Heterogeneous effects of weather shocks on firm economic performance

This paper provides novel, firm-level estimates of the economic damages induced by temperature shocks. Leveraging European firm-level data, this study investigates the heterogeneity of damages across firms characteristics overlooked in aggregate analyses. The analysis consistently highlights negative (positive) impacts on the least (most) productive firms, contributing to both climate economics and the literature on aggregate productivity. Industry-specific effects indicate different susceptibilities across sectors to weather shocks. These results delve into the findings from the pooled sample which reveal a moderate U-shaped relationship between temperature and economic outcomes, suggesting significant adaptation for firms located in warmer areas. Temperature impacts on economic performance manifest with a lag, and varying persistence across firms. Methodologically, this work employs quantitative methods to address the potential drawbacks highlighted in the current climate econometrics discussion

Trauma and dissociation in psychosis

In this thesis we attempt to address the complex issue of the relationship between trauma, dissociation, and psychosis. We start by providing a brief presentation of the background to this thesis, which is followed by an outline of the main clinical aspects and theories of psychosis. Subsequently, a broad evolutionary overview of trauma is given within which existing influential cognitive theories of PTSD are placed. Current models of dissociation are then reviewed and related to the view of trauma and traumatic stress reactions previously outlined, before providing an evaluative synthesis of the theoretical approaches and convergent conceptualisations of trauma, dissociation, and psychosis in order to disentangle some of the plausible processes underlying their relationship.It was hypothesised that dissociation, occurring as a result of trauma (experience of psychosis), plays a key role in the formation and maintenance of psychotic symptoms, chiefly hallucinations and delusions. We used methods from experimental psychopathology to investigate the potential role played by dissociative processes in the disruption of the cognitive processes of attention and memory for trauma-related, positive and neutral information in two groups of participants: 30 individuals with psychosis and 30 matched controls. In particular, we used self-report measures of symptomatology, recovery style, trauma-related symptoms, and dissociation, and 1 employed two experimental tasks. The first was specifically devised to assess attentional processes: a Directed Forgetting Stroop Task (DFST) performed under conditions of divided attention. The second task was a Word-Stem Completion Task (WSCT) on which we applied the process dissociation procedure (PDP; Jacoby, 1991) in order to estimate the relative contribution to dissociation of implicit and explicit memory.As expected, our findings revealed that compared to controls the experimental group processed information preferentially in an implicit manner, and that this effect was predicted by levels of dissociation and trauma-related distress. Although enhanced unconscious memory was not specific to trauma-related material, it significantly contributed to the level of positive symptomatology when mediated by stress levels. In contrast, the contribution of recovery style in the maintenance of psychotic symptoms was not supported, although this may reflect a limitation of the self-report measures employed in our study. Contrary to what was hypothesised, we did not find a standard directed forgetting effect in our memory task or an advantage (less interference due to dissociation) in our task of divided attention.Results are discussed in the light of the theoretical background, previous experimental literature, methodological limitations, and current models of trauma and dissociatio

Equilibrium strategies in time-inconsistent stochastic control problems with constraints: necessary conditions

This paper is concerned with a time-inconsistent recursive stochastic control problems where the forward state process is constrained through an additional recursive utility system. By adapting the Ekeland variational principle, necessary conditions for equilibrium strategies are presented concerning a second-order Hamiltonian function defined by pairs of backward stochastic differential equations. At last, we consider a finite horizon state constrained investment-consumption problem with non-exponential actualisation as an example to show the application in finance. The class of constraints investigated here includes the possibility of imposing a risk bound on the terminal value of the wealth process

Subgame-perfect equilibrium strategies for time-inconsistent recursive stochastic control problems

We study time-inconsistent recursive stochastic control problems. Since for this class of problems classical optimal controls may fail to exist or to be relevant in practice, we focus on subgame-perfect equilibrium policies. The approach followed in our work relies on the stochastic maximum principle: we adapt the classical spike variation technique to obtain a characterization of equilibrium strategies in terms of a generalized second-order Hamiltonian function defined through a pair of backward stochastic differential equations. The theoretical results are applied in the financial field to finite horizon investment-consumption policies with non-exponential actualization.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2105.0147

