Inequality of income and poverty persistence in the Municipality of Bologna: a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis through administrative data

This work is part of a project promoted by Emilia-Romagna that aims at encouraging research activities in order to support the innovation strategies of the regional economic system through the exploitation of new data sources. To gain this scope, a database containing administrative data is provided by the Municipality of Bologna. This is achieved by linking data from the Register Office of the Municipality and fiscal data coming from the tax returns submitted to the Revenue Agency and released by the Ministry of Economy and Finance for the period 2002-2017. The main purpose of the project is the analysis of the medium term financial and distributional trends of income of the citizens residing in the Municipality of Bologna. Exploiting this innovative source of data allow us to analyse the dynamics of income at municipal level, overcoming the lack of information in official survey-based statistic. We investigate these trends by building inequality indicators and by examining the persistence of in-work poverty. Our results represent an important informative element to improve the effectiveness and equity of welfare policies at the local level, and to guide the distribution of economic and social support and urban redevelopment interventions in different areas of the Municipality.

The temporal pattern of customer satisfaction: a construal-level approach

Customer satisfaction has been traditionally studied and measured regardless of the time elapsed since the purchase. Some studies have recently reopened the debate about the temporal pattern of satisfaction. This research aims to explain why “how you evaluate a service depends on when you evaluate it” on the basis of the theoretical framework proposed by Construal-Level Theory (CLT). Although an empirical investigation is still lacking, the literature does not deny that CLT can be applied also with regard to past events. Moreover, some studies support the idea that satisfaction is a good predictor of future intentions, while others do not. On the basis of CLT, we argue that these inconsistent results are due to the different construal levels of the information pertaining to retrospective and prospective evaluations. Building on the Two-Factor Theory, we explain the persistence of certain attributes’ representations over time according to their relationship with overall performance. We present and discuss three experiments and one field study that were conducted a) to test the extensibility of CLT to past events, b) to disentangle memory and construal effects, c) to study the effect of different temporal perspective on overall satisfaction judgements, and d) to investigate the temporal shift of the determinants of customer satisfaction as a function of temporal distance.

Emerging contaminants in agricultural ecosystems: impact of selected pharmaceutical on water and soil ecology and pratical implications

Pharmaceuticals are useful tools to prevent and treat human and animal diseases. Following administration, a significant fraction of pharmaceuticals is excreted unaltered into faeces and urine and may enter the aquatic ecosystem and agricultural soil through irrigation with recycled water, constituting a significant source of emerging contaminants into the environment. Understanding major factors influencing their environmental fate is consequently needed to value the risk, reduce contamination, and set up bioremediation technologies. The antiviral drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir carboxylate, OC) has received recent attention due to the potential use as a first line defence against H5N1 and H1N1 influenza viruses. Research has shown that OC is not removed during conventional wastewater treatments, thus having the potential to enter surface water bodies. A series of laboratory experiments investigated the fate and the removal of OC in surface water systems in Italy and Japan and in a municipal wastewater treatment plant. A preliminary laboratory study investigated the persistence of the active antiviral drug in water samples from an irrigation canal in northern Italy (Canale Emiliano Romagnolo). After an initial rapid decrease, OC concentration slowly decreased during the remaining incubation period. Approximately 65% of the initial OC amount remained in water at the end of the 36-day incubation period. A negligible amount of OC was lost both from sterilized water and from sterilized water/sediment samples, suggesting a significant role of microbial degradation. Stimulating microbial processes by the addition of sediments resulted in reduced OC persistence. Presence of OC (1.5 μg mL-1) did not significantly affect the metabolic potential of the water microbial population, that was estimated by glyphosate and metolachlor mineralization. In contrast, OC caused an initial transient decrease in the size of the indigenous microbial population of water samples. A second laboratory study focused on basic processes governing the environmental fate of OC in surface water from two contrasting aquatic ecosystems of northern Italy, the River Po and the Venice Lagoon. Results of this study confirmed the potential of OC to persist in surface water. However, the addition of 5% of sediments resulted in rapid OC degradation. The estimated half-life of OC in water/sediment of the River Po was 15 days. After three weeks of incubation at 20 °C, more than 8% of 14C-OC evolved as 14CO2 from water/sediment samples of the River Po and Venice Lagoon. OC was moderately retained onto coarse sediments from the two sites. In water/sediment samples of the River Po and Venice Lagoon treated with 14C-OC, more than 30% of the 14C-residues remained water-extractable after three weeks of incubation. The low affinity of OC to sediments suggests that the presence of sediments would not reduce its bioavailability to microbial degradation. Another series of laboratory experiments investigated the fate and the removal of OC in two surface water ecosystems of Japan and in the municipal wastewater treatment plant of the city of Bologna, in Northern Italy. The persistence of OC in surface water ranged from non-detectable degradation to a half-life of 53 days. After 40 days, less than 3% of radiolabeled OC evolved as 14CO2. The presence of sediments (5%) led to a significant increase of OC degradation and of mineralization rates. A more intense mineralization was observed in samples of the wastewater treatment plant when applying a long incubation period (40 days). More precisely, 76% and 37% of the initial radioactivity applied as 14C-OC was recovered as 14CO2 from samples of the biological tank and effluent water, respectively. Two bacterial strains growing on OC as sole carbon source were isolated and used for its removal from synthetic medium and environmental samples, including surface water and wastewater. Inoculation of water and wastewater samples with the two OC-degrading strains showed that mineralization of OC was significantly higher in both inoculated water and wastewater, than in uninoculated controls. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and quantitative PCR analysis showed that OC would not affect the microbial population of surface water and wastewater. The capacity of the ligninolytic fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium to degrade a wide variety of environmentally persistent xenobiotics has been largely reported in literature. In a series of laboratory experiments, the efficiency of a formulation using P. chrysosporium was evaluated for the removal of selected pharmaceuticals from wastewater samples. Addition of the fungus to samples of the wastewater treatment plant of Bologna significantly increased (P < 0.05) the removal of OC and three antibiotics, erythromycin, sulfamethoxazole, and ciprofloxacin. Similar effects were also observed in effluent water. OC was the most persistent of the four pharmaceuticals. After 30 days of incubation, approximately two times more OC was removed in bioremediated samples than in controls. The highest removal efficiency of the formulation was observed with the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. The studies included environmental aspects of soil contamination with two emerging veterinary contaminants, such as doramectin and oxibendazole, wich are common parasitic treatments in cattle farms.

