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Introduction From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers had to face unprecedented emergency needs associated with an extraordinary amount of psychological distress. In this cross-sectional multicenter study, we investigated sleep disturbances, and the level of anxiety and depression among the healthcare and non-healthcare staff of three hospitals in Milan (Italy) during the COVID-19 outbreak. Moreover, we explored potential predisposing factors for affective symptoms and poor sleep. Methods Between June and July 2020, we administered an online questionnaire to evaluate the presence of sleep disorders (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), insomnia (Sleep Condition Indicator), anxiety (State Trait Anxiety Inventory), and depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II). We used univariate and multivariate analysis to evaluate the association between the personal conditions and sleep and affective disorders. Results The 964 participants reported high rates of sleep disorders (80.3%)—mainly insomnia (30.5%)—anxiety (69.7%), and depression (32.8%). The multivariate analysis showed a strong association of sleep disorders, especially insomnia, with female gender (p = 0.004), divorced marital status (p = 0.015), self-isolation (p = 0.037), and chronic diseases (p = 0.003). Anxiety was significantly associated with teleworking (p = 0.001), while depressive symptoms were associated with self-isolation (p = 0.028), modified work schedules (p = 0.03), and chronic diseases (p = 0.027). Conclusion In hospital workers, the high prevalence of sleep and psychiatric symptoms during the COVID-19 outbreak appears to be determined mainly by modifications of personal or work habits. Teleworking was associated with increased anxiety. An accurate planning of hospital activities and a psychological support are needed to prevent and manage sleep and mental disorders.

Objective We use co-registration of foramen-ovale and scalp-EEG to investigate network alterations in temporal-lobe epilepsy during focal seizures without (aura) or with impairment of awareness (SIA). Methods One aura and one SIA were selected from six patients. Temporal dynamic among 4 epochs, as well as the differences between aura and SIA, were analyzed through partial directed coherence and graph theory-based indices of centrality. Results Regarding the auras temporal evolution, fronto-parietal (FP) regions showed decreased connectivity with respect to the interictal period, in both epileptogenic (EH) and non-epileptogenic hemisphere (nEH). During SIAs, temporal dynamic showed more changes than auras: centrality of mesial temporal (mT) regions changes during all conditions, and nEH FP centrality showed the same dynamic trend of the aura (decreased centrality), until the last epoch, close to the impaired awareness, when showed increased centrality. Comparing SIA with aura, in proximity of impaired awareness, increased centrality was found in all the regions, except in nEH mT. Conclusions Our findings suggested that the impairment of awareness is related to network alterations occurring first in neocortical regions and when awareness is still retained. Significance The analysis of ‘hub’ alteration can represent a suitable biomarker for scalp EEG-based prediction of awareness impairment.

Restless legs syndrome is a common but still underdiagnosed neurologic disorder, characterized by peculiar symptoms typically occurring in the evening and at night, and resulting in sleep disruption and daily functioning impairment. This disease can affect subjects of all age ranges and of both sexes, manifesting itself with a broad spectrum of severity and deserving special attention in certain patient categories, in order to achieve a correct diagnosis and an effective treatment. The diagnosis of restless legs syndrome can be challenging in some patients, especially children and elderly people, and an effective treatment might be far from being easy to achieve after some years of drug therapy, notably when dopaminergic agents are used. Moreover, the pathophysiology of this disorder offers an interesting example of interaction between genetics and the environment, considering strong iron metabolism involvement and its interaction with recognized individual genetic factors. Therefore, this syndrome allows clinicians to verify how lifespan and time can modify diagnosis and treatment of a neurological disorder.

