An assessment of EU Cohesion Policy in the UK regions: direct effects and the dividend of targeting. LEQS Discussion Paper No. 135/2018 June 2018

With the prospective exit of the UK from the European Union, a crucial question is whether EU Structural Funds have been beneficial for the country and which aspects of Cohesion Policy should be maintained if EU funds are to be replaced. This paper addresses this question through a twofold investigation, assessing not only whether but also how EU funds have contributed to regional growth in the UK over three programming periods from 1994 to 2013. We document a significant and robust effect of Cohesion Policy in the UK, with higher proportions of Structural Funds associated to higher economic growth both on the whole and particularly in the less developed regions of the country. In addition, we show that the strategic orientation of investments also plays a distinct role for regional growth. While concentration of investments on specific pillars seems to have no direct growth effects, unless regions can rely on pre-existing competitive advantages in key development areas, we unveil clear evidence that targeting investments on specific areas of relative regional need has a significant and autonomous effect on growth. These findings have important implications for the design of regional policy interventions in Britain after Brexit

The client-oriented model of cultural competence in healthcare organizations

The paper aims to propose a new model of cultural competence in health organizations based on the paradigm of client orientation. Starting from a literature review, this study takes inspiration from dimensions that characterize the cultural competence of health organizations, and re-articulates them in more detail by applying a client orientation view. The resulting framework is articulated into six dimensions (formal references; procedures and practices; cultural competences of human resources; cultural orientation toward client; partnership with community; and self-assessment) that define the ability of a health organization to achieve its mission, acknowledging, understanding, and valorizing cultural differences of internal clients (staff) and external clients (consumers). This study makes an effort to address the paucity of studies linking approaches to managing cultural diversity in health organizations with cultural competence within the framework of client orientation

It’s not about the money! EU funds, local opportunities, and the Brexit vote. LEQS Paper No. 149/2019 November 2019

Growing Euroscepticism across the European Union (EU) leaves open questions as to what citizens expect to gain from EU Membership and what influences their dissent for the EU integration project. This paper looks at EU Structural Funds, one of the largest and most visible expenditure items in the EU budget, to test the impact of EU money on electoral support for the EU. By leveraging the Referendum on Brexit hold in the United Kingdom, a spatial RDD analysis offers causal evidence that EU money does not influence citizens’ support for the EU. Conversely, the analysis shows that EU funds contribute to mitigate Euroscepticism only where they are coupled with tangible improvements in the local labour market conditions. In order to gain support from its citizens, the European Union needs to produce tangible impacts, generating opportunities at the local level where these are felt the most by voters

FPGA based remote code integrity verification of programs in distributed embedded systems

The explosive growth of networked embedded systems has made ubiquitous and pervasive computing a reality. However, there are still a number of new challenges to its widespread adoption that include scalability, availability, and, especially, security of software. Among the different challenges in software security, the problem of remote-code integrity verification is still waiting for efficient solutions. This paper proposes the use of reconfigurable computing to build a consistent architecture for generation of attestations (proofs) of code integrity for an executing program as well as to deliver them to the designated verification entity. Remote dynamic update of reconfigurable devices is also exploited to increase the complexity of mounting attacks in a real-word environment. The proposed solution perfectly fits embedded devices that are nowadays commonly equipped with reconfigurable hardware components that are exploited to solve different computational problems

Poorer UK regions have benefited from EU Cohesion Policy and would lose out from Brexit

In recent years, the European Commission has disbursed a large amount of financial resources to UK regions, aiming to promote economic development and employment. Drawing on recent research, Marco Di Cataldo demonstrates that the most economically disadvantaged areas have made good use of these funds and reduced the share of unemployed people more than other areas. The interruption of financial aid – one of the potential consequences of a Brexit – would be likely to undermine the labour market and economic gains achieved during the period of highest financial support

