52 research outputs found
Essays in applied microeconomics
This thesis consists of three chapters in which I study how to design effective policies to address inequality in performance and opportunities in education and the labor market. In the first chapter, I explore the effect of minority status in explaining disparities in performance. Stereotypes shape the distribution of traits across occupations and majors, influencing payoffs from economic choices. As a consequence, the individuals that we observe in the minority are often individuals who decided to bear the cost of making a choice against stereotypes, a condition that might matter on its own. This margin has remained mostly unexplored due to the difficulty of finding a setting characterized by an independent variation in the two dimensions, which often overlap in real-world environments. In my paper, I disentangle these two effects by combining a choice with well-defined stereotypes (university major) with variation in peer identity across small, exogenously formed classes within the same course. Evidence from the performance of 14,000 students in an elite university indicates that those who go against stereotypes do not suffer from being in the minority, but they impose negative externalities on those who select on stereotypes. This might explain why the majority upholds stereotypes and why targeting minorities to foster inclusion might not be enough and even backfire. The second and third chapters focus on affirmative action policies, one of the primary policy recommendations to fight the under-representation of women in decision-making bodies. The context is South Korean municipal councils, where gender quotas were introduced shocking a status quo where women were nearly absent. Chapter two explores the effect of the policy on partiesâ selection of candidates by exploiting the discontinuity in the intensity of the quota at specific cut-offs of council size. Quotas were implemented in only one of the two independent election arms, leaving space for adjustment in selecting candidates in the arm unaffected by the policy. We find that higher gender quotas in the constrained arm induce municipalities to elect fewer women in the unconstrained arm. However, this pattern gradually reverses over time. The reversal is driven by parties learning about womenâs competence after having experienced a female councilor. This paper highlights the risk of gender quotas being not effective or even counterproductive if they are introduced before attitudes have changed sufficiently to accommodate them. The third chapter presents the preliminary findings of a project exploring how group interactions, the decision-making process, and its outcomes change after the introduction of gender quotas. South Korean municipal councils are required to publish transcripts of each meeting, allowing us to speak to the evolution of group dynamics by analyzing rich text data spanning >150,000 meet- 3 ings. We find that equality in numbers did not immediately translate into equality in voice in decision-making. The women introduced by the quota start their term less vocal than men, even when compared to rookie men equally lacking experience. However, the gap between rookie men and women nearly fully closes by the end of the term, suggesting that differences in talent are not why women are less vocal and that rookie women gradually gain influence as councilors work together during the years
Combining LoRaWAN and a New 3D Motion Model for Remote UAV Tracking
Over the last few years, the many uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
have captured the interest of both the scientific and the industrial
communities. A typical scenario consists in the use of UAVs for surveillance or
target-search missions over a wide geographical area. In this case, it is
fundamental for the command center to accurately estimate and track the
trajectories of the UAVs by exploiting their periodic state reports. In this
work, we design an ad hoc tracking system that exploits the Long Range Wide
Area Network (LoRaWAN) standard for communication and an extended version of
the Constant Turn Rate and Acceleration (CTRA) motion model to predict drone
movements in a 3D environment. Simulation results on a publicly available
dataset show that our system can reliably estimate the position and trajectory
of a UAV, significantly outperforming baseline tracking approaches.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, in review for IEEE WISARN 2020 (INFOCOM WORKSHOP)
2020 : IEEE WiSARN 2020 (INFOCOM WORKSHOP) 2020: 13th International Workshop
on Wireless Sensor, Robot and UAV Network
Dissecting Energy Consumption of NB-IoT Devices Empirically
3GPP has recently introduced NB-IoT, a new mobile communication standard
offering a robust and energy efficient connectivity option to the rapidly
expanding market of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. To unleash its full
potential, end-devices are expected to work in a plug and play fashion, with
zero or minimal parameters configuration, still exhibiting excellent energy
efficiency. We perform the most comprehensive set of empirical measurements
with commercial IoT devices and different operators to date, quantifying the
impact of several parameters to energy consumption. Our campaign proves that
parameters setting does impact energy consumption, so proper configuration is
necessary. We shed light on this aspect by first illustrating how the nominal
standard operational modes map into real current consumption patterns of NB-IoT
devices. Further, we investigate which device reported metadata metrics better
reflect performance and implement an algorithm to automatically identify device
state in current time series logs. Then, we provide a measurement-driven
analysis of the energy consumption and network performance of two popular
NB-IoT boards under different parameter configurations and with two major
western European operators. We observed that energy consumption is mostly
affected by the paging interval in Connected state, set by the base station.