A set of regional and country’s equity indices have been evaluated and analysed in their Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) in this paper, using computational methods based on the Johnson systems. Comparing the main statistics and the values of the two cited measures of financial risk obtained using a roll-over mechanism in the period January 2008–July 2012, the impact of the crisis on equity market risk can be shown. It seems that for all regions and countries the patterns are very similar: there is a peak of all the risk measures adopted at the beginning of the crisis (September 2008–February 2009) and another turbulent period in 2011 (from July to December). In other terms, the global patterns of the main financially relevant countries and their regional aggregations demonstrate that “One Financial system”, and just one, is already at work, in theory and in practice. On the other hand, the scale of the risk measures differs from one country to another: e.g., with a probability of 1 %, the potential daily loss on an equity position in Latin America in the worst period arrives to about 25 %, the Emerging Markets as a whole show values around 20 % and Asia arrives to 15 %, while the US and European corresponding values are below 14 %. This is true whatever the risk measure and whatever the confidence interval (which, again, influences strongly the scale of the risk values). Looking in detail to the last period (April 2012–July 2012), a general improvement could be appreciated: the risk measures are all around 4 % if not on one hand Italy and Spain (around 6 %), Greece (around 10 %) and on the other hand the “virtuous” Chile (around 1.5 %), again with reference to a probability of 1 %. Nevertheless, indices of performance (expected return over risk measure) have been evaluated and compared. They give sometimes different answers to the risk measures themselves.

In defense of Europe. A crucial, not openly revealed and analyzed aspect of the 2 years crisis affecting the world economy, financial system, labour market, welfare and development is the fact that impact had not been a wave affecting all the main areas and regions in the same way. The emerging countries were not hit as we were supposing, Europe managed quite well the governance of the macroeconomic and financial impact of the earthquake coming from the USA, Russia has shown to be very vulnerable to external negative factors, innovative countries have reached the highest developments of R&D and ranking worldwide. The Great European world region (EU 27 plus almost other 20 neighboring countries) has shown a better capability to operate, via the European Central Bank, in a counter policy against the negative financial cycle policy than expected. FDIs were lagging but M&A were still quite robust. Eastern countries, by the way, showed capabilities to overcome unbalances and worst fall outs of the real economy recession. Social implications were quite severe but even so not as much as predicted in January 2009. The paper intends to demonstrate that Europe is now becoming the main international player and competitor in the 2020 worldwide competition.

The 3rd Edition of the YICGGYouth Innovation Competition on Global Governance took place in Tbilisi, as a joint initiative of Tor Vergata University, Fudan University and the Politecnico of Turin, following the MoU signed between the hosting Ilia Chavchavadze State University and the Rome Tor Vergata University, providing also—for exceptional reasons as the YICGG does not assign funding to hosting universities—a financial grant. A previous MoU on YICGG was signed in Shanghai on March 12 by the Representatives of the Rectors of Tor Vergata, Fudan Universities, Politecnico di Torino and by the Coordinator of the CEEUN-Transition World Research Network also on behalf of the Ca’ Foscari Venice, Udine and LUISS Rome Universities. The aims and scope of the initiative is attracting considerable international attention because of its unique character and the approach adopted involving and selecting the participants, establishing the research main issues with the partners, evaluating the appropriate format of the YICGG 2009. The Chairmanship of the Program was taken on by the Faculty of Tor Vergata and Fudan Universities, in close cooperation with Ilia Chavchavadze State University, the Rector Professor Gigi Tevzadze. The Coordinator of the Edition 2009, Nini Gogiberidze achieved the best results as Executive Coordinator of the YICGG going beyond the best expectations. The preparatory stage was relatively short, due to the need to skip the summer months of lower universities activity and in order to facilitate the participation of

