A composite indicator via hierarchical disjoint factor analysis for measuring the Italian football teams’ performances

In the last years, with the data revolution and the use of new technologies, phenomena are frequently described by a huge quantity of information useful for making strategical decisions. In the current ”big data” era, the interest of statistics into sports is increasing over the years, sportive and economic data are collected for all teams which use statistical analysis in order to improve their performances. For dealing with all this amount of information, an appropriate statistical analysis is needed. A priority is having statistical tools useful to synthesise the information arised from the data. Such tools are represented by composite indicators, that is, non-observable latent variables and linear combination of observed variables. The strategy of construction of a composite indicator used in this paper is based on a non-negative disjoint and hierarchical model for a set of quantitative variables. This is a factor model with a hierarchical struc- ture formed by factors associated to subsets of manifest variables with positive loadings. In this paper, a composite indicator for measuring the Italian football teams’ performances, in terms of sportive and economic variables, is proposed

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Coaching at work - a method of facilitating self-directed learning or controlling it?

Work place coaching can no longer be considered a passing management fad. It is now a common method for senior leader development within public, private and third sector organisations and responsible for a significant proportion of the training and development budgetary spend (Jarvis, Lane, & Fillery-Travis, 2006). It has moved from being the rescue-remedy for the poorly performing executive to being an accepted part of the learning & development strategy with an increasing emphasis on moving away from delivery by external coaches to developing coaching cultures where coaching is considered an appropriate leadership and managerial style (McComb, 2012; Megginson & Clutterbuck, 2005). This investment has led to a focus proving efficacy through outcomes research and there is now the development of a significant evidence base concentrating upon impact and return on investment (Fillery-Travis & Passmore, 2011). It has proven efficacy as a vehicle for embedding learning across all employee levels and as a method of team development (Brockbank & McGill, 2006). In sectors such as education, health and manufacturing over 70% of organisations are using it as a main development tool for their employees (CIPD, 2008). The model of coaching used, its delivery, scope and duration differs according to the overt identified purpose of the intervention. The practice of coaching encompasses the relative linear process of skills development to the complexity of developmental coaching (Passmore, 2007) where the coachee can explore their concept of self, identity and practice within the workplace through improvement in the ‘quality of their perception of the work environment’, their awareness of their own conditioning and self-deception and how they synthesise their various models of self (Bachkirova, 2011). In this paper we uncover and explore some of the assumptions implicit in the use of coaching within organisations. Most coaches would identify much of their role to be the facilitation of the critical reflection by the coachee on what they are seeking from their work role in terms of achievement, impact and professional development. Specifically this form of coaching is driven by the coachee’s own agenda for learning and the organisation’s role is simply that of the containing environment. The coaching literature is currently grappling with two distinct voices on this issue – one from the business coaches closely aligned to a ‘managerialist’ perspective where impacts upon performance are the only criteria for effectiveness of the learning achieved (Dagley, 2006) and the second from executive coaches who see themselves as holding a difficult balance between the personal agenda of the coachee and the implicit/explicit agendas of the sponsoring organisation. Using a critical review of the literature and offering a short vignette from practice we explore how holding this tension can result in implicit compromises in the learning agreement between coaches, clients and stakeholders. Often these compromises inhibit challenge to organisational norms that is the hallmark of deeper learning. We shall offer an example of where holding and exploring the tension between individual and organisational requirements can result in a more generative resolution where new knowledge and practice might emerge

Supersymmetry without a light Higgs boson at the LHC

We analyze the LHC phenomenology of lambdaSUSY - a version of NMSSM with a largish SH1H2 coupling. The scalar spectrum of the model contains a 200-300 GeV Higgs boson h with Standard-Model like properties, and heavy CP-even and CP-odd Higgs bosons H and A with masses in 500-800 GeV range. We study the discovery potential of H and A in the decay chains H->hh->4V->2l6j and A->Zh->Z2V->2l4j. The dominant backgrounds are the diffuse Z6j and Z4j productions, which can be suppressed by demanding reconstruction of V's and h's in intermediate states. The excess of signal events allows for a discovery of both H and A with over 5sigma significance for 100 inverse fb of integrated luminosity.Comment: 29 pages, 19 figure