The heparins and cancer: review of clinical trials and biological properties

The association between cancer and thromboembolic disease is a well-known phenomenon and can contribute significantly to the morbidity and mortality of cancer patients. The spectrum of thromboembolic manifestations in cancer patients includes deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, but also intravascular disseminated coagulation and abnormalities in the clotting system in the absence of clinical manifestations. Unfractioned heparin (UFH) and particularly low molecular weight heparins (LMWHs) are widely used for the prevention and treatment of thromboembolic manifestations that commonly accompany malignancies. Malignant growth has also been linked to the activity of heparin-like glycosoaminoglycans, to neoangiogenesis, to protease activity, to immune function and gene expression. All these factors contribute in the proliferation and dissemination of malignancies. Heparins may play a role in tumour cell growth and in cancer dissemination. The aims of the study are to review the efficiency of heparins in the prevention and treatment of cancer-related thromboembolic complications, and review the biological effects of heparins. Heparins are effective in reducing the frequency of thromboembolic complications in cancer patients. Meta-analyses comparing unfractioned heparins and LMWHs for the treatment of deep vein thrombosis have shown better outcome with a reduction of major bleeding complications in patients treated with LMWHs. LMWH have antitumour effects in animal models of malignancy: heparin oligosaccharides containing less than 10 saccharide residues have been found to inhibit the biological activity of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), whereas heparin fragments with less than 18 saccharide residues have been reported to inhibit the binding of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) to its receptors on endothelial cells. It has been shown that LMWH, in contrast with UFH, can hinder the binding of growth factors to their high-affinity receptors as a result of its smaller size. In vitro heparin fragments of less than 18 saccharide residues reduce the activity of VEGF, and fragments of less than 10 saccharide residues inhibit the activity of bFGF. Small molecular heparin fractions have also been shown to inhibit VEGF- and bFGF-mediated angiogenesis in vivo, in contrast with UFH. Moreover, heparin may influence malignant cell growth through other different interrelated mechanisms: inhibition of (1) heparin-binding growth factors that drive malignant cell growth; (2) tumour cell heparinases that mediate tumour cell invasion and metastasis; (3) cell surface selectin-mediated tumour cell metastasis and blood coagulation. The above evidence, together with favourable pharmaco-properties and with a reduction in major bleeding complications, suggests an important role for LMWHs in thromboprophylaxis and in the therapy of venous thromboembolism in cancer patients. There is sufficient experimental data to suggest that heparins may interfere with various aspects of cancer proliferation, angiogenesis, and metastasis formation. Large-scale clinical trials are required to determine the clinical impact of the above activities on the natural history of the disease

Nonlocal Singular Problems and Applications to MEMS

We consider fourth order nonlinear problems which describe electrostatic actuation in MicroElectroMechanicalSystems (MEMS) both in the stationary case and in the evolution case; we prove existence, uniqueness and regularity theorems by exploiting the Near Operators Theory

Saperi degli operatori e dei contesti nei percorsi di uscita dagli sprar

“Sprars”: professional knowledge and social environmentThe so called “second reception” is the main driver of asylum seekers and refugees’ care in Italy. Sprar is acronym of Refugees and Asylum Seeker’s Protection System; “a sprar” is, in the common language of practitioners, a social service for migrants’ reception.The paper presents the actions to support the migrants in job experience in order to empower their social inclusion. The chosen point of view focuses on the role of social workers and organisations’ reputation in building relationships within the social environment in which migrants’ inclusion paths are experimented.The research started in 2014 in Southern Italy (Calabria and Sicilia). 45 social workers were listened through focus groups and narrative interviews. I also observed the practitioners’ team working with refugees in a mountain center, S. Alessio in Aspromonte