From big data to big performance – exploring the potential of big data for enhancing public organizations’ performance : a systematic literature review

This article examines the possibilities for increasing organizational performance in the public sector using Big Data by conducting a systematic literature review. It includes the results of 36 scientific articles published between January 2012 and July 2019. The results show a tendency to explain the relationship between big data and organizational performance through the Resource-Based View of the Firm or the Dynamic Capabilities View, arguing that perfor-mance improvement in an organization stems from unique capabilities. In addition, the results show that Big Data performance improvement is influenced by better organizational decision making. Finally, it identifies three dimensions that seem to play a role in this process: the human dimension, the organizational dimension, and the data dimension. From these findings, implications for both practice and theory are derived

Stuck in Traffic (SiT) Attacks: A Framework for Identifying Stealthy Attacks that Cause Traffic Congestion

Recent advances in wireless technologies have enabled many new applications in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) such as collision avoidance, cooperative driving, congestion avoidance, and traffic optimization. Due to the vulnerable nature of wireless communication against interference and intentional jamming, ITS face new challenges to ensure the reliability and the safety of the overall system. In this paper, we expose a class of stealthy attacks -- Stuck in Traffic (SiT) attacks -- that aim to cause congestion by exploiting how drivers make decisions based on smart traffic signs. An attacker mounting a SiT attack solves a Markov Decision Process problem to find optimal/suboptimal attack policies in which he/she interferes with a well-chosen subset of signals that are based on the state of the system. We apply Approximate Policy Iteration (API) algorithms to derive potent attack policies. We evaluate their performance on a number of systems and compare them to other attack policies including random, myopic and DoS attack policies. The generated policies, albeit suboptimal, are shown to significantly outperform other attack policies as they maximize the expected cumulative reward from the standpoint of the attacker

Assessing the 2004-2018 fentanyl misusing issues reported to an international range of adverse reporting systems

© 2019 Schifano, Chiappini, Corkery and Guirguis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Submitted 2 October 2018, Accepted 14 January 2019, published 1 February 2019.Objective: A recent, global, increase in the use of opioids including the prescribing, highly potent, fentanyl has been recorded. Due its current popularity and the potential lethal consequences of its intake, we aimed here at analyzing the fentanyl misuse, abuse, dependence and withdrawal-related adverse drug reactions (ADRs) identified within the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the United Kingdom Yellow Card Scheme (YCS), and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) databases. Methods: Descriptive analysis of both ADRs and related cases. Results: The analysis of fentanyl-related misuse, abuse, dependence and withdrawal cases reported during years 2004-2018 to the EMA, the YCS, and the FAERS showed increasing levels overtime, specifically, EMA-related data presented two peaks (e.g., in 2008 and 2015), whilst the FAERS dataset was characterized by a dramatic increase of the ADRs collected over the last 18 months, and particularly from 2016. Some 127,313 ADRs (referring to n = 6,161 patients/single cases) related to fentanyl's misuse/abuse/dependence/withdrawal issues were reported to EMA, with 14,287 being judged by the reporter as "suspect." The most represented ADRs were: "drug dependence "(76.87%), "intentional product misuse" (13.06%), and "drug abuse" (7.45%). Most cases involved adult males and the concomitant use of other prescribing/illicit drugs. A range of idiosyncratic (i.e., ingestion/injection of transdermal patches' fentanyl) and very high-dosage intake cases were here identified. Significant numbers of cases required either a prolonged hospitalization (192/559 = 34.35%) or resulted in death (185/559 = 33.09%). Within the same time frame, YCS collected some 3,566 misuse/abuse/dependence/withdrawal ADRs, corresponding to 1,165 single patients/cases, with those most frequently reported being "withdrawal," "intentional product misuse," and "overdose" ADRs. Finally, FAERS identified a total of 19,145 misuse/abuse/dependence/withdrawal-related cases, being "overdose," withdrawal, and "drug use disorder/drug abuse/drug diversion" the most represented ADRs (respectively, 43.11, 20.80, and 20.29%). Conclusion: Fentanyl abuse may be considered a public health issue with significant implications for clinical practice. Spontaneous pharmacovigilance reporting systems should be considered for mapping new trends of drug abuse.Peer reviewe

