Hidden Markov model for discrete circular–linear wind data time series

ABSTRACT

In this work, we deal with a bivariate time series of wind speed and direction. Our observed data have peculiar features, such as informative missing values, non-reliable measures under a specific condition and interval-censored data, that we take into account in the model specification. We analyse the time series with a non-parametric Bayesian hidden Markov model, introducing a new emission distribution, suitable to model our data, based on the invariant wrapped Poisson, the Poisson and the hurdle density. The model is estimated on simulated datasets and on the real data example that motivated this work.     

The Role of Ethnic Prejudice in the Modulation of Cradling Lateralization

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior - The left-cradling bias is the tendency to cradle an infant on the left side, regardless of the individuals’ handedness, culture or ethnicity. Many studies...     

Male routes to a teaching career: motivations,market constraints and gender inequalities

The aim of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the gender influence on teaching choice. We analyze a large-scale national representative sample of Italian teachers. The choice to teach seems to be more a long-term pathway for women, following their personal values and interest in the intrinsic and altruistic values of teaching. Men, instead, show a more adaptable pattern of choice: chance and switching career played a relevant role in determining their ending up in teaching. ‘Males in a feminized environment’ present an intermediate profile, characterized by stronger constraints due to previous studies and consequent weak labor market opportunities. Our analyses support the idea that men found their pathways to gaining satisfaction from the occupation of teaching, thanks to its flexibility. This is an ambiguous result from a gender perspective: reassuring but also worrying, considering that the adaptation could contribute to the reproduction of gender inequalities within the teaching profession.     

Internationalisation and outsourcing of operations and product development in the fashion industry

This paper investigates the choices in terms of internationalisation and outsourcing of operations and product development activities, as well as collaboration practices used within and across organisations, in different segments of the European fashion industry. Based on multiple, in-depth case studies from Italy, Germany and the UK, the paper shows that fashion companies adopt different configurations of operations and product development, i.e. integrated, collaborative and virtual, ranging from local-integrated models to global-full outsourcing of operations and product development activities. For each configuration, different collaboration practices are in use. Product line positioning and quality, firm size, sales volumes and technical complexity of the products are the key drivers determining the configuration choices and the adoption of certain collaboration practices.     

Gender role identity in a sample of Italian male homosexuals

Gender role is a multifactorial concept, as gender-related attitudes, behaviors, and personality are partially autonomous. The aim of the study was to evaluate the prevalent gender role identity in a sample of male homosexuals. One hundred male homosexuals and 50 male heterosexuals matched for age and sex, have been assessed with the Italian version of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974). Statistically significant differences have been found between the two groups at the dimensions "Masculine" (z = 1.963; p = 0.001) and "Androgyny" (z = 2.367; p < 0.0001). The results obtained from the present study tend to confirm that homosexuals view themselves as adrogynous individuals, sharing both features of masculine and feminine gender roles.     

Parameterized complexity of k-anonymity: hardness and tractability

The problem of publishing personal data without giving up privacy is becoming increasingly important. A precise formalization that has been recently proposed is the k-anonymity, where the rows of a table are partitioned into clusters of sizes at least k and all rows in a cluster become the same tuple after the suppression of some entries. The natural optimization problem, where the goal is to minimize the number of suppressed entries, is hard even when the stored values are over a binary alphabet or the table consists of a bounded number of columns. In this paper we study how the complexity of the problem is influenced by different parameters. First we show that the problem is W[1]-hard when parameterized by the value of the solution (and k). Then we exhibit a fixed-parameter algorithm when the problem is parameterized by the number of columns and the number of different values in any column. Finally, we prove that k-anonymity is still APX-hard even when restricting to instances with 3 columns and k=3.     

The conditional censored graphical lasso estimator

Statistics and Computing - In many applied fields, such as genomics, different types of data are collected on the same system, and it is not uncommon that some of these datasets are subject to...     

Bystanders' Reactions to Bullying: A Cross‐cultural Analysis of Personal Correlates Among Italian and Singaporean Students

This study examined the role of attitudes against bullying and perceived peer pressure for intervention in explaining defending the victim and passive bystanding behavior in bullying. Participants were 1031 school‐age children from two culturally diverse settings, namely Italy and Singapore, which are similar on several dimensions (e.g., quality of life, child welfare) but dramatically differ on other aspects, such as individualism—collectivism orientation. Multilevel analyses showed that country and participants' gender moderated the relations between individual predictors and behavior during bullying episodes. In particular, although individual attitudes were a stronger predictor of Italian students'—especially girls'—behavior, perceived peer expectations were more strongly associated with behavior of Singaporean participants. This study contributes to the literature by being the first to provide data analyzing the association between defending and passive bystanding behavior and different correlates using a cross‐cultural approach.     

Differentiating countryside: Social representations and governance patterns in rural areas with high social density: The case of Chianti,Italy

One of the key factors for the success of development strategies in rural areas is the setting up of appropriate governance patterns, whose main outcome is a fluid communication between public and private organisations and an effective integration of objectives and policies.