1,786 research outputs found
Caritas’s Work for the Goals of Agenda 2030: A Study on the Services Provided in Campania
No full textThe United Nations’ Agenda 2030 has established a series of Sustainable Development Goals
to address global challenges, including poverty, food insecurity, access to education, and social inequality.
In this context, charitable organizations such as Caritas play a crucial role in mitigating the negative
effects of these challenges and promoting fair and sustainable development. This study aims to analyze
prevalent needs among individuals seeking assistance from Caritas in Campania and examine how the
organization contributes to achieving the Agenda 2030 Goals in the region. The statistical investigation
techniques considered include tandem analysis a dimension-reduction technique, such as multiple
factor analysis, and then a cluster analysis to identify similar groups of individuals. These exploratory
data analysis methods have allowed for the identification of common needs, including food assistance,
support for education, employment, and housing assistance. Subsequently, Caritas programs and
initiatives aimed at meeting these needs and promoting sustainable development are explored. The
results indicate that Caritas plays a significant role in addressing the urgent needs of the vulnerable
population in Campania and contributes to the goals of Agenda 2030, particularly those related to
poverty alleviation, immigration, health promotion, education, employment, and the reduction of social
inequalities. This study provides an important perspective on the relevance and effectiveness of Caritas’s
work in the context of Agenda 2030
A Model for Evaluating Inequalities in Sustainability
No full textOn 25 September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda
for sustainable development, which includes seventeen Sustainable Development Goals,
among them the 10th Goal aims to reduce inequalities. Convinced of the importance of
this goal, in this paper we propose to study the socio-economic determinants which affect
the inequalities among the 20 Italian regions by applying a suitable regression model. The
socio-economic literature suggests that the most important determinants of inequalities are
government spending, income, employment and educational attainment, so we focus our
attention on the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals related to these determinant
factors. Given that the number of indicators is extremely high, while the number of
observations is low, we consider the partial least squares regression as the most suitable
statistical methodology to deal with this dependence modeling
Letter from Ida Otani to Michi Weglyn, April 26, 1997
No full textA letter from Ida Otani to Michi Weglyn about the firing of Japanese American railroad workers during World War II. Otani describes the hardships her family went through after her father was fired by Western Pacific Railroad and the family was forced to vacate their home because it was on railroad property.These materials are from box 73 and 74 of the Frank Chin Papers. The Frank Chin Papers contain personal and professional correspondence between Frank Chin and Michi Weglyn relating to particular projects on which either author was working as well as files related to the Day of Remembrance Tribute to Michi Weglyn
Modelling Social Inequalities With Identity Spline And Lasso Regression
No full textAddressing socio-inequalities in the digital era requires the development of integrated policies
informed by advanced statistical modelling. These policies often involve coordinated investment in digital infrastructure, education, inclusive technological design, and the regulation of
dominant technology platforms, alongside efforts to promote equitable digital labour practices.
From a statistical perspective, modelling the impact of such multifaceted interventions across
geographically and economically diverse regions poses significant challenges, especially due to
structural heterogeneity, correlated covariates, and the need for interpretable scenario analysis. Cross-sectional data provide a valuable setting for examining the relationships between
socio-economic indicators and investment patterns in education, infrastructure, and technology.
However, assessing the implications of different policy strategies under uncertainty necessitates
flexible modelling tools that can accommodate complex dependencies and enable exploratory
perturbations of the response. To this end, we propose a modelling framework that combines
identity splines with LASSO regression to support scenario-based analysis of social inequalities.
The identity spline is a specialised spline function that enables controlled perturbations of a
variable by adjusting its nodal coefficients. When used to represent the response variable-here
an indicator of social inequalities-this construction allows for structured and interpretable modifications, facilitating the exploration of alternative policy scenarios. The LASSO regression
model (Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator) is a widely used penalised regression
technique that performs simultaneous variable selection and regularisation, making it well-suited
for high-dimensional or multicollinear settings commonly encountered in socio-economic data.
