Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Health Sciences and Molecular Biotechnology Center, University of Torino, Turin, Italy, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, Faculty of Engineering, Helwan University, Helwan, Egypt, Institute of Bioimaging and Molecular Physiology, CNR, Milan, Italy, SuperComputing Applications and Innovation Departme...

Non-binding referenda ('petitions') are an instrument of direct democracy that allows citizens to signal preferences to politicians outside the electoral cycle. This paper analyses a particular form of petitions, so-called linked-issues petitions, which have been described as an ‘abuse of direct democracy’. It discusses the use of linked petitions by petition initiators, its take-up by voters i...

1Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Walther Oncology Center, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis; 2Department of Pediatrics, Shimane University School of Medicine, Izumo, Japan; 3VIB Vesalius Research Center (VRC), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; and 4Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology and the Walther Oncology Center, Indiana University School of ...

DAVID FULTON,1 ANDREAS PAPAPETROPOULOS,1 XIAOPING ZHANG,2 JOHN D. CATRAVAS,3 THOMAS H. HINTZE,2 AND WILLIAM C. SESSA1 1Department of Pharmacology, Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06536-0812; 2Department of Physiology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York 10595; and 3Vascular Biology Center and Department of Pharmacology and...

My goal is to make distributed systems more secure and reliable. Today, distributed systems play a critical role in our daily lives: they route our telephone calls, control our cars, process our credit card transactions, store our medical records, and provide us with Internet services such as web and email. If any of these systems fails or is compromised by an attacker, the consequences can be ...

Italy, true nurse of talents. .. I [now] can foresee no possible opportunity for performing dissection-here I cannot easily obtain even a skull." Vesalius' complaint underlines the decline and decadence-after a promising start-of Spanish science in the second half of the sixteenth century, a phenomenon often commented upon and usually attributed to social and cultural factors peculiar to Spain....