Papers by Leonardo Alaimo
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Dec 31, 2023
For many years, indicators have been considered a niche topic in the literature. In recent decade... more For many years, indicators have been considered a niche topic in the literature. In recent decades, this issue has become central to the scientific debate and has been discussed in any conference or workshop on the measurement and analysis of socioeconomic phenomena. Indicators are not a specific and exclusive topic of the natural or social sciences, but are used and constructed everywhere, and their functions in contemporary societies are widespread (Maggino et al., 2021). To fully understand the importance of the concept of indicators in social sciences, their connection to the concepts of complex systems and measurement must be analysed and understood. Humanity has always had the need to know and understand reality and the phenomena defining it to achieve goals and satisfy needs and aspirations. Therefore, the need to generate knowledge is a defining feature in our lives. Consequently, the relationship between people and knowledge has always been a crucial topic in the reflection of scholars in every scientific discipline. Knowing reality refers to measuring reality. Measuring reality involves addressing complex systems and phenomena. Measuring complex phenomena involves dealing with indicators (Maggino & Alaimo, 2022). In the following pages, we try to describe these concepts.
Social indicators research, May 17, 2024
RIEDS - Rivista Italiana di Economia, Demografia e Statistica - Italian Review of Economics, Demography and Statistics, 2018
This study aimed to investigate the population-based incidence rate of ankle fracture and associa... more This study aimed to investigate the population-based incidence rate of ankle fracture and associated risk factors in China. All the data on ankle fractures were available from the China National Fracture Survey (CNFS) conducted between January and May in 2015. All eligible household members were sampled from 8 provinces, 24 urban cities and 24 rural counties in China, using stratified random sampling and the probability proportional to size method. Questionnaires were sent to every participant for data collection and quality control was accomplished by our quality control team members. A total of 512187 valid questionnaires were collected and relevant data were abstracted and analyzed. One hundred and ninety patients sustained 193 ankle fractures in 2014, indicating the incidence rate was 37.1 (95% CI, 31.8-42.4)/100,000 person-year. Alcohol consumption, living alone and average sleep time <7 h/d were identified as independent risk factors for ankle fracture in both males and females. Previous history of fracture was identified as significant risk factor of ankle fracture in females but not in males. Therefore, specific public health policies focusