Estimating transmission probability in schools for the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in Italy

BACKGROUND: Epidemic models are being extensively used to understand the main pathways of spread of infectious diseases, and thus to assess control methods. Schools are well known to represent hot spots for epidemic spread; hence, understanding typical patterns of infection transmission within schools is crucial for designing adequate control strategies. The attention that was given to the 2009 A/H1N1pdm09 flu pandemic has made it possible to collect detailed data on the occurrence of influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms in two primary schools of Trento, Italy. RESULTS: The data collected in the two schools were used to calibrate a discrete-time SIR model, which was designed to estimate the probabilities of influenza transmission within the classes, grades and schools using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. We found that the virus was mainly transmitted within class, with lower levels of transmission between students in the same grade and even lower, though not significantly so, among different grades within the schools. We estimated median values of R 0 from the epidemic curves in the two schools of 1.16 and 1.40; on the other hand, we estimated the average number of students infected by the first school case to be 0.85 and 1.09 in the two schools. CONCLUSIONS: The discrepancy between the values of R 0 estimated from the epidemic curve or from the within-school transmission probabilities suggests that household and community transmission played an important role in sustaining the school epidemics. The high probability of infection between students in the same class confirms that targeting within-class transmission is key to controlling the spread of influenza in school settings and, as a consequence, in the general population

On Counting L-Convex Polyominoes

A convex polyomino P is L-convex if any two cells of P can be joined by a monotone path inside P with at most one change of direction. In this paper we show that the problem of computing the number of L-convex polyominoes of area n can be solved in polynomial time using O(n^4) space. We designed a C++ program to significantly extend the counting sequence of L-convex polyominoes and to improve the estimate of the associated growth constant

Explaining divergent bargaining outcomes for agency workers: the role of labour divides and labour market reforms

Under what conditions can unions successfully regulate precarious employment? We compare the divergent trajectories of collective bargaining on agency work in the Italian and German metal sectors from the late 1990s. We explain the differences by the interaction between trade unions’ institutional and associational power resources, mediated by employers’ divide-and-rule strategies and by union strategies to (re)build a unitary front. In both countries, the liberalization of agency work allowed employers to exploit labour divides, undermining unions’ associational power and preventing labour from negotiating effectively. However, while Italian unions remained ‘trapped’ in the vicious circle between weak legislation and fragmented labour, German unions were able to overcome their internal divides. The different degree of success depended on the nature of the divides within the labour movements

Improved proteasomal cleavage prediction with positive-unlabeled learning

Accurate in silico modeling of the antigen processing pathway is crucial to enable personalized epitope vaccine design for cancer. An important step of such pathway is the degradation of the vaccine into smaller peptides by the proteasome, some of which are going to be presented to T cells by the MHC complex. While predicting MHC-peptide presentation has received a lot of attention recently, proteasomal cleavage prediction remains a relatively unexplored area in light of recent advancesin high-throughput mass spectrometry-based MHC ligandomics. Moreover, as such experimental techniques do not allow to identify regions that cannot be cleaved, the latest predictors generate decoy negative samples and treat them as true negatives when training, even though some of them could actually be positives. In this work, we thus present a new predictor trained with an expanded dataset and the solid theoretical underpinning of positive-unlabeled learning, achieving a new state-of-the-art in proteasomal cleavage prediction. The improved predictive capabilities will in turn enable more precise vaccine development improving the efficacy of epitope-based vaccines. Pretrained models are available on GitHubComment: Extended Abstract presented at Machine Learning for Health (ML4H) symposium 2022, November 28th, 2022, New Orleans, United States & Virtual, http://www.ml4h.cc, 8 page

Refining reproduction number estimates to account for unobserved generations of infection in emerging epidemics

Background: Estimating the transmissibility of infectious diseases is key to inform situational awareness and for response planning. Several methods tend to overestimate the basic (R0) and effective (Rt) reproduction numbers during the initial phases of an epidemic. The reasons driving the observed bias are unknown. In this work we explore the impact of incomplete observations and underreporting of the first generations of infections during the initial epidemic phase. Methods: We propose a debiasing procedure which utilises a linear exponential growth model to infer unobserved initial generations of infections and apply it to EpiEstim. We assess the performance of our adjustment using simulated data, considering different levels of transmissibility and reporting rates. We also apply the proposed correction to SARS-CoV-2 incidence data reported in Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Results: In all simulation scenarios, our adjustment outperforms the original EpiEstim method. The proposed correction reduces the systematic bias and the quantification of uncertainty is more precise, as better coverage of the true R0 values is achieved with tighter credible intervals. When applied to real world data, the proposed adjustment produces basic reproduction number estimates which closely match the estimates obtained in other studies while making use of a minimal amount of data. Conclusions: The proposed adjustment refines the reproduction number estimates obtained with the current EpiEstim implementation by producing improved, more precise estimates earlier than with the original method. This has relevant public health implications

