150 research outputs found
Breaking Down the Lockdown: The Causal Effects of Stay-At-Home Mandates on Uncertainty and Sentiments During the COVID-19 Pandemic
We study the causal effects of lockdown measures on uncertainty and sentiment
on Twitter. To this end, we exploit the quasi-experimental framework created by
the first COVID-19 lockdown in a high-income economy--the unexpected Italian
lockdown in February 2020. We measure changes in public sentiment using deep
learning and dictionary-based methods on the text of daily tweets geolocated
within and near the locked-down areas, before and after the treatment. We
classify tweets into four categories--economics, health, politics, and lockdown
policy--to examine how the policy affected emotions heterogeneously. Using a
staggered difference-in-differences approach, we show that the lockdown did not
have a significantly robust impact on economic uncertainty and sentiment.
However, the policy came at the price of higher uncertainty on health and
politics and more negative political sentiments. These results, which are
robust to a battery of robustness tests, show that lockdowns have relevant
non-health related implications
GIANO-TNG spectroscopy of red supergiants in the young star cluster RSGC3
The Scutum complex in the inner disk of the Galaxy has a number of young star
clusters dominated by red supergiants that are heavily obscured by dust
extinction and observable only at infrared wavelengths. These clusters are
important tracers of the recent star formation and chemical enrichment history
in the inner Galaxy. During the technical commissioning and as a first science
verification of the GIANO spectrograph at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, we
secured high-resolution (R=50,000) near-infrared spectra of five red
supergiants in the young Scutum cluster RSGC3. Taking advantage of the full
YJHK spectral coverage of GIANO in a single exposure, we were able to measure
several tens of atomic and molecular lines that were suitable for determining
chemical abundances. By means of spectral synthesis and line equivalent width
measurements, we obtained abundances of Fe and iron-peak elements such as Ni,
Cr, and Cu, alpha (O, Mg, Si, Ca, Ti), other light elements (C, N, F, Na, Al,
and Sc), and some s-process elements (Y, Sr). We found average half-solar iron
abundances and solar-scaled [X/Fe] abundance patterns for most of the elements,
consistent with a thin-disk chemistry. We found depletion of [C/Fe] and
enhancement of [N/Fe], consistent with standard CN burning, and low 12C/13C
abundance ratios (between 9 and 11), which require extra-mixing processes in
the stellar interiors during the post-main sequence evolution. We also found
local standard of rest V(LSR)=106 km/s and heliocentric V(HEL)=90 km/s radial
velocities with a dispersion of 2.3 km/s. The inferred radial velocities,
abundances, and abundance patterns of RSGC3 are very similar to those
previously measured in the other two young clusters of the Scutum complex,
RSGC1 and RSGC2, suggesting a common kinematics and chemistry within the Scutum
complex
The TNG Near Infrared Camera Spectrometer
NICS (acronym for Near Infrared Camera Spectrometer) is the near-infrared
cooled camera-spectrometer that has been developed by the Arcetri Infrared
Group at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory, in collaboration with the
CAISMI-CNR for the TNG (the Italian National Telescope Galileo at La Palma,
Canary Islands, Spain).
As NICS is in its scientific commissioning phase, we report its observing
capabilities in the near-infrared bands at the TNG, along with the measured
performance and the limiting magnitudes. We also describe some technical
details of the project, such as cryogenics, mechanics, and the system which
executes data acquisition and control, along with the related software.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, compiled with A&A macros. A&A in pres
Developing a questionnaire evaluating knowledge, attitudes and behaviors on audit & feedback among general practitioners. A mixed methods study
Background: Audit and Feedback (A&F) is one of the most common strategies used to improve quality in healthcare. However, there is still lack of awareness regarding the enabling factors and barriers that could influence its effectiveness. The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire to measure the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of general practitioners (GPs) regarding A&F. The study was performed in the context of the EASY-NET program (project code NET-2016-02364191). Methods: The survey was developed according to two steps. Firstly, a scoping review was performed in order to map the literature on the existing similar instruments with the aim of identifying the sub-domains and possible items to include in a preliminary version of the questionnaire. In the second phase, the questionnaire was reviewed by a multidisciplinary group of experts and administrated to a convenience sample in a pilot survey. Results: Ten papers were included in the scoping review. The survey target and development methodology were heterogenous among the studies. The knowledge, attitudes and behaviors domains were assessed in six, nine and seven studies, respectively. In the first step, 126 pertinent items were extracted and categorized as follows: 8 investigated knowledge, 93 investigated attitudes, and 25 investigated behaviors. Then, 2 sub-domains were identified for knowledge, 14 for attitudes and 7 for behavior. Based on these results, a first version of the survey was developed via consensus among two authors and then revised by the multidisciplinary group of experts in the field of A&F. The final version of the survey included 36 items: 8 in the knowledge domain, 19 in the attitudes domain and 9 in the behaviors domain. The results of the pilot study among 15 GPs suggested a good acceptability and item relevance and accuracy, with positive answers totaling 100% and 93.3% in the proposed questions. Conclusions: The methodology used has shown to be a good strategy for the development of the survey. The survey will be administrated before and after the implementation of an A&F intervention to assess both baseline characteristics and changes after the intervention
Finsler geodesics in the presence of a convex function and their applications
We obtain a result about the existence of only a finite number of geodesics
between two fixed non-conjugate points in a Finsler manifold endowed with a
convex function. We apply it to Randers and Zermelo metrics. As a by-product,
we also get a result about the finiteness of the number of lightlike and
timelike geodesics connecting an event to a line in a standard stationary
spacetime.Comment: 16 pages, AMSLaTex. v2 is a minor revision: title changed, references
updated, typos fixed; it matches the published version. This preprint and
arXiv:math/0702323v3 [math.DG] substitute arXiv:math/0702323v2 [math.DG
Lines and continuum sky emission in the near infrared: observational constraints from deep high spectral resolution spectra with GIANO-TNG
Aims Determining the intensity of lines and continuum airglow emission in the
H-band is important for the design of faint-object infrared spectrographs.
