Exchange rate forecasting and the performance of currency portfolios

We examine the potential gains of using exchange rate forecast models and forecast combination methods in the management of currency portfolios for three exchange rates: the euro versus the US dollar, the British pound, and the Japanese yen. We use a battery of econometric specifications to evaluate whether optimal currency portfolios implied by trading strategies based on exchange rate forecasts outperform single currencies and the equally weighted portfolio. We assess the differences in profitability of optimal currency portfolios for different types of investor preferences, two trading strategies, mean squared error-based composite forecasts, and different forecast horizons. Our results indicate that there are clear benefits of integrating exchange rate forecasts from state-of-the-art econometric models in currency portfolios. These benefits vary across investor preferences and prediction horizons but are rather similar across trading strategies

Internalized Transphobia, Resilience, and Mental Health: Applying the Psychological Mediation Framework to Italian Transgender Individuals

Transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people are a highly-stigmatized population. For this reason, they might internalize society’s normative gender attitudes and develop negative mental health outcomes. As an extension of the minority stress model, the psychological mediation framework sheds light on psychological processes through which anti-transgender discrimination might affect mental health. Within this framework, the current study aimed at assessing in 149 TGNC Italian individuals the role of internalized transphobia as a mediator between anti-transgender discrimination and mental health, considering resilience as the individual-level coping mechanism buffering this relationship. The results suggest that both indicators of internalized transphobia (i.e., shame and alienation) mediate the relationship between anti-transgender discrimination and depression, while only alienation mediates the relationship between anti-transgender discrimination and anxiety. Furthermore, the results suggest that the indirect relation between anti-transgender discrimination and anxiety through alienation is conditional on low and moderate levels of resilience. Findings have important implications for clinical practice and psycho-social interventions to reduce stigma and stress caused by interpersonal and individual stigma

Evidence for enhanced star formation rates in z~0.35 cluster galaxies undergoing ram pressure stripping

Ram pressure stripping (RPS) is one of the most invoked mechanisms to explain the observed differences between cluster and field galaxies. In the local Universe, its effect on the galaxy star forming properties has been largely tackled and the general consensus is that this process first compresses the gas available in the galaxy disks, boosting the star formation for a limited amount of time, and then removes the remaining gas leading to quenching. Much less is known on the effect and preponderance of RPS at higher redshift, due to the lack of statistical samples. Exploiting VLT/MUSE observations of galaxies at 0.2<z<0.55 and the catalog of ram pressure stripped galaxies by Moretti et al., we compare the global star formation rate-mass (SFR-M*) relation of 29 cluster galaxies undergoing RPS to that of 26 field and cluster undisturbed galaxies that constitute our control sample. Stripping galaxies occupy the upper envelope of the control sample SFR-M* relation, showing a systematic enhancement of the SFR at any given mass. The boost is >3sigma when considering the SFR occurring in both the tail and disk of galaxies. The enhancement is retrieved also on local scales: considering spatially resolved data, ram pressure stripped galaxies overall have large {\Sigma}SFR values, especially for Sigma_*>10^7.5M_sun kpc~2. RPS seems to leave the same imprint on the SFR-M* and Sigma_SFR-Sigma_* relations both in the Local Universe and at z~0.35.Comment: A&A in pres

Indicatori comuni del PNRR e framework SDGs: una proposta di indicatore composito

The main component of the NextGeneration EU (NGEU) program is the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), spanning an implementation period between 2021 and 2026. The RRF also includes a monitoring system: every six months, each country is required to send an update on the progress of the plan against 14 common indicators, measured on specific quantitative scales. The aim of this paper is to present the first empirical evidence on this system, while, at the same time, emphasizing the potential of its integration with the sustainable development framework (SDGs). We propose to develop a first linkage between the 14 common indicators and the SDGs which allows us to produce a composite index (SDGs-RRF) for France, Germany, Italy, and Spain for the period 2014-2021. Over this time, widespread improvements in the composite index across the four countries led to a partial reduction of the divergence. The proposed approach represents a first step towards a wider use of the SDGs for the assessment of the RRF, in line with their use in the European Semester documents prepared by the European Commission.Comment: 30 pages, in Italian, 10 figures, 13 table

Measuring adolescents' perceptions of parenting style during childhood: psychometric properties of the parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire

The paper analyzes the psychometric properties of the G1 version of the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire, a self-report instrument designed to investigate how adolescents or adults were parented during childhood. The sample included 1451 Italian adolescents in high school. Three studies tested the scale's structure, invariance, and convergent validity. The first found slightly acceptable fit indexes for a 40-item scale measuring three factors (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive styles); the factors presented good reliability (ρc .62-.96). Multigroup confirmative analyses found factor loadings invariant in the father version, whereas 12 items resulted not invariant in the mother version (second study). Good convergent validity was found with the Parental Bonding Index and the Parental Monitoring Scale (third study). Discussion of results is provided within the parenting styles literature

