Economic integration through the EU is unlikely to increase support for independence movements in European states

Independence movements have gained prominence across Europe in recent decades, most notably in Scotland and Catalonia, but what impact does European integration have on this process? Dawn Brancati writes that integration through the EU has often been argued to raise the likelihood of separatism as it reduces the economic need to remain part of a larger free trade area such as the UK or Spain, while also giving an incentive to act as a smaller independent state in EU decision-making. She argues, however, that in practice this effect is limited by the fact separatism relies on pre-existing domestic factors and because the economic benefits of European integration are not always visible to citizens. Moreover, seceding states may face problems joining international organisations such as the EU post-independence, particularly when the state they have seceded from is already a member

Innovation drivers of external competitiveness in the great recession

none4noThis paper explores the main drivers of firms' external competitiveness in times of crisis. We focus on the aftermath of the Great Recession (2008-2015) and present evidence based on a comprehensive survey of Italian companies (the MET dataset). Overall, our results highlight not only the strict correlation between internationalization and innovative activities but also a positive change of attitude of Italian firms towards these strategies. We show that, while structural factors play a key role for external competitiveness, other critical aspects trigger superior performances, especially strategic profiles, technological capabilities, and proactive behaviors such as innovativeness and R&D investment. Importantly, we document disproportionate effects of innovation for smaller and less productive companies. This points at dynamic strategies as a potential tool to fill the gap between larger/more productive companies and the set of less structured firms, a segment representing an ideal target for policy measures.openBrancati, Emanuele; Brancati, Raffaele; Guarascio, Dario; Zanfei, AntonelloBrancati, Emanuele; Brancati, Raffaele; Guarascio, Dario; Zanfei, Antonell

Molecular determinants of miRNA target specificity and tissue-specific studies in C. elegans

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) control gene expression by repressing target messenger RNAs. Target identification is thus key to understand the biological implications of a miRNA in physiological or pathological processes, but it has remained the main challenge in the field. Traditionally, we refer to “canonical targets” when the 3’UTR of a gene contains a perfect Watson- Crick match to the 5’ sequence of the miRNA. However, many non-canonical miRNA binding sites have been identified that display seed mismatches, pairing beyond the seed or both. In this work, we aimed at understanding the molecular requirements necessary to induce silencing of a transcript by a specific miRNA in vivo. Using genome editing and physiological reporters, we focused on miRNA sharing the same seed sequence (miRNA families) as they permit to understand the involvement of both seed and non-seed pairing. For such investigation we studied the let-7 family of miRNAs because let-7 is conserved in humans and has been found implicated in several pathologies. We performed our studies in C. elegans because this miRNA family has been well characterized in this nematode, and mutant animals have obvious phenotypes that are easy to score. Our results suggest that target specificity of miRNAs belonging to a family depends on the degree of sequence complementarity between the individual miRNA and the transcript. Particularly, pairing of the 3’ sequence of the miRNA is the main determinant to establish preferential binding to a site. In addition, the seed match has a key role in modulating such specificity, as it allows to discriminate between high and low levels of miRNAs. Hence, target specificity of individual miRNAs is not hardwired, but is modulated by the miRNA abundance. We believe that our findings have a broad impact on miRNA target prediction and validation, especially if we want to invest in miRNA therapeutics. Lastly, we show that studying miRNA/target interactions in physiological settings has the power to unequivocally validate targets and expand our knowledge on the miRNA regulatory potential. In parallel, we succeeded in optimizing a FACS-based protocol to isolate worm cells, which we used to profile cell-type specific small RNAs and tissue-specific transcriptomes at single cell resolution. Given the general lack of methods to obtain primary cells and high quality tissue-specific data in the C. elegans community, such results hold the great potential to expand our knowledge about cell-type specific gene expression

