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    The Role of Performance Reports and Financial Health for Value Creation in Healthcare System: A Case Study of NHS East Kent, UK and ASP Cosenza, Italy
    (Università della Calabria, 2025-05-07) Rashid, Tahani; Raniolo, Francesco; Nardo, Maria Teresa; Samà, Antonio
    Value creation is the most debatable topic in healthcare in recent decades. The present study is descriptive in nature; two case studies were investigated—East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT), UK, and Provincial Health Authority (ASP) Cosenza, Italy—to examine the comparative performance and financial analysis of the healthcare frameworks over an 8-year period from 2015 to 2022. The research explores thematic priorities in sustainability, technological innovation, and training by ensuring the system’s high quality service delivery and operational eViciency, along with financial stability, which is critical for value creation in any healthcare system to achieve long-term goals. This study employs a mixed-method approach by integrating keyword trend analysis and financial ratio assessment to provide a comprehensive understanding of how healthcare delivery systems prioritize strategic initiatives, navigate challenges, and allocate resources. This study demonstrates the significant diVerences in the thematic focus of each healthcare system and their value creation. NHS East Kent represents a structured approach towards the variables, including sustainability, technological innovation, and training, underscoring its commitment to long-term goals. In contrast, the ASP Cosenza struggles with multiple challenges like workforce shortages, resource constraints, and delays in implementing structured and consistent strategies. Despite these challenges, it showed commitment to address regional healthcare needs. ASP Cosenza took the initiative to implement renewable energy projects and prepare its hospitals for emergency response training. This thesis highlights various limitations, particularly in ASP Cosenza, including the use of scanned image files, data gaps, and untimely publication in their database. Nevertheless, adapting advanced analytical methods gives valuable insight for policymakers and healthcare governments to take the initiative to deal with upcoming challenges. The findings emphasize that a stable, eVicient, and resilient healthcare system can serve as a driver for value creation. By identifying the gaps, the study oVers a framework for evaluating thematic priorities and financial discourse to add value to healthcare.
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    MESOPOROUS SILICA NANOPARTICLES FOR THE SELECTIVE DELIVERY OF DOXORUBICIN TO FOLATE RECEPTOR- EXPRESSING CANCER CELLS
    (Università della Calabria, 2025-05-29) Longobucco, Camilla; Sisci, Diego; Catalano, Stefania
    Breast and cervical cancers significantly impact women's health globally, with breast cancer accounting for approximately 2.3 million new cases annually. This highlights the urgent need for targeted therapeutic strategies that effectively eliminate tumor cells while preserving normal tissues. In this study, we developed a mesoporous silica-based nanodevice, FOL-MSN-DOXO, designed for the localized delivery of the chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin (DOXO). This nanodevice utilizes the acidic tumor microenvironment for drug release via an acid-labile bond and incorporates folic acid (FOL) to enhance uptake by folate receptor-expressing cancer cells (FR+). The efficacy of FOL-MSN-DOXO was evaluated through various in vitro assays, including fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), growth assays, and ROS measurements, as well as immunostaining of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) cells from neonatal rats. Our results demonstrate that FOL-MSN-DOXO effectively induces apoptosis in FR+ cancer cells (e.g., HeLa and T-47D), while exhibiting minimal toxicity towards FR3 normal cells (3T3-L1 and BJhTERT). Conversely, free DOXO exhibited significant toxicity across all tested cell lines. Notably, FOL-MSN-DOXO reduced neuronal toxicity compared to free DOXO, underscoring its neuroprotective potential. In summary, FOL-MSN-DOXO offers a promising targeted drug delivery system that selectively induces cytotoxicity in FR+ cancer cells while sparing normal tissues. This approach mitigates the neurotoxic effects associated with doxorubicin, highlighting the efficacy and safety of folic acid-functionalized mesoporous silica nanoparticles in cancer treatment.
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    Methods and strategies for the synthesis of biologically active oligopeptides and small molecules for potential applications in the field of drug delivery
    (Università della Calabria, 2025-01-21) Cavallaro, Palmira Alessia; Catalano, Stefania; Leggio, Antonella
    My PhD research activity focused on the development of novel methods and strategies for synthesizing biologically active short-chain peptides and piperazine-based small molecules, as well as designing mesoporous silica-based nanocarriers capable of incorporating and transporting these compounds, with the aim of enhancing their therapeutic potential. The main activities carried out during my PhD research were as follows: • Development of a novel peptide synthesis method for the production of small peptides in the solution phase. This approach combines TiCl4 as a condensing agent with microwave heating, enabling the rapid and efficient formation of dipeptide systems with urethane protecting groups on the N-terminal amino group. • Design and synthesis of a new cyclic somatostatin analog, c(-FWKTE-), using microwave-assisted solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) and Fmoc chemistry. This cyclic pentapeptide includes the biologically active 7-10 sequence of somatostatin and glutamic acid at the C-terminus. Preliminary in vitro tests were carried out to explore its antiproliferative activity against breast cancer cell lines. • Design and synthesis of a novel class of piperazine-based molecules as potential inhibitors of the NS2B/NS3 protease in Flaviviridae viruses, including Zika and Dengue. These compounds, incorporating urea, sulfonamide, and acyl functional groups, were evaluated for antiviral activity through live-virus assays in human hepatoma cells. Furthermore, the anticancer potential of these piperazine derivatives was investigated in breast cancer cell lines. • Development of mesoporous silica-based (MSN) nanodevices with a dual architecture. featuring targeting molecules on their external surface and linkers within the pores for subsequent drug anchoring via covalent and non-covalent interactions. These nanocarriers are designed to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of the synthesized compounds by improving their delivery and bioavailability. The surface properties of these systems were analyzed to assess the impact of different modifications on the nanoparticle surface structure and their potential for novel applications. This thesis includes published works, studies ready for submission, and ongoing research that requires further investigation before completion and publication.
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    APPLICATIONS OF ANSWER SET PROGRAMMING TO LINEAR TEMPORAL LOGIC OVER FINITE TRACES
    (Università della Calabria, 2025-01-08) Ielo, Antonio; Terracina, Gorgio; Ricca, Francesco; Dodaro, Carmine
    Linear Temporal Logic over Finite Traces (LTLf) is a popular logic to express high level specifications that require reasoning about time. It was introduced in the seminal work of De Giacomo and Vardi, motivated by the fact that many Artificial Intelligence applications that require temporal reasoning are more intuitively described as finite execution sequences, rather than infinite execution sequences as in Linear Temporal Logic. Due to the high complexity that characterizes LTLf-related problems, efficienty systems are required. Reasoning tasks in LTLf are usually tackled by automata theoretic techniques or by SAT-based approaches. This thesis proposes an alternative approach to LTLf-related reasoning problems that is based on Answer Set Programming (ASP). Answer Set Programming is a declarative logic programming paradigm that stems from research in stable model semantics for logic programs and knowledge representation and reasoning. ASP is more expressive than SAT, thus, the solutions we obtain are more compact, intuitive and readable than SAT counterparts; moreover the usage of ASP does not result in a compromise on efficiency and effectiveness. Indeed, the approach presented in this thesis often obtains better performance with respect to existing SAT-based solutions; also, ASP enabled the development of novel solutions for unsatisfiable core enumeration and query checking in declarative process mining contexts.
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    NLPbasedapproachesformodelinginASP
    (Università della Calabria, 2025-10-01) Kareem, Irfan; Terracina, Giorgio; Ricca, Francesco; BorrotoSantana, ManuelAlejandro