Spatial and temporal variability and ecological processes in the epibenthic assemblages of the northern Adriatic Sea

Several coralligenous reefs occur in the soft bottoms of the northern Adriatic continental shelf. Mediterranean coralligenous habitats are characterised by high species diversity and are intrinsically valuable for their biological diversity and for the ecological processes they support. The conservation and management of these habitats require quantifying spatial and temporal variability of their benthic assemblages. This PhD thesis aims to give a relevant contribution to the knowledge of the structure and dynamics of the epibenthic assemblages on the coralligenous subtidal reefs occurring in the northern Adriatic Sea. The epibenthic assemblages showed a spatial variation larger compared to temporal changes, with a temporal persistence of reef-forming organisms. Assemblages spatial heterogeneity has been related to morphological features and geographical location of the reefs, together with variation in the hydrological conditions. Manipulative experiments help to understand the ecological processes structuring the benthic assemblages and maintaining their diversity. In this regards a short and long term experiment on colonization patterns of artificial substrata over a 3-year period has been performed in three reefs, corresponding to the three main types of assemblages detected in the previous study. The first colonisers, largely depending by the different larval supply, played a key role in determining the heterogeneity of the assemblages in the early stage of colonisation. Lateral invasion, from the surrounding assemblages, was the driver in structuring the mature assemblages. These complex colonisation dynamics explained the high heterogeneity of the assemblages dwelling on the northern Adriatic biogenic reefs. The buildup of these coralligenous reefs mainly depends by the bioconstruction-erosion processes that has been analysed through a field experiment. Bioconstruction, largely due to serpulid polychaetes, prevailed on erosion processes and occurred at similar rates in all sites. Similarly, the total energy contents in the benthic communities do not differ among sites, despite being provided by different species. Therefore, we can hypothesise that both bioconstruction processes and energetic storage may be limited by the availability of resources. Finally the major contribution of the zoobenthos compared to the phytobenthos to the total energetic content of assemblages suggests that the energy flow in these benthic habitats is primarily supported by planktonic food web trough the filter feeding invertebrates.

Econometrics of default risk

This thesis is the result of a project aimed at the study of a crucial topic in finance: default risk, whose measurement and modelling have achieved increasing relevance in recent years. We investigate the main issues related to the default phenomenon, under both a methodological and empirical perspective. The topics of default predictability and correlation are treated with a constant attention to the modelling solutions and reviewing critically the literature. From the methodological point of view, our analysis results in the proposal of a new class of models, called Poisson Autoregression with Exogenous Covariates (PARX). The PARX models, including both autoregressive end exogenous components, are able to capture the dynamics of default count time series, characterized by persistence of shocks and slowly decaying autocorrelation. Application of different PARX models to the monthly default counts of US industrial firms in the period 1982-2011 allows an empirical insight of the defaults dynamics and supports the identification of the main default predictors at an aggregate level.

