The Role of Guarantees in support of Entrepreneurial Microcredit in Italy.

This paper proposes an empirical analysis of the microcredit initiatives promoted by local and cooperative credit banks trying to take advantage of any differences in the initiatives promoted by other types of operators in terms of default rates of loans. The differences are analyzed on the basis of distinctive features to identify a possible way of developing microcredit in Italy. The empirical analysis verifies the existence of a statically significant correlation between characteristics of the entrepreneurial microcredit programs and their default risk. The presence of credit guarantee schemes and the role of banking intermediaries as promoters reduce significantly the risk of default on these initiatives. The Italian microcredit programs do not show territorial differences.

EUROPE 2020 SI-LAB: A New Center for Economic and Social Development in Sicily

The debate on the determinants of regional and local development has been stimulated recently by the European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth defined as Europe 2020. We present the objectives and structure of a new laboratory (SI-LAB) for the development of Sicilian economy promoted by the University of Palermo. In particular, we highlight the fundamental issues related to the incoming functioning of the Lab as a new oganization devoted to analyzing public policy issues, and fostering new ways of entrepreurship at the local level

Supporting Inquiry by Identifying Gaps in Student Confidence: Development of a Measure of Perceived Competence

Critical to inquiry-based learning is information literacy. Educators can enhance students’ experiences during the inquiry process if they are aware of the skill areas in which students either have or lack confidence. This article describes the development and psychometric properties of the Perceived Competence in Information Skills (PCIS) measure. Educators can use the measure to support student inquiry by identifying and addressing gaps in student confidence. The measure is freely available through Syracuse University’s Center for Digital Literacy

Prognostic role of aldosterone in patients with acute coronary syndrome: short and medium term follow-up.

AIMS: Different studies have shown a correlation between aldosterone, atherosclerosis and ischemia in the past decade. Evidence exists for the relationship between high levels of aldosterone and augmented risk of cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertension, cardiac failure, coronary artery disease and stroke. The objective of this study was to determine the prognostic role of aldosterone in patients with myocardial infarction. METHODS:The study population included 96 consecutive patients admitted to our department for ST-elevated and non-ST-elevated myocardial infarction from June 2009 to March 2012. Plasma aldosterone levels were measured at admission to hospital in all patients. A 2-year prospective follow-up was performed, and fatal events and non-fatal events, such as reinfarction, congestive heart failure and arrhythmias, were recorded. RESULTS:Aldosterone levels at admission were associated with incidence of congestive heart failure (P\u200a=\u200a0.02), ventricular arrhythmias (P\u200a=\u200a0.01) and all complications (P\u200a=\u200a0.003) after 1-month follow-up. Moreover, high aldosterone levels gave important information in the medium term (24\u200a\ub1\u200a6 months). Specifically, aldosterone was a predictive variable of reinfarction (P\u200a<\u200a0.0001), congestive heart failure (P\u200a<\u200a0.0001) and adverse events (P\u200a=\u200a0.0002). The logistic regression analysis confirmed these results and showed that aldosterone may be predictive of adverse events at medium-term follow-up (odds ratio 1.1, 95% confidence interval 1.03-1.15, P\u200a=\u200a0.02). CONCLUSION:These data show a strong and significant correlation between plasma aldosterone levels at admission for myocardial infarction and fatal and nonfatal adverse events. Aldosterone appears to be a main marker of adverse clinical outcome, in accordance with the literature. These data suggest the need to identify whether antialdosteronic drug treatment, applied acutely in patients with aldosterone elevation, can influence favorably the prognosis of patients with myocardial infarction

Green Fluorescent Protein in the sea urchin: new experimental approaches to transcriptional regulatory analysis in embryos and larvae

The use of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) as a reporter for expression transgenes opens the way to several new experimental strategies for the study of gene regulation in sea urchin development. A GFP coding sequence was associated with three different previously studied cis-regulatory systems, viz those of the SM50 gene, expressed in skeletogenic mesenchyme, the CyIIa gene, expressed in archenteron, skeletogenic and secondary mesenchyme, and the Endo16 gene, expressed in vegetal plate, archenteron and midgut. We demonstrate that the sensitivity with which expression can be detected is equal to or greater than that of whole-mount in situ hybridization applied to detection of CAT mRNA synthesized under the control of the same cis-regulatory systems. However, in addition to the important feature that it can be visualized nondestructively in living embryos, GFP has other advantages. First, it freely diffuses even within fine cytoplasmic cables, and thus reveals connections between cells, which in sea urchin embryos is particularly useful for observations on regulatory systems that operate in the syncytial skeletogenic mesenchyme. Second, GFP expression can be dramatically visualized in postembryonic larval tissues. This brings postembryonic larval developmental processes for the first time within the easy range of gene transfer analyses. Third, GFP permits identification and segregation of embryos in which the clonal incorporation of injected DNA has occurred in any particular desired region of the embryo. Thus, we show explicitly that, as expected, GFP transgenes are incorporated in the same nuclei together with other transgenes with which they are co-injected

Physically based modeling of rainfall-triggered landslides: a case study in the Luquillo forest, Puerto Rico

