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Summary Unemployment rate estimates for small areas are used to efficiently support the distribution of services and the allocation of resources, grants and funding. A Fay–Herriot type model is the most used tool to obtain these estimates. Under this approach out‐of‐sample areas require some synthetic estimates. As the geographical context is extremely important for analysing local economies, in this paper, we allow for area random effects to be spatially correlated. The spatial model parameters are estimated by a marginal likelihood method and are used to predict in‐sample as well as out‐of‐sample areas. Extensive simulation experiments are used to assess the impact of the auto‐regression parameter and of the rate of out‐of‐sample areas on the performance of this approach. The paper concludes with an illustrative application on real data from the Italian Labour Force Survey in which the estimation of the unemployment rate in each Local Labour Market Area is addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nuova Rivista Storica is the property of Societa Editrice Dante Alighieri s.r.l. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the summer of 1938, Italy's Fascist regime announced its new 'racial' policy, soon to be followed by a series of draconian racial laws. The policy was based on the principle that Catholic Italians were of the Aryan race and Jewish Italians belonged to a separate race of non-Aryans. Previously the Vatican had made no such racial distinction. Yet, notwithstanding the frequent claim that the Church has never distinguished between Catholics and Jews on racial grounds, the Vatican quickly began to assimilate to the Fascist state's distinction of Jews as racially marked as non-Aryan. The opening in 2020 of the Vatican archives for the papacy of Pius XII (1939–58) has made available a huge trove of documents bearing on the way the pope and the Vatican secretariat of state dealt with Italy's racial laws and with the subsequent persecution of Italy's Jews during German occupation. As shown in this article, these documents make clear the Vatican's use of racial language and racial concepts as it dealt with the racial laws and the persecution of Italy's Jews from the time the racial laws were introduced in 1938 to the years of the Holocaust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the war was going badly in early 1943, Mussolini took the dramatic step of replacing most of his government ministers. Of the men sacked, none drew more attention than Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law, who had served as minister of foreign affairs since 1936. The announcement that Ciano would immediately be appointed as Italy's ambassador to the Holy See sparked much speculation in the diplomatic community, where it was viewed as a possible move by Mussolini to employ the Vatican to broker an Italian exit from the war. Others saw the appointment as a desperate move by Ciano himself to find a way out of the war. The recently opened Vatican archives for these years, along with archival evidence from Germany, Britain, the U.S., France, and Italy, offer new insight both into Ciano's attempts to ingratiate himself with Pope Pius XII and to how he in fact operated in his role as Italian ambassador to the Holy See in the months preceding the collapse of the Fascist regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the larger debate over Italians' attitudes toward the decision to join the Second World War on Germany's side, and their subsequent attitude toward fighting alongside the Nazis, the question of the role played by the Roman Catholic Church remains controversial. By focusing on Italy's three major Catholic daily newspapers for the years 1939 to 1943, and on the behind-the-scenes actions of the Fascist authorities, we here show one of the principal ways that the institutional Church communicated to Italy's Catholics the proper attitudes to take toward the war. The active role played by the papers and their editors in urging Italian Catholic support for the Axis cause is made clear. We examine the Bologna-based L'Avvenire d'Italia, the Rome-based L'Avvenire, and the Milan-based L'Italia, along with a variety of government and church-related archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maximum likelihood estimation of the model parameters for a spatial population based on data collected from a survey sample is usually straightforward when sampling and non‐response are both non‐informative, since the model can then usually be fitted using the available sample data, and no allowance is necessary for the fact that only a part of the population has been observed. Although for many regression models this naive strategy yields consistent estimates, this is not the case for some models, such as spatial auto‐regressive models. In this paper, we show that for a broad class of such models, a maximum marginal likelihood approach that uses both sample and population data leads to more efficient estimates since it uses spatial information from sampled as well as non‐sampled units. Extensive simulation experiments based on two well‐known data sets are used to assess the impact of the spatial sampling design, the auto‐correlation parameter and the sample size on the performance of this