The evolution of the cold gas fraction in nearby clusters ram-pressure stripped galaxies

Cluster galaxies are affected by the surrounding environment, which influences, in particular, their gas, stellar content and morphology. In particular, the ram-pressure exerted by the intracluster medium promotes the formation of multi-phase tails of stripped gas detectable both at optical wavelengths and in the sub-mm and radio regimes, tracing the cold molecular and atomic gas components, respectively. In this work we analyze a sample of sixteen galaxies belonging to clusters at redshift $\sim 0.05$ showing evidence of an asymmetric HI morphology (based on MeerKAT observations) with and without a star forming tail. To this sample we add three galaxies with evidence of a star forming tail and no HI detection. Here we present the galaxies $\rm H_{2}$ gas content from APEX observations of the CO(2-1) emission. We find that in most galaxies with a star forming tail the $\rm H_{2}$ global content is enhanced with respect to undisturbed field galaxies with similar stellar masses, suggesting an evolutionary path driven by the ram-pressure stripping. As galaxies enter into the clusters their HI is displaced but also partially converted into $\rm H_{2}$, so that they are $\rm H_{2}$ enriched when they pass close to the pericenter, i. e. when they develop the star forming tails that are visible in UV/B broad bands and in H$\alpha$ emission. An inspection of the phase-space diagram for our sample suggests an anticorrelation between the HI and $\rm H_{2}$ gas phases as galaxies fall into the cluster potential. This peculiar behaviour is a key signature of the ram-pressure stripping in action.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Adolescent Positivity and Future Orientation, Parental Psychological Control, and Young Adult Internalising Behaviours during COVID-19 in Nine Countries

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many young adults’ lives educationally, economically, and personally. This study investigated associations between COVID-19-related disruption and perception of increases in internalising symptoms among young adults and whether these associations were moderated by earlier measures of adolescent positivity and future orientation and parental psychological control. Participants included 1329 adolescents at Time 1, and 810 of those participants as young adults (M age = 20, 50.4% female) at Time 2 from 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Drawing from a larger longitudinal study of adolescent risk taking and young adult competence, this study controlled for earlier levels of internalising symptoms during adolescence in examining these associations. Higher levels of adolescent positivity and future orientation as well as parent psychological control during late adolescence helped protect young adults from sharper perceived increases in anxiety and depression during the first nine months of widespread pandemic lockdowns in all nine countries. Findings are discussed in terms of how families in the 21st century can foster greater resilience during and after adolescence when faced with community-wide stressors, and the results provide new information about how psychological control may play a protective role during times of significant community-wide threats to personal health and welfare

Deliverable 2.3-Research needs in terms of statistical methodologies and new data

The MAKSWELL project was set up to help strengthening the use of evidence and information on well-being and sustainability for policy-making in the EU, as also the political attention to well-being and sustainability indicators has been increasing in recent years. Traditionally sample surveys are the data source used for measurement frameworks for well-being and sustainability. Over the last decades more and more new, alternative data sources become available. Examples are administrative data like tax registers, or other large data sets - so called big data - that are generated as a by-product of processes not directly related to statistical production purposes. In Deliverables 2.1, 2.2 as well as 3.1, 4.1 and 4.3 it is discussed in detail how these new data sources can be used in the production of official statistics and measurement frameworks for well-being and sustainability indicators. This Deliverable extends on the experiences obtained in these preceding deliverables by pointing out the needs for new data sources and methods in this context

Bullying and Victimization in Overweight and Obese Outpatient Children and Adolescents: An Italian Multicentric Study

Objective Being overweight or obese is one of the most common reasons that children and adolescents are teased at school. We carried out a study in order to investigate: i) the relation between weight status and school bullying and ii) the relation between weight status categories and types of victimization and bullying in an outpatient sample of Italian children and adolescents with different degrees of overweight from minimal overweight up to severe obesity. Participants/Methods Nine-hundred-forty-seven outpatient children and adolescents (age range 6.0'14.0 years) were recruited in 14 hospitals distributed over the country of Italy. The participants were classified as normal-weight (N = 129), overweight (N = 126), moderately obese (N = 568), and severely obese (N = 124). The nature and extent of verbal, physical and relational bullying and victimization were assessed with an adapted version of the revised Olweus bully-victim questionnaire. Each participant was coded as bully, victim, bully-victim, or not involved. Results Normal-weight and overweight participants were less involved in bullying than obese participants; severely obese males were more involved in the double role of bully and victim. Severely obese children and adolescents suffered not only from verbal victimization but also from physical victimization and exclusion from group activities. Weight status categories were not directly related to bullying behaviour; however severely obese males perpetrated more bullying behaviour compared to severely obese females. Conclusions Obesity and bullying among children and adolescents are of ongoing concern worldwide and may be closely related. Common strategies of intervention are needed to cope with these two social health challenges