Digital Transformation in IT Consulting

Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceAs IT Consulting market revenue increases year after year, more and more digital transformation projects are being sold. Yet, the deep change IT consultants sell to their clients in this type of projects, which translates into the digitalisation of practices accompanied by a change in mentalities, is not usually the reality that we find in their same consultancy firms. For Creative Management, the company that hosted the internship, the problem recurs: there is a general desire of evolving into a digital company, with some disconnected digital tools already implemented but without planning or coordination. Literature shows that a Digital Transformations requires several premises to develop into a successful project such as the definition of a plan, the knowledge and support of leaders, investment, etc. My project, within the internship, aimed to address Digital Transformation at Creative Management by coordinating an internal digital strategy that materialized in new technological tools. The key takeaway is the fact that an IT Consulting firm is probably better prepared for this type of change than non-IT consultancies

Gulf of Naples Advanced Model (GNAM): A Multiannual Comparison with Coastal HF Radar Data and Hydrological Measurements in a Coastal Tyrrhenian Basin

High-resolution modelling systems have increasingly become an essential requirement to investigate ocean dynamics over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, and to integrate the punctual ocean observations. When applied in coastal areas, they also have the potential to provide a detailed representation of transport and exchange processes at the sub-basin scale. This paper presents a validation exercise between the surface fields generated by the regional ocean modeling system (ROMS), developed for the Tyrrhenian Sea and downscaled for the Gulf of Naples (GNAM Gulf of Naples advanced model), and a 4 year-long (2009–2012) record of high-frequency radar (HFR) data. The comparison between hourly and seasonal model results and HFR surface fields is focused on the Gulf of Naples (GoN), where an observational network of three HFR sites has been operational since 2004, and on a specific subdomain characterized by the presence of the Sarno river, a long-term ecological research station (LTER-MC) and one important canyon area. An evaluation on a transect delimiting inshore–offshore zones in the GoN is also presented. The GNAM model was also compared with in situ hydrological parameters of temperatures and salinities retrieved at the LTER-MC fixed monitoring station. According to the skill metrics, basic circulation features are accurately reproduced by the circulation model, despite some model drawbacks in terms of increment of energy content in the surface current field occurring during specific seasonal events. The results allow us to identify potential model errors and to suggest useful improvements, the outcome also confirms the unique capability of HF radar systems to provide fine-scale measurements for the validation of numerical models and to counterbalance the lack of high-resolution measurements in coastal areas. © 2022 by the authors

A Multi-Wavelength Study of the Nature of Type 1.8/1.9 Seyfert Galaxies

We focus on determining the underlying physical cause of a Seyfert galaxy's appearance as type a 1.8 or 1.9. Are these "intermediate" Seyfert types typical Seyfert 1 nuclei with reddened broad-line regions? Or are they objects with intrinsically weak continua and broad emission lines? We compare measurements of the optical reddening of the narrow and broad-line regions with each other and with the X-ray column derived from XMM-Newton 0.5-10 keV spectra to determine the presence and location of dust in the line of sight. We also searched the literature to see if the objects showed evidence for broad-line variability, and determined if the changes were consistent with a change in reddening or a change in the intrinsic ionizing continuum flux. We find that 10 of 19 objects previously classified as Seyfert 1.8/1.9s received this designation due to their low continuum flux. In four objects the classification was due to BLR reddening, either by the torus or dust structures in the vicinity of the NLR; in the remaining five objects there is not sufficient evidence to favor one scenario over the other. These findings imply that, in general, samples of 1.8/1.9s are not suitable for use in studies of the gas and dust in the central torus.Comment: 85 pages, accepted by Ap

Optical Monitoring of 3C 390.3 from 1995 to 2004 and Possible Periodicities in the Historical Light Curve

We report V, R, and I band CCD photometry of the radio galaxy 3C 390.3 obtained with the 1.56-m telescope of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory from March 1995 to August 2004. Combining these data with data from the literature, we have constructed a historical light curve from 1894 to 2004 and searched for periodicities using the CLEANest program. We find possible periods of 8.30+-1.17, 5.37+-0.49, 3.51+-0.21, and 2.13+-0.08 years.Comment: Accepted by AJ, 34 pages, 11 figure