This paper presents the development of a rainfall-triggered landslide module within an existing physically based spatially distributed ecohydrologic model. The model, tRIBS-VEGGIE (Triangulated Irregular Networks-based Real-time Integrated Basin Simulator and Vegetation Generator for Interactive Evolution), is capable of a sophisticated description of many hydrological processes; in particular, the soil moisture dynamics are resolved at a temporal and spatial resolution required to examine the triggering mechanisms of rainfall-induced landslides. The validity of the tRIBS-VEGGIE model to a tropical environment is shown with an evaluation of its performance against direct observations made within the study area of Luquillo Forest. The newly developed landslide module builds upon the previous version of the tRIBS landslide component. This new module utilizes a numerical solution to the Richards' equation (present in tRIBS-VEGGIE but not in tRIBS), which better represents the time evolution of soil moisture transport through the soil column. Moreover, the new landslide module utilizes an extended formulation of the factor of safety (FS) to correctly quantify the role of matric suction in slope stability and to account for unsaturated conditions in the evaluation of FS. The new modeling framework couples the capabilities of the detailed hydrologic model to describe soil moisture dynamics with the infinite slope model, creating a powerful tool for the assessment of rainfall-triggered landslide risk.United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Project NNX07AD29G

Tuning gaps and phases of a two-subband system in a quantizing magnetic field

In this work we study the properties of a two-subband quasi-two-dimensional electron system in a strong magnetic field when the electron filling factor is equal to four. When the cyclotron energy is close to the intersubband splitting the system can be mapped onto a four-level electron system with an effective filling factor of two. The ground state is either a ferromagnetic state or a spin-singlet state, depending on the values of the inter-level splitting and Zeeman energy. The boundaries between these phases are strongly influenced by the inter-electron interaction. A significant exchange-mediated enhancement of the excitation gap results in the suppression of the electron-phonon interaction. The rate of absorption of non-equilibrium phonons is calculated as a function of Zeeman energy and inter-subband splitting. The phonon absorption rate has two peaks as a function of intersubband splitting and has a step-like structure as a function of Zeeman energy

The superfield quantisation of a superparticle action with an extended line element

A massive superparticle action based on the generalised line element in N = 1 global superspace is quantised canonically. A previous method of quantising this action, based on a Fock space analysis, showed that states existed in three supersymmetric multiplets, each of a different mass. The quantisation procedure presented uses the single first class constraint as an operator condition on a general N = 1 superwavefunction. The constraint produces coupled equations of motion for the component wavefunctions. Transformations of the component wavefunctions are derived that decouple the equations of motion and partition the resulting wavefunctions into three separate supermultiplets. Unlike previous quantisations of superparticle actions in N = 1 global superspace, the spinor wavefunctions satisfy the Dirac equation and the vector wavefunctions satisfy the Proca equation. The off-shell closure of the commutators of the supersymmetry transformations, that include mass parameters, are derived by the introduction of auxiliary wavefunctions. To avoid the ghosts arising in a previous Fock space quantisation an alternative conjugation is used in the definition of the current, based on a Krein space approach

Miglioramento delle abilità linguistiche e dell'assertività nei disturbi del comportamento alimentare: studio randomizzato controllato di un'attività di laboratorio letterario [Improving linguistic skills and assertiveness in eating disorders: A randomized controlled trial on a literary workshop activity]

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of a literary workshop activity for increasing linguistic skills and assertiveness in patients with eating disorders (ED). Methods: Twenty-four patients consequently admitted to the ED in-patient unit at the private clinic "Villa Maria Luigia" (Parma, Northern Italy) were enrolled in the study. Of these, 8 were randomly assigned to treatment and 16 to care as usual (the only difference between treatment and care as usual was the literary workshop activity). The literary workshop consisted in 15 weekly 60-minute group sessions. Linguistic and expressive skills were provided and tested during the sessions. The Rathus Assertiveness Schedule and the Verbal Fluency Test (phonemic and semantic) were administered to all patients at the beginning and end of hospitalization. Results: A significant improvement of semantic skills, phonetic skills and assertiveness (p < 0.01) was registered in the treatment group. A positive correlation was also found between variations of linguistic skills and assertiveness in the treatment group, but not in the control group. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that a literary workshop activity within a rehabilitation program for patients suffering from ED can aid in improving communication and language skills that might have a positive and significant impact on levels of assertiveness

Non-Anti-Commutative deformation of effective potentials in supersymmetric gauge theories

We studied a nilpotent Non-Anti-Commutative (NAC) deformation of the effective superpotentials in supersymmetric gauge theories, caused by a constant self-dual graviphoton background. We derived the simple non-perturbative formula applicable to any NAC (star) deformed chiral superpotential. It is remarkable that the deformed superpotential is always `Lorentz'-invariant. As an application, we considered the NAC deformation of the pure super-Yang-Mills theory whose IR physics is known to be described by the Veneziano-Yankielowicz superpotential (in the undeformed case). The unbroken gauge invariance of the deformed effective action gives rise to severe restrictions on its form. We found a non-vanishing gluino condensate in vacuum but no further dynamical supersymmetry breaking in the deformed theory.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX; small changes, additions and references adde