Building on this, we introduce a functional-scalar LASSO regression model, in which the response variable is transformed into a functional object via the identity spline. This formulation
enables the response to be perturbed in a structured manner, allowing statisticians to investigate the sensitivity of outcomes to hypothetical interventions. The proposed model thus offers a
principled statistical framework for scenario-based policy evaluation in the presence of complex
predictor structures and uncertain outcomes
The author, Ida Allen, recounts some of her life in Maine\u27s woods. She was born
No full textThe author, Ida Allen, recounts some of her life in Maine\u27s woods. She was born in a Moxie Gorge log camp in the 1910s, and she remembers how the river drivers and lumbermen got logs from Lake Moxie over Moxie Falls ( the Niagara of the north ) through Moosehead Lake to the company mills. Details
Mechanical phenotyping of cells and extracellular matrix as grade and stage markers of lung tumor tissues
No full textIdentity Spline and LASSO Regression for Analysing Italian Poverty
No full textThe identity spline is a special spline function that allows controlled perturbations
of a variable, especially the response variables in a regression context. These perturbations
allow decision makers to explore different scenarios of varying complexity, such
as the development of poverty reduction strategies in a social context. Here, we propose
a functional-scalar LASSO regression in which the response variable is transformed into a
functional object using the identity spline, which allows scenario-based modifications by perturbing
its nodal coefficients
ECM mechanoregulation in malignant pleural mesothelioma
No full textMalignant pleural mesothelioma is a relatively rare, but devastating tumor, because of the difficulties in providing early diagnosis and effective treatments with conventional chemo- and radiotherapies. Patients usually present pleural effusions that can be used for diagnostic purposes by cytological analysis. This effusion cytology may take weeks or months to establish and has a limited sensitivity (30%–60%). Then, it is becoming increasingly urgent to develop alternative investigative methods to support the diagnosis of mesothelioma at an early stage when this cancer can be treated successfully. To this purpose, mechanobiology provides novel perspectives into the study of tumor onset and progression and new diagnostic tools for the mechanical characterization of tumor tissues. Here, we report a mechanical and biophysical characterization of malignant pleural mesothelioma cells as additional support to the diagnosis of pleural effusions. In particular, we examined a normal mesothelial cell line (Met5A) and two epithelioid mesothelioma cell lines (REN and MPP89), investigating how malignant transformation can influence cellular function like proliferation, cell migration, and cell spreading area with respect to the normal ones. These alterations also correlated with variations in cytoskeletal mechanical properties that, in turn, were measured on substrates mimicking the stiffness of patho-physiological ECM
Letter from Ida Boitano to Ernest Besig, Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, 1942
No full textLetter from Ida Boitano to Ernest Besig. Boitano thanks Besig for the money he sent from Korematsu. She writes of her concern for Korematsu, and ask Besig to try to convince him not to contact her directly, out of fear it could be dangerous for her. She writes, "I happen to be Italian, and this is war, so we must both be careful." Stamped "confidential."The ACLU-Northern California case file records contain legal documents and correspondence pertaining to the case argued before the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States (1944), challenging the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066
Role of nutrient concentrations and water movement on diatom's productivity in culture
No full textMicroalgal growth maximization is becoming a duty for enhancing the biotechnological fate of these photosynthetic microorganisms. This study, based on an extensive set of data, aims to revisit diatom's cultivation in laboratory with the objective to increase growth rate and biomass production. We investigated the growth ability and resource requirements of the coastal diatom Skeletonema marinoi Sarno & Zingone grown in laboratory in the conventional f/2 medium with aeration and in two modified conditions: (i) the same medium with water movement inside and (ii) an enriched medium with the same water movement. Results revealed that, by doubling the concentration of phosphate, silicate, microelements and vitamins, growth rate was successfully enhanced, preventing phosphate or silicate limitation in the f/2 culture medium. Yet, irrespective of the media (f/2 or enriched one), water movement induced an increase of growth efficiency compared to aeration, affecting nutrients' requirement and consumption by diatoms. This study is an important step for enhancing diatom biomass production, reducing its cost, as required in the blue biotechnology context
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