Employment incentives and the disaggregated impact on the economy. The Italian case

Over the past two decades, the Italian labour market has undergone a number of profound changes. A thorough analysis of these changes shows that there has been a progressive employment polarisation, although with a very peculiar dynamics. While employment did grow in high-skill and low-skill occupations, and it shrank in the medium-skill ones, these changes did not take place simultaneously, as polarisation assumes. Moreover, wage polarisation is hardly observable in the same period. Quite differently, Italy has been characterised by relatively low or even declining returns to education along with progressively decreasing wages in the low-skill segment of the labour market. In this context, we study the potential of an employment incentive policy, for which we imagine two options, one targeting workers in high-skill and the other in low-skill occupations. The objectives of the policy are enhancing aggregate employment and improving working conditions (wages) either in high-skill or low-skill occupations, depending of the option. For the simulation of the two policy options, we employ an integrated model that combines a macro disaggregated and multisectoral Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model with a micro-simulation model. While the CGE model evaluates how the macroeconomic shock reverberates on the labour demand at industry level, the micro-simulation model computes how the changes in macroeconomic variables affect households\u2019 decisions in terms of labour supply and final consumption

Seroprevalence of infection-induced SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among health care users of Northern Italy: results from two serosurveys (October-November 2019 and September-October 2021)

OBJECTIVES: The objective was to estimate the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in autumn 2019 (before case zero was identified in Italy) and 2021 among residual sera samples from health care users in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. METHODS: Two serosurveys were conducted. Using a semiquantitative method, samples were tested for the presence of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies against the S1 domain of the spike protein. Samples with positive test results from the 2019 survey were independently retested using a multiplex panel to detect IgG antibodies against the receptor binding domain, S1 and S2 domains, and nucleocapsid. Samples with positive test results from the 2021 survey underwent repeat testing with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to detect anti-nucleocapsid IgG antibodies. Prevalence rates according to gender and age groups, together with their respective 95% confidence intervals (CIs), were calculated. RESULTS: Overall, the proportion of samples with positive test results was 2/353 in 2019 and 22/363 in 2021, with an estimated seroprevalence of 0.27% (95% CI 0-1.86) and 6.21% (95% CI 3.9-9.31) in 2019 and 2021 respectively. CONCLUSION: Results of this study support the hypothesis that the virus was circulating in Italy as early as autumn 2019. The role of these early cases in broader transmission dynamics remains to be determined

Exploring Cosmic Origins with CORE: Cosmological Parameters

We forecast the main cosmological parameter constraints achievable with theCORE space mission which is dedicated to mapping the polarisation of the CosmicMicrowave Background (CMB). CORE was recently submitted in response to ESA'sfifth call for medium-sized mission proposals (M5). Here we report the resultsfrom our pre-submission study of the impact of various instrumental options, inparticular the telescope size and sensitivity level, and review the great,transformative potential of the mission as proposed. Specifically, we assessthe impact on a broad range of fundamental parameters of our Universe as afunction of the expected CMB characteristics, with other papers in the seriesfocusing on controlling astrophysical and instrumental residual systematics. Inthis paper, we assume that only a few central CORE frequency channels areusable for our purpose, all others being devoted to the cleaning ofastrophysical contaminants. On the theoretical side, we assume LCDM as ourgeneral framework and quantify the improvement provided by CORE over thecurrent constraints from the Planck 2015 release. We also study the jointsensitivity of CORE and of future Baryon Acoustic Oscillation and Large ScaleStructure experiments like DESI and Euclid. Specific constraints on the physicsof inflation are presented in another paper of the series. In addition to thesix parameters of the base LCDM, which describe the matter content of aspatially flat universe with adiabatic and scalar primordial fluctuations frominflation, we derive the precision achievable on parameters like thosedescribing curvature, neutrino physics, extra light relics, primordial heliumabundance, dark matter annihilation, recombination physics, variation offundamental constants, dark energy, modified gravity, reionization and cosmicbirefringence. (ABRIDGED

The suggested structure of final demand shock for sectoral labour digital skills

International data seems to confirm that countries with a relative abundancy of high-skilled labour with digital competences grow faster than others. For this reason, digital competences and skills in general are progressively assuming a central role in labour market policies. In this article, we show the potential of the disaggregated multisectoral analysis with the macro multipliers approach as a tool of economic policy. Such type of analysis allows identifying a set of endogenous policies in which specific objectives do not clash with growth objectives. The identification and the quantification of the macro multipliers is based on an extended multi-industry, multi-factor and multi-sector model, which accounts for the representation of the income circular flow as in the social accounting matrix (SAM). The SAM constructed for this exercise allows for a proper disaggregation of the labour factor by formal educational attainment, digital competences and gender for the case of Italy

Detection of oncogenic HPV and identification of 72Arg polymorphic p53 by in situ PCR for clinical routine purposes

Ano-genital carcinoma is a polyfactorial and polygenic disease. Certain strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) have been detected in a high percentage of patients. It has been suggested that p53 polymorphisms may be relevant for the interaction with viral proteins that inactivates p53

Exploring cosmic origins with CORE: Gravitational lensing of the CMB

International audienceLensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is now a well-developed probe of the clustering of the large-scale mass distribution over a broad range of redshifts. By exploiting the non-Gaussian imprints of lensing in the polarization of the CMB, the CORE mission will allow production of a clean map of the lensing deflections over nearly the full-sky. The number of high-S/N modes in this map will exceed current CMB lensing maps by a factor of 40, and the measurement will be sample-variance limited on all scales where linear theory is valid. Here, we summarise this mission product and discuss the science that will follow from its power spectrum and the cross-correlation with other clustering data. For example, the summed mass of neutrinos will be determined to an accuracy of 17 meV combining CORE lensing and CMB two-point information with contemporaneous measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies, three times smaller than the minimum total mass allowed by neutrino oscillation measurements. Lensing has applications across many other science goals of CORE, including the search for B-mode polarization from primordial gravitational waves. Here, lens-induced B-modes will dominate over instrument noise, limiting constraints on the power spectrum amplitude of primordial gravitational waves. With lensing reconstructed by CORE, one can "delens" the observed polarization internally, reducing the lensing B-mode power by 60 %. This can be improved to 70 % by combining lensing and measurements of the cosmic infrared background from CORE, leading to an improvement of a factor of 2.5 in the error on the amplitude of primordial gravitational waves compared to no delensing (in the null hypothesis of no primordial B-modes). Lensing measurements from CORE will allow calibration of the halo masses of the tens of thousands of galaxy clusters that it will find, with constraints dominated by the clean polarization-based estimators. The 19 frequency channels proposed for CORE will allow accurate removal of Galactic emission from CMB maps. We present initial findings that show that residual Galactic foreground contamination will not be a significant source of bias for lensing power spectrum measurements with CORE