Risk Perception and COVID-19 During Lockdown: Evidence from an Italian Sample

This paper investigates how a specific extraordinary event such as the COVID-19 pandemic is perceived among individuals. Upsetting the taken-for-granted practices of people’s everyday life, the pandemic caused negative emotional responses, mainly the feeling of concern about its aftermath on health and social and economic aspects. However, these responses are not equally spread among social groups. Some of them are more associated with states of panic and anxiety, according to their socially defined and transmitted roles and identities. This paper focuses on a specific element of the perception of the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e. risk, based on a survey conducted in Italy (N = 1,704) during the last three weeks of lockdown (26th of April 2020 – 17th of May 2020). The analyses aim to detect patterns in socio-demographic variables in COVID-19 risk perception in the Italian population during lockdown, also accounting for their variation over time. In fact, the analyses suggest that approaching and being aware of the loosening of lockdown measures (18th of May 2020) may have decreased the perceived risk. Results prove consistent with findings from previous research

Team-Maxmin Equilibrium: Efficiency Bounds and Algorithms

The Team-maxmin equilibrium prescribes the optimal strategies for a team of rational players sharing the same goal and without the capability of correlating their strategies in strategic games against an adversary. This solution concept can capture situations in which an agent controls multiple resources-corresponding to the team members-that cannot communicate. It is known that such equilibrium always exists and it is unique (unless degeneracy) and these properties make it a credible solution concept to be used in real-world applications, especially in security scenarios. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, the Team-maxmin equilibrium is almost completely unexplored in the literature. In this paper, we investigate bounds of (in)efficiency of the Team-maxmin equilibrium w.r.t. the Nash equilibria and w.r.t. the Maxmin equilibrium when the team members can play correlated strategies. Furthermore, we study a number of algorithms to find and/or approximate an equilibrium, discussing their theoretical guarantees and evaluating their performance by using a standard testbed of game instances

From Knockouts to Networks: Establishing Direct Cause-Effect Relationships through Graph Analysis

Background: Reverse-engineering gene networks from expression profiles is a difficult problem for which a multitude of techniques have been developed over the last decade. The yearly organized DREAM challenges allow for a fair evaluation and unbiased comparison of these methods. Results: We propose an inference algorithm that combines confidence matrices, computed as the standard scores from single-gene knockout data, with the down-ranking of feed-forward edges. Substantial improvements on the predictions can be obtained after the execution of this second step. Conclusions: Our algorithm was awarded the best overall performance at the DREAM4 In Silico 100-gene network subchallenge, proving to be effective in inferring medium-size gene regulatory networks. This success demonstrates once again the decisive importance of gene expression data obtained after systematic gene perturbations and highlights the usefulness of graph analysis to increase the reliability of inference

Cardiovascular abnormalities and impaired exercise performance in adolescents with congenital adrenal hyperplasia

Context: Patients with classic Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) are treated with lifelong glucocorticoids (GCS). Cardiovascular (CV) and metabolic effects of such therapy in adolescents have never been quantified. Objective: To investigate left ventricular (LV) morphology, function and exercise performance in adolescents with CAH. Design and Setting: cross-sectional and controlled study conducted at a tertiary referral centre. Patients: Twenty patients with classic CAH (10 females) aged 13.6±2.5 years and 20 healthy controls comparable for sex and pubertal status were enrolled in the study and compared to a group of 18 patients without CAH receiving a similar dose of GCS for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). Main Outcomes Measures: Echocardiographic assessment and symptom-limited exercise testing were performed. Anthropometric, hormonal and biochemical parameters were also measured. Results: Compared to healthy controls, patients with CAH exhibited an increased BMI (p<0.001), waist-to-height ratio (p<0.001), percentage of body fat (p<0.001) as well as higher insulin concentrations and HOMA index even after adjustment for BMI (p=0.03 and p=0.05, respectively). Moreover, CAH patients exhibited an impaired exercise capacity as shown by reduced peak workload (99±27 vs 126±27 W, p<0.01) and higher systolic blood pressure response at peak (156±18 vs 132±11 mmHg, p<0.01; Δ=45±24 vs 22±10 mmHg, p=0.05) with respect to healthy controls. CAH males displayed mild LV diastolic dysfunction as documented by significant prolongation of both isovolumic relaxation time (IRT) (118±18 vs 98±11ms, p<0.05) and mitral deceleration time (MDT) (138±25 vs 111±15 ms, p<0.01). No significant differences in CV function were found between CAH and JIA patients. Conclusion: Adolescents with CAH exhibit impaired exercise performance and enhanced systolic blood pressure response during exercise. In our population, such abnormalities appear related to GCS therapy rather than CAH per se. CAH males, but no females, present mild LV diastolic dysfunction that correlates with testosterone concentrations suggesting a sex hormone related difference

Spatially resolved refractive index profiles of electrically switchable computer-generated holographic gratings

We describe a spatially resolved interferometric technique combined with a phase reconstruction method that provides a quantitative two-dimensional profile of the refractive index and spatial distribution of the optical contrast between the on-off states of electrically switchable diffraction gratings as a function of the external electric field. The studied structures are holographic gratings optically written into polymer/liquid crystal composites through single-beam spatial light modulation by means of computer-generated holograms. The electro-optical response of the gratings is also discussed. The diffraction efficiency results to be dependent on the incident light polarization suggesting the possibility to develop polarization dependent switching devices