Discovery of multiple Lorentzian components in the X-ray timing properties of the Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Ark 564

We present a power spectral analysis of a 100 ksec XMM-Newton observation of the narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxy Ark~564. When combined with earlier RXTE and ASCA observations, these data produce a power spectrum covering seven decades of frequency which is well described by a power law with two very clear breaks. This shape is unlike the power spectra of almost all other AGN observed so far, which have only one detected break, and resemble Galactic binary systems in a soft state. The power spectrum can also be well described by the sum of two Lorentzian-shaped components, the one at higher frequencies having a hard spectrum, similar to those seen in Galactic binary systems. Previously we have demonstrated that the lag of the hard band variations relative to the soft band in Ark 564 is dependent on variability time-scale, as seen in Galactic binary sources. Here we show that the time-scale dependence of the lags can be described well using the same two-Lorentzian model which describes the power spectrum, assuming that each Lorentzian component has a distinct time lag. Thus all X-ray timing evidence points strongly to two discrete, localised, regions as the origin of most of the variability. Similar behaviour is seen in Galactic X-ray binary systems in most states other than the soft state, i.e. in the low-hard and intermediate/very high states. Given the very high accretion rate of Ark 564 the closest analogy is with the very high (intermediate) state rather than the low-hard state. We therefore strengthen the comparison between AGN and Galactic binary sources beyond previous studies by extending it to the previously poorly studied very high accretion rate regime.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on utilisation of community-based mental health care in North-East of Italy: A psychiatric case register study

Aims: WHO declared that mental health care should be considered one essential health service to be maintained during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study aims to describe the effect of lockdown and restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy on mental health services' utilisation, by considering psychiatric diagnoses and type of mental health contacts. Methods: The study was conducted in the Verona catchment area, located in the Veneto region (northeastern Italy). For each patient, mental health contacts were grouped into: (1) outpatient care, (2) social and supportive interventions, (3) rehabilitation interventions, (4) multi-professional assessments, (5) day care. A 'difference in differences' approach was used: difference in the number of contacts between 2019 and 2020 on the weeks of lockdown and intermediate restrictions was compared with the same difference in weeks of no or reduced restrictions, and such difference was interpreted as the effect of restrictions. Both a global regression on all contacts and separate regressions for each type of service were performed and Incidence Rate Ratios (IRRs) were calculated. Results: In 2020, a significant reduction in the number of patients who had mental health contacts was found, both overall and for most of the patients' characteristics considered (except for people aged 18-24 years for foreign-born population and for those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Moreover, in 2020 mental health contacts had a reduction of 57 096 (-33.9%) with respect to 2019; such difference remained significant across the various type of contacts considered, with rehabilitation interventions and day care showing the greatest reduction. Negative Binomial regressions displayed a statistically significant effect of lockdown, but not of intermediate restrictions, in terms of reduction in the number of contacts. The lockdown period was responsible of a 32.7% reduction (IRR 0.673; p-value <0.001) in the overall number of contacts. All type of mental health contacts showed a reduction ascribable to the lockdown, except social and supportive interventions. Conclusions: Despite the access to community mental health care during the pandemic was overall reduced, the mental health system in the Verona catchment area was able to maintain support for more vulnerable and severely ill patients, by providing continuity of care and day-by-day support through social and supportive interventions

Frying Doughnuts: What can the reprocessing of X-rays to IR tell us about the AGN environment?

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) produce vast amounts of high energy radiation deep in their central engines. X-rays either escape the AGN or are absorbed and re-emitted mostly as IR. By studying the dispersion in the ratio of observed mid-IR luminosity to observed 2-10keV X-ray luminosity (R_{ir/x}) in AGN we can investigate the reprocessing material (possibly a torus or donut of dust) in the AGN central engine, independent of model assumptions. We studied the ratio of observed mid-IR and 2-10keV X-ray luminosities in a heterogeneous sample of 245 AGN from the literature. We found that when we removed AGN with prominent jets, ~90% of Type I AGN lay within a very tight dispersion in luminosity ratio (1<R_{ir/x}<30). This implies that the AGN central engine is extremely uniform and models of the physical AGN environment (e.g. cloud cover, turbulent disk, opening angle of absorbing structures such as dusty tori) must span a very narrow range of parameters. We also found that the far-IR(100um) to mid-IR (12um) observed luminosity ratio is an effective descriminator between heavily obscured AGN and relatively unobscured AGN.Comment: 12 pages, MNRAS accepte

