Challenges in dental statistics: data and modelling

The aim of this work is to present the reflections and proposals derived from the first Workshop of the SISMEC STATDENT working group on statistical methods and applications in dentistry, held in Ancona (Italy) on 28th September 2011. STATDENT began as a forum of comparison and discussion for statisticians working in the field of dental research in order to suggest new and improve existing biostatistical and clinical epidemiological methods. During the meeting, we dealt with very important topics of statistical methodology for the analysis of dental data, covering the analysis of hierarchically structured and over-dispersed data, the issue of calibration and reproducibility, as well as some problems related to survey methodology, such as the design and construction of unbiased statistical indicators and of well conducted clinical trials. This paper gathers some of the methodological topics discussed during the meeting, concerning multilevel and zero-inflated models for the analysis of caries data and methods for the training and calibration of raters in dental epidemiology

La commercializzazione e valorizzazione dei brevetti: Nessi teorici ed empirici

Il presente lavoro mira ad approfondire la tematica inerente i concetti di valore e valutazione dei beni immateriali, i quali hanno acquisito nel tempo un ruolo chiave per la creazione dei vantaggi competitivi delle imprese. Il contributo dei beni intangibili in qualit\ue0 di variabili strategiche per la determinazione di sovraprofitti da competizione \ue8 messo quotidianamente in luce. Si riscontra per esempio nelle attuali tensioni competitive tra i giganti delle tecnologia e comunicazione quali Google and Apple per la supremazia in termini di portafoglio brevetti. Inoltre la stampa economica specialistica, come The Economist con un\u2019edizione speciale nel 2005, ha sottolineato in pi\uf9 occasioni come la valorizzazione degli assets intangibili assuma un connotato cruciale per l\u2019ottimizzazione nella gestione dei processi innovativi e di ricerca e sviluppo. Infine, anche gli indici di borsa quali S&P500 hanno ancorato le rispettive metriche valutative sulla consistenza e importanza strategica dell\u2019insieme dei beni immateriali. Data la rilevanza fenomenologica, la letteratura italiana e internazionale hanno affrontato sotto molteplici aspetti la tematica della valorizzazione dei beni immateriali. I contributi nazionali si sono soffermati sulle logiche valutative delle varie categorie dei beni immateriali all\u2019interno delle poste di bilancio. I contributi internazionali si sono focalizzati sulle caratteristiche che i beni immateriali devono possedere per essere considerati alla base del vantaggio competitivo, e sulla correlazione tra i beni immateriali considerati di valore e le rispettive caratteristiche innovative. Il presente lavoro mira ad unificare tali correnti di studio e a analizzare empiricamente come il concetto di valore dei beni immateriali, e in particolare dei brevetti, sia un driver essenziale nei processi di compra-vendita di tali assets intangibili e nella creazione di mercati efficienti per le tecnologie. Il lavoro di ricerca si compone di quattro capitoli. Nel primo capitolo si procede mediante una trattazione teorica del concetto di risorsa strategica e come le caratteristiche pertinenti si possano applicare ai beni immateriali. Si procede nel secondo capitolo con una rassegna dei contributi scientifici in materia di valutazione degli assets intangibili nella dottrina nazionale e internazionale. Il terzo e il quarto capitolo integrano con due studi empirici le correnti di studio nazionale e internazionale: in particolare si analizza come la probabilit\ue0 di cedere mediante vendita un brevetto sia influenzata dal valore strategico ed economico di questo e dalle caratteristiche contrattuali della transazione . Nel capitolo terzo si analizza mediante una stima econometrica come la propensione di cedere in licenza un bene e l\u2019effettiva stipula del contratto siano influenzate dalle caratteristiche innovative del bene immateriale e dal valore strategico di quest\u2019ultimo. Nel quarto capitolo si analizza mediante un caso qualitativo longitudinale su una serie di aste pubbliche inerenti i brevetti come le caratteristiche contrattuali influenzino la riuscita positiva o meno della compravendita e l\u2019emersione del valore finale di vendita degli assets. Con i suoi risultati, la ricerca contribuisce integrando gli studi nazionali e internazionali in materia di valore strategico dei beni immateriali. In particolare, l\u2019analisi empirica inserisce nel dibattito scientifico il valore economico e strategico dei brevetti come driver nella cessione sia mediante licenza che mediante asta. Il lavoro di ricerca prospetta ulteriori vie di sviluppo per approfondire come poi la valorizzazione e il trasferimento dei beni immateriali e in particolare dei brevetti possano andare a modificare pro tempore i posizionamenti competitivi delle imprese.This research aims at deepening the theoretical and empirical relevance of value of intangible assets, since these latter play an important role in in influencing competitive dynamics. Indeed, intangible assets are relevant and influential variables in determining competitive advantage. For instance, Google and Apple daily fight for reaching a dominant position in terms of intellectual property (IP) portfolio. Moreover, business press such The Economist dedicate special issues on the strategic management of intangible assets and on the importance of licensing and markets for technologies as means to leverage innovation and revenues. Finally, professional investing raters create indexes \u2013e.g. S&P500- that link evaluation of intangible assets to organizational performances. As a matter of fact, the value of intangible assets is such a core topic in current economy, that research could not neglect it. On one side theoretical contributions coming from Italian scholars established evaluation models for intangible assets and patents, on the other side empirical international studies focused on the correlation between the sale of intangibles, the value of assets and the essential characteristics of innovation embedded into them. Given the extensive background, this research focuses on the relevance of strategic value of patents as a driver for the creation of efficient markets for technologies. More in-depth, four chapters inform the present research. In the first chapter, I summarize national and international research streams, which deal with the notion of strategic resource and the associated meaning of value. Therefore, the second chapter deepens the evaluative models that have been established in the literature to empirically measure the value of intangible assets. The third and fourth chapters empirically disentangle the research question. In the third chapter, I use likelihood econometric estimations on a sample of 8000 European patents to establish the impact of strategic value on the willingness to license a patent and on the probability of effectively license this latter. In the fourth chapter, I analyze through a longitudinal case study on a series of intellectual property auctions how transactional mechanism influence the final valuation of patents. In sum, the research contributes in extending our awareness on the relevance on strategic value of intangible assets. Finally, the thesis suggests further researchable topics that could extend the present framework to better understand how the marketability of intangible assets and their strategic value influence the variation of firms\u2019 competitive positioning