approach. When compared to some widely used methods that use only sample data, the results from these experiments show that the maximum marginal likelihood approach is much more precise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological progress has widely been acknowledged as a key driver in the achievement of environmental sustainability, and a new concern has recently arisen for assessing the role of differences in regional innovation performances with respect to the pursuit of pollution targets. We investigate the impact of innovative activities on environmental efficiency at the regional level, adopting a spatial panel data approach to account for dependence between geographical observations and to get deeper insights into spatial knowledge spillovers arising from agglomeration economies. The spatial panel analysis covers 103 Italian provinces (equivalent to NUTS3 regions) on four major air pollutants (i.e., CO2, CH4, NMVOC, CO) over the 1995–2010 period. Our findings show that the state of local technology development, proxied by patents, has a positive impact on GDP emission efficiency and that its magnitude is higher for more localized pollutants as a result of larger spillover effects. Finally, to analyze the Italian North‐South dualism of emission levels of pollutants, we offer a spillover effect study to emphasize the remarkable difference among effects in the territory. This calls for closer attention to the local relevance of the pollution damage when environmental impact of innovation strategies is to be evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O Bloqueio do Plano do Músculo Eretor da Espinha (ESP block) é um bloqueio relativamente novo, inicialmente descrito para analgesia de dor torácica crônica, porém já descrito para anestesia e analgesia em procedimentos cirúrgicos torácicos e, mais recentemente, para cirurgias abdominais altas. O estudo objetivou comparar as técnicas de bloqueio ESP e bloqueio Epidural com morfina e anestésico local para analgesia pós‐operatória de cirurgias de colecistectomia aberta. Estudo clínico randomizado controlado, unicego com 31 pacientes (ESP block, n = 15; Epidural, n = 16), de ambos os sexos, idades entre 27 e 77 anos. O ESP block foi realizado no nível de T8 com injeção de 20 mL de ropivacaína 0,5% bilateral. O bloqueio Epidural foi realizado no espaço T8‐T9 com 20 mL de ropivacaína 0,5% e 1 mg de morfina. O grupo ESP block apresentou valores médios de dor pela Escala Visual Numérica (EVN) maiores nas avaliações até 2 horas (p = 0,001) e em 24 horas (p = 0,001). O grupo ESP block apresentou um risco três vezes maior – 43,7% vs. 13,3% – de uso de opioide de resgate em 24 horas pós‐operatórias do que o grupo epidural (RR = 3,72; 95% IC 0,91 a 15,31; p = 0,046). Nas doses realizadas nesse estudo, o ESP block não se mostrou uma técnica efetiva para analgesia pós‐operatória de colecistectomia aberta, com mais uso de opioide de resgate e sem diferenças na escala visual numérica de dor. Necessita‐se de estudos mais abrangentes avaliando a eficácia do ESP block para o componente visceral e somático abdominal, considerando o nível do bloqueio específico. Blockade of the Erector Spinal Muscle (ESP block) is a relatively new block, initially described for chronic thoracic pain analgesia, but it has already been described for anesthesia and analgesia in thoracic surgical procedures and, more recently, for high abdominal surgeries. The aim of the study was to compare two techniques, ESP Block and Epidural block with morphine and local anesthetic for postoperative analgesia of open cholecystectomy surgeries. Controlled single‐blind randomized clinical trial with 31 patients (ESP block, n = 15; Epidural, n = 16), of both genders, ages between 27 and 77 years. The ESP block was performed at the T8 level with injection of 20 mL of 0.5% ropivacaine bilaterally. The epidural block was performed at the T8‐T9 space with 20 mL of 0.5% ropivacaine and 1 mg of morphine. The ESP block group presented higher mean Numeric Pain Scale (NPS) values for pain in the up to 2 hour (p = 0.001) and in the 24 hour (p = 0.001) assessments. The ESP block group had a three‐fold increased risk (43.7% vs. 13.3%) of rescue opioid use in the 24 postoperative hours when compared to the epidural group (RR = 3.72, 95% CI: 0.91 to 15.31, p = 0.046). ESP block did not prove to be an effective technique for postoperative analgesia of open cholecystectomy, at the doses performed in this study, having required more use of rescue opioid, and without differences in NPS. More comprehensive studies are required to assess the efficacy of ESP block for the visceral and abdominal somatic component, considering the specific blockade level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical data in economic, social or environmental sciences are usually recorded as compositions, i.e. relative frequencies, and a common inquiring problem concerns the analysis of these data over different geographical regions. In the present paper we define a new statistical test to verify spatial dependence of such geographical distributions based on distance correlation, a recently introduced measure of dependence between random vectors. The proposed index computes the non‐linear spatial distance between distributions and can be applied on compositional frequency distributions. Simulations