The Large-Scale Polarization Explorer (LSPE)

The LSPE is a balloon-borne mission aimed at measuring the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at large angular scales, and in particular to constrain the curl component of CMB polarization (B-modes) produced by tensor perturbations generated during cosmic inflation, in the very early universe. Its primary target is to improve the limit on the ratio of tensor to scalar perturbations amplitudes down to r = 0.03, at 99.7% confidence. A second target is to produce wide maps of foreground polarization generated in our Galaxy by synchrotron emission and interstellar dust emission. These will be important to map Galactic magnetic fields and to study the properties of ionized gas and of diffuse interstellar dust in our Galaxy. The mission is optimized for large angular scales, with coarse angular resolution (around 1.5 degrees FWHM), and wide sky coverage (25% of the sky). The payload will fly in a circumpolar long duration balloon mission during the polar night. Using the Earth as a giant solar shield, the instrument will spin in azimuth, observing a large fraction of the northern sky. The payload will host two instruments. An array of coherent polarimeters using cryogenic HEMT amplifiers will survey the sky at 43 and 90 GHz. An array of bolometric polarimeters, using large throughput multi-mode bolometers and rotating Half Wave Plates (HWP), will survey the same sky region in three bands at 95, 145 and 245 GHz. The wide frequency coverage will allow optimal control of the polarized foregrounds, with comparable angular resolution at all frequencies.Comment: In press. Copyright 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibite

Well-Being Gender Budgets: italian local governments cases

This paper implements the methodological tools developed at regional and local governments level on gender budgets, using Sen and Nussbaum capability approach to design Well-Being Gender Budgets (WBGB). Following the methods first discussed in Addabbo, Lanzi and Picchio “On Sustainable Human Development: Gender Auditing in a Capability Approach” (2004), the framework used in this paper is an extended reproductive well-being macro approach that includes unpaid work, focuses on gender inequalities in well-being, and uses an analytical perspective which places the process of social reproduction of the population among the structural processes of the economic system and as a fundamental condition of its sustainability.The paper is divided into four sections. After the Introduction, in the first section the perspective and method of WBGB are presented. In the second, the recent experiences of WBGB adopted in Italy at provincial district and regional level are introduced and the Italian local governments institutional context is presented. In the third, a list of capabilities, based on the administrative structure of the local governments adopting the gender budget, is proposed. In fact, the structure of the different Departments (Health, Education, Transports, etc.) is seen as the result of an historical assumption of public responsibility towards specific dimensions of residents’ well-being, such as: being healthy, educated, mobile in the territory, carer of others, etc.. The context analysis is then designed to provide empirical information on a set of effective functionings that areused to assess gender inequalities in a specific well-being domain.In the fourth section, new tools (capabilities matrices) are introduced, drawn to help public policy actors to become aware of the implications of their choices on the multidimensional well-being of the women and men living in their territory. Moreover, some examples of budgeting monetary resources, taking into account well-being policy objectives are illustrated, with particular reference to the Piedmont Region and the Rome Provincial District.The results of different Italian local-government experiments in WBGB are proposed to share a different way of approaching the assessment of the gender impact of public policies and to open a discussion on their pros and cons. We think that their tools could become a key to policy integration and a basis for social participation in a public reasoning process on well-being, but they need to be discussed in a wider forum, and the possibility of their application to other countries and at different government levels also needs to be discussed

Measurements of Surface River Doppler Velocities With Along-Track InSAR Using a Single Antenna

Nowadays, a worldwide database containing the historical and reliable data concerning the water surface speed of rivers is not available and would be highly desirable. In order to meet this requirement, the present work is aimed at the design of an estimation procedure for water flow velocity by means of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. The main technical aspect of the proposed procedure is that an along-track geometry is synthesized using a single antenna and a single image. This is achieved by exploiting a multichromatic analysis in the Doppler domain. The application of this approach allows us to obtain along-track interferometry equivalent virtual baselines much lower than the equivalent baseline corresponding to the decorrelation time of raw data preserving data coherence. The performance analysis, conducted on live airborne full-polarimetric SAR data, highlights the effectiveness of the proposed approach in providing reliable river surface velocity estimates without the need of multiple passes on the observed scene

Complex Dynamics in Digital Nonlinear Oscillators: Experimental Analysis and Verification

A specific topology of Digital Nonlinear Oscillators (DNOs) has been implemented by using commercial off-the-shelf digital components to experimentally verify and demonstrate the capability of these circuits to support complex dynamics, independently from their implementation technology. In detail, a direct experimental evidence of the DNO dynamical behavior is presented at the analog level with a bifurcation diagram analysis, investigation of periodic and chaotic attractors, and dynamical stability. The autonomous circuit has been investigated as a source of entropy, adopting different figures of merit, including the Lempel–Ziv Complexity, to evaluate the dynamics measured under different operating conditions

Monitoring of Critical Infrastructures by Micromotion Estimation: The Mosul Dam Destabilization

