4,849 research outputs found
measures of social capital and trust
Trust and trustworthiness are important components of social capital and much attention has been devoted to the problems of their correct evaluation. Attitudinal survey questions as reported in the EVS – European Value Survey - are often regarded as inefficient indicators of trust, since they lack of behavioural underpinnings (Putnam, 1995) which one might desire when measuring trust. In this paper, we consider alternative measures of trust and trustworthiness, based on behavioural assumptions. We construct two relative behavioural measures of trust (RBM1 and RBM2), both based on the ex post measurement of trust, once individuals are informed on the level of trustworthiness of the social group to which they have been allocated during the experiment. Our main finding is that the relative behavioural measures show that trust strongly varies once the individual is informed on the on the level of trustworthiness of the social group to which he\she has been allocated during the experiment. This difference is higher the higher is the family level of income and the parental education status. As for previous findings (Glaeser et al., 2000, Lazzarini, 2005) which have found no correlation between attitudinal and behavioural measures of trust, we find that relative behavioural measures are not correlated to attitudinal measures but they are strongly correlated to groups’ trustworthiness. We also find that similar social preferences profiles (between Senders and Recipients) tend to enhance the individual level of trust, in the RBM2 context. This result seems to confirm the importance of the homogeneity of the social environment when studying the effects of policy interventions (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2002).social capital, trust, experiments
The Role of Probe Attenuation in the Time-Domain Reflectometry Characterization of Dielectrics
The influence of the measurement setup on the estimation of dielectric permittivity spectra from time-domain reflectometry (TDR) responses is investigated. The analysis is based on a simplified model of the TDR measurement setup, where an ideal voltage step is applied to an ideal transmission line that models the probe. The main result of this analysis is that the propagation in the probe has an inherent band limiting effect, and the estimation of the high-frequency permittivity parameters is well conditioned only if the wave attenuation for a round trip propagation in the dielectric sample is small. This is a general result, holding for most permittivity model and estimation scheme. It has been verified on real estimation problems by estimating the permittivity of liquid dielectrics and soil samples via an high-order model of the TDR setup and a parametric inversion approac
Fermionization of a strongly interacting Bose-Fermi mixture in a one-dimensional harmonic trap
We consider a strongly interacting one-dimensional (1D) Bose-Fermi mixture
confined in a harmonic trap. It consists of a Tonks-Girardeau (TG) gas (1D Bose
gas with repulsive hard-core interactions) and of a non-interacting Fermi gas
(1D spin-aligned Fermi gas), both species interacting through hard-core
repulsive interactions. Using a generalized Bose-Fermi mapping, we determine
the exact particle density profiles, momentum distributions and behaviour of
the mixture under 1D expansion when opening the trap. In real space, bosons and
fermions do not display any phase separation: the respective density profiles
extend over the same region and they both present a number of peaks equal to
the total number of particles in the trap. In momentum space the bosonic
component has the typical narrow TG profile, while the fermionic component
shows a broad distribution with fermionic oscillations at small momenta. Due to
the large boson-fermion repulsive interactions, both the bosonic and the
fermionic momentum distributions decay as at large momenta, like in
the case of a pure bosonic TG gas. The coefficient is related to the
two-body density matrix and to the bosonic concentration in the mixture. When
opening the trap, both momentum distributions "fermionize" under expansion and
turn into that of a Fermi gas with a particle number equal to the total number
of particles in the mixture.Comment: revised version; 8 pages, 7 figure
Permittivity measurement of sand and clay soil with a capacitive sensor
The determination of permittivity of sand and clay soil over a wide frequency band can be useful in several applications. Fringing Capacitive sensors can be used to measure the real and imaginary part of the permittivity of materials in the RF and microwave frequency bands. In this paper the use of a commercial capacitive sensor has been exploited in order to characterize sand and clay soils with different water content. Liquid and granular materials are particular suited for this kind of sensor because the sensor can be dipped into the sample thus avoiding contact problems between the surface of the sensor and the material as for solid one. The measurement setup is composed by an Agilent Coaxial Probe kit 85070D, an HP 8720B Network analyzer and PC for data acquisition. This sensor works in the frequency range 200MHz-20GHz. The calibration procedure is based on three reference measurements (air, short circuit and deionized water). The setup and the calibration procedure has been tested by measuring the permittivity of several reference liquids (methanol, ethanol, acetone, water with different salt concentration). The comparison with the Cole-Cole model was also performed. Then, several samples of sand and clay soil with different water content have been considered. This measurement technique has also been compared with a frequency domain approach for the permittivity determination based on the double-delay method
Development and Initial Validation of a Questionnaire to Measure Health-Related Quality of Life of Adults with Common Variable Immune Deficiency: The CVID_QoL Questionnaire.
BACKGROUND:
Generic health status quality of life (QoL) instruments have been used in patients with common variable immune deficiency (CVID). However, by their nature, these tools may over- or underestimate the impact of diseases on an individual's QoL.
