2,132 research outputs found
Unbiased estimation strategies for respondent driven sampling
No full textIn this paper, we focus on respondent-driven sampling (RDS), which is a valuable survey methodology to estimate the size and the characteristics of hidden or hard-to-measure population groups. The RDS methodology makes it possible to gather information on these populations by exploiting the relationships between their components. However, RDS suffers from the lack of an estimation methodology that is sufficiently robust to accommodate the varying conditions under which it is applied. In this paper, we address the estimation problem of the RDS methodology and, by approaching it as a particular indirect sampling technique, we propose three unbiased estimation methods as possible solutions
Observed and estimated prevalence of Covid-19 in Italy: How to to estimate the total cases from medical swabs data?
No full textDuring the current Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, official data are collected
with medical swabs following a pure convenience criterion which, at least in an
early phase, has privileged the exam of patients showing evident symptoms.
However, there are evidences of a very high proportion of asymptomatic patients
(e. g. Aguilar et al., 2020; Chugthai et al, 2020; Li, et al., 2020; Mizumoto
et al., 2020a, 2020b and Yelin et al., 2020). In this situation, in order to
estimate the real number of infected (and to estimate the lethality rate), it
should be necessary to run a properly designed sample survey through which it
would be possible to calculate the probability of inclusion and hence draw
sound probabilistic inference. Some researchers proposed estimates of the total
prevalence based on various approaches, including epidemiologic models, time
series and the analysis of data collected in countries that faced the epidemic
in earlier time (Brogi et al., 2020). In this paper, we propose to estimate the
prevalence of Covid-19 in Italy by reweighting the available official data
published by the Istituto Superiore di Sanit`a so as to obtain a more
representative sample of the Italian population. Reweighting is a procedure
commonly used to artificially modify the sample composition so as to obtain a
distribution which is more similar to the population (Valliant et al., 2018).
In this paper, we will use post-stratification of the official data, in order
to derive the weights necessary for reweighting them using age and gender as
post-stratification variables thus obtaining more reliable estimation of
prevalence and lethality
Measuring the Accuracy of Aggregates Computed from a Statistical Register
No full textThe Italian National Statistical Institute (Istat) is currently engaged in a modernization programme that foresees a significant revision of the methods traditionally used for the production of official statistics. The main concept behind this transformation is the use of the Integrated System Statistical Registers, created by a massive integration of administrative archives and survey data. In this article, we focus on how to measure the accuracy of register estimates of a population total from measurements calculated at the unit level. We propose the global mean squared error (GMSE) as a statistical quantity suitable for measuring accuracy in the context of the production of official statistics. It can be defined to explicitly consider the main sources of uncertainty that may affect registers. The article suggests a feasible calculation strategy for the GMSE that allows National Statistical Institutes to build algorithms that can promptly be applied for each user request, thus improving the relevance, transparency and confidence of official statistics. Through a simulation study, we verified the efficacy of the proposed strategy
"The love that made hell, paradise." Ouida re-writing the Paolo and Francesca theme in Held in Bondage
No full textThe bestselling Victorian author Ouida reveals in her novels, and, in particular, Held in Bondage, an extraordinary knowledge od Dante, by using characters and themes from the Commedia. The Paolo and Francesca theme actually constitutes part of the plot of the novel and is to be found in many of her other works, short stories and non-fiction writing
Density hysteresis and spin canting in rhombohedral trilayer graphene
No full textAbstract Spontaneous symmetry breaking leads to ordered phases, and hysteretic behavior often serves as a hallmark of emergent thermodynamic properties. Charge-neutral rhombohedral few-layer graphene is a strongly interacting system prone to layer antiferromagnetic (LAF) insulators, owing to its nearly flat bands with a high topological winding number. Here, in ultra-clean rhombohedral trilayer graphene devices—suspended to maximize interaction effects—we observe unexpected yet reproducible density hysteresis centered at the charge neutrality point (CNP), both at zero and finite electric fields. This hysteresis accentuates under an applied in-plane Zeeman field, but gradually weakens and eventually disappears as the temperature increases from 10 mK to 500 mK. These observations highlight the many-body nature of the LAF state, indicating a discontinuity in the chemical potential at the CNP and Zeeman field driven noncollinear spin canting. Our findings broaden the understanding of correlated phenomena in rhombohedral graphene and demonstrate both electric and magnetic control over antiferromagnetic order.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659National Science FoundationWelch Foundation http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/10000092