and an application on Italian electoral data are presented, to illustrate the capabilities of the proposed test to detect spatial dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Spatial Economic Analysis is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper proposes a new technique based on an iterated spatially weighted regression procedure to verify the presence of economic growth heterogeneities in EU regions in the period 1981-2009. The approach extends a procedure originally proposed in the field of image analysis based on the assumption of local homogeneity of the signal. The presence of the heterogeneity is a criterion to divide the sample of observations (i.e. regions) into smaller homogeneous groups. Our results highlight the presence in the EU regions of five different clubs with different growth paths within each subgroup. Spatial dependence is also considered in the definition of the economic convergence model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The units observed in a biological, agricultural, and environmental survey are often randomly selected from a finite population whose main feature is to be geo-referenced thus its spatial distribution should be used as essential information in designing the sample. In particular our interest is focused on probability samples that are well spread over the population in every dimension which in recent literature are defined as spatially balanced samples. To approach the problem we used the within sample distance as the summary index of the spatial distribution of a random selection criterion. Moreover numerical comparisons are made between the relative efficiency, measured with respect to the simple random sampling, of the suggested design and some other classical solutions as the Generalized Random Tessellation Stratified (GRTS) design used by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other balanced or spatially balanced selection procedures as the Spatially Correlated Poisson Sampling (SCPS), the balanced sampling (CUBE), and the Local Pivotal method (LPM). These experiments on real and simulated data show that the design based on the within sample distance selects samples with a better spatial balance thus gives estimates with a lower sampling error than those obtained by using the other methods. The suggested method is very flexible to the introduction of stratification and coordination of samples and, even if in its nature it is computationally intensive, it is shown to be a suitable solution even when dealing with high sampling rates and large population frames where the main problem arises from the size of the distance matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last year, a central issue in regional economic growth debate has been represented by the empirical analysis of Verdoorn's law related to the long-term dynamic relationship between the rate of growth in output and the productivity growth due to increasing returns. Several papers have tested Verdoorn's law on European countries as well as many other world economies. Recently, attempts have been made to provide foundations for a spatial version of the original law specification. The main contributions were dedicated to the inclusion of spatial dependence in the economic model. Surprisingly, in the literature on Verdoom's law the analysis of the spatial heterogeneity is not often considered. The aim of this paper is the regional analysis of the spatial dependence and heterogeneity in Verdoorn's law, identifying spatial regimes that can be interpreted as clusters of productivity growth in European regions at NUTS 2 level. To pursue this objective, an optimization algorithm for the identification of groups is used. This constitutes a modified version of Simulated Annealing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumo Justificativa e objetivos Os pacientes testemunhas de Jeová recusam transfusão sanguínea por motivos religiosos. O anestesiologista deve dominar conhecimentos jurídicos específicos para atender esses pacientes. Entender como o direito e o Conselho Federal de Medicina tratam essa questão é fundamental para saber agir dentro desse contexto. O objetivo deste artigo foi estabelecer um protocolo de atendimento do paciente testemunha de Jeová com ênfase no dever ético e legal do anestesiologista. Conteúdo O artigo analisa a Constituição, o Código Penal, resoluções do Conselho Federal de Medicina (CFM), pareceres e jurisprudência para entender os limites do conflito entre a autonomia de vontade da testemunha de Jeová em recusar transfusão e a obrigação do médico em transfundir. Baseado nessas evidências um protocolo de atendimento é sugerido. Conclusões A resolução do CFM 1021/1980, o Código Penal no artigo 135, que classifica como crime a omissão de socorro, e a decisão do Supremo Tribunal de Justiça sobre o processo HC 268.459/SP impõem ao médico a obrigação de transfusão quando houver risco de vida. Não é necessário concordância do paciente ou de seu responsável, pois não é proibida a manifestação de vontade do paciente testemunha de Jeová ao recusar transfusão sanguínea para si e seus dependentes, mesmo em emergências. Background and objectives Jehovah's Witnesses patients refuse blood transfusions for religious reasons. Anesthesiologists must master specific legal knowledge to provide care