Italian Deprivation Index and Dental Caries in 12-Year-Old Children: A Multilevel Bayesian Analysis

Evidence from the literature has shown that people with a lower socioeconomic status enjoy less good health than people with a higher socioeconomic status. The Italian deprivation index (DI) was used with the aim to evaluate the association between the DMFT index and risk factors for dental caries, including city population and DI. The study included 4,305 12-year-old children living in 38 cities classified by demographic size as small, midsize and large. Zero-inflated negative binomial multilevel regression models were used to assess risk factors for DMFT and to address excess of zero DMFT and overdispersion through a Bayesian approach. The difference in the average level of DMFT among children living in cities with different DI quintile was not statistically significant (p = 0.578). The DI and ln(population), included as city-level fixed effects in the two-level variance components model, were not statistically significant. Consuming sweet drinks on average increased the mean DMFT of a susceptible child, while having a highly educated mother reduced it. Un-observed heterogeneity among cities was detected for the probability to be non-susceptible to caries (city-level variance = 0.26 with 95% credibility interval 0.09–0.57), while no territorial effect was found for the mean DMFT of the susceptible children. Our results suggest that the DI and city population did not play a role in explaining between-city variability. Interventions against social deprivation can be influential on the perception of oral health in Italian 12-year-old children to the extent that they can also affect individual level factors

Robots, Trade and Employment in Italian Local Labour Systems

Three main shocks have affected advanced economies over the last 25 years, with significant consequences for work, production and economic growth. The first is technological change associated with robotics and the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. The second, which is partly related to the first, is the diffusion of ICT and the development of intelligent software applied both to industry and tertiary activities. The third is the strong competitive pressure from low cost and emerging countries, which have changed the geography of world production and trade flows, often within global value chains. Following the seminal papers of Acemoglu and Restrepo (2017) and Dauth, Findeisen, Südekum and Woessner (2017), the aim of this paper is to assess the impact of these three shocks on employment in Italian local labour markets in the period 1991-2011. What is new in our approach is the explicit consideration of the role played by the different typologies of local labour systems and industrial districts. We find that robots do not have any negative effect on employment in local labour markets. On the contrary, robots seem to be associated with a growth in overall employment, mainly due to the tertiary sector. The second result is that there is some evidence of a positive effect of ICT investments on local employment, in particular non-manufacturing employment. The last and most robust result of the econometric analysis is the negative impact of trade with low cost countries on local employment. This result has one almost absolute protagonist: China. All these impacts are not homogeneous across the national territory and partly depend on the characteristics of the local productive systems and industrial districts

Time-Dependent Analysis of Precast Segmental Bridges

Prestressed segmentally constructed balanced cantilever bridges are often subjected to larger deflections than those predicted by calculations, especially for long-term effects. In this paper, the case of modular balanced cantilever bridges, which are prestressed segmental bridges obtained through a repetition of the same double cantilever, is investigated. The considered bridges are two typical cases of modular balanced cantilever both subjected to large deformations during their lifetime. In this case, due to the unusual employed static scheme, creep deflections indefinitely evolve over time particularly at the end of the cantilevers and in correspondence with the central joint. These remarkable deflections cause discomfort for vehicular traffic and in certain cases can lead to the bridge collapse. Important extraordinary maintenance interventions were necessary to restore the viability of the bridges and to replace the viaduct design configuration. To this aim, the static schemes of the structures were varied, introducing new constraints, new tendons, and carbon fiber reinforcements. In the present work, time analysis was performed to compare the time-dependent behavior of the bridge according to two different creep models, the CEB-FIP Model Code 2010 and the RILEM Model B3, with the real-time-dependent behavior of the bridge observed during its lifetime. The two different employed models exhibit different behaviors in terms of displacements and bending moments acting on the bridge. Interesting considerations are made on their reliability in simulating the long-term creep effects that evolve indefinitely over time. Moreover, retrofitting techniques have been proposed and modeled to predict their effectiveness in reducing time-dependent deflections