Politics 2.0: the Multifaceted Effect of Broadband Internet on Political Participation

We investigate the causal impact of broadband Internet on political participation using data from Italy. We show that this impact varies across different forms of political engagement and over time. Initially, broadband had a negative effect on turnout in national elections, driven by increased abstention of ideologically extreme voters. Meanwhile, however, broadband fostered other forms of online and offline participation. Over time, the negative effect was reverted due to the emergence of new political entrepreneurs who used the Internet to convert the initial “exit” back into “voice”. Overall, these nuanced effects underscore the general equilibrium dynamic induced by the Internet

Extraction and Extractivisms : Definitions and Concepts

OA Funder: Norwegian University of Science and Technology.This chapter provides an etymological and ontological overview of the roots of extraction and global extractivisms. Since the 2000s, extractivisms have intensified, becoming ever-more global, promulgated by land and resource rushes. Meanwhile, the academic use of the concept of extractivism has expanded from mining to new arenas like agriculture, forestry, finance, and even digital realms. We provide an analysis of the underlying etymologies and ‘onto-logics’ of extractivism to illuminate a mindset and practice that is increasingly pervasive in the operations of extraction and the modern world system. We also highlight some forms of on-the-ground resistance to this onto-logic to emphasize the violence it inheres and the defiance it spurs. The extractivist logic continues to expand into arenas where the extent of the infiltration of extractivist modes of operations has only recently been recognized. We suggest ways forward in the agenda of analyzing extraction, global extractivisms, and violence.Peer reviewe

Skewed Bernstein-von Mises theorem and skew-modal approximations

Gaussian approximations are routinely employed in Bayesian statistics to ease inference when the target posterior is intractable. Although these approximations are asymptotically justified by Bernstein-von Mises type results, in practice the expected Gaussian behavior may poorly represent the shape of the posterior, thus affecting approximation accuracy. Motivated by these considerations, we derive an improved class of closed-form approximations of posterior distributions which arise from a new treatment of a third-order version of the Laplace method yielding approximations in a tractable family of skew-symmetric distributions. Under general assumptions which account for misspecified models and non-i.i.d. settings, this family of approximations is shown to have a total variation distance from the target posterior whose rate of convergence improves by at least one order of magnitude the one established by the classical Bernstein-von Mises theorem. Specializing this result to the case of regular parametric models shows that the same improvement in approximation accuracy can be also derived for polynomially bounded posterior functionals. Unlike other higher-order approximations, our results prove that it is possible to derive closed-form and valid densities which are expected to provide, in practice, a more accurate, yet similarly-tractable, alternative to Gaussian approximations of the target posterior, while inheriting its limiting frequentist properties. We strengthen such arguments by developing a practical skew-modal approximation for both joint and marginal posteriors that achieves the same theoretical guarantees of its theoretical counterpart by replacing the unknown model parameters with the corresponding MAP estimate. Empirical studies confirm that our theoretical results closely match the remarkable performance observed in practice, even in finite, possibly small, sample regimes

Genome-wide multi-parametric analysis of H2AX or γH2AX distributions during ionizing radiation-induced DNA damage response