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire to measure specific-health-related QoL for adults with CVID (CVID_QoL).
METHODS:
The 32-item content of the CVID_QoL questionnaire was developed using focus groups and individual patient interviews. Validation studies included 118 adults with CVID who completed Short Form-36, Saint George Respiratory Questionnaire, General Health Questionnaire-12, and EuroQol-5D questionnaire in a single session. Principal component and factor analysis solutions identified 3 scores to be similar in number and content for each solution. Validation of 3 factor scores was performed by construct validity. Reproducibility, reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity were evaluated. Matrices consisting of correlations between the 32 items in the CVID_QOL were calculated.
RESULTS:
Factor analysis identified 3 dimensions: emotional functioning (EF), relational functioning (RF), and gastrointestinal and skin symptoms (GSS). The instrument had good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha, min. 0.74 for GSS, max. 0.84 for RF, n = 118) and high reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient, min. 0.79 for RF, max 0.90 for EF, n = 27). EF and RF scores showed good convergent validity correlating with conceptually similar dimensions of other study scales. Acute and relapsing infections had a significant impact on EF and RF.
CONCLUSIONS:
This study provides evidence of the reliability and construct validity of the CVID_QoL to identify QoL issues in patients with CVID that may not be addressed by generic instruments
Serum creatine kinase isoenzymes in children with osteogenesis imperfecta
This study evaluates serum creatine kinase isoenzyme
activity in children with osteogenesis imperfecta to determine
its usefulness as a biochemical marker during treatment
with bisphosphonate. The changes of creatine kinase
(CK) isoenzyme activity during and after discontinuation therapy
were observed. These results could be useful in addressing
over-treatment risk prevention.
Introduction The brain isoenzyme of creatine kinase (CKbb)
is highly expressed in mature osteoclasts during osteoclastogenesis,
thus plays an important role in bone resorption. We
previously identified high serum CKbb levels in 18 children
with osteogenesis imperfect (OI) type 1 treated for 1 year with
bisphosphonate (neridronate). In the present study, serum CK
isoenzymes were evaluated in the same children with continuous
versus discontinued neridronate treatment over a further
2-year follow-up period.
Methods This study included 18 children with OI type 1, 12
with continued (group A) and 6 with ceased (group B)
neridronate treatment. Auxological data, serum biochemical
markers of bone metabolism, bone mineral density z-score,
and serum total CK and isoenzyme activities were determined
in both groups.
Results Serum CKbb was progressively and significantly increased
in group A (p < 0.004) but rapidly decreased to undetectable
levels in group B. In both groups, the cardiac muscle
creatine kinase isoenzyme (CKmb) showed a marked decrease,
while serum C-terminal telopeptide (CTx) levels were
almost unchanged.
Conclusions This study provides evidence of the cumulative
effect of neridronate administration in increasing serum CKbb
levels and the reversible effect after its discontinuation. This
approach could be employed for verifying the usefulness of
serum CKbb as a biochemical marker in patients receiving
prolonged bisphosphonate treatment. Moreover, the decreased
serum CKmb levels suggest a systemic effect of these drugs
Dbl oncogene expression in MCF-10 A epithelial cells disrupts mammary acinar architecture, induces EMT and angiogenic factor secretion.
The proteins of the Dbl family are guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) of Rho GTPases and are known to be involved in cell growth regulation. Alterations of the normal function of these proteins lead to pathological processes such as developmental disorders, neoplastic transformation, and tumor metastasis. We have previously demonstrated that expression of Dbl oncogene in lens epithelial cells modulates genes encoding proteins involved in epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT) and induces angiogenesis in the lens. Our present study was undertaken to investigate the role of Dbl oncogene in epithelial cells transformation, providing new insights into carcinoma progression. To assess how Dbl oncogene can modulate EMT, cell migration, morphogenesis, and expression of pro-apoptotic and angiogenic factors we utilized bi- and three-dimensional cultures of MCF-10░A cells. We show that upon Dbl expression MCF-10░A cells undergo EMT. In addition, we found that Dbl overexpression sustain
Noncommutative spacetime symmetries: Twist versus covariance
We prove that the Moyal product is covariant under linear affine spacetime
transformations. From the covariance law, by introducing an -space
where the spacetime coordinates and the noncommutativity matrix components are
on the same footing, we obtain a noncommutative representation of the affine
algebra, its generators being differential operators in -space. As
a particular case, the Weyl Lie algebra is studied and known results for Weyl
invariant noncommutative field theories are rederived in a nutshell. We also
show that this covariance cannot be extended to spacetime transformations
generated by differential operators whose coefficients are polynomials of order
larger than one. We compare our approach with the twist-deformed enveloping
algebra description of spacetime transformations.Comment: 19 pages in revtex, references adde
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