Automated Segmentation of Cells with IHC Membrane Staining

This study presents a fully automated membrane segmentation technique for immunohistochemical tissue images with membrane staining, which is a critical task in computerized immunohistochemistry (IHC). Membrane segmentation is particularly tricky in immunohistochemical tissue images because the cellular membranes are visible only in the stained tracts of the cell, while the unstained tracts are not visible. Our automated method provides accurate segmentation of the cellular membranes in the stained tracts and reconstructs the approximate location of the unstained tracts using nuclear membranes as a spatial reference. Accurate cell-by-cell membrane segmentation allows per cell morphological analysis and quantification of the target membrane proteins that is fundamental in several medical applications such as cancer characterization and classification, personalized therapy design, and for any other applications requiring cell morphology characterization. Experimental results on real datasets from different anatomical locations demonstrate the wide applicability and high accuracy of our approach in the context of IHC analysi

Metal Borohydrides as high-TcT_{c} ambient pressure superconductors

The extreme pressures required to stabilize the recently discovered superhydrides represent a major obstacle to their practical application. In this paper, we propose a novel route to attain high-temperature superconductivity in hydrides at ambient pressure, by doping commercial metal borohydrides. Using first-principles calculations based on Density Functional Theory and Migdal-Eliashberg theory, we demonstrate that in Ca(BH$_4$)$_2$ a moderate hole doping of 0.03 holes per formula unit, obtained through a partial replacement of Ca with monovalent K, is sufficient to achieve $T_c$'s as high as 110 K. The high-$T_c$ arises because of the strong electron-phonon coupling between the B-H $\sigma$ molecular orbitals and bond-stretching phonons. Using a random sampling of large supercells to estimate the local effects of doping, we show that the required doping can be achieved without significant disruption of the electronic structure and at moderate energetic cost. Given the wide commercial availability of metal borohydrides, the ideas presented here can find prompt experimental confirmation. If successful, the synthesis of high-$T_c$ doped borohydrides will represent a formidable advancement towards technological exploitation of conventional superconductors.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to APS. Supplemental material will be available upon publicatio

Regional needs, regional targeting, and regional growth: an assessment of EU Cohesion Policy in UK regions

With the prospective exit of the UK from the European Union (EU), a crucial question is whether EU Structural Funds have been beneficial for the country and which aspects of Cohesion Policy should be maintained if EU funds are to be replaced. This paper addresses this question through a twofold investigation, assessing not only whether but also how EU funds have contributed to regional growth in the UK from 1994 to 2013. It documents a significant and robust effect of Cohesion Policy in the UK, with higher proportions of Structural Funds associated with higher economic growth both on the whole and particularly in the less developed regions of the country. In addition, it is shown that the strategic orientation of investments also plays a distinct role for regional growth. While concentration of investments on specific pillars seems to have no direct growth effects, unless regions can rely on pre-existing competitive advantages in key development areas, clear evidence is unveiled that targeting investments to specific areas of relative regional need has a significant and autonomous effect on growth. These findings have important implications for the design of regional policy interventions in Britain after Brexit

The local impact of closing undersized schools

The availability of public education services can influence residential choices. Hence, policies aiming to ‘rationalise’ service provision by reducing the number of undersized nodes in the public school network can lead to population decline. This paper examines the demographic and income effects of primary school closures by exploiting an Italian education reform that resulted in a significant contraction of the school network. We assess whether school closures impact households’ residential choices, on top and beyond preexisting negative population trends that motivate school closures. To address endogeneity, we combine a Two-Way Fixed Effects model with an instrumental variable approach, constructing the IVs based on institutional thresholds for school sizing adopted by some Italian regions. Our findings suggest that municipalities affected by school closures experience significant reductions in population and income. The effect is driven by peripheral municipalities located far from economic centres and distant from the next available primary school. This evidence indicates that school ‘rationalisation policies’, by fostering depopulation of peripheral areas, have an influence on the spatial distribution of households and income, thus affecting territorial disparities