Background: After induction of DNA double strand breaks (DSBs), the DNA damage response (DDR) is activated. One of the earliest events in DDR is the phosphorylation of serine 139 on the histone variant H2AX (gH2AX) catalyzed by phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases-related kinases. Despite being extensively studied, H2AX distribution[1] across the genome and gH2AX spreading around DSBs sites[2] in the context of different chromatin compaction states or transcription are yet to be fully elucidated. Materials and methods: gH2AX was induced in human hepatocellular carcinoma cells (HepG2) by exposure to 10 Gy X-rays (250 kV, 16 mA). Samples were incubated 0.5, 3 or 24 hours post irradiation to investigate early, intermediate and late stages of DDR, respectively. Chromatin immunoprecipitation was performed to select H2AX, H3 and gH2AX-enriched chromatin fractions. Chromatin-associated DNA was then sequenced by Illumina ChIP-Seq platform. HepG2 gene expression and histone modification (H3K36me3, H3K9me3) ChIP-Seq profiles were retrieved from Gene Expression Omnibus (accession numbers GSE30240 and GSE26386, respectively). Results: First, we combined G/C usage, gene content, gene expression or histone modification profiles (H3K36me3, H3K9me3) to define genomic compartments characterized by different chromatin compaction states or transcriptional activity. Next, we investigated H3, H2AX and gH2AX distributions in such defined compartments before and after exposure to ionizing radiation (IR) to study DNA repair kinetics during DDR. Our sequencing results indicate that H2AX distribution followed H3 occupancy and, thus, the nucleosome pattern. The highest H2AX and H3 enrichment was observed in transcriptionally active compartments (euchromatin) while the lowest was found in low G/C and gene-poor compartments (heterochromatin). Under physiological conditions, the body of highly and moderately transcribed genes was devoid of gH2AX, despite presenting high H2AX levels. gH2AX accumulation was observed in 5’ or 3’ flanking regions, instead. The same genes showed a prompt gH2AX accumulation during the early stage of DDR which then decreased over time as DDR proceeded. Finally, during the late stage of DDR the residual gH2AX signal was entirely retained in heterochromatic compartments. At this stage, euchromatic compartments were completely devoid of gH2AX despite presenting high levels of non-phosphorylated H2AX. Conclusions: We show that gH2AX distribution ultimately depends on H2AX occupancy, the latter following H3 occupancy and, thus, nucleosome pattern. Both H2AX and H3 levels were higher in actively transcribed compartments. However, gH2AX levels were remarkably low over the body of actively transcribed genes suggesting that transcription levels antagonize gH2AX spreading. Moreover, repair processes did not take place uniformly across the genome; rather, DNA repair was affected by genomic location and transcriptional activity. We propose that higher H2AX density in euchromaticcompartments results in high relative gH2AXconcentration soon after the activation of DDR, thus favoring the recruitment of the DNA repair machinery to those compartments. When the damage is repaired and gH2AX is removed, its residual fraction is retained in the heterochromatic compartments which are then targeted and repaired at later times

The ant fauna (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of Salento (Apulia, South East Italy): first reports, new occurrences, and an updated species list

ItAlcune indagini faunistiche nel Salento (Puglia, Sud-Est Italia) hanno fornito interessanti dati sulle formiche di questo territorio. Sono qui segnalate per la prima volta per il Salento 24 specie: Aphaenogaster ichnusa, A. splendida, Camponotus universitatis, Cryptopone ochracea, Formica cunicularia, F. gagates, Hypoponera punctatissima, Lasius casevitzi, L. lasioides, Monomorium monomorium, Nylanderia jaegerskioeldi, Plagiolepis pallescens, P. xene, Solenopsis SAL-1, S. SAL-2, S. SAL-3, Temnothorax flavicornis, T. lichtensteini, T. mediterraneus, T. parvulus, Tetramorium bicarinatum, T. immigrans, T. indocile, T. semilaeve. Escludendo Aphaenogaster ichnusa, Formica gagates, Monomorium monomorium e Tetramorium semilaeve le altre 20 sopracitate specie sono qui segnalate per la prima volta anche per la regione Puglia. La presenza delle specie tropicali Nylanderia jaegerskioeldi e Tetramorium bicarinatum è data da una recente introduzione accidentale. I risultati ottenuti con questo studio incrementano la mirmecofauna salentina sia nel numero delle specie che nella distribuzione di alcune di esse. Infine, in appendice è pubblicata la lista aggiornata delle 58 specie di formiche note per l'area salentina.EnSome faunal surveys in Salento (Apulia region, South East Italy) have given some interesting data on ants of this territory. The 24 first reports from Salento are given: Aphaenogaster ichnusa, A. splendida, Camponotus universitatis, Cryptopone ochracea, Formica cunicularia, F. gagates, Hypoponera punctatissima, Lasius casevitzi, L. lasioides, Monomorium monomorium, Nylanderia jaegerskioeldi, Plagiolepis pallescens, P. xene, Solenopsis SAL-1, S. SAL-2, S. SAL-3, Temnothorax flavicornis, T. lichtensteini, T. mediterraneus, T. parvulus, Tetramorium bicarinatum, T. immigrans, T. indocile, T. semilaeve,. Excluding Aphaenogaster ichnusa, Formica gagates, Monomorium monomorium and Tetramorium semilaeve, the above mentioned 20 species are reported for the first time also from Apulia region. The presence of the tropical species Nylanderia jaegerskioeldi and Tetramorium bicarinatum is due to recent accidental import. The findings obtained within this study, increases the Salento myrmecofauna in terms of both the number of species and distribution. In the appendix an updated checklist of the 58 ant species known from Salento are also provided

