macro-level– (the educational system and the country’s migration history) will be analytically divided. As different European nations have historically attracted migrants from specific countries in specific periods, individual’s ethnicity has long coincided with his immigration generation. Nowadays, because of the growing number of nationalities present in each country, it is finally possible to separate these two dimensions. Thus, I add to the debate in that I analyse whether ethnicity and migration background influence the individual educational success independently one another and independently of social origins. Moreover, I address whether the relationship between ethnicity and educational inequality is due to primary or secondary effects. In other words, I investigate if ethnicity and migration background influence only academic competences – which than translate in better choices – or if they are also able to directly affect the latter, net of individuals academic skills. I

The process of European integration forces the scientific community to reflect on the importance of the national level as the appropriate one for the analyses of social inequalities. Especially among the studies on poverty and deprivation there is growing concern about the choice of the proper geographical reference. Indeed, within the research on poverty, beside the †̃traditionalâ€TM approach based on a national poverty line other studies rely on different geographical thresholds, either supra-national (the pan-european approach) or sub-national (the regional approach). I aimed to add to this debate an additional level of investigation, centred on the theoretical relevance of trans-national clusters of European regions that is cluster of regions that could belong to different nation-states but that nonetheless show more economic, social and institutional similarities than those existing among different †̃areasâ€TM belonging to the same nation-state. In order to analyse the micro and macro determinants of poverty, I organized this thesis balancing both theoretical and methodological aspects. The first chapter reviews the most important literature on social inequality, distinguishing between the micro-level perspective (i.e. individualization theory versus cumulative risks theory) and, the macro-level one emphasizing, above all, the institutional rules in shaping social inequalities underlined by the political economy, the economic sociology, the urban sociology and the economic theories. In the second chapter I overviewed, discussed and problematized the several conceptualizations, operationalisations and measurations of poverty, therefore it represents a theoretical and methodological contribution at the contemporary debate on poverty as well as an important starting point for the analysis presented in the three empirical chapters. From a methodological point of view, on the one hand I used complex statistics techniques (the multiple imputation methods) to create an high-quality database for the analysis of poverty by a multidimensional, longitudinal and regional-comparative perspective. On the other one, this thesis is valuable for using cutting edge techniques in the area of poverty and social exclusion. More specifically, in the first two empirical chapters (Ch. 3 and 4) I specified several multilevel models (random intercept and random slope too) in order to disentangle the household and individual level determinants of poverty from the macro-level ones, and also to describe which of the macro-institutional perspective (national, European, regional or trans-national) is the most useful in describing e predicting the distribution of poverty within the European regions analysed. While in the last empirical chapter (Ch. 5) I specified an econometric panel model to specifically analyse the true state dependence in poverty; so doing I focused also at the social exclusion phenomena. Furthermore, every model presented in the three empirical chapters has been specified using several operationalization of poverty (that is, using the national, European, regional and trans-national poverty lines). The main conclusions of this thesis are linked with the validity and reliability of the relative poverty measure and the institutional concepts of welfare-states, economic regions and trans-national clusters. First of all, it seems that the relative measure of poverty is a good one to predict and describe the phenomena. Indeed, the micro-determinant of poverty are not affected by the poverty line (national, European, regional or trans-national) used in the models proposed. Obviously the number of people at risk of poverty are affected by such definitions, but the relative structure of relation among the individual and household determinant are not. Secondly, it seems that the macro-determinant of poverty are affected by the poverty line definition and, above all, the variation produced on the country-variables effect is not coherent with the welfare state interpretation of poverty and social exclusion. On the contrary, the regional and the trans-national perspectives effects are more stable regardless the poverty line adopted, and they help to capture the most part of the regional variance among the European regions analysed. Furthermore, I pointed out the interaction effect between the individual characteristics linked to labour market position (i.e. unemployed status) and the regional framework: the random slope models show the significant impact of the regional context in shaping the social exclusion experience. Finally, it is important that these results are coherent with both multilevel and panel models.