The change was not only promised during Obama’s electoral campaign but urgently invoked by all the major international actors in view of the financial and economic crises: the world foreign policy has suddenly entered a new age not being yet prepared to govern globalization and its wide interdependence conditionality. Even Russia has changed tune now and President Medvedev announced vigorously a new strategy, a new policy, and a new drive for Russia. Until a few years ago, the theories of International Relations were simply an American intellectual and governance exit of the growing role of the US in the world, a kind of field of competence for the greatest power in the global economic, political, strategic and innovative sectors. The British School was an island of the core American thinking and the rest of the world mostly absent. FSU has not expressed a relevant contribution to the various schools of thinking related to the IR theories and even the Marxist political scientists did not dedicate specifically to this main research area because convinced that first it was not a real “science” but a derivative outcome from Philosophy or Political Science; secondly, for the reason of the monopoly of the power in the hands of an autocratic regime where these issues were not left to the researchers and experts but only to the institutional and military leadership. Today Russia—after having caressed and found opportunistically convenient to resume the realism doctrines of the past US almost decennial Presidency, with modest attempts to assume the great changes in international affairs intervened— has the chance to take the last train for a competitive power role, “de facto” under the unavoidable strict rules of engagement of the global governance. In the 2020–2030 the world would be completely reshape by the present metamorphosis.

In the past two years, many warnings had been launched by the scientific community and global governance experts on the extremely dangerous and unpredictable earthquake consequences, which was showing its first premonitory shock waves, in the economic, financial and political international order. In Spring 2008, at Shanghai University, the Dean of the School of International Relations, Yu Chen Sang, and the Dean of the Faculty of Economics of Rome Tor Vergata University, Michele Bagella, representing the Rector, signed an agreement to launch the second edition of the Youth Innovation Competition on Global Governance (YICGG), inviting me to coordinate the research program and the two conclusive weeks in Rome. I had in mind to focus the research of the young participants and the lectures delivered by professors and experts against the backdrop of the economic, financial and political crisis which in the meantime had erupted. It was neither the year 1929, which many ‘‘guardians’’ of the past hastily tried to evoke, nor the periodic negative cycle of 1999 or the regional financial crises witnessed in the last decades, especially after 1989. Every speculation or search for comforting parallel developments has been crushed by the crude reality. And so the title of the 2008 edition of the Research Competition ‘‘Global Governance and Innovation 2020’’ was found appropriate. This concept will be maintained as an introduction title to future editions, starting from the imminent 2009 event. The impending change of the international order and the main players and factors determining policies and strategic choices, which once was an absolute monopoly of nation-states, empires and hegemonies, has shown itself with the dawn of a planetary era. It will be a very engaging age because it will require acceptance of the

The long run-up of the new American Presidency (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ agenda/, http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/economy/, http://www.whitehouse. gov/agenda/energy_and_environment/, http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/foreign_ policy/, http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/education/, http://www.whitehouse.gov/ agenda/civil_rights/) to reach solid objectives of change and structural reform of the US within the first mandate, by the 4 years up to 2013, is an event that has not yet been fully understood, either deliberately or unintentionally. ‘‘The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will start having an impact as soon as a few weeks from now, in the form of the quickest and broadest tax cut in history’’ the new President promised less than 1 month ago. And the Federal Reserve cut the outlook 2012 of a long, protracted crises and recession to the end of 2009. Obama’s first mandate until 2013 also marks, by coincidence, the conclusion of what in Europe is the map of governance of the EU Commission fixed with the Agenda 2007–2013 (EU Community Strategic Guidelines 2005), which is suddenly overwhelmed by such a high ‘‘elective affinity’’, by an unprecedented rate of transatlantic

Asian security issues are atypical and very complex due to the heritage of last century’s events, but also because of the dimension and magnitude of the developments investing in and focusing on the continent in the last decades. Could Europe tell Asia anything useful and internationally viable for the crucial tensions and problems affecting some of its regions and countries? 1