Development and food security in africa from the 1960s to 2010s: the case of Ethiopia

Persistent food insecurity and famines have continued to significantly shape the development policies of Ethiopia for decades. Over the decades, frequent famines caused not only the death of hundreds of thousands of victims but also significantly contributed to two revolutions that swept away the Haile Selassie and Derg regimes, as well as significantly taxing the legitimacy of the incumbent regime. As a result, agriculture and food security have become increasingly the top policy priorities for all political regimes in Ethiopia. However, the development policies of the ruling elites of Ethiopia have consistently failed to transform backward agriculture and ensure food security. The failures of the development policies of the Ethiopian governments over the years were attributed to several factors. Ethiopian authoritarian politics, centralized rule with a lack of transparency and accountability; the isolation of peasants from the development and governance process, and the lack of coherent agricultural development strategies that invest in peasant agriculture and create synergy among sectors are identified as key issues that have contributed to the persistence of food insecurity in the country. The literature on the failure of Ethiopia's political regimes to address food insecurity and famine has two major gaps that this study aims to fill. First, the cumulative and path-dependent food security and agricultural development policy environment were not adequately considered. Second, the strategy of extraversion by subsequent political regimes to use external support as a relief to prevent the famine-induced political crisis. This study used a mixed approach to collect data and present the evolution of the interplays of development policies and food security in three regimes within the context of international food security discourses. This study found out how the historical patterns of approaches of Ethiopia’s regimes to development and governance led to frequent famines and persistent food insecurity.

Disorders of arousal: a physiopathological window to explore the mechanisms regulating sleep arousal

Disorders of Arousal (DoA) belong to NREM parasomnias and are characterized by motor and emotional episodes arising from incomplete awakenings from NREM sleep. DoA episodes embody at the same time the double nature of the arousal process, that is preserving sleep as well as respond to sleep perturbations, thus being an ideal model to study sleep arousal. In the first part of this work, we performed a spectral whole scalp EEG analysis exploring the neurophysiologic correlates of the pre-motor onset of the episodes in a large sample of patients with DoA, disclosing the co-existence of both slow and fast EEG frequencies over overlapping areas before DoA episodes, suggesting an alteration of local sleep mechanisms. Episodes of different complexity were preceded by a similar EEG activation, implying that they possibly share a similar pathophysiology. In the second part of this work, we performed a spectral whole scalp EEG analysis comparing the pre-motor onset of the episodes and normal arousals from healthy sleepers, disclosing the persistence of slow frequencies as well as sigma band (expression of sleep spindles) in DoA episodes. Overall, these results might subtend a higher tendence to preserve sleep and a more defective mechanism toward developing a complete arousal in patients with DoA. In the last part of our work, we evaluated 15 patients with DoA with 15 controls in a functional MRI study during wakefulness in addition to a proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) focused on cingulate cortex. We disclosed subtle alterations on posterior cingulate cortex as well as an increased connectivity in sensory-motor network, possibly representing a trait-functional feature responsible for the dysfunctional arousal process in DoA patients

The genetic prehistory of Northern Calabria. Archeogenomic investigation of the human remains from Grotta di Pietra Sant’Angelo and Grotta della Monaca.

Given its strategic position at the center of the Mediterranean Basin, and its unique history of contacts and migrations, Calabria is an ideal region to decipher the genetic traces of at least some of the numerous demographic prehistoric events in Southern Italy. This thesis focuses on the genetic and social changes of ancient inhabitants of Calabria, covering a timeline of approximately 7000 to 3300 years ago, ranging from the Middle Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age. We generated the first genome-wide data from Calabria, by focusing on the single inhumation of “Grotta di Pietra Sant’Angelo” (San Lorenzo Bellizzi, Cosenza) and on the vast community found buried in “Grotta della Monaca” (Sant’Agata di Esaro, Cosenza). Supported by archaeological evidence, the primary objective of this research was to employ paleogenomic evidence to decipher funerary customs, social organization, family ties, and demographic shifts in Southern Italy over a period extending beyond three millennia. The possibility of gender-related burial practices and kinship ties among the deceased was also explored. Subsequently, the biogeographical origin and ancestry of prehistoric people of Calabria was contextualized within the broad landscape of existing data on Mediterranean populations. By generating the first genomic evidence from prehistoric Calabria, unresolved questions were addressed, related to the appearance and persistence of distinct genomic components, such as the Iran-related and the Steppe-related ancestry, whose impact on ancient Southern Italian genomes remains uncharted.