Is infrastructure capital really productive? Non-parametric modeling and data-driven model selection in a cross-sectionally dependent panel framework

This paper provides a broad replication of Calderón et al. (2015). We address some complex and relevant issues, namely functional form, non-stationary variables and cross-sectional depen- dence. In particular, by adopting the CCE framework, we consider both parametric - static and dynamic - and non-parametric specifications, thus allowing for different degrees of flexibility. Contrary to Calderón et al. (2015), we find a lack of significance of the infrastructure index, with an estimated elasticity very close to zero for all estimates. Moreover, by employing the data-driven model selection procedure proposed by Gioldasis et al. (2021), it is found that non-parametric specifications provide the best predictive performance and that CCE models always overperform with respect to traditional panel data methods that employ cross-sectional demeaning to account for cross-sectional dependence

Hasta transformarlo todo Ciberactivismo en Instagram Estudio de casos

Trabajo Final para optar al grado académico de Licenciatura en Comunicación Social, Universidad Nacional de CórdobaEn el presente Trabajo Final de Grado, abordamos el tema de los ciberactivismos en la red social Instagram. Profundizamos en las configuraciones discursivas que expresan estas nuevas formas de activismo digital, en tanto que expresión política contemporánea. En la actualidad, las redes sociales resultan un espacio de expansión, crecimiento y circulación de nuevas prácticas comunicativas y discursivas de carácter político y este trabajo indaga en torno al despliegue del ciberactivismo en esta plataforma. Damos cuenta de ciertas particularidades que adquieren perfiles de instagramers que devienen sujetos políticos referentes de causas y movimientos emergentes. El trabajo recibe los aportes del pensamiento teórico de los Estudios Mediales y de las discusiones en torno a la tensión que surge en el entramado de ciberculturas, nuevas subjetividades y activismo político en época de redes sociales. Metodológicamente trabajamos a partir de una exploración y reconocimiento del campo y luego desde la perspectiva sociosemiótica, ya que mediante el análisis discursivo se indaga en torno a posibilidades enunciativas, consolidación de destinatarios y entidades, siendo los componentes de la hegemonía, una entrada central y operativa para dicho análisis. Las materias significantes abordadas pertenecen a las cuentas de @brenda.mato, @nutriloca y @sol_despeinada y refieren a causas tales como: body positive, veganismo-antiespecismo y feminismo. Dada la novedad del fenómeno analizado y los escasos antecedentes metodológicos de análisis discursivo en la red social Instagram, este abordaje resulta un desafío importante que permite la exploración de este espacio y momento del discurso social contemporáneo.Fil: Gómez, María Luz. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación; Argentina.Fil: Simioni, Lucía. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación; Argentina.Fil: Traktman, Noelia Andrea. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación; Argentina

Elderly patient: which vascular access? Choice and management of vascular access in the elderly patient:

The optimal vascular access for elderly patients remains a challenge due to the difficult balance between risks and benefits in a population with increased comorbidity and decreased survival. Long dependence to central vein catheter, patient comorbidities, life expectancy, and complication rates are important influencing the indications for arteriovenous fistula or an arteriovenous graft. Although central vein catheters are simpler way to start a hemodialysis treatment, elderly patients are also at higher risk of death from infection or other complications associated with them more than for younger patients. The discussion revolves around the following key questions: What are the limiting factors for a vascular access in the elderly patients? Central venous catheter—is it still an option for elderly patients? Is still the autologous arteriovenous fistula playing a pivotal role as hemodialysis access in the elderly patients? Are there any real surgical contraindication to perform a vascular access in elderly patients? Is the old age a limiting factor for the vascular access management

UMA ADVOGADA EXTRAORDINÁRIA: UMA ANÁLISE DO COMPORTAMENTO ALIMENTAR APLICADA AO TRANSTORNO DO ESPECTRO AUTISTA (TEA)