Systems for Conflict Resolution in Comparative Perspective

A cornerstone of industrial relations theory is the idea that the potential for conflict is inherent in the employment relationship. Across countries, forms of workplace conflict and methods of conflict resolution take a range of different forms. Yet aside from attempts to understand cross-national variation in strikes, little research has examined systemic differences in the manifestation and management of workplace conflict. The authors seek to fill this void by analyzing through a comparative lens practices for addressing employment-related conflict in four countries: Germany, the United States, Italy, and Australia. In contrast to the unidimensional varieties of capitalism approach, they analyze workplace conflict resolution systems across two dimensions: collective-individual and regulated-voluntarist. The analysis also emphasizes the importance of within-country variation and interactions between different conflict resolution subsystems

Borges, Ariosto e la vita segreta dei personaggi minori

Inteso quale omaggio a Emilio Bigi, sia pure indiretto, lo studio prende spunto da un’intervista, tuttora inedita, rilasciata nel 1984 dallo scrittore argentino Jorge Luis Borges, in cui aveva citato, credendoli ariosteschi, dei versi che per lui, giunto in età ormai avanzata, erano diventati, più che un motto, una metafora di vita. Poco importa che, come verrà chiarito vagliando la loro storia e le relative fonti, quei versi, facenti capo alla misteriosa figura di un personaggio saraceno, Alibante di Toledo, in realtà appartenessero all’officina poetica di Francesco Berni: essi vengono ciò nondimeno assunti quale filo conduttore per un percorso esplorativo all’interno dell’Orlando furioso che ne vaglia la valenza per così dire “ariostesca”, giusta la reminiscenza borgesiana. Approdata infine a Cervantes, la discussione si conclude facendo ritorno a Borges e misurando l’impatto che quei medesimi versi hanno avuto sulla sua propria opera poetica.Intended as a heartfelt tribute to Emilio Bigi, albeit an indirect one, this essay draws on an interview, still unpublished, given by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges in 1984, in which he quoted a couple of lines of poetry which he firmly believed to be by Ariosto, and which for him, by then an old man, had become, more than a motto, a metaphor of life. It does not really matter that, as will become apparent retracing their history as well as their sources, these lines, centring on the mysterious figure of a Saracen character called Alibante of Toledo, actually belonged to Francesco Berni: they are here assumed as the main motif to be explored within Orlando furioso, in order to ascertain to what extent their nature may be regarded to be Ariostan, just as Borges thought. Having finally reached Cervantes, the discussion concludes by returning once more to Borges and considering the impact that these lines, which had remained engrained in his memory throughout his life, had on his own poetry

DEFENDING THE CORE? AN ANALYSIS OF TRADE UNION'S BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS OUTSOURCING IN THE GERMAN CHEMICAL AND METAL SECTOR

Over the last decade, the role of trade unions in segmented labour markets has been a relevant and strongly debated topic in the literature. On the one hand, the dualisation literature is portraying trade unions' behaviour in Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs) as segmentalist: Confronted with employers' pressures for cost reduction and increased flexibility, unions in core sectors are allowing for segmentation to take place (through outsourcing and the use of atypical forms of employment) in order to protect their members, which are overwhelmingly represented among core workers. On the other, the power resource approach is arguing that segmentation derives from the weakness of employees' representatives which are no longer able to oppose employers' segmentation strategies. This paper will contribute to this debate through a case-study analysis of trade unions' behaviour towards outsourcing in the German chemical and metal sector. We will show that trade unions have adopted both inclusive and exclusive strategies towards peripheral employees depending on three main factors: the peculiar trade unions' identity characterising the two sectors, how outsourcing processes impact on the core workforce and how they impact on the union's organisational interests

Primary Pancreatic Sarcoma

Primary pancreatic sarcomas are extremely rare entities, accounting for less than 0.1% of all pancreatic neoplasms1. They originate from the mesenchymal tissue of pancreatic support, and the leiomyosarcoma subtype is the most frequently reported2. This neoplasia usually presents poor prognosis due to late diagnosis and accelerated growth relative to other pancreatic neoplasia1,3. The pancreatic head is the most commonly involved site, followed by the tail and body, and it occurs more frequently in younger individuals3. Clinically, patients may present with weight loss, palpable abdominal mass, epigastric pain, nausea and vomiting, similar to other pancreatic diseases, thus being unspecific to sarcomas1-3. On CT scanning, the findings include a bulky, heterogeneous mass and, with peripheral enhancement after contrast injection, pseudocystic masses are also described.CSV is an exclusive marker of sarcoma regardless of its tissue origin4. The prognosis is influenced by the patient’s age, tumor size, the presence of tumor necrosis, and vascular invasion. The curative treatment is surgical – extensive surgical resection should be advocated, even when morphologic results show a low-grade lesion2. The tumor is likely to metastasize to the liver but not to regional lymph nodes. The role of chemot

Modeling Transport in Service-Oriented Framework for Agent-Based Simulations of Supply Chains

This work presents an extension to the service-oriented framework for performing agent-based simulations to support the analysis of collaborative relationships in supply chain interactions already described in [5]. The extension includes a new service for simulating the planning of transportation, which is designed to allocate finite transportation resources to the transportation orders. The service includes the functionality that matches the required vehicle type, location and time to track the availability of a vehicle fleet as it is allocated to a plan. The new service proposal is validated by simulating three different scenarios of a case study. The case study is based on an actual supply chain of dairy products covering the central region of Argentina.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO