Infants born and living in an academic goitre area, who had biochemical signs of thyroid hypo-function at birth, had a lower intelligence quotient at the age of 7-8 years than matched controls living in the same environmental conditions but with normal thyroid function at birth. The present findings strongly suggest that abnormalities in thyroid function at birth, even when transient, can adversely affect long-term intellectual development.

Obesity may be an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease and contribute to a chronic state of systemic inflammation leading to atherosclerosis and metabolic abnormalities, such as diabetes, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and hypertension. Visceral fat, in fact, may act as an endocrine organ, synthesizing and releasing atherogenic inflammatory cytokines, whose circulating levels depend on the individual's nutritional state, and the extent and anatomical location of fat stores. Unsuspected viral infections might also be involved in enhancing autocrine/paracrine mechanisms of cytokine release from omental fat. Elevated levels of blood cytokines may interact with the neuroendocrine system, autonomic nerves and peripheral lymphatic organs. This may lead to local inflammatory reactions in many body compartments, in particular in the heart tissue, possibly affecting the process of circulatory recovery in obese subjects, and predisposing these patients to a greater risk of myocardial inflammatory disease than individuals with normal body mass index. Circulating levels of inflammatory cytokines might be considered to determine risk categories for development of cardiovascular complications in obese subjects. In addition, their reduction with pharmacological antagonists might prevent and/or control acute cardiovascular events and increase energy expenditure in obese patients, especially after surgical treatment, through reduction of cytokine inhibition of the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis.

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In this work a novel approach to realize an autonomous micro-robot is addressed. Full CMOS compatible silicon micro-machining process has been adopted to realize the mechanical parts of the system. An innovative phototbermo-mechanical actuation strategy together with silicon micro-machining technology 'are used for the realization of thermal micro-actuators which act as legs. The basic idea is to provide the actuation energy needed for the motion of the system through a light source and to improve the thermo-electro-mechanical efficiency by using an array of micro-lenses that concentrate the energy of the light beam on a small, region of the acmalors. Novel smart optical structures, based on Photonic Band Gap materials, realized by using several periods of suitable metal-dielectric couples must be selectively deposited over the micro-lenses in order to suitably address the motion of the legs.

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