R&D plans, expectations, and uncertainty. Evidence from the COVID-19 shock in Italy

his paper takes advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak to explore the determinants of firms’ R&D choices around an exogenous shock. We make use of unique panel data on 7,800 Italian companies between January 2020 –right before the pandemic– and March of the same year –amid lockdown policies. We then exploit the revision in firms’ research plans within this short-time window to test the impact of deteriorating expectations and uncertainty on firms’ R&D choices. Our results show a dramatic effect of firms’ expectations about future market conditions. In this regard, internationalized and innovative companies, which were particularly suffering the onset of the crisis, display a significantly higher probability of discontinuing research plans. Beyond the role played by expectations, innovative characteristics already in place are found to critically shape firms’ reactions to the general uncertainty. Two main patterns emerge from our analysis. On the one hand, there is a strong degree of persistence in R&D choices for a small set of innovators with substantial past expenditure in in-house research activities. On the other, the COVID-19 shock especially jeopardized R&D plans of firms that recently started new research programs or newly innovative companies. We interpret such results as evidence that preexisting sunk costs increase the persistence of R&D choices after uncertainty shocks

Help in a foreign land. Internationalized banks and firms' export

The lack of information is a relevant obstacle to the export activity of small and medium enterprises. This paper analyzes whether banks can support firms’ export by reducing informational asymmetries about foreign markets. We exploit a large sample of Italian firms for which we merge custom data with information on their lender banks. We identify a shock exogenous to firms’ export decisions by relying on preexisting lending relationships and exploiting the acquisition of a firm’s domestic bank by an internationalized banking group. Our results show that, after the acquisition, firms have a significantly higher probability of starting export in countries where the consolidated bank has a foreign branch, which proxies for the amount of information accumulated that can be shared with client firms. Conversely, the effect on the intensive margins of previously-exporting companies is largely insignificant. We interpret these findings as evidence of information spillovers that mainly reduce firms’ fixed entry costs in a foreign market. The analysis also shows that other channels, such as bank credit availability or trade-finance supply, are unlikely to drive our results

Pediatric Resuscitation: Evaluation of a Clinical Curriculum

Objective: To assess the impact of a 6-hour pediatric resuscitation curriculum on the comfort levels of resident physicians’ evaluation and treatment of critically ill pediatric patients. Methods: An evaluation instrument assessed resident comfort levels, measured on a seven digit Likert scale ranging from significantly uncomfortable to significantly comfortable, in 13 areas of pediatric resuscitation. To complete the curriculum, residents had to demonstrate proficiency in knowledge and procedural skills during mock resuscitation scenarios and on both written and oral examinations. Results: Thirty-one residents participated in the study: 51.6% were pediatric, 12.9% were medicine/pediatric and 35.5% were emergency medicine residents. Participants in the curriculum had little previous experience with pediatric resuscitation (83% had been involved in five or fewer pediatric resuscitations). In all 13 areas of pediatric resuscitation tested, residents reported improvement in comfort levels following the course (p<0.002; Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests). The most significant changes were observed for the following items: resuscitation of pulseless arrest, performance of cardioversion and defibrillation, performance of intraosseous needle insertion, and drug selection and dosing for rapid sequence intubation. Fewer than 48% of learners rated themselves as comfortable in these areas prior to training, but after completion, more than 80% rated themselves in the comfortable range. All residents but one received passing scores on their written examinations (97%). During the mock resuscitation scenarios and oral examination, 100% of the residents were assessed to have ‘completely’ met the learning objectives and critical actions Conclusion: Implementation of a pediatric resuscitation curriculum improves pediatric and emergency medicine residents’ comfort with the evaluation and treatment of critically ill pediatric patients. This curriculum can be used in residency training to document the acquisition of core competencies, knowledge and procedural skills needed for the evaluation and treatment of the critically ill child. The results reported in this study support using this model of instructional design to implement educational strategies, which will meet the requirements of graduate education

Analysis of similarity measurements in CBIR using clustered tamura features for biomedical images