O transtorno do espectro autista, ou autismo, é um transtorno do neurodesenvolvimento influenciado por múltiplos fatores que contribuem para o quadro clínico de prejuízo na comunicação, interação social e padrões limitados e repetitivos que  ocorrem antes dos três anos de idade. Atitudes repetitivas podem se estender aos hábitos alimentares de autistas com deficiência sensorial, que podem limitar sua ingestão a determinados pratos, limitar a composição dos alimentos ou mesmo associar sua ingestão a determinados hábitos e compulsões alimentares. Esse trabalho tem como tema central a análise do comportamento alimentar aplicada ao transtorno do espectro autista reproduzido pelas telas de todas as casas e suas nuances entre ficção e realidade. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi analisar o comportamento alimentar no transtorno do espectro autista (TEA) em adultos e suas relações apresentadas no seriado televisivo. Trata-se de um estudo com uma proposta exploratória e interpretativa da sétima arte, com embasamento no referencial teórico. É uma análise descritiva da personagem da série que apresenta transtornos alimentares. Foi escolhida uma amostra de conveniência composta pela seguinte série: Uma Advogada Extraordinária. A série Uma Advogada Extraordinária relata o drama da vida de Woo Young Woo, uma mulher de 27 anos diagnosticada com transtorno do espectro autista (TEA). Os resultados apontam que as dificuldades de processamento sensorial incluem sensibilidade excessiva ou insuficiente a estímulos sensoriais ambientais (olfato, paladar, visão, audição e tato). Indivíduos autistas geralmente apresentam deficiência sensorial que pode se manifestar na alimentação. Comer e se nutrir é particularmente difícil para esses sujeitos e seus cuidadores. Embora não se deva descartar os fatores biológicos, psicológicos e familiares. A personagem central da série citada, com transtornos alimentares, apresenta baixa autoestima e a necessidade de ser aprovada pela sociedade. Pode se concluir, a partir da análise dos transtornos alimentares e da observação da personagem representada nos episódios, que a arte imita a vida. No entanto, é sempre importante levantar temas importantes e convencionais da vida privada nas discussões científicas e midiáticas. Esta série traz uma boa reflexão sobre relacionamentos amorosos, a inteligência, a tentativa de ser aceita. Observou-se que a ficção se assemelha à realidade, presente nesses indivíduos que possuem transtornos alimentares, mostrando cada vez mais as consequências decorrentes do transtorno e como isso os prejudica. A ficção cada vez mais aborda esses temas sem romantizá-los, a fim de trazer à tona essa discussão tão importante para a sociedade

Fibrinolysis in Dogs with Intracavitary Effusion: A Review

Physiologic fibrinolysis is a localized process in which stable fibrin strands are broken down by plasmin in response to thrombosis. Plasmin activation can also take place separately from the coagulation process, resulting in pathologic fibrinolysis. When plasmin activation exceeds the neutralizing capacity of plasmin inhibitors, severe bleeding can potentially take place. Although the processes which regulate coagulation and fibrinolysis in the blood are well known, it is less clear as to what extent the same processes take place in the body cavities and whether they influence systemic hemostasis. The results of the studies herein cited demonstrate that coagulation followed by fibrinogenolytic/fibrinolytic activity takes place in all kinds of canine ascitic and pleural fluids. Moreover, systemic clotting abnormalities suggesting primary fibrinolysis/primary hyperfibrinolysis (i.e., elevated plasma fibrin/fibrinogen degradation products [FDPs] and normal D-dimer concentrations with fibrinogen concentrations ≤ 100 mg/dL or above this cut-off, respectively) occur in dogs with intracavitary effusion. Enhanced fibrinolytic activity in dogs with intracavitary effusion can also be detected using rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM), although the degree of agreement between ROTEM and FDPs, D-dimer and fibrinogen concentrations is poor. Finally, contrary to the thrombotic events commonly documented in some humans and cats with cardiac diseases, bleeding tendencies due to primary fibrinolysis/primary hyperfibrinolysis have been documented in dogs with cardiogenic ascites

The Test Planning for the SIMBIO-SYS Near Earth Commissioning Phase

In this document we describe all the tests to be performed during the Near Earth Commissioning Phase (NECP) for the Spectrometers and Imagers for MPO BepiColombo Integrated Observatory SYStem (SIMBIO-SYS)