The paper considers the main drivers of Asian growth and connects them with three groups of analyses tracks. Foreign direct investments, as the elective factor incorporating the main trends and perspectives, both at economic and financial level and in the social and political framework. Second, the regional approach, resulting more and more as the key, crucial factor in developing openness and international competitiveness, at the appropriate scale of convergence and integration in the worldwide system, has been presented in its EU connections and in the Asian peculiarities. Finally, as a third area of analysis, the new theories of growth and the capabilities already achieved to measure phenomena that were still not affordable only twenty years ago. The final results of the foresight model for evaluating long-term growth and the associated applied elaborations by the Deutsche Bank Research have almost figured out the proximity to an alternative theoretical scientific and modelling ``corpus'' for the existing growth studies, specifically considering the Asian and emerging countries' recent jump into a high rates trend development, with the focus on China and India. For all these three analyses, the paper underlines the relevance for Asia to consider the experiences and successful steps of the European ``efficient laboratory'', in a process of real integration towards the union of economies, societies, currencies, and security policies that has been investigated from different points of view, with the aim to focus the possible partnership and the future cooperation.

The significant progress in the reform of the financial sector, including the amendments to the banking law and the reinforcement of the deposit insurance scheme, has been reflected in increased confidence in the Macedonia banking sector. Monetary policy and exchange rates represent a crucial aspect for the countries of Southeast Europe which would like to position themselves on the threshold of negotiations on their accession to the European Union. In the case of Macedonia, which has already formally applied for EU membership, a very cautious approach has to be taken in order to facilitate the stability of the economic system as a whole. Such a policy will make an important contribution to the stabilization of the whole West Balkan area and in particular to the quadrangle of Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia. The preparation of a favourable ground for EU membership negotiations leads first and foremost through a strict monetary and exchange rate policy, which the National Bank is pursuing firmly. Macedonia is now facing optimal conditions for creating the prerequisites for a faster negotiation with less rigorous internal repercussions of the pre-adhesion period. One should not forget the indirect impact of the shadow economy in the general context of efficiency of the instruments of economic and monetary policy. Finally, there is the question to be answered on the interrelation existing between transmission mechanisms linking productivity to the real exchange rate in Macedonia. At first glance, the stylized facts – low labor productivity growth and a trend of real depreciation – could even suggest that a Balassa–Samuelson effect is in play. But the depreciation of the real exchange rate could reflect mainly the behaviour of prices in the tradable sector and a prolonged transition associated with slow technological growth and the low quality of the country's tradable-goods basket.

In spite of economic stabilization and the growth rate uprise since 2003, Ukraine has received less than EUR 5 billion in foreign direct investment over the last five years (from 2000 to 2004). This is less than other less FDI-attractive countries got, notwithstanding the fact that Ukraine has a steel industry of international significance, great agriculture potential, and an automotive industry which accounts for almost 6% of the value added generated by the industrial sector. The new government of Ukraine has declared the foreign investment flows into Ukraine among its top priorities. Unfair competition as a result of past bad government policies was the reason for the low FDI inflow. The former Ukrainian government promoted private interests of a limited group of businessmen. Unfair privatization sales with a limited access of other investors, as well as violent ownership takeovers, took place. The new government has committed to stop this practice. The role of independent courts will grow in dealing with conflicts, including the revision of unfair privatization sales. The determination to be integrated with the EU represents an ultimate goal. Such a step is expected to facilitate Ukraine's movement towards European standards in all spheres. I also present a brief inside evaluation on the aerospace industry, for both the civil and military sectors, starting from a sketch of the defense industry in 2000. The situation of civil and military aviation in Russia and Ukraine has many points in common and it could not be different after such a prolonged common history in the same military-industrial complex. Ukrainian industrial capacity is more or less completely secluded from international partners and markets. EU and NATO should not miss the opportunity to take into account the human capital and the technology achievement already accumulated by Ukrainian industries, research centres, academies, laboratories. The Ukraine aviation industry has suffered a serious decline over the last 15 years. Only recently new programs and major developments in the sector, which is undergoing a major restructuring, have reopened the perspectives of new projects in both civil and military aviation, as well as in space projects. The components sectors will be affected positively if the developments will be confirmed by concrete international partnerships and investments, first of all with the EU and the United States. Mergers and restructuring of the existent production plants are a real need. As experience shows in Europe and in the global market, no national way or revival of past alliances could help Ukraine to maintain a role in the aerospace sector.