The role of social networks in creating and sustaining migration flows, as well as in the adjustment and settlement of migrants, has long been recognized in migration studies. However, cross-fertilization between migration research and network approaches is still uncommon. Utilizing a mixed-method network approach, this study contributes in furthering the understanding of how migrant networks operate. Migrant networks are conceptualized as embedded in dynamic and changing systems, and shown as evolving depending on various contexts and situations. Examined are ego-centric networks of the 134 respondents (58 in London and 76 in New York) in three migration phases: before coming to London or New York; initial period of adjustment; and the current network as a result of the subsequent process of settlement in the place of destination (in total, 402 network maps). In particular, compared are three different occupational groups – nurses, domestics, and care workers. Conceptually dividing the migration process in three phases provided the opportunity to study network dynamics and networking practices, albeit retrospectively. Eliciting migrant networks was embedded within in-depth interviews using both electronic and paper-based network visualization. The findings suggest contrasting network composition in two global cities and across the three occupational groups. In New York, familial ties play an almost exclusive role in facilitating and supporting the movement of Filipino migrants. In London, most of the research participants relied on former employers (in the case of domestic workers) or recruitment agencies (in the case of nurses and care workers in institutional facilities) to facilitate their move. These differences in pre-migration networks then shaped subsequent network formations, adjustments, and settlement experiences. Findings also illustrate that although networks have supportive influence on facilitation of the move and post-migration settlement, familial and co-ethnic ties can also be exploitative to the newly-arrived and undocumented migrants. Situating the particular cases in macro-level context, the study explores how the narratives of attaining the good life through overseas work are interconnected to the need and demand for care labor in the US and the UK as well as the Philippine state-led marketization of high-quality workers as an export commodity.

Questa tesi di dottorato affronta e approfondisce tre temi diversi ma legati tra loro: le performance accademiche degli studenti nell'istruzione terziaria, l'uso del tempo e l'utilizzo dei Big Data nelle scienze sociali. Gli obiettivi che hanno fatto nascere questo lavoro, attraverso un approccio a tratti interdisciplinare, sono stati, in primo luogo, cercare di colmare empiricamente alcune lacune legate a interrogativi di ricerca rimasti parzialmente senza risposta in letteratura e, in secondo luogo, proporre soluzioni metodologiche connesse soprattutto alla raccolta dei dati e alla loro affidabilità nel rispondere a questi interrogativi in un modo quanto più possibile coerente con la realtà . La tesi non ha una struttura monografica in quanto i quattro capitoli empirici hanno una struttura propria. Il primo capitolo empirico vuole essere un inquadramento generale dell'intera tesi che mira a indagare l'effetto del capitale culturale familiare sia sulle performance accademiche degli studenti, sia su alcuni aspetti legati alla gestione che essi fanno del proprio tempo che, tradizionalmente, sono associati a una buona riuscita accademica, ipotizzando che l'origine sociale non esaurisca il suo effetto nei livelli d'istruzione precedenti. I modelli di equazione strutturali, attraverso l'analisi multi-gruppo, hanno consentito di costruire l'analisi in un'ottica comparativa rispetto al settore disciplinare di appartenenza. Il secondo capitolo approfondisce la dimensione temporale, ovvero come gli studenti organizzano le attività durante le loro giornate, al fine di comprendere come essa possa influire sui risultati universitari. L'obiettivo principale è stato colmare alcune lacune empiriche presenti in letteratura che mostrano risultati contrastanti su questo tema, dettati soprattutto da problemi di raccolta dati, non sempre adatti a indagare l'uso che gli studenti fanno del proprio tempo. Anche questo capitolo propone uno sguardo comparativo, confrontando degli studenti del primo anno, cioè gli studenti più a rischio rispetto al gestire il proprio tempo in modo poco efficace, con gli studenti degli anni successivi. Il terzo capitolo descrive il progetto SmartUnitn, fulcro di questo lavoro di tesi al fine di evidenziare come l'utilizzo di ICTs è in questo caso gli smartphone nella fase di raccolta dati possa contribuire a migliorare la qualità del dato ottenuto andando a risolvere alcune questioni problematiche derivanti dagli strumenti tradizionali utilizzati dagli scienziati sociali. Il quarto e ultimo capitolo, propone un caso concreto di utilizzo dei dati ottenuti dall'esperimento SmartUnitn, proponendo un metodo che, grazie all'unione dei dati dei sensori e i dati delle risposte degli studenti, possa colmare alcune lacune presenti in letteratura sul tema dell'influenza dell'utilizzo dei social media sui risultati universitari.