Un anno di elezioni verso le Politiche 2013

Tre importanti eventi vanno analizzati per poter inquadrare al meglio le elezioni politiche del 24 e 25 febbraio 2013. Le elezioni politiche in Spagna, Francia, Grecia e Olanda che si sono svolte tra la fine del 2011 e la fine del 2012 hanno fatto registrare importanti cambiamenti politici nei singoli contesti locali con inevitabili ripercussioni a livello europeo. Le elezioni regionali in Sicilia sono state una fondamentale tappa di avvicinamento alle elezioni politiche italiane, segnando di fatto \u2013 con la sconfitta del centrodestra e il grande successo del Movimento Cinque Stelle \u2013 l\u2019inizio della campagna elettorale. Infine le elezioni primarie e le parlamentarie del centrosinistra hanno contribuito a rendere pi\uf9 chiaro il quadro dell\u2019offerta politica, nonch\ue9 a rimobilitare una quota consistente dell\u2019elettorato italiano in vista delle prossime elezioni. L\u2019analisi di questi tre gruppi di consultazioni permette quindi di delineare il contesto \u2013 nazionale ed internazionale \u2013 di interpretazione per le imminenti elezioni politiche del 24 e 25 febbraio. \uc8 quanto cerca di fare questo Terzo Dossier CISE che raccoglie tutte le analisi, gi\ue0 pubblicate sul sito web CISE tra la fine del 2011 e l\u2019inizio del 2013, di questi tre gruppi di consultazioni. Analisi basate su dati aggregati, stime di flussi elettorali e indagini demoscopiche dell\u2019Osservatorio Politico CISE, con la finalit\ue0 di fornire strumenti utili per interpretare correttamente il contesto di avvicinamento ad un voto cruciale per il nostro paese

“Something Olde, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue…”. On the twenty-eight separate European elections of 2014

Together with “a sixpence in her shoe”, there are various items that are recommended as part of a bridal outfit, according to an old English rhyme. Humour might hardly be allowed as regards the recent European Parliament elections, given the success of Eurosceptic parties. However, we might comment that the 2014 EP election (expected by many commentators to be the first truly European election) was to some extent blessed by the presence of all such auspicious elements. That this has happened in times of economic crisis and rising Euroscepticism, would – again – not make it different from many weddings celebrated in difficult times, yet leading to long-lasting, successful marriages. But let’s go one step at a time

Issue Yield and Party Strategy in Multiparty Competition

The issue yield model introduced a theory of the herestethic use of policy issues as strategic resources in multidimensional party competition. We extend the model by systematically addressing the specificities of issue yield dynamics in multiparty systems, with special regard to parties\u2019 issue yield rankings (relative position) and issue yield heterogeneity (differentiation) on each issue. Second, we introduce a novel research design for original data collection that allows for a more systematic testing of the model, by featuring (a) a large number of policy issues, (b) the use of Twitter content for coding parties\u2019 issue emphasis, and (c) an appropriate time sequence for measuring issue yield configurations and issue emphasis. We finally present findings from a pilot implementation of such design, performed on the occasion of the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy. Findings confirm the soundness of the design and provide support for the newly introduced hypotheses about multiparty competition

The Italian General Election of 2013: a dangerous stalemate?

The third Eurozone economy and one of the six founders of the EEC (the direct ancestor of the European Union) in 1957, Italy is experiencing in recent years a season of political instability and uncertainty, especially after the crisis of Silvio Berlusconi\u2019s leadership in the centre-right camp. A situation which has not improved after the results of the general election held in February 2013, whose overall outcome can be described as a dangerous stalemate. A new, anti-establishment party (the 5-Star Movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo) becoming the largest party with 25,6% of votes; the absence of any cohesive political majority in the Senate (whose vote of confidence is required); the installation of a government based on an oversized, hardly manageable political majority, led by Enrico Letta. How did all this happen? What are the political and the institutional factors that produced this outcome? What is the size and scope of the success of Beppe Grillo? Where are his votes coming from? Who paid the \u201ccost of government\u201d for the previous legislature? What are the likely scenarios for the future? First answers to such questions are presented in this book, which collects revised versions of short research notes published in Italian on the CISE website between February and April 2013, along with additional material published in Italian and English by CISE scholars on the Italian and international media. The goal of this book is to provide \u2013 in a timely fashion \u2013 a set of fresh, short analyses, able to provide a non-technical audience (including journalists, practitioners of politics, and everyone interested in Italian politics) with information and data about Italian electoral politics. Even electoral scholars will find interesting information, able to stimulate the construction of more structured research hypotheses to be tested in more depth. Too often international commentators portray Italian politics in a superficial fashion, without the support of fresh data and a proper understanding of the deeper processes involved. With this book, in spite of its limited scope, we hope to contribute to filling this gap

