Incumbent effects and partisan alignment in local elections : a regression discontinuity analysis using Italian data

This paper provides a simple model to explain effect of political alignment between different tiers of government on policy choices and election outcomes. We derive precise predictions that, as long as voters attribute most of the credit for providing public goods to the local government: (i) aligned municipalities receive more grants, set lower taxes and provide more public goods, (ii) that the probability that the local incumbent is re-elected is higher in aligned municipalities compared to not aligned ones. Our empirical strategy to identify the alignment effects is built upon the fact that being or not aligned changes discontinuously at 50% of the vote share of local parties. This allows us to use sharp regression discontinuity design. Our theoretical predictions are largely confirmed using a new dataset on Italian public finance and electoral data at the central and local level

Local government areas that are controlled by the same party as national governments receive larger grants and have lower taxes.

What are the implications if parties that control local municipalities are the same as those that are in government nationally? Using data from Italy, Emanuele Bracco, Francesco Porcelli and Michela Redoano find that municipalities which are politically aligned with central government get more in government grants, and have lower taxes on average. Their mayors also have a better chance of re-election

Discontinuity Detection by Null Rules for Adaptive Surface Reconstruction

We present a discontinuity detection method based on the so-called null rules, computed as a vector in the null space of certain collocation matrices. These rules are used as weights in a linear combination of function evaluations to indicate the local behavior of the function itself. By analyzing the asymptotic properties of the rules, we introduce two indicators (one for discontinuities of the function and one for discontinuities of its gradient) by locally computing just one rule. This leads to an efficient and reliable scheme, which allows us to effectively detect and classify points close to discontinuities. We then show how this information can be suitably combined with adaptive approximation methods based on hierarchical spline spaces in the reconstruction process of surfaces with discontinuities. The considered adaptive methods exploit the ability of the hierarchical spaces to be locally refined, and fault detection is a natural way to guide the refinement with low computational cost. A selection of test cases is presented to show the effectiveness of our approach

Phenotypic plasticity of two invasive alien plant species inside a deciduous forest in a strict nature reserve in Italy

ABSTRACTInvasive alien plant species (IAPs) represent one of the main biological threats to biodiversity worldwide. Information about their phenotypic plasticity are needed to increase awareness ab..

External Electron Injection for the AWAKE Experiment

We summarize and explain the realization of witness particle injection into wakefields for the AWAKE experiment. In AWAKE, the plasma wakefields are driven by a self-modulating relativistic proton bunch. To demonstrate that these wakefields can accelerate charged particles, we inject a \unit[10-20]{MeV} electron bunch produced by a photo-injector. We summarize the experimental challenges of this injection process and present our plans for the near future.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Mooring System Design and Analysis for a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine in Pantelleria

The mooring system plays a key role in a floating offshore wind turbine: it connects the floating structure to its anchor on the seabed and it is designed to prevent the platform from drifting under the action of wind, waves and currents. The layout of the mooring system is strictly connected to the installation site: in the first place it depends on the bathymetry and the type of seabed which conditions the type of anchor that can be used; secondly by the wind and waves loads in extreme sea states. To properly design the mooring system, three different configurations are proposed and discussed, respectively adapting catenary, taut leg and semi-taut methodologies for a floating offshore wind turbine located near the island of Pantelleria, in Sicily. For each configuration, the Hexafloat foundation, developed by Saipem, is considered. Important design constraints such as how large the nominal sizes are, how long the mooring lines are, how far the anchor points are located, are demonstrated in detail. The material used will range from steel chains and wires to polyester ropes, to grant economically viable solutions

Constraints on the symmetry energy and on neutron skins from the pygmy resonances in 68Ni and 132Sn

Correlations between the behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy, the neutron skins, and the percentage of energy-weighted sum rule (EWSR) exhausted by the Pygmy Dipole Resonance (PDR) in 68Ni and 132Sn have been investigated by using different Random Phase Approximation (RPA) models for the dipole response, based on a representative set of Skyrme effective forces plus meson-exchange effective Lagrangians. A comparison with the experimental data has allowed us to constrain the value of the derivative of the symmetry energy at saturation. The neutron skin radius is deduced under this constraint.Comment: Accepted for publication in PRC Rapid Comminicatio

A New Approach for Human Factor Integration into Ship Design Process

Ship safety and operations are driving issues of ship design and it is well recognized that such performances are strongly related to Human Factor (HF). In the paper a methodology to integrate HF into the ship design process since an early stage is envisaged, with the aim to improve the overall ship resilience when dealing with uncertainty of performance implied by HF element. The System-Theoretic Accident Model Process (STAMP, Leveson 2003) is investigated as a suitable methodology able to provide a significant asset in such perspective. The approach is widely applied in many industrial and transportation fields but in order to better understand its application into the marine context, a specific application will be briefly commented. In the attempt to define a comprehensive procedure, as a preliminary overview, some selected models suitable to classify the human behavior will be considered with specific focus on the reasons for performance degrade and/or uncertainty