Extracting relations from Italian wikipedia using self-training

In this paper, we describe a supervised approach for extracting relations from Wikipedia. In particular, we exploit a self-training strategy for enriching a small number of manually labeled triples with new self-labeled examples. We integrate the supervised stage in WikiOIE, an existing framework for unsupervised extraction of relations from Wikipedia. We rely on WikiOIE and its unsupervised pipeline for extracting the initial set of unlabelled triples. An evaluation involving different algorithms and parameters proves that self-training helps to improve performance. Finally, we provide a dataset of about three million triples extracted from the Italian version of Wikipedia and perform a preliminary evaluation conducted on a sample dataset, obtaining promising results

Protecting vulnerable consumers in "Switching Markets''

This paper studies regulatory policy interventions aimed at protecting vulnerable consumers who are disengaged and thus exposed to exploitation. We model heterogeneous consumer switching costs alongside asymmetric market shares. This setting encompasses many markets in which established firms are challenged by new entrants. We identify circumstances under which such interventions can be counterproductive, both with regard to the stated consumer protection objective and the complementary aim to promote competition

Ghigliottin-AI @ EVALITA2020: Evaluating artificial players for the language game “La Ghigliottina”

Evaluating Artificial Players for the Language Game “La Ghigliottina” (Ghigliottin-AI) task is one of the tasks organized in the context of the 2020 EVALITA edition, a periodic evaluation campaign of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and speech tools for the Italian language. Ghigliottin-AI participants are asked to build an artificial player able to solve “La Ghigliottina”, namely the final game of an Italian TV show called “L'Eredità”. The game involves a single player who is given a set of five words unrelated to each other, but related with a sixth word that represents the solution to the game. Fourteen teams registered to Ghigliottin-AI. Nevertheless, only two teams submitted their run. In order to evaluate the submitted systems, we rely on an API base methodology, via a Remote Evaluation Server (RES). In this report we describe the Ghigliottin-AI task, the data, the evaluation and we discuss results

Waiting time distribution in public health care: empirics and theory

Excessive waiting times for elective surgery have been a long-standing concern in many national healthcare systems in the OECD. How do the hospital admission patterns that generate waiting lists affect different patients? What are the hospitals characteristics that determine waiting times? By developing a model of healthcare provision and analysing empirically the entire waiting time distribution we attempt to shed some light on those issues. We first build a theoretical model that describes the optimal waiting time distribution for capacity constraint hospitals. Secondly, employing duration analysis, we obtain empirical representations of that distribution across hospitals in the UK from 1997–2005. We observe important differences on the ‘scale’ and on the ‘shape’ of admission rates. Scale refers to how quickly patients are treated and shape represents trade-offs across duration-treatment profiles. By fitting the theoretical to the empirical distributions we estimate the main structural parameters of the model and are able to closely identify the main drivers of these empirical differences. We find that the level of resources allocated to elective surgery (budget and physical capacity), which determines how constrained the hospital is, explains differences in scale. Changes in benefits and costs structures of healthcare provision, which relate, respectively, to the desire to prioritise patients by duration and the reduction in costs due to delayed treatment, determine the shape, affecting short and long duration patients differently

Behaviour-based price discrimination in "Switching Markets''

This paper studies discriminatory and non-discriminatory pricing when firms' customers have heterogeneous switching costs and market shares are asymmetric. This setting encompasses many markets in which established firms are challenged by disruptive entrants and have yet come under regulatory scrutiny. We identify circumstances under which regulatory interventions to protect ``back-book'' customers from exploitation are counterproductive. And we show how most-favoured customer clauses can be discriminatory and would benefit firms, but firms do not have an incentive to implement them unilaterally

Surgical treatment in patient with non-small-cell lung cancer with fissure involvement: Anatomical versus nonanatomical resection

OBJECTIVE: Despite the intense debate concerning the prognostic impact of fissure involvement (FI) in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer, no specific surgical strategies have been yet recommended when this condition occurs. In this setting, we report our monocentric 10-years experience to investigate this issue. METHODS: From January 2000 to January 2010, the clinical data of 40 non-small-cell lung cancer patients with FI undergoing curative resection were retrospectively reviewed. The sample was stratified according to the type of resection: group A (28 patients): anatomical resection (bilobectomy [21 patients], pneumonectomy [7 patients]); group B (12 patients): nonanatomical resection (lobectomy plus wedge resection [LWR]). The end-points were (1) impact of different surgical approach on the pulmonary function (measured before surgery and 1 month after discharge); (2) disease-specific survival; and (3) tumor recurrence.The t test, χ, and log-rank tests, Kaplan-Meier method, and Cox and logistic regression analyses were used for the statistical analysis. RESULTS: No differences between the two groups were found when comparing the clinical characteristics, histology, pN or pT status, p-stage, residual (R1) disease, tumor grading, or tumor size. Similarly, the baseline preoperative function (tested as forced expiratory volume in 1 second-%-predicted, FEV1%) was likewise comparable (92.5% ± 21.0% in group A versus 85.2% ± 20.0% in group B; p = not significant). The decline of FEV1% after surgery was slightly higher in group A (-24.9% ± 13.5%) when compared with that in group B (-19.5% ± 13.3%), but this difference was not statistically significant (p = ns). Nevertheless, the 5-year disease-specific survival was 56% for group A and 47% for group B (p = ns). The recurrence rate did not differ between the patients undergoing a LWR (3 of 12 patients) and those undergoing a bilobectomy or pneumonectomy (9 of 28 patients) (p = ns). The presence of FI extended for more than 3 cm was found to be the most significant prognostic factor when analyzing survival (p = 0.002) and recurrence rate (p< 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that nonanatomical resection (LWR) could be considered as a feasible surgical option (especially in "frail" patients with an extent of FI less than 3 cm) in the light of the similar oncological and functional outcome compared with anatomical resection. Further studies based on larger series are needed to confirm these preliminary data and also to investigate the impact on the postoperative quality of life