Emergent representations in networks trained with the Forward-Forward algorithm

The Backpropagation algorithm, widely used to train neural networks, has often been criticised for its lack of biological realism. In an attempt to find a more biologically plausible alternative, and avoid to back-propagate gradients in favour of using local learning rules, the recently introduced Forward-Forward algorithm replaces the traditional forward and backward passes of Backpropagation with two forward passes. In this work, we show that internal representations obtained with the Forward-Forward algorithm organize into robust, category-specific ensembles, composed by an extremely low number of active units (high sparsity). This is remarkably similar to what is observed in cortical representations during sensory processing. While not found in models trained with standard Backpropagation, sparsity emerges also in networks optimized by Backpropagation, on the same training objective of Forward-Forward. These results suggest that the learning procedure proposed by Forward-Forward may be superior to Backpropagation in modelling learning in the cortex, even when a backward pass is used.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Novel human anti-claudin 1 mAbs inhibit hepatitis C virus infection and may synergize with anti-SRB1 mAb

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic hepatitis and liver carcinoma and new therapies based on novel targets are needed. The tight junction protein claudin 1 (CLDN-1) is essential for HCV cell entry and spread, and anti-CLDN-1 rat and mouse mAbs are safe and effective in preventing and treating HCV infection in a human liver chimeric mouse model. To accelerate translation of these observations into a novel approach to treat HCV infection and disease in humans, we screened a phage display library of human single-chain antibody fragments by using a panel of CLDN-1-positive and -negative cell lines and identified phage specifically binding to CLDN-1. The 12 clones showing the highest levels of binding were converted into human IgG4. Some of these mAbs displayed low-nanomolar affinity, and inhibited infection of human hepatoma Huh7.5 cells by different HCV isolates in a dose-dependent manner. Cross-competition experiments identified six inhibitory mAbs that recognized distinct epitopes. Combination of the human anti-SRB1 mAb C-1671 with these anti-CLDN-1 mAbs could either increase or reduce inhibition of cell culture-derived HCV infection in vitro. These novel human anti-CLDN-1 mAbs are potentially useful to develop a new strategy for anti-HCV therapy and lend support to the combined use of antibodies targeting the HCV receptors CLDN-1 and SRB1, but indicate that care must be taken in selecting the proper combination

Titanium Internal Fixator Removal in Maxillofacial Surgery: Is It Necessary? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

: Titanium plates and screws are essential devices in maxillofacial surgery since late 1980s, but despite their wide use there is no consensus in titanium internal fixators removal after bone healing. A systematic literature review and meta-analysis were conducted on seventeen retrospective studies. Effect size and 95% confidence intervals were calculated for plate removal (per plate and per patient) and for removal causes (infection, pain, screws complications, exposition, palpability). Odds ratio, 95% confidence intervals, and χ 2 test were measured for sex, smoking, and implant site. Heterogeneity was evaluated with Cochran and Inconstancy test. Obtained data were used to design Forest and Funnel plots. The aim of the study is to identify and clarify reasons and risk factors for plates and screws removal. Infection is the most frequent reason; the habit of tobacco usage and implant site (mandibula) are the main risk factors. The administration of antibiotic prophylaxis is essential, and patients must quit smoking before and after surgery. In conclusion there is no scientific evidence supporting the removal of internal devices as mandatory step of the postoperative procedure