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PubblicazioneMachine Learning for RNA Secondary Structure Prediction: a review of current methods and challenges( 2026)Predicting the secondary structure of RNA is a core challenge in computational biology, essential for understanding molecular function and designing novel therapeutics. The field has evolved from foundational but accuracy-limited thermodynamic approaches to a new data-driven paradigm dominated by machine learning and deep learning. These models learn folding patterns directly from data, leading to significant performance gains. This review surveys the modern landscape of these methods, covering single-sequence, evolutionary-based, and hybrid models that blend machine learning with biophysics. A central theme is the field's "generalization crisis," where powerful models were found to fail on new RNA families, prompting a community-wide shift to stricter, homology-aware benchmarking. In response to the underlying challenge of data scarcity, RNA foundation models have emerged, learning from massive, unlabeled sequence corpora to improve generalization. Finally, we look ahead to the next set of major hurdles-including the accurate prediction of complex motifs like pseudoknots, scaling to kilobase-length transcripts, incorporating the chemical diversity of modified nucleotides, and shifting the prediction target from static structures to the dynamic ensembles that better capture biological function. We also highlight the need for a standardized, prospective benchmarking system to ensure unbiased validation and accelerate progress.
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PubblicazioneA study of Quot schemes on smooth curves(SISSA, 2026-03-25)We study the geometry and topology of Quot schemes on smooth projective curves. First, we give an explicit presentation of the rational cohomology ring of the Quot scheme parametrising torsion quotients on $\PP^1$. Next, we construct a stratification of the corresponding relative Quot scheme, which recovers several known results by specialisation. We also use this stratification to prove that the integral cohomology of the Quot scheme parametrising torsion quotients is torsion-free, thereby strengthening the first result. Finally, we study the cohomology of Schur complexes associated with tautological complexes on the Quot scheme parametrising positive rank quotients on $\PP^1$, and we construct exceptional collections in its derived category.
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PubblicazioneA conservative Mixed Finite Element Method for a Regularised Nonlinear Long-Wave Model( 2026)In this paper, we develop and analyze a mixed finite element method for a nonlinear, higher-order model describing nonlinear wave phenomena and exhibiting important conservation properties. A central goal of our approach is to ensure that these properties are preserved at the discrete level while avoiding the challenges typically encountered when constructing finite element subspaces of H2(Omega)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$H<^>2(\Omega )$$\end{document} as would be required in a standard continuous Galerkin framework. At the continuous level, we establish well-posedness and characterize the solution through energy laws and mass conservation. For the semi-discrete formulation, we derive error estimates in various B & ocirc;chner spaces. Furthermore, we establish that the implicit fully discrete scheme is well-posed, converges with optimal order and consistent with both mass conservation and an entropy dissipation law. Finally, we confirm the theoretical findings and conservation properties on a set of benchmark problems.
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PubblicazioneImmature olfactory sensory neurons are intrinsically excitable and show maturation-dependent changes in voltage-gated Na+ and K+ currents( 2026)Olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) detect odorants and send electrical signals to glomeruli in the olfactory bulb. Unlike most neurons, OSNs are continuously regenerated throughout life and immature neurons contribute to odorant-evoked responses in glomeruli. However, their intrinsic excitability properties are largely unknown. Here, we used acute slices of the olfactory epithelium from neonatal OMP-GFP mice to visually identify mature and immature OSNs and performed patch-clamp recordings to investigate their functional properties. Loose-patch recordings showed that immature OSNs display spontaneous firing at lower frequency than mature neurons. Whole-cell recordings showed that immature OSNs have more depolarized resting potentials, higher input resistance, fire only with phasic patterns, and generate slower action potentials with more depolarized thresholds. Instead, mature OSNs exhibited both phasic and tonic repetitive firing and faster spike kinetics. Voltage-clamp experiments showed that voltage-gated Na+ currents in immature OSNs were almost entirely TTX-sensitive, whereas mature OSNs had both TTX-sensitive and TTX-resistant components whose availability depends on membrane potential. Voltage-gated K+ currents also differed with maturation: immature OSNs lacked a transient component and had only a sustained K+ current, whereas mature OSNs displayed both a transient component and an increased sustained current. Analysis of single-cell transcriptomic data identified upregulation of some Na+ and K+ channel genes during OSN maturation, consistent with the functional changes. Together, these results provide insights into the intrinsic excitability of immature OSNs and show how intrinsic properties change as OSNs mature, providing a foundation for future studies on the role of immature OSNs in sensory processing.
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PubblicazioneBeyond night vision: the expanding role of rod photoreceptors in bright light( 2026)According to the standard view, most species including humans possess a “duplex retina”, with a rod system dedicated to low light (night) vision and a cone system dedicated to daylight vision. This separation of photon detection into a rod and cone regime is attributed to the low sensitivity of cones in dim light and saturation of rods in brighter light. However, mounting evidence gained from in vitro and in vivo studies in several species have demonstrated that specific mechanisms enable rod photoreceptors to significantly contribute to vision in bright and even very bright light. In this review we aim to elaborate on this revised framework for the duplex retina, and we propose rods should be considered to be tuned to “low contrast” rather than to “low ambient luminance”. Importantly, saturation of rod photoreceptors at higher light levels has been an assumption in research studies as well as clinical tests, and consideration of an updated role of rod photoreceptors may warrant reinterpretation of past and future results.