Establishing a fair playing field for payment by results

A key element of the reform agenda for the health service has been to encourage a plurality of provision for NHS patients and so improve the quality of care. In introducing plurality, the Department of Health is committed to establishing a „fair playing field‟. This means that the objective of competitive neutrality across NHS and Independent Sector (IS) providers of NHS services („a level playing field‟) is tempered by the obligation upon the public sector to act in the public interest. This fair playing field must be supported by the system of reimbursement – called Payment by Results (PbR) – that is being implemented to fund NHS patients. PbR is a prospective payment system in which prices for treating particular types of patients are fixed in advance by the Department of Health rather than being negotiated locally. As prices are fixed, any competition between providers should be on the basis of the quality of services, rather than their cost

QGIS AND OPEN DATA CUBE APPLICATIONS FOR LOCAL CLIMATE ZONES ANALYSIS LEVERAGING PRISMA HYPERSPECTRAL SATELLITE DATA

Climate change poses a significant threat to humans and biodiversity, impacting various aspects of livelihoods, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Understanding climate change and its interaction with the environment is crucial for achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Local Climate Zones (LCZ) play a key role in comprehending climate change by categorizing urban areas also based on their thermal characteristics. This study presents prototype open-source software tools developed to integrate ground and satellite data for LCZ analysis in the Metropolitan City of Milan (Northern Italy). These tools consist of a QGIS plugin to access and preprocess ground-based meteorological sensor data and a client-server platform, based on the Open Data Cube and Docker technologies, for the exploitation of multispectral and hyperspectral satellite data in LCZ mapping and analysis. The tools’ architecture, data retrieval methods, and analysis capabilities are described in detail. The QGIS plugin facilitates the access and preprocessing of ground-based sensor data within the user-friendly QGIS environment. The platform enables seamless ground-sensor and satellite data management and analysis, using Jupyter Notebooks as an interface to support programmatic operations on the data. The proposed tools provide a framework for studying climate change and its local impacts on urban environments, with the potential of empowering users to effectively analyze and mitigate its effects

Extra-small gold nanospheres decorated with a thiol-functionalized biodegradable and biocompatible linear polyamidoamine as nanovectors of anticancer molecules

Gold nanoparticles are elective candidate for cancer therapy. Current efforts are devoted to developing innovative methods for their synthesis. Besides, understanding their interaction with cells have become increasingly important for their clinical application. This work aims to describe a simple approach for the synthesis of extra-small gold nanoparticles for breast cancer therapy. In brief, a biocompatible and biodegradable polyamidoamine (named AGMA1-SH), bearing 20%, on a molar basis, thiol-functionalized repeat units, is employed to stabilize and coat extra-small gold nanospheres of different sizes (2.5, 3.5, and 5 nm in gold core), and to generate a nanoplatform for the link with Trastuzumab monoclonal antibody for HER2-positive breast cancer targeting. Dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, ultraviolet visible spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, circular dichroism, protein quantification assays are used for the characterization. The targeting properties of the nanosystems are explored to achieve enhanced and selective uptake of AGMA1-SH-gold nanoparticles by in vitro studies against HER-2 overexpressing cells, SKBR-3 and compared to HER-2 low expressing cells, MCF-7, and normal fibroblast cell line, NIH-3T3. In vitro physicochemical characterization demonstrates that gold nanoparticles modified with AGMA1-SH are more stable in aqueous solution than the unmodified ones. Additionally, the greater gold nanoparticles size (5-nm) is associated with a higher stability and conjugation efficiency with Trastuzumab, which retains its folding and anticancer activity after the conjugation. In particular, the larger Trastuzumab functionalized nanoparticles displays the highest efficacy (via the pro-apoptotic protein increase, anti-apoptotic components decrease, survival-proliferation pathways downregulation) and internalization (via the activation of the classical clathrin-mediated endocytosis) in HER-2 overexpressing SKBR-3 cells, without eliciting significant effects on the other cell lines. The use of biocompatible AGMA1-SH for producing covalently stabilized gold nanoparticles to achieve selective targeting, cytotoxicity and uptake is completely novel, offering an important advancement for developing new anticancer conjugated-gold nanoparticles