Existing spectra at low/medium resolution cannot disentangle the true
sky-continuum from instrumental effects (e.g. diffuse light in the wings of
strong lines). We aim to obtain, for the first time, a high resolution infrared
spectrum deep enough to set significant constraints on the continuum emission
between the lines in the H-band. Methods During the second commissioning run of
the GIANO high-resolution infrared spectrograph at La Palma Observatory, we
pointed the instrument directly to the sky and obtained a deep spectrum that
extends from 0.97 to 2.4 micron. Results The spectrum shows about 1500 emission
lines, a factor of two more than in previous works. Of these, 80% are
identified as OH transitions; half of these are from highly excited molecules
(hot-OH component) that are not included in the OH airglow emission models
normally used for astronomical applications. The other lines are attributable
to O2 or unidentified. Several of the faint lines are in spectral regions that
were previously believed to be free of line emission. The continuum in the
H-band is marginally detected at a level of about 300
photons/m^2/s/arcsec^2/micron, equivalent to 20.1 AB-mag/arcsec^2. The observed
spectrum and the list of observed sky-lines are published in electronic format.
Conclusions Our measurements indicate that the sky continuum in the H-band
could be even darker than previously believed. However, the myriad of airglow
emission lines severely limits the spectral ranges where very low background
can be effectively achieved with low/medium resolution spectrographs. We
identify a few spectral bands that could still remain quite dark at the
resolving power foreseen for VLT-MOONS (R ~6,600).Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysic
GIANO-TNG spectroscopy of red supergiants in the young star cluster RSGC2
The inner disk of the Galaxy has a number of young star clusters dominated by
red supergiants that are heavily obscured by dust extinction and observable
only at infrared wavelengths. These clusters are important tracers of the
recent star formation and chemical enrichment history in the inner Galaxy.
During the technical commissioning and as a first science verification of the
GIANO spectrograph at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, we secured
high-resolution (R~50,000) near-infrared spectra of three red supergiants in
the young Scutum cluster RSGC2. Taking advantage of the full YJHK spectral
coverage of GIANO in a single exposure, we were able to identify several tens
of atomic and molecular lines suitable for chemical abundance determinations.
By means of spectral synthesis and line equivalent width measurements, we
obtained abundances of Fe and other iron-peak elements such as V, Cr, Ni, of
alpha (O, Mg, Si, Ca and Ti) and other light elements (C, N, Na, Al, K, Sc),
and of some s-process elements (Y, Sr). We found iron abundances between half
and one third solar and solar-scaled [X/Fe] abundance patterns of iron-peak,
alpha and most of the light elements, consistent with a thin-disk chemistry. We
found a depletion of [C/Fe] and enhancement of [N/Fe], consistent with CN
burning, and low 12C/13C abundance ratios (between 9 and 11), requiring
extra-mixing processes in the stellar interiors during the post-main sequence
evolution. Finally, we found a slight [Sr/Fe] enhancement and a slight [Y/Fe]
depletion (by a factor of <=2), with respect to solar.Comment: Paper accepted on A&
Low Cohomogeneity and Polar Actions on Exceptional Compact Lie Groups
We study isometric Lie group actions on the compact exceptional groups E6,
E7, E8, F4 and G2 endowed with a biinvariant metric. We classify polar actions
on these groups. We determine all isometric actions of cohomogeneity less than
three on E6, E7, F4 and all isometric actions of cohomogeneity less than 20 on
E8. Moreover we determine the principal isotropy algebras for all isometric
actions on G2.Comment: 27 pages; introduction rewritten; references updated; final version;
to appear in Transformation Group
The fiber-fed preslit of GIANO at T.N.G
Giano is a Cryogenic Spectrograph located in T.N.G. (Spain) and commisioned
in 2013. It works in the range 950-2500 nm with a resolving power of 50000.
This instrument was designed and built for direct feeding from the telescope
[2]. However, due to constraints imposed on the telescope interfacing during
the pre-commissioning phase, it had to be positioned on the rotating building,
far from the telescope focus. Therefore, a new interface to the telescope,
based on IR-transmitting ZBLAN fibers with 85\mu m core, was
developed.Originally designed to work directly at the nasmyth focus of
the telescope, in 2011 it has decided to use a fiber to feed it. The beam from
the telescope is focused on a double fiber boundle by a Preslit Optical Bench
attached to the Nasmith A interface of the telescope. This Optical Bench
contains the fiber feeding system and other important features as a guiding
system, a fiber viewer, a fiber feed calibration lamp and a nodding facility
between the two fibers. The use of two fibers allow us to have in the
echellogram two spectrograms side by side in the same acquisition: one of the
star and the other of the sky or simultaneously to have the star and a
calibration lamp. Before entering the cryostat the light from the fiber is
collectd by a second Preslit Optical Bench attached directly to the Giano
cryostat: on this bench the correct f-number to illuminate the cold stop is
generated and on the same bench is placed an image slicer to increase the
efficiency of the system.Comment: 21 pages, 24 figures, 3 tables. Presented at SPIE Astronomical
Telescope + Instrumentation 2014 (Ground-based and Airbone Instrumentation
for Astronomy 5, 9147-360). To be published in Proceeding of SPIE Volume 914
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