to these patients. Understanding how the Law and the Federal Council of Medicine treat this issue is critical to know how to act in this context. The aim of this paper was to establish a treatment protocol for the Jehovah's Witness patient with emphasis on ethical and legal duty of the anesthesiologist. Content The article analyzes the Constitution, Criminal Code, resolutions of the Federal Council of Medicine (FCM), opinions, and jurisprudence to understand the limits of the conflict between the autonomy of will of Jehovah's Witnesses to refuse transfusion and the physician's duty to provide the transfusion. Based on this evidence, a care protocol is suggested. Conclusions The FCM resolution 1021/1980, the penal code Article 135, which classifies denial of care as a crime and the Supreme Court decision on the HC 268,459/SP process imposes on the physician the obligation of blood transfusion when life is threatened. The patient's or guardian's consent is not necessary, as the autonomy of will manifestation of the Jehovah's Witness patient refusing blood transfusion for himself and relatives, even in emergencies, is no not forbidden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Spatial Economic Analysis is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the history of slavery in the Papal States as shown by court documents. Among other topics addressed are the official position of various popes regarding slavery, the effect of wars against the Ottoman empire, and the change of attitudes in the Vatican over time from allowing to forbidding slavery.

The presence and the status of the Christian slaves in Mediterranean during modern period have been the subject of many and deep studies and publications. But the characteristics of the women's role in complex system of redemption of slaves from North African's Muslim reigns, don't received right attention. The article offers an analysis of this specific issue, focusing for its observations on memories for the redemption of Christian slaves sended to Roman Arciconfraternita of the Gonfalone, in 18th century, a source which until now has been not, or very seldom used. Coming from an unusual point of view, these documents introduce us to the world of early modern slavery in Mediterranean and also define a large number of different subjects more accurately, like conditions, rates and stages of negotiation. The results of this research seem to suggest, that these memories have to be considered as a very interesting and reliable source, specially compared with judicial sources. Moreover, it offers a new change to increase the frontiers of gender studies, especially for female writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which focused on a logistic auto-logistic model (LAM) for the estimation of the univariate conditional probabilities of flood events. An analysis of the estimation and simulation techniques is also presented, focusing on the pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) procedure and on the Gibbs Sampler. The empirical analysis of the section on the estimation of the conditional distributions, is mainly devoted to the coarser geographical partition described by the so-called macro-system.

Proposes a Markov random field-based method for image subsampling, where the intuitive basis lies in the assumption that object boundaries observed at a given resolution can be outlined at a finer scale using image local dependence. Image resampling model; Stochastic relaxation algorithm; Experimental results.

Introduction: Medical pleuroscopy (MP) is an invasive technique that provides access to the pleural space with a rigid or semi-rigid work instrument, allowing for visualization and the obtaining of bioptic pleural samples. Using pulmonologist-based analgosedation to perform pleuroscopy is still debated for safety reasons. The aim of this real-life study is to demonstrate the safety and diagnostic yield of MP performed under balanced analgosedation by a pulmonologist team with expertise in the management of critically ill patients in the respiratory intensive care unit (RICU) and interventional pulmonology unit as compared to video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) performed by a thoracic surgeon team under anesthesiologist-based analgosedation. Methods: In this multicentric retrospective controlled study, the inclusion criteria were patients older than 18 years old with pleural effusion of unknown diagnosis consecutively admitted in the years 2017–2022 to the pulmonology unit and RICU of San Donato Hospital in Arezzo (Italy, Tuscany) and to the thoracic surgery unit of Santa Maria Le Scotte in Siena (Italy, Tuscany) to undergo, respectively, MP under balanced propofol-based analgosedation on spontaneous breathing with local anesthesia provided by a pulmonologist team (Group A), and VATS provided by a surgeon team under propofol-based analgosedation managed by an anesthesiologist using invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) via endotracheal intubation (ETI) (Group B). The primary endpoints were (1) a comparison between the two groups in terms of the diagnostic yield of pleural effusion, and (2) major and minor complications of pleuroscopic procedures. The secondary endpoints were (1) the length of the pleuroscopic procedure; (2) the duration of hospitalization; (3) propofol doses; and (4) the patient's comfort after the procedure assessed using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Results: We enrolled 91 patients in Group A and 116 patients in Group B. A conclusive diagnosis was obtained in 97.8% of Group A vs. 100% of Group B (p = 0.374). Malignant effusion was diagnosed in 59.3% of Group A and in 55.1% of Group B; p = 0.547. No intraoperative or postoperative mortality events or major complications were observed in Group A. The major complications observed in Group B were three major bleeding events (p = 0.079) and one exitus (p = 0.315) not related to the interventional procedure. No significant difference emerged between the two groups in terms of minor complications. The duration of the intervention was significantly lower in Group A (40.0 min ± 12.6 versus 51.5 ± 31.0; p = 0.001). Pain control and, therefore, patient comfort were better in Group A, with an average VAS of 0.34 ± 0.65 versus 2.58 ± 1.26, p < 0.001. The duration of hospitalization was lower in Group B (5.1 ± 2.6 vs. 15.5 ± 8.0, p < 0.001). The average overall dose of propofol administered was significantly lower in Group A (65.6 ± 35.8 mg versus 280 ± 20.0 mg; p < 0.001). Conclusions: This real-life study shows that the MP performed under propofol-based analgosedation by an independent pneumologist team is a safe and well-tolerated procedure with a diagnostic yield and complication rates similar to those obtained with VATS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study has two main purposes. First, it explores the performance indicators disclosed in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)-based Sustainability Reports (SRs) produced by the companies of three different countries: Italy, Spain and Greece. Second, it verifies how some corporate variables, country of origin variables and “attributes” of the SRs can explain the disclosure of GRI indicators. To verify the quantity and type of the indicators disclosed, we performed a content analysis of the SRs. We use a regression trees technique to describe how the companies’ variables explain a different use of the indicators. The findings show that Spanish companies, on average, disclose the greatest number of indicators. The social indicators related to Labour are those more frequently reported in the SRs of the three countries. The least reported are social indicators related to Human Rights. The results show the central role that assurance, ROA and sector may have in classifying the disclosure level of indicators. The study contributes both theoretical and empirical literature on sustainability indicators. It also sheds further light on the determinants of the disclosure of indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic integration and globalization are expected to promote economic growth and convergence. This article offers a comparative analysis of the pace of development in terms of GDP per capita in 79 economies from 1970 to 2019. Usually, economic convergence literature aims to establish whether catching-up processes have been successful. This article verifies the existence of growth path similarities to identify clusters of countries that grow at a similar pace and react in a similar way to crises, and compares their dynamics in time. According to the results, coherently with globalization pressures, clusters have become fewer and larger. However, growth path divergences persist and suggest a cluster-based convergence. Integration processes, such as the European Union, have not influenced this trend. The extent to which these clusters are composed of structurally similar economies has been investigated and some consistencies have emerged between the composition of clusters and the classifications provided by the varieties of capitalism theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we leverage geographical coordinates and firm-level panel data to uncover variations in production across different locations. Our approach involves using a semiparametric proxy variable regression estimator, which allows us to define and estimate a customized production function for each firm and its corresponding location. By employing kernel methods, we estimate the nonparametric functions that determine the model's parameters based on latitude and longitude. Furthermore, our model incorporates productivity components that consider various factors that influence production. Unlike spatially autoregressive-type production functions that assume a uniform technology across all locations, our approach estimates technology and productivity at both the firm and location levels, taking into account their specific characteristics. To handle endogenous regressors, we incorporate a proxy variable identification technique, distinguishing our method from geographically weighted semiparametric regressions. To investigate the heterogeneity in production technology and productivity among Norwegian grain farmers, we apply our model to a sample of farms using panel data spanning from 2001 to 2020. Through this analysis, we provide empirical evidence of regional variations in both technology and productivity among Norwegian grain farmers. Finally, we discuss the suitability of our approach for addressing the heterogeneity in this industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]