Grading practices, gender bias and educational outcomes: evidence from Italy

We study if the Italian school system suffers from gender bias when judging students. To this aim, we use a differences-in-differences approach that compares the teachers' assessments and the standardized test scores that the students receive during the school year. We have census data for all Italian fifth and sixth graders in two different subjects, math and language, that include a rich set of additional controls. Our evidence reveals that, since primary school, boys are graded less favourably than girls in both math and language. This result is also confirmed for middle school students (sixth graders), and it holds even when (a) we separate the analysis between the most and least developed Italian regions, (b) we control for possible gender-specific attitude towards cheating and teachers' manipulation and (c) we introduce class and school fixed effects in the models. Comparing the results obtained across different levels of schooling and subjects, we cannot clearly identify the role of specific mechanisms in determining the gender bias. Overall the analysis suggests further study on the role of teachers' characteristics

Performance estimation of photovoltaic energy production

This article deals with the production of energy through photovoltaic (PV) panels. The efficiency and quantity of energy produced by a PV panel depend on both deterministic factors, mainly related to the technical characteristics of the panels, and stochastic factors, essentially the amount of incident solar radiation and some climatic variables that modify the efficiency of solar panels such as temperature and wind speed. The main objective of this work is to estimate the energy production of a PV system with fixed technical characteristics through the modeling of the stochastic factors listed above. Besides, we estimate the economic profitability of the plant, net of taxation or subsidiary payment policies, considered taking into account the hourly spot price curve of electricity and its correlation with solar radiation, via vector autoregressive models. Our investigation ends with a Monte Carlo simulation of the models introduced. We also propose the pricing of some quanto options that allow hedging both the price risk and the volumetric risk

A Strategy analysis for genetic association studies with known inbreeding

Background: Association studies consist in identifying the genetic variants which are related to a specific disease through the use of statistical multiple hypothesis testing or segregation analysis in pedigrees. This type of studies has been very successful in the case of Mendelian monogenic disorders while it has been less successful in identifying genetic variants related to complex diseases where the insurgence depends on the interactions between different genes and the environment. The current technology allows to genotype more than a million of markers and this number has been rapidly increasing in the last years with the imputation based on templates sets and whole genome sequencing. This type of data introduces a great amount of noise in the statistical analysis and usually requires a great number of samples. Current methods seldom take into account gene-gene and gene-environment interactions which are fundamental especially in complex diseases. In this paper we propose to use a non-parametric additive model to detect the genetic variants related to diseases which accounts for interactions of unknown order. Although this is not new to the current literature, we show that in an isolated population, where the most related subjects share also most of their genetic code, the use of additive models may be improved if the available genealogical tree is taken into account. Specifically, we form a sample of cases and controls with the highest inbreeding by means of the Hungarian method, and estimate the set of genes/environmental variables, associated with the disease, by means of Random Forest. Results: We have evidence, from statistical theory, simulations and two applications, that we build a suitable procedure to eliminate stratification between cases and controls and that it also has enough precision in identifying genetic variants responsible for a disease. This procedure has been successfully used for the betathalassemia, which is a well known Mendelian disease, and also to the common asthma where we have identified candidate genes that underlie to the susceptibility of the asthma. Some of such candidate genes have been also found related to common asthma in the current literature. Conclusions: The data analysis approach, based on selecting the most related cases and controls along with the Random Forest model, is a powerful tool for detecting genetic variants associated to a disease in isolated populations. Moreover, this method provides also a prediction model that has accuracy in estimating the unknown disease status and that can be generally used to build kit tests for a wide class of Mendelian diseases

Executive functions and symptom severity in an Italian sample of intellectually able preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder

A novel battery (BAFE; Valeri etal. 2015) was used in order to assess three executive function (EF) abilities (working memory, inhibition and shifting) in a sample of 27 intellectually able preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with 27 typically developing children matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Differences in EF skills were analyzed in participants with distinct ASD symptom severity. Children with ASD performed worse than typical controls on both set-shifting and inhibition, but not on visuo-spatial working memory. Additionally, children with more severe ASD symptoms showed a worse performance on inhibition than children with milder symptoms. These results confirm the presence of EF deficits and highlight a link between ASD symptoms and EF impairments in preschool age

Multidimensional Impact of Mediterranean Diet on IBD Patients

Malnutrition with the accumulation of fat tissue and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are conditions associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Visceral fat and NAFLD-related liver dysfunction can both worsen intestinal inflammation. Because the Mediterranean diet (Md) has been shown to ameliorate both obesity and NAFLD, the aim of this study was to analyze the impact of Md on the nutritional state, liver steatosis, clinical disease activity, and quality of life (QoL) in IBD patients

Autism Spectrum Disorder and screen time during lockdown: an Italian study.