In this article, we propose a new procedure to monitor critical infrastructures. The proposed approach is applied to COSMO-SkyMed data, with the aim to monitor the destabilization of the Mosul dam. Such a dam represents the largest hydraulic facility of Iraq and is located on the Tigris river. The destructive potential of the wave that would be generated, in the event of the dam destruction, could have serious consequences. If the concern for human lives comes first, the concern for cultural heritage protection is not negligible, since several archaeological sites are located around the Mosul dam. The proposed procedure is an in-depth modal assessment based on the micromotion estimation, through a Doppler subapertures tracking and a multichromatic analysis. The method is based initially on the persistent scatterers interferometry that is also discussed for completeness and validation. The modal analysis has detected the presence of several areas of resonance that could mean the presence of cracks, and the results have shown that the dam is still in a strong destabilization. Moreover, the dam appears to be divided into two parts: the northern part is accelerating rapidly while the southern part is decelerating and a main crack in this north south junction is found. The estimated velocities through the PS-InSAR technique show a good agreement with the GNSS in situ measurements, resulting in a very high correlation coefficient and showing how the proposed procedure works efficiently

Temporal Convolutional Neural Networks for Radar Micro-Doppler Based Gait Recognition

The capability of sensors to identify individuals in a specific scenario is a topic of high relevance for sensitive sectors such as public security. A traditional approach involves cameras; however, camera-based surveillance systems lack discretion and have high computational and storing requirements in order to perform human identification. Moreover, they are strongly influenced by external factors (e.g., light and weather). This paper proposes an approach based on a temporal convolutional deep neural networks classifier applied to radar micro-Doppler signatures in order to identify individuals. Both sensor and processing requirements ensure a low size weight and power profile, enabling large scale deployment of discrete human identification systems. The proposed approach is assessed on real data concerning 106 individuals. The results show good accuracy of the classifier (the best obtained accuracy is 0.89 with an F1-score of 0.885) and improved performance when compared to other standard approaches

Le donne nella magistratura italiana: 1960-1990

In un contesto caratterizzato da una limitata presenza di donne nell’attività retribuita in Italia, che ci pone ai livelli più bassi riscontrati in Europa rispetto ai tassi di occupazione femminile, questo paper si interroga sui fattori determinanti la bassa partecipazione delle donne al mercato del lavoro e fra questi individua anche i limiti nell’accesso alle professioni. Il presente lavoro analizza una particolare professione che, sino al 1963, era preclusa alle donne in Italia: la Magistratura. Esso ricostruisce il contesto storico che ha portato all’approvazione della Legge n. 66 del 9 febbraio 1963 ed estende l’analisi sino agli anni novanta, rilevando che la persistenza di evidenti criticità di tipo retributivo e preclusivo alle carriere direttive riscontrate dalle donne in Italia affonda nel passato le sue radici. Ricostruite le linee generali degli aspetti storici e giuridici ed evidenziate le principali difficoltà che le donne hanno dovuto affrontare, il presente lavoro ha l’obiettivo di far emergere il lungo e tortuoso percorso che ha consentito l’entrata delle donne in Magistratura, ponendo in evidenza i limiti che tuttora impediscono una piena ed effettiva integrazione delle donne in Italia a tutti i livelli di questo settore

Self-reported unemployment status and recession: An analysis on the Italian population with and without mental health problems

During economic recession people with mental health problems have higher risk of losing their job. This paper analyses the issue by considering the Italian rates of unemployment amongst individuals with and without mental health problems in 2005 and 2013, that is prior and during the economic crisis. We used data from the National surveys on Health conditions and use of health services carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for the years 2005 and 2013. The surveys collected information on the health status and socioeconomic conditions of the Italian population. Self-reported unemployment status was analysed amongst individuals with and without reported mental health problems. In addition, descriptive statistics were performed in order to detect possible differences in the risk of unemployment within different regional contexts characterised by different socio-economic conditions. The recession determined increased disparities in unemployment rates between people with and without mental health problems. The analyses confirm that in periods of economic crisis people with mental health problems are at risk of experiencing exclusion from labour market. In addition, the impact is even worse within the group with low education and younger age. These findings emphasise the importance of specific interventions aimed at promoting labour market participation and reintegration for people with mental health problems

Anti‐dopamine D2 receptor antibodies in chronic tic disorders

AIM: To investigate the association between circulating anti-dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) autoantibodies and the exacerbation of tics in children with chronic tic disorders (CTDs). METHOD: One hundred and thirty-seven children with CTDs (108 males, 29 females; mean age [SD] 10y 0mo [2y 7mo], range 4-16y) were recruited over 18 months. Patients were assessed at baseline, at tic exacerbation, and at 2 months after exacerbation. Serum anti-D2R antibodies were evaluated using a cell-based assay and blinded immunofluorescence microscopy scoring was performed by two raters. The association between visit type and presence of anti-D2R antibodies was measured with McNemar's test and repeated-measure logistic regression models, adjusting for potential demographic and clinical confounders. RESULTS: At exacerbation, 11 (8%) participants became anti-D2R-positive ('early peri-exacerbation seroconverters'), and nine (6.6%) became anti-D2R-positive at post-exacerbation ('late peri-exacerbation seroconverters'). The anti-D2R antibodies were significantly associated with exacerbations when compared to baseline (McNemar's odds ratio=11, p=0.003) and conditional logistic regression confirmed this association (Z=3.49, p<0.001) after adjustment for demographic and clinical data and use of psychotropic drugs. INTERPRETATION: There is a potential association between immune mechanisms and the severity course of tics in adolescents with CTDs