Education, Health and Health-Related Behaviors: Evidence from Higher Education Expansion

This study throws light on the potential non-linear effects of education on individual health and health-related behaviors, finding a strong role for higher education. Using an instrumental variables (IVs) strategy, which leverages changes in within-province between-municipality college proximity across birth cohorts, we demonstrate that higher education affects individual health-related behavior. By contrast, IVs estimates based on a compulsory schooling age reform show mostly non-significant effects. Our results point to a complex link between education and health. On the one hand, higher education channels individuals into some healthy behaviors and better health outcomes namely healthy eating, more physical activity and a lower risk of obesity. On the other hand, it also appears to increase the prevalence of certain unhealthy behaviors, such as greater smoking and drinking prevalence and higher cigarettes consumption. Albeit effects are generally similar across genders, except in few cases (e.g. smoking behavior), our analysis highlights heterogeneous effects by age and helps explain potential differences in results reported in past quasi-experimental studies in which the cohorts affected by the educational reforms used for identification are observed at given ages and not over an individual’s entire lifecycle

investigation of particle dynamics and classification mechanism in a spiral jet mill through computational fluid dynamics and discrete element methods

Abstract Predicting the outcome of jet-milling based on the knowledge of process parameters and starting material properties is a task still far from being accomplished. Given the technical difficulties in measuring thermodynamics, flow properties and particle statistics directly in the mills, modelling and simulations constitute alternative tools to gain insight in the process physics and many papers have been recently published on the subject. An ideal predictive simulation tool should combine the correct description of non-isothermal, compressible, high Mach number fluid flow, the correct particle-fluid and particle-particle interactions and the correct fracture mechanics of particle upon collisions but it is not currently available. In this paper we present our coupled CFD-DEM simulation results; while comparing them with the recent modelling and experimental works we will review the current understating of the jet-mill physics and particle classification. Subsequently we analyze the missing elements and the bottlenecks currently limiting the simulation technique as well as the possible ways to circumvent them towards a quantitative, predictive simulation of jet-milling

The Comparative Exploration of the Ice Giant Planets with Twin Spacecraft: Unveiling the History of our Solar System

In the course of the selection of the scientific themes for the second and third L-class missions of the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program of the European Space Agency, the exploration of the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune was defined "a timely milestone, fully appropriate for an L class mission". Among the proposed scientific themes, we presented the scientific case of exploring both planets and their satellites in the framework of a single L-class mission and proposed a mission scenario that could allow to achieve this result. In this work we present an updated and more complete discussion of the scientific rationale and of the mission concept for a comparative exploration of the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune and of their satellite systems with twin spacecraft. The first goal of comparatively studying these two similar yet extremely different systems is to shed new light on the ancient past of the Solar System and on the processes that shaped its formation and evolution. This, in turn, would reveal whether the Solar System and the very diverse extrasolar systems discovered so far all share a common origin or if different environments and mechanisms were responsible for their formation. A space mission to the ice giants would also open up the possibility to use Uranus and Neptune as templates in the study of one of the most abundant type of extrasolar planets in the galaxy. Finally, such a mission would allow a detailed study of the interplanetary and gravitational environments at a range of distances from the Sun poorly covered by direct exploration, improving the constraints on the fundamental theories of gravitation and on the behaviour of the solar wind and the interplanetary magnetic field.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication on the special issue "The outer Solar System X" of the journal Planetary and Space Science. This article presents an updated and expanded discussion of the white paper "The ODINUS Mission Concept" (arXiv:1402.2472) submitted in response to the ESA call for ideas for the scientific themes of the future L2 and L3 space mission

A Project to Promote English Learning in Primary School: “An English Island®” E-learning Platform

The present study was aimed to investigate English learning as second language, in school, in first, second and third graders of twelve classes randomly assigned to a control or an experimental group. Children in the latter are exposed during English school teaching to the method “An English Island®” and to its platform activities. The method “An English Island®” offers a variety of strategies for teaching English in primary school, an innovative digital tool that promotes teaching/learning English language’s communicative approach, lead students to become familiar with the language in a sort of continuous, inclusive workout, in which everyone participates and talks. English skills as well as cognitive abilities are tested in both groups at the beginning and at the end of the school year with the aim to compare control and experimental classes in both a longitudinal and a cross-sectional design

Health Effects of Risky Lifestyles and Adverse Working Conditions: Are Older Individuals More Penalized?

Using unusually rich panel data from Denmark, we investigate differences by age in the health implications of risky lifestyles and adverse working conditions. Accounting for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, overall, we find no health penalties for older workers (55 and over) compared to younger ones (18\u201334; 35\u201354). However, the former suffer more from the health consequences of risky lifestyles\u2014especially the lack of consumption of fruit and vegetables and physical inactivity. Working conditions negatively relate with health, but fewer differences across age groups exist. Selection bias, namely the healthy worker effect, does not alter our results

Robot assisted laparoscopic excision of a paraganglioma: new therapeutic approach

The Paraganglioma is the most common extra-adrenal pheochromocytoma arising from neural crest (1) (It will better to write: The paraganglioma is an extra-adrenal pheocromocytoma arising from the neural crest. 10% of pheocromocytomas are extra-adrenal and can arise form chromaffin tissue derived from primitive neuroectoderm). Minimally invasive techniques allow surgeons to perform the procedure without wide exposure and mobilization of intra abdominal organs. To our knowledge we present the third case of robotic excision of a retroperitoneal paraganglioma (2,3)