However, not all operators correctly implement such settings. Furthermore,
under the default configuration, energy consumption in not strongly affected by
packet size nor by signal quality, unless it is extremely bad. Our observations
indicate that simple modifications to the default parameters settings can yield
great energy savings.Comment: 18 pages, 25 figures, IEEE journal format, all Figures recreated for
better readability, new section with results summar
IoT Systems for Healthy and Safe Life Environments
The past two years have been sadly marked by the worldwide spread of the SARS-Cov-19 pandemic. The first line of defense against this and other pandemic threats is to respect interpersonal distances, use masks, and sanitize hands, air, and objects. Some of these countermeasures are becoming part of our daily lives, as they are now considered good practices to reduce the risk of infection and contagion. In this context, we present \emph{Safe Place}, a modular system enabled by \gls{iot} that is designed to improve the safety and healthiness of living environments. %\textcolor{blue}{ This system combines several sensors and actuators produced by different vendors with self-regulating procedures and \gls{ai} algorithms to limit the spread of viruses and other pathogens, and increase the quality and comfort offered to people while minimizing the energy consumption.%} We discuss the main objectives of the system and its implementation, showing preliminary results that assess its potentials in enhancing the conditions of living and working spaces
Synthetic Lethal Interaction with BCL-XL Blockade Deepens Response to Cetuximab in Patient-Derived Models of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
Deoxy-sphingolipids, oxidative stress, and vitamin C correlate with qualitative and quantitative patterns of small fiber dysfunction and degeneration
Defined by dysfunction or degeneration of AÎŽ and C fibers, small fiber neuropathies (SFNs) entail a relevant health burden. In 50% of cases, the underlying cause cannot be identified or treated. In 100 individuals (70% female individuals; mean age: 44.8 years) with an idiopathic, skin biopsy-confirmed SFN, we characterized the symptomatic spectrum and measured markers of oxidative stress (vitamin C, selenium, and glutathione) and inflammation (transforming growth factor beta, tumor necrosis factor alpha), as well as neurotoxic 1-deoxy-sphingolipids. Neuropathic pain was the most abundant symptom (95%) and cause of daily life impairment (72%). Despite the common use of pain killers (64%), the painDETECT questionnaire revealed scores above 13 points in 80% of patients. In the quantitative sensory testing (QST), a dysfunction of AÎŽ fibers was observed in 70% and of C fibers in 44%, affecting the face, hands, or feet. Despite normal nerve conduction studies, QST revealed AÎČ fiber involvement in 46% of patients' test areas. Despite absence of diabetes mellitus or mutations in SPTLC1 or SPTLC2 , plasma 1-deoxy-sphingolipids were significantly higher in the sensory loss patient cluster when compared with those in patients with thermal hyperalgesia ( P 25 kg/m 2 ), or hyperlipidemia showed significantly lower L-serine (arterial hypertension: P < 0.01) and higher 1-deoxy-sphingolipid levels (arterial hypertension: P < 0.001, overweight: P < 0.001, hyperlipidemia: P < 0.01). Lower vitamin C levels correlated with functional AÎČ involvement ( P < 0.05). Reduced glutathione was lower in patients with AÎŽ dysfunction ( P < 0.05). Idiopathic SFNs are heterogeneous. As a new pathomechanism, plasma 1-deoxy-sphingolipids might link the metabolic syndrome with small fiber degeneration
Time course of risk factors associated with mortality of 1260 critically ill patients with COVID-19 admitted to 24 Italian intensive care units
Purpose: To evaluate the daily values and trends over time of relevant clinical, ventilatory and laboratory parameters during the intensive care unit (ICU) stay and their association with outcome in critically ill patients with coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19). Methods: In this retrospectiveâprospective multicentric study, we enrolled COVID-19 patients admitted to Italian ICUs from February 22 to May 31, 2020. Clinical data were daily recorded. The time course of 18 clinical parameters was evaluated by a polynomial maximum likelihood multilevel linear regression model, while a full joint modeling was fit to study the association with ICU outcome. Results: 1260 consecutive critically ill patients with COVID-19 admitted in 24 ICUs were enrolled. 78% were male with a median age of 63 [55â69] years. At ICU admission, the median ratio of arterial oxygen partial pressure to fractional inspired oxygen (PaO2/FiO2) was 122 [89â175] mmHg. 79% of patients underwent invasive mechanical ventilation. The overall mortality was 34%. Both the daily values and trends of respiratory system compliance, PaO2/FiO2, driving pressure, arterial carbon dioxide partial pressure, creatinine, C-reactive protein, ferritin, neutrophil, neutrophilâlymphocyte ratio, and platelets were associated with survival, while for lactate, pH, bilirubin, lymphocyte, and urea only the daily values were associated with survival. The trends of PaO2/FiO2, respiratory system compliance, driving pressure, creatinine, ferritin, and C-reactive protein showed a higher association with survival compared to the daily values. Conclusion: Daily values or trends over time of parameters associated with acute organ dysfunction, acidâbase derangement, coagulation impairment, or systemic inflammation were associated with patient survival
Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1.
In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field
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