Lingual development of dysplastic and neoplastic lesions in laboratory animals

Los modelos experimentales juegan un papel importante en las ciencias biomédicas en la elucidación de la patogénesis de diferentes trastornos que afectan a los organismos vivos, incluyendo los seres humanos y también son útiles para: el estudio de la base molecular involucrada en cualquier enfermedad, en el desarrollo de marcadores de diagnóstico y en la evaluación de la eficacia y la seguridad de las diferentes opciones de tratamiento, incluyendo terapias farmacológicas potenciales. Para conseguir el desarrollo y progresión de las lesiones neoplásicas orales se necesita la presencia de factores generales y aquellos que son específicos para el medio oral, lo que lleva, en consecuencia, a este proyecto cuyo objetivo principal es el desarrollo de un modelo experimental de cáncer oral en ratas. Materiales y métodos: se utilizó 4- (4-nitroquinolina-1-óxido) para inducir tumores en la mucosa oral en ratas de acuerdo con protocolos previamente establecidos. Resultados: Las primeras lesiones clínicamente sospechosas se desarrollaron en los 3 meses de iniciado el experimento. Los tejidos fueron removidos en dos etapas y las muestras fijadas, procesadas y examinadas por microscopía de luz. Las muestras mostraron patrones consistentes con displasia intraepitelial y con carcinoma de células adminisescamosas. Se espera que este desarrollo de modelo experimental sirva como base para futuros estudios sobre mecanismos y comportamientos biológicos de los tejidos orales, así como modelo de aplicación terapéutica.Experimental models play an important role in biomedical sciences in elucidating the pathogenesis of different disorders that affect living organisms, including humans, and are also useful for: studying the molecular basis involved in any disease, in development of diagnostic markers and in evaluating the efficacy and safety of different treatment options, including potential drug therapies. There are general factors and those that are specific to the oral environment, leading to the development and progression of neoplastic lesions of the oral cavity, accordingly, make this project whose main objective is to develop an experimental model of oral cancer in rats. Materials and methods: we used 4-(4-nitroquinoline- 1-oxide) to induce tumors in the oral mucosa in rats according to previously established protocols. Results: The first clinically suspicious lesions developed at 3 months into the experiment, the tissue was removed and fixed samples, processed and examined by light microscopy. The samples showed patterns consistent with intraepithelial dysplasia and squamous cell carcinoma. It hopes to develop an experimental model as a basis for further study of basic and clinical application.Fil: Zavala, Walther David. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de OdontologíaFil: Cavicchia, Juan Carlos. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Odontologí

A composite indicator for the waste management in the EU via Hierarchical Disjoint Non-Negative Factor Analysis

In the last years, the quantity of information and statistics about waste management are more and more consistent but so far, few studies are available in this field. The goal of this paper is of producing a model-based Composite Indicator of "good" Waste Management, in order to provide a useful tool of support for EU countries' policy-makers and institutions. Composite Indicators (CIs), usually, are multidimensional concepts with a hierarchical structure characterized by the presence of a set of specific dimensions, each one corresponding to a subsets of manifest variables. Thus, we propose a CI for Waste Management in Europe by using a hierarchical model-based approach with positive loadings. This approach guarantees to comply with all the good properties on which a composite indicator should be based and to detect the main dimensions (i.e., aspects) of the Waste Management phenomenon. In other terms, this paper provides a hierarchically aggregated index that best describes the Waste Management in EU with its main features by identifying the most important high order (i.e., hierarchical) relationships among subsets of manifest variables. All the parameters are estimated according to the maximum likelihood estimation method (MLE) in order to make inference on the parameters and on the validity of the model

Model-based clustering with parsimonious covariance structure

Complex multidimensional concepts are often explained by a tree-shape structure by considering nested partitions of variables, where each variable group is associated with a specific concept. Recalling that relations among variables can be detected by their covariance matrix, this paper introduces a covariance structure that reconstructs hierarchical relationships among variables highlighting three features of the variable groups. We finally present an application of the latter covariance structure to the model-based clustering

A parsimonious parameterization of a nonnegative correlation matrix

Hierarchical relationships among manifest variables can be detected by analyzing their correlation matrix. To pinpoint the hierarchy underlying a multidimensional phenomenon, the Ultrametric Correlation Model (UCM) has been proposed with the aim of reconstructing a nonnegative correlation matrix via an ultrametric one. In this paper, we illustrate the mathematical advantages that a simple structure induced by the ultrametric property entails for the estimation of the UCM parameters in a maximum likelihood framework