Russia's international energy cooperation : the Yamal LNG case

International cooperation is an important but often neglected topic. In 2017 the Russian Federation together with Asian and European partners completed the Yamal LNG project, one of the biggest in the world and the first within the Arctic Circle, only with a small delay in the schedule despite the Ukrainian crisis and the subsequent financial sanctions and ruble crisis. The dissertation aims to understand how and why this project became reality and how international energy cooperation emerges by using the social–structurationist model of energy policy formation. Cooperation in IR is defined as ‘policy coordination’ but because energy policy constitutes its antecedent, the impact of domestic factors is also researched. The topic is approached by a descriptive-explanatory case study with theory–driven qualitative content analysis as its method which permits to extract information from a text and to process it independently of the text. The data are diverse and include companies’ press releases, governmental and ministerial documents and transcripts of press interviews and meetings. From the analysis it resulted that the socio-economic development of Russia was the primary interest of the government whose support allowed the project to run on time. Other actors held mainly a business frame whereas foreign partners were also fundamental in providing technology and financings. The importance of domestic factors also emerged as so did the way in which the structural dimensions enabled and constrained the outcome. Few broader considerations can be drawn from this study: first, it appears that politically motivated financial sanctions might obstruct but not halt international energy projects. Second, with low oil prices Russia seems to be more cooperative. Third, it appears that the backing of a strong central government to a private energy project can positively affect cooperation. Fourth, with limited financing and technology a country could seek partnership only if its resource base is wide enough and it can preserve advantageous or best returns for itself

Gait Training using Pneumatically Actuated Robot System

Powered exoskeleton device for gait rehabilitation has been designed and realized, together with proper control architecture. Its DOFs allow free leg motion, while the patient walks on a treadmill with its weight, completely or partially supported by the suspension system. The use of pneumatic actuators for actuation of this rehabilitation system is reasonable, because they offer high force output, good backdrivability, and good position and force control, at a relatively low cost. The effectiveness of the developed rehabilitation system and proposed control architecture was experimentally tested. During the experiments, the movement was natural and smooth while the limb moves along the target trajectory

Arctic Dialogue between Russia and Finland : new old issues in the cooperation agenda

Information about the portal GoArctic.ru Registered by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) under the number Эл № ФС 77-81091 dated 06/08/2021. Editor-in-chief: Shimberg Alexander Valentinovich E-mail: [email protected] Editor: Tatyana Nikolaevna Shabaeva E-mail : [email protected] General Director of the PORA Expert Center: Alexander Ivanovich Stotsk

Total and Partial Fragmentation Cross-Section of 500 MeV/nucleon Carbon Ions on Different Target Materials

By using an experimental setup based on thin and thick double-sided microstrip silicon detectors, it has been possible to identify the fragmentation products due to the interaction of very high energy primary ions on different targets. Here we report total and partial cross-sections measured at GSI (Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung), Darmstadt, for 500 MeV/n energy $^{12}C$ beam incident on water (in flasks), polyethylene, lucite, silicon carbide, graphite, aluminium, copper, iron, tin, tantalum and lead targets. The results are compared to the predictions of GEANT4 (v4.9.4) and FLUKA (v11.2) Monte Carlo simulation programs.Comment: 10pages, 13figures, 4table