The cohesion of committees is key in determining their legislative effectiveness

The role played by legislative committees in parliamentary democracies is a rather underestimated topic. After all, legislative standing committees exist in almost all parliamentary democracies. Still, they can have an impact on our understanding of how a democracy works. Luigi Curini explains what exactly it encompasses, and argues that the similarity of committee members’ preferences represents the most important factor in deciding the effectiveness of committee work

Risk assessment, and carcinogen mutagen for workers potentially exposed in the research laboratories of “Sapienza” University of Rome for Health Surveillance

The following work is meant to represent the evaluation of risk factors for the health of exposed workers, arising from the management of carcinogenic and mutagenic substances, through the use of algorithms. In some places of work as a research laboratory, it is more suitable a theoretical and practical methodology (algorithm) which allows a "timely" exposure assessment. The methodology developed and used is able to determine the level of risk of exposure due to a single agent and / or to more agents. Results obtained by the algorithm, have shown an higher exposure to 1 for formaldehyde (Lcanc = 1.32), while for acrylamide results obtained shows a lower exposure to 1 (Lcanc = 0.528). Although the overall exposure level of studied workers higher value to 1 (Lcanc= 1.848), the Occupational Medicine Centre of "Sapienza" - University of Rome, in agreement with the position taken by the Italian Society of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene applies health surveillance even in the presence of potential health risk reducing it among the general protection measures the health and safety of workers

I FONDI SPECULATIVI: PROFILI EVOLUTIVI E STRATEGIE DI INVESTIMENTO.

Il presente studio si concentra sull’analisi dei Fondi Speculativi, versione italiana dei più noti Hedge Funds. L’introduzione nel nostro ordinamento dei Fondi Speculativi rappresenta una forte novità per l’arricchimento delle opportunità di investimento disponibili per gli investitori e per le diverse logiche di gestione cui gli intermediari sono obbligati nel provvedere alla loro offerta. Dopo aver delineato in termini evolutivi il quadro normativo in materia di fondi comuni di investimento, si propone una disamina sia degli aspetti strutturali, sia delle peculiari strategie di investimento adottate dagli Hedge Funds; tali fondi si caratterizzano infatti per l’adozione di una varietà enorme di strategie di investimento, con caratteristiche di rischio/rendimento molto differenziate tra di loro. Il lavoro si completa poi con un’analisi quali-quantitativa dell’asset management industry in Italia, con particolare attenzione ai profili evolutivi del patrimonio gestito dai Fondi Speculativi di diritto italiano e, soprattutto, alle performance da questi realizzate nel corso del 2007, distinguendo in relazione alle singole strategie di investimento adottate

Fortuna e abilità in 65 anni di serie A

Introduzione – 1. Come posizionare i Campionati di Serie A lungo il continuum fortuna/abilità – 2. L’andamento della fortuna nel tempo – 3. Quali fattori dietro la fortuna: ipotesi di ricerca – 4. I fattori che spiegano il peso della fortuna in Serie A – 5. Fortuna e media spettatori – 6. Il Campionato di Serie A 2010/11 in chiave diacronica e in ottica europea – 7. I campionati e le squadre più (e meno) fortunati – Conclusioni – Bibliografiafortuna, abilità, campionato di calcio di serie A

e-Campaigning in the 2014 European elections : the emphasis on valence issues in a two-dimensional multiparty system

The article explores the relationship between the incentives of parties to campaign on valence issues and the ideological proximity between one party and its competitors. Building from the existing literature, we provide a novel theoretical model that investigates this relationship in a two-dimensional multiparty system. Our theoretical argument is then tested focusing on the 2014 European electoral campaign in the five largest European countries, through an analysis of the messages posted by parties in their official Twitter accounts. Our results highlight an inverse relationship between a party\u2019s distance from its neighbors and its likelihood to emphasize valence issues. However, as suggested in our theoretical framework, this effect is statistically significant only with respect to valence positive campaigning. Our findings have implications for the literature on valence competition, electoral campaigns, and social media

Peptides binding cocaine: A strategy to design biomimetic receptors

A computational methodology for designing and rationalizing the selection of small peptides as biomimetic receptors for cocaine is proposed. The method started by searching and filtering proteins X-ray and NMR data of biological receptor-cocaine complexes. On the basis of different cocaine zones, the amino acids involved in biological binding sites were selected as pivots to design an initial library of 768 penta-peptides. The peptides flexibility was studied determining the minimum number of conformers required to make a reliable computed binding score. The 25 highest ranked penta-peptides were selected and used as starting point to generate a 3000 hexapeptides library by inserting each of the 20 natural amino acids in all sequence positions. All structures were energy minimized and docking runs were carried out using FRED tool from OpenEye scientific. The binding scores calculated by FRED were compared with a preliminary in vivo experimental test, using two different peptides as selective sorbent material used for cocaine in Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) technique coupled with Mass Spectrometry (MS). The simulation data were found to be in agreement with experimental laboratory results, supporting the methodology proposed in this work. © 2013 Perez G, et al

Meccanismi di Evoluzione del Cariotipo nei Monocelididi (Turbellaria Proseriata)

Mechanisms of karyotype evolution in the Monocelididae (Turbellaria Proseriata). Within the Proseriata (Turbellaria: Seriata), the family Monocelididae displays several interesting patterns of chromosomal evolution. A basic set of n = 3 -made up or one large metacentric, one medium-sized metacentric and one small clearly heterobrachial chromosome -has been detected. It is widely distributed in species pertaining to both the subfamilies in which the Monocelididae are subdivided. From this basic set, other complements -either with n = 3 or n > 3 -would be originated.Several karyological mechanisms or common occurrence within the family (translocations, small chromosome rearrangements involving the centromere, genome growth) have been detected. As to the chromosome complements with n > 3 -occurring within the subfamily Monocelidinae -they can be interpreted as the result of a fission of one or both the metacentric chromosomes of the basic set. Karyometrical data are in good agreement with this suggestion. Centric fusion or polyploidy, well known for fresh- water Triclads, have been never found in the family

Commenting on Political Topics Through Twitter: Is European Politics European?

The aim of this study was to explore social media, and specifically Twitter's potential to generate a European demos. Our use of data derived from social media complements the traditional use of mass media and survey data within existing studies. We selected two Twitter hashtags of European relevance, #schengen and #ttip, to test several theories on a European demos (non-demos, European democracy, or pan-European demos) and to determine which of these theories was most applicable in the case of Twitter topics of European relevance. To answer the research question, we performed sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis performed on data gathered on social media platforms, such as Twitter, constitutes an alternative methodological approach to more formal surveys (e.g., Eurobarometer) and mass media content analysis. Three dimensions were coded: (1) sentiments toward the issue public, (2) sentiments toward the European Union (EU), and (3) the type of framing. Among all of the available algorithms for conducting sentiment analysis, integrated sentiment analysis (iSA), developed by the Blog of Voices at the University of Milan, was selected for the data analysis. This is a novel supervised algorithm that was specifically designed for analyses of social networks and the Web 2.0 sphere (Twitter, blogs, etc.), taking the abundance of noise within digital environments into consideration. An examination and discussion of the results shows that for these two hashtags, the results were more aligned with the demoicracy and "European lite identity" models than with the model of a pan-European demos