Determinants and consequences of international migration

This chapter provides a simple overview of the canonical model of international migration, discusses the consequences of migration on both sending and receiving countries and draws some considerations on future research prospects for the international migration literature

Talents from Abroad. Foreign Managers and Productivity in the United Kingdom.

In this paper, we test the contribution of foreign management on firms’ competitiveness. We use a novel dataset on the careers of 165,084 managers employed by 13,106 companies in the United Kingdom in the period 2009-2017. We find that a domestic manufacturing firm becomes on average between 9% and 12% more productive after hiring at least one foreign manager. Interestingly, productivity gains by domestic firms after recruiting foreign managers are similar in magnitude to gains after foreign acquisitions as from previous literature. Eventually, we do not find significant gains by foreign-owned firms hiring foreign managers. Our identification strategy combines difference-in-difference and matching techniques to challenge reverse causality. We proxy firms’ competitiveness either by total factor productivity or by technical efficiency derived from stochastic frontier analyses. Eventually, we argue that limits to the circulation of talents, as for example in case of a Brexit event, may hamper the allocation of labor productive resources

Experimental investigation of the evolution of elastic stiffness anisotropy in a clayey soil

The paper presents the main results of a research study into the very small strain shear stiffness of a clayey soil, as measured in vertical and horizontal directions, G(hv) and G(hh), respectively, by means of T-shaped horizontal bender elements fitted in a stress-controlled triaxial system. The testing programme was designed to investigate the evolution of the anisotropy ratio G(hh)/G(hv) along isotropic (eta = 0) and anisotropic (eta not equal 0) virgin radial paths. In particular, a reconstituted clay has been chosen as tested material in order to unequivocally relate the observed evolution of its stiffness anisotropy to the specific stress-strain histories imposed in laboratory. The results show that the small strain stiffness anisotropy smoothly adapts itself to the imposed strain history, achieving different constant values ranging from 1 to 1.2 for eta ranging from 0 to 0.8. The experiments show that the complete modification of the directional elastic properties of the soil requires the virgin radial compression path to be extended along a new direction up a stress level at least four times larger than that experienced previously. Finally, the variations in the clay elastic anisotropy have been related to the changes in clay fabric as investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy. In this context, the variation of the fabric orientation has been quantified through a specific digital image processing

New peptidyl-anthraquinones: Synthesis and DNA binding

Aminoiacyl-hydroxy-anthraquinones bearing glicyl, valyl, lysyl and tryptophanyl residues in the side-chain were synthesized as new potential DNA-directed drugs

Elasto-plastic coupling in soils: A thermodynamic-based approach

In the present study the implications of a thermodynamic-based constitutive framework on the mechanical behaviour of soils are critically analysed. The primary advantage of this approach as compared to the traditional hardening plasticity is that the models are guaranteed to obey the laws of thermodynamics. Furthermore, the use of potential functions allows to introduce some crucial ingredients of the mechanical behaviour of soils that directly affect the shape of the yield surface and the flow rule of the model. To illustrate the above features, different forms of elasto-plastic coupling are presented and their implications on the response of the models are explored with reference to a series of numerical simulations

Design of antimicrobial peptides based on sequence analogy and amphipathicity

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Plastic strain-induced small strain stiffness anisotropy. A multi-scale experimental evidence

The paper summarises the main results of a research into the very small strain shear stiffness of a clayey soil, as measured in vertical and horizontal directions, Ghv and Ghh respectively, by means of T-shape horizontal bender elements fitted in a stress-controlled triaxial system. The testing programme, carried out on a reconstituted clay, was designed to investigate the evolution of the anisotropy ratio Ghh/Ghv along isotropic (η = 0) and anisotropic (η 0) virgin radial paths. The results show that the small strain stiffness anisotropy smoothly adapts itself to the imposed strain history. The experiments also show that the complete modification of the directional elastic properties of the soil requires the virgin radial compression path to be extended along a new direction up a stress level at least four times larger than that experienced previously. Finally, the variations in the clay elastic anisotropy have been related to the changes in clay fabric as investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In this context, the variation of the fabric orientation has been quantified through a specific digital image processing