On the cosmic evolution of the scaling relations between black holes and their host galaxies: Broad Line AGN in the zCOSMOS survey

(Abriged) We report on the measurement of the rest frame K-band luminosity and total stellar mass of the hosts of 89 broad line Active Galactic Nuclei detected in the zCOSMOS survey in the redshift range 1<z<2.2. The unprecedented multiwavelength coverage of the survey field allows us to disentangle the emission of the host galaxy from that of the nuclear black hole in their Spectral Energy Distributions. We derive an estimate of black hole masses through the analysis of the broad Mg II emission lines observed in the medium-resolution spectra taken with VIMOS/VLT as part of the zCOSMOS project. We found that, as compared to the local value, the average black hole to host galaxy mass ratio appears to evolve positively with redshift, with a best fit evolution of the form (1+z)^{0.68 \pm0.12 +0.6 -0.3}, where the large asymmetric systematic errors stem from the uncertainties in the choice of IMF, in the calibration of the virial relation used to estimate BH masses and in the mean QSO SED adopted. A thorough analysis of observational biases induced by intrinsic scatter in the scaling relations reinforces the conclusion that an evolution of the MBH-M* relation must ensue for actively growing black holes at early times: either its overall normalization, or its intrinsic scatter (or both) appear to increase with redshift. This can be interpreted as signature of either a more rapid growth of supermassive black holes at high redshift, a change of structural properties of AGN hosts at earlier times, or a significant mismatch between the typical growth times of nuclear black holes and host galaxies.Comment: 47 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Opposing effects of D-aspartic acid and nitric oxide on tuning of testosterone production in mallard testis during the reproductive cycle

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>D-Aspartic acid (D-Asp) and nitric oxide (NO) play an important role in tuning testosterone production in the gonads of male vertebrates. In particular, D-Asp promotes either the synthesis or the release of testosterone, whereas NO inhibits it. In this study, we have investigated for the first time in birds the putative effects of D-Asp and NO on testicular testosterone production in relation to two phases of the reproductive cycle of the adult captive wild-strain mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) drake. It is a typical seasonal breeder and its cycle consists of a short reproductive period (RP) in the spring (April-May) and a non reproductive period (NRP) in the summer (July), a time when the gonads are quiescent. The presence and the localization of D-Asp and NO in the testis and the trends of D-Asp, NO and testosterone levels were assessed during the main phases of the bird's reproductive cycle. Furthermore, in vitro experiments revealed the direct effect of exogenously administered D-Asp and NO on testosterone steroidogenesis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>By using immunohistochemical (IHC) techniques, we studied the presence and the distributional pattern of D-Asp and NO in the testes of RP and NRP drakes. D-Asp levels were evaluated by an enzymatic method, whereas NO content, via nitrite, was assessed using biochemical measurements. Finally, immunoenzymatic techniques determined testicular testosterone levels.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>IHC analyses revealed the presence of D-Asp and NO in Leydig cells. The distributional pattern of both molecules was in some way correlated to the steroidogenic pathway, which is involved in autocrine testosterone production. Indeed, whereas NO was present only during the NRP, D-Asp was almost exclusively present during the RP. Consistently, the high testosterone testicular content occurring during RP was coupled to a high D-Asp level and a low NO content in the gonad. By contrast, in sexually inactive drakes (NRP), the low testosterone content in the gonad was coupled to a low D-Asp content and to a relatively high NO level. Consequently, to determine the exogenous effects of the two amino acids on testosterone synthesis, we carried out in vitro experiments using testis sections deriving from both the RP and NRP. When testis slices were incubated for 60 or 120 min with D-Asp, testosterone was enhanced, whereas in the presence of L-Arg, a precursor of NO, it was inhibited.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results provide new insights into the involvement of D-Asp and NO in testicular testosterone production in the adult captive wild-strain mallard drake. The localization of these two molecules in the Leydig cells in different periods of the reproductive cycle demonstrates that they play a potential role in regulating local testosterone production.</p