HERStory Makers 2023: Francesca Fotheringham
No full textFrancesca Fotheringham is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Edinburgh studying educational psychology with a focus on neurodiversity. She took part in HERStory Makers 2023.What is HERStory Makers?HERStory Makers is a social media competition for female-identifying early career researchers to share their research, their career journeys, and to inspire the next generation. Winners are selected by public vote. HERStory Makers is also part of EXPLORATHON, Scotland's contribution to European Researchers' Night.In 2022-23, EXPLORATHON Francescasupported by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number EP/X020762/1].Author contributions to contentFrancesca conceived, planned, and recorded the video content. Kirsty Ross edited the video content to insert HERStory Maker credits, added subtitles, and reduce video length to below Twitter/X limit of 2 mins and 20 secs.</p
Medicina illuminata. La Biblioteca Lancisiana di Roma
No full textL'articolo presenta i codici miniati della Biblioteca Lancisiana di Roma. La prima parte, del coautore, è dedicata alla Biblioteca. La seconda parte, di F. Manzari, tratta dei manoscritti miniati, costituiti da due codici con le opere di Avicenna e dal Liber fraternitatis della Confraternita dell'Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia a Roma.The article introduces the illuminated manuscripts of the Biblioteca Lancisiana in Rome. The first part of the article, by the co-author, is dedicated to the Library. The second part, by Francesca Manzari, illustrates the manuscipts; these are two manuscripts with the works of Avicenna and the Liber fraternitatis of the Confraternity of the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome
Landauer Resistivity Dipole at One-Dimensional Defect Revealed via near-Field Photocurrent Nanoscopy
No full textA DH-Leavened Musicological Toolbox
No full textGraduate-level training in music research methodologies tends to ignore digital humanities work and overlook the use of digital tools created in support of new forms of reading. Training instead focuses on source material in the student’s area of interest. This material includes secondary and primary (archival) resources, as well as information resources, such as: monuments of music and critical editions; indexes; bibliographies and thematic catalogs; dictionaries and encyclopedias; digital libraries of scores or editions; and databases of period-specific newspapers or journals. Graduate students taking research methods courses already have a toolbox built from their experiences as musicians and students of music, including the ability to read and interpret music notation, to understand theoretical and analytical concepts in music, as well as a command of music history, including the canon of musical works.
Digital humanities has become a major area of academic endeavor at the “interface of technological development, epistemological change and methodological concerns." An important characteristic of digital humanities research has been its interdisciplinarity. We argue that graduate training in musicology needs to include coverage of methodologies applied by digital humanists in support of new forms of reading, not only to broaden the canon of research topics in musicology, but also to build common ground with researchers of other disciplines. We propose that librarians are well positioned to provide this expertise and training
A Twitter Case Study for Assessing Digital Sound
No full textAcademic and cultural heritage institutions around the world have made measurable strides in the development of digital sound archives oriented towards research and access, but their impact on scholarship and society has been little studied. Traditionally, impact has been measured by citations; yet these are problematic metrics for non-traditional outputs like sound recordings. Social media data provide a promising avenue of investigation for measuring scholarly as well as societal impact. Twitter in particular has been shown to provide a high number of references for cultural and research outputs in all disciplines. This study analyzes Twitter references pertaining to the collections of five digital sound archives: British Library Sounds, Europeana Sounds, the Internet Archive Audio Archive, PennSound and UbuWeb. Using text analysis methods to identify high frequency events and trends, and labeling them with a rubric designed for measuring the impact of digital heritage resources, this study provides preliminary insights on user values as they relate to digital sound collections. Despite the limitations of using social media data, the evidence gathered in this case study characterizes aspects of the use of digital sound collections, and may point to future priorities for the digital preservation of sound.Peer reviewe
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