MICADO Italian Contribution

Citato dalla notizia media inaf https://www.media.inaf.it/2020/01/21/micado-elt/The Webpages of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) contribution to the MICADO project for the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). The Webpages serve as white pages for easy access to information relative to the MICADO and in particular to the Point Spread Function (PSF) reconstruction working group

BRUTE, PSF Reconstruction for the SOUL pyramid-based Single Conjugate Adaptive Optics facility of the LBT

The astronomical applications greatly benefit from the knowledge of the instrument PSF. We describe the PSF Reconstruction algorithm developed for the LBT LUCI instrument assisted by the SOUL SCAO module. The reconstruction procedure considers only synchronous wavefront sensor telemetry data and a few asynchronous calibrations. We do not compute the Optical Transfer Function and corresponding filters. We compute instead a temporal series of wavefront maps and for each of these the corresponding instantaneous PSF. We tested the algorithm both in laboratory arrangement and in the nighttime for different SOUL configurations, adapting it to the guide star magnitudes and seeing conditions. We nick-named it "BRUTE", Blind Reconstruction Using TElemetry, also recalling the one-to-one approach, one slope-to one instantaneous PSF the algorithm applies.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, Proceeding of the SPIE Conference 12185, Adaptive Optics Systems VIII, 1218540 (29 August 2022

A-central model for the geometric calibration of hyper-hemispherical lenses

Hyper-hemispherical lenses are optical objective lenses with an ultra-wide field of view. Due to their extreme field of view, the geometric calibration introduces several setup difficulties. Various methods have been developed for simplifying the geometric calibration of a camera in the close-range field by defining intrinsic and extrinsic calibration parameters in a limited ambience of a clean room and taking advantage of simple calibration chessboards. A well-known example in this regard is Zhang’s approach for pinhole cameras. A similar approach was pursued by Scaramuzza to model more extensive cameras that include fisheye and panoramic lenses. However, despite this toolbox’s efficiency, it is ineffectual in the case of a hyper-hemispherical lens because of model limitations in the approximation of the corresponding projection system. In this study, we define and validate what we believe to be a novel a-central model extension (AME) for the description of hyper-hemispherical lenses that is able to overcome these limitations and to describe more accurately the physical behavior introduced by the design of these lenses. For this apparently new a-central model, we obtain significantly improved calibration results for one of the cameras designed in our laboratory and planned to become a planetary payload of an ESA mission

LBT SOUL data as a science test bench for MICADO PSF-R tool

Current state-of-the-art adaptive optics (AO) provides ground-based, diffraction-limited observations with high Strehl ratios (SR). However, a detailed knowledge of the point spread function (PSF) is required to fully exploit the scientific potential of these data. This is even more crucial for the next generation AO instruments that will equip 30-meter class telescopes, as the characterization of the PSF will be mandatory to fulfill the planned scientific requirements. For this reason, there is a growing interest in developing tools that accurately reconstruct the observed PSF of AO systems, the so-called PSF reconstruction. In this context, a PSF-R service is a planned deliverable for the MICADO@ELT instrument and our group is in charge of its development. In the case of MICADO, a blind PSF-R approach is being pursued to have the widest applicability to science cases. This means that the PSF is reconstructed without extracting information from the science data, relying only on telemetry and calibrations. While our PSF-R algorithm is currently being developed, its implementation is mature enough to test performances with actual observations. In this presentation we will discuss the reliability of our reconstructed PSFs and the uncertainties introduced in the measurements of scientific quantities for bright, on-axis observations taken with the SOUL+LUCI instrument of the LBT. This is the first application of our algorithm to real data. It demonstrates its readiness level and paves the way to further testing. Our PSF-R algorithm is able to reconstruct the SR and full-width at half maximum of the observed PSFs with errors smaller than 2% and 4.5%, respectively. We carried out the scientific evaluation of the obtained reconstructed PSFs thanks to a dedicated set of simulated observations of an ideal science case.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. Proceeding of the SPIE conference Adaptive Optics Systems VIII, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022 (paper 12185-12). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2209.0156