A note on the effect of expected changes in monetary policy on long-term interest rates

The ability of monetary policy to affect long-term interest rates is of central importance for economics and finance. Several recent studies have shown that long-term interest rates are virtually unaffected by monetary policy. This paper develops a statistical methodology to identify the expected and unexpected changes in monetary policy as measured by the federal funds rate. The empirical evidence shows that expected changes in the funds rate cause stronger and more significant movements in the long-term rates. Further, ignoring such asymmetry can erroneously generate the insignificant responses of long-term interest rates to the changes in the monetary policy.Long-term interest rate, monetary policy, asymmetry

Urinary Biomarkers Under Investigation for Overactive Bladder Syndrome

Overactive bladder (OAB) is a symptom syndrome of urinary urgency, frequency, nocturia, and urge incontinence suggestive of lower urinary tract dysfunction. Detrusor overactivity (DO) during urodynamic testing may be the cause of symptoms in 54–70 % of OAB study participants. The identification of urinary biomarkers is warranted due to the high false negative rate of urodynamic testing results for the diagnosis of DO and for the evaluation of treatment response in study participants with OAB symptoms. We reviewed the published literature on urinary biomarkers under investigation for OAB with Pub Med up to June 2015 using search keywords that included “overactive bladder,” “nerve growth factor (NGF),” “brain-derived nerve growth factor (BDNF),” “prostaglandins,” “cytokines,” and “CRP.” Current evidence suggests that NGF and BDNF appear to be most promising candidates for urinary biomarkers for the diagnosis and the evaluation treatment response

On the Consequences of State Dependent Preferences for the Pricing of Financial Assets

This paper introduces state dependent utility into the standard Mehra and Prescott (1985) economy by allowing the representative agent's coefficient of relative risk aversion to vary with the underlying economy's growth rate. Existence of equilibrium is proved and its asymptotic properties analyzed. This generalization leads to level dependent marginal rates of substitution, a property that sharply distinguishes this model from the standard construct. For very low coefficients of relative risk aversion, the equilibrium risk free and risky security returns are demonstrated to have volatilities and an associated equity premium that substantially exceed what is found in the data. This provides a contrasting perspective on the classic "equity premium puzzle."state dependent utility; equity premium; equity premium puzzle

Nuovi dati dalla necropoli fenicia e punica di Monte Sirai (Sardegna): la tomba 248

La tomba 248, necropoli fenicia e punica di Monte Sirai, rappresenta un caso isolato nella pur ampia casistica offerta dalla necropoli e appare caratterizzata da quello che potremmo definire un alto tasso di potenzialità informativa. La sepoltura, anche in virtù della sua collocazione topografica ai margini dell’area di scavo nel punto più vicino in linea d’aria all’abitato, sembrerebbe essere una delle deposizioni più arcaiche di questo particolare settore della necropoli. La monumentalità e l’alto grado di visibilità funeraria della tomba 248 risulta evidente se si considera l’impianto generale del sepolcro e la sua complessità architettonica e ideologica. La sepoltura si distingue soprattutto per l’esistenza di uno specifico e ben definito spazio fisico destinato alla ricezione di offerte in onore del defunto

L’Acropoli di Monte Sirai: notizie preliminari dallo scavo del 2010

Durante la campagna del 2010 nell’insediamento fenicio e punico di Monte Sirai (Carbonia) è stato intrapreso lo scavo stratigrafico di un vasto settore dell’acropoli localizzato nella cuspide meridionale dell’Insula C di fronte alla Piazza 3. Le indagini hanno consentito di individuare numerose fasi e materiali di età arcaica e di età ellenistica che coprono l’intera cronologia dell’insediamento, fondato nella seconda metà dell’VIII e improvvisamente spopolato nella prima metà del I secolo a.C. All’età arcaica si riferiscono alcune attività di livellamento della roccia vergine, mentre al III secolo a.C. risale la sistemazione del vano C62 provvisto di una vasca in pietra e di due basi circolari. Un forno fittile e numerose scorie di fusione testimoniano l’attività metallurgica. Dopo secoli di abbandono è documentata una fase di frequentazione in età tardoantica