Content based image retrieval (CBIR) is an important research topic in many applications, in particular in the biomedical field. In this domain, the CBIR has the aim of helping to improve the diagnosis, retrieving images of patients for which a diagnosis has already been made, similar to the current image. The main issue of CBIR is the selection of the visual contents (feature descriptors) of the images to be extracted for a correct image retrieval. The second issue is the choice of the similarity measurement to use to compare the feature descriptors of the query image to ones of the other images of the database. This paper focuses on a comparison among different similarity measurements in CBIR, with particular interest to a biomedical images database. The adopted technique for CBIR is based on clustered Tamura features. The selected similarity measurements are used both to evaluate the adopted technique for CBIR and to estimate the stability of the results. A comparison with some methods in literature has been carried out, showing the best results for the proposed technique

Boundary Element Method for Fast Solution of Acoustic Problems: Active and Passive Noise Control

This thesis presents boundary element formulations for three-dimensional acoustic problems of active (ANC) and passive (PNC) noise control. A new boundary element strategy, referred to as RABEM (Rapid Acoustic Boundary Element Method), has been formulated and implemented for acoustic problems. The assembly time for both the system matrix and the right hand side vector is accelerated using a Hierarchical-matrix approach based on the Adaptive Cross Approximation (ACA). Two different H-matrix-GMRES solvers (one without preconditioners and one with a block diagonal preconditioner) are developed and tested for low and high frequency problems including noise emanated by aircraft approaching an airport. A new formulation for solving the ANC based on attenuating the unwanted sound in a control volume (CV) rather than cancelling it at a single point is presented. The noise attenuation is obtained by minimising the square modules of two acoustic quantities - the potential and one component of the particle velocity - within the CV. The two formulations presented include a single and a double secondary source, respectively. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the e fficiency of the proposed technique. A new approach, based on sensitivity analysis, for determining the optimum locations of the CV and the optimum location/orientation of the secondary source is presented. The optimisation procedure is based upon a first order method and minimises a suitable cost function by using its gradient. The procedure to calculate the cost function gradients is explained in detail. Finally, a PNC strategy applied to the interior of an aircraft cabin is investigated. A lower noise level is achieved through the introduction of a new textile with a higher noise absorbing coe cient than a conventional textile, especially at low frequencies. The so-called "bubble concept", which consists of adding cap insertions at the sides of the passenger head, is also investigated

Rapid acoustic boundary element method for solution of 3D problems using hierarchical adaptive cross approximation GMRES approach

This paper presents a new solver for 3D acoustic problems called RABEM (Rapid Acoustic Boundary Element Method). The Adaptive Cross Approximation and a Hierarchical GMRES solver are used to generate both the system matrix and the right hand side vector by saving storage requirement, and to solve the system solution. The potential and the particle velocity values at selected internal points are evaluated using again the Adaptive Cross Approximation (ACA). A GMRES without preconditioner and with a block diagonal preconditioner are developed and tested for low and high frequency problems. Different boundary conditions (i.e. Dirichlet, Neumann and mixed Robin) are also implemented. Herein the problem of engine noise emanating from the Falcon aircraft is presented. The tests demonstrated that the new solver can achieve CPU times of almost O(N) for low frequency and O(NlogN) for high frequency problems

Certifications of Critical Systems – The CECRIS Experience

In recent years, a considerable amount of effort has been devoted, both in industry and academia, to the development, validation and verification of critical systems, i.e. those systems whose malfunctions or failures reach a critical level both in terms of risks to human life as well as having a large economic impact. Certifications of Critical Systems – The CECRIS Experience documents the main insights on Cost Effective Verification and Validation processes that were gained during work in the European Research Project CECRIS (Certification of Critical Systems). The objective of the research was to tackle the challenges of certification by focusing on those aspects that turn out to be more difficult/important for current and future critical systems industry: the effective use of methodologies, processes and tools. Starting from both the scientific and industrial state of the art methodologies for system development and the impact of their usage on the verification and validation and certification of critical systems, the project aimed at developing strategies and techniques supported by automatic or semi-automatic tools and methods for these activities, setting guidelines to support engineers during the planning of the verification and validation phases. Topics covered include: Safety Assessment, Reliability Analysis, Critical Systems and Applications, Functional Safety, Dependability Validation, Dependable Software Systems, Embedded Systems, System Certification