Background: Lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic brought deep changes to the daily lives of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), greatly increasing their amount of time spent at home. Methods: A cohort of 243 parents of children with ASD (2-15 years old) completed an original online survey regarding the child's screen time and the modification of the ASD symptomatology during lockdown to investigate the relationship between them. Results: The data show that high solitary screen time is related with the worsening of ASD core symptoms. Conclusions: This study may help to increase awareness in the excessive use of screen in children with ASD during the lockdown, both during the pandemic as well as after it ends

Defect-assisted photoluminescence in hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets

The development of functional optoelectronic applications based on hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (h-BNNs) relies on controlling the structural defects. The fluorescent emission, in particular, has been observed to depend on vacancies and substitutional defects. In the present work, few-layerh-BNNs have been obtained by sonication-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation of their bulk counterpart. The as-prepared samples exhibit a weak fluorescent emission in the visible range, centred around 400 nm. Tailored defects have been introduced by oxidation in air at different temperatures. A significant increase in the fluorescent emission of the oxidatedh-BNNs has been observed with maximum emissive intensity for the samples treated at 300 degrees C. A further increase in temperatures (>300 degrees C) determines a quenching of the fluorescence. We investigated, by means of detailed microscopic and spectroscopic analysis, the relationship between the optical properties and defects ofh-BNNs. The investigation of the optical properties as a function of treatment temperature highlights the critical role of hydroxyl groups created by the oxidation process. Onlyh-BN exfoliated in water allows introducing OH groups with consequent enhancement of fluorescence emission. Quantum chemical calculations support the experimental findings

Early and stable difficulties of everyday executive functions predict autism symptoms and emotional/behavioral problems in preschool age children with autism: a 2-year longitudinal study

IntroductionLongitudinal studies of autistic children show that autism symptoms and emotional/behavioral problems vary and change over time. However, the factors that affect this variability remain far from certain and very little is known about what take place in the preschool period and the role of executive functions (EF).MethodsHere, we test the influence of stable difficulties in everyday executive functioning (EEF) during early childhood across 2 years on autistic symptoms and emotional and behavioral problems. Twenty-nine autistic children (24 males and 5 females) were assessed twice within the space of 2 years. At baseline (M = 29 months, SD =5.6 months), participants were assessed for EEF, cognitive development, autistic symptoms, and emotional/behavioral problems. At follow-up, we repeated the same assessment except for cognitive development.ResultsThe group with stable difficulties (across 2 years) in EEF during early childhood showed a worsening in the severity of autistic symptoms and emotional and behavioral problems compared with children without EEF difficulties (p < 0.05), and these effects cannot be attributable to cognitive development.DiscussionOur results suggest that early and stable EEF plays the role of a modifier by interacting with the core domains of autism, in particular with the social affect domain (SA CSS), influencing social cognition and exacerbating or lessening symptom expression and emotional behavioral problems. These short-term longitudinal and preliminary findings underscore the importance of EEF as necessary target for early intervention in children with autism

Transcranial magnetic stimulation of the precuneus enhances memory and neural activity in prodromal Alzheimer's disease

Memory loss is one of the first symptoms of typical Alzheimer's disease (AD), for which there are no effective therapies available. The precuneus (PC) has been recently emphasized as a key area for the memory impairment observed in early AD, likely due to disconnection mechanisms within large-scale networks such as the default mode network (DMN). Using a multimodal approach we investigated in a two-week, randomized, sham-controlled, double-blinded trial the effects of high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the PC on cognition, as measured by the Alzheimer Disease Cooperative Study Preclinical Alzheimer Cognitive Composite in 14 patients with early AD (7 females). TMS combined with electroencephalography (TMS-EEG) was used to detect changes in brain connectivity. We found that rTMS of the PC induced a selective improvement in episodic memory, but not in other cognitive domains. Analysis of TMS-EEG signal revealed an increase of neural activity in patients' PC, an enhancement of brain oscillations in the beta band and a modification of functional connections between the PC and medial frontal areas within the DMN. Our findings show that high-frequency rTMS of the PC is a promising, non-invasive treatment for memory dysfunction in patients at early stages of AD. This clinical improvement is accompanied by modulation of brain connectivity, consistently with the pathophysiological model of brain disconnection in AD

An Organizational-Level Program of Intervention for AKI: A Pragmatic Stepped Wedge Cluster Randomized Trial

Background Variable standards of care may contribute to poor outcomes associated with AKI. We evaluatedwhether a multifaceted intervention (AKI e-alerts, an AKI care bundle, and an education program)would improve delivery of care and patient outcomes at an organizational level.Methods A multicenter, pragmatic, stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial was performed in five UK hospitals,involving patients with AKI aged$18 years. The intervention was introduced sequentially across fixed three-monthperiods according to a randomly determined schedule until all hospitals were exposed. The primary outcome was30-day mortality,withpre-specifiedsecondaryendpointsandanestedevaluationof careprocessdelivery.Thenatureof the intervention precluded blinding, but data collection and analysiswere independent of project delivery teams.Results We studied 24,059 AKI episodes, finding an overall 30-day mortality of 24.5%, with no differencebetween control and intervention periods. Hospital length of stay was reduced with the intervention(decreases of 0.7, 1.1, and 1.3 days at the 0.5, 0.6, and 0.7 quantiles, respectively). AKI incidence increasedand was mirrored by an increase in the proportion of patients with a coded diagnosis of AKI. Our assessmentof process measures in 1048 patients showed improvements in several metrics including AKI recognition,medication optimization, and fluid assessment.Conclusions A complex, hospital-wide intervention to reduce harm associated with AKI did not reduce30-day AKImortality but did result in reductions in hospital length of stay, accompanied by improvementsin in quality of care. An increase in AKI incidence likely reflected improved recognitio