Disposition of sex offender cases in the Superior Courts of Norfolk and Plymouth Counties

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Eco-innovation and economic performance in industrial clusters: evidence from Italy

The article aims to investigate the presence of a correlation between eco-innovation and economic performance of an industrial district. The case analyzed in this article takes its cue from a study on a sample of 54 Italian industrial districts entitled "Eco-Districts" that, based on a series of criteria, has compiled a list of the most eco-efficient industrial districts. After selecting two districts in the field, but analyzed in this study for their different levels of eco-innovation, the article assesses the economic performance of the last three years through the analysis of trends in four indicators. However, the results show that only in some cases there is a connection between eco innovation and economic performance.industrial clusters, industrial districts, eco-innovation, economic performance

A Graphical Model Formulation of Collaborative Filtering Neighbourhood Methods with Fast Maximum Entropy Training

Item neighbourhood methods for collaborative filtering learn a weighted graph over the set of items, where each item is connected to those it is most similar to. The prediction of a user's rating on an item is then given by that rating of neighbouring items, weighted by their similarity. This paper presents a new neighbourhood approach which we call item fields, whereby an undirected graphical model is formed over the item graph. The resulting prediction rule is a simple generalization of the classical approaches, which takes into account non-local information in the graph, allowing its best results to be obtained when using drastically fewer edges than other neighbourhood approaches. A fast approximate maximum entropy training method based on the Bethe approximation is presented, which uses a simple gradient ascent procedure. When using precomputed sufficient statistics on the Movielens datasets, our method is faster than maximum likelihood approaches by two orders of magnitude.Comment: ICML201

Signal propagation on κ\kappa-Minkowski spacetime and non-local two-point functions

We study the propagation of quantum fields on $\kappa$-Minkowsi spacetime. Starting from the non-commutative partition function for a free field written in momentum space we derive the Feynman propagator and analyze the non-trivial singularity structure determined by the group manifold geometry of momentum space. The additional contributions due to such singularity structure result in a deformed field propagation which can be alternatively described in terms of an ordinary field propagation determined by a source with a blurred spacetime profile. We show that the $\kappa$-deformed Feynman propagator can be written in terms of vacuum expectation values of a commutative non-local quantum field. For sub-Planckian modes the $\kappa$-deformed propagator corresponds to the vacuum expectation value of the time-ordered product of non-local field operators while for trans-Plankian modes this is replaced by the Hadamard two-point function, the vacuum expectation value of the anti-commutator of non-local field operators.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures; v2: typos corrected, references adde

The rich-club phenomenon across complex network hierarchies

The so-called rich-club phenomenon in a complex network is characterized when nodes of higher degree (hubs) are better connected among themselves than are nodes with smaller degree. The presence of the rich-club phenomenon may be an indicator of several interesting high-level network properties, such as tolerance to hub failures. Here we investigate the existence of the rich-club phenomenon across the hierarchical degrees of a number of real-world networks. Our simulations reveal that the phenomenon may appear in some hierarchies but not in others and, moreover, that it may appear and disappear as we move across hierarchies. This reveals the interesting possibility of non-monotonic behavior of the phenomenon; the possible implications of our findings are discussed.Comment: 4 page

What factors influence the uptake of GPP (Green Public Procurement) practices? New evidence from an Italian survey

Green Public Procurement (GPP) is becoming a cornerstone of environmental policies both at European Union and Member State level. Drawing upon a database of public authorities located in three Italian Regions, this paper assesses the determinants and drawbacks of green procurement adoption. In particular, using an econometrical approach we tested the following propositions: i) the existing awareness on GPP practices, tools and regulations does support public authorities to develop GPP strategies; (ii) the support of external experts in purchasing function does support public authorities to develop GPP practices; (iii) the small dimension of public authority is an obstacle to adopting GPP practices; (iv) ISO 14001 certified public authorities are more likely to develop GPP practices. The econometric analysis shows that the dimension of public authorities and the level of awareness of the existing tools for supporting GPP have a positive and significant effect on the probability that they adopt GPP practices.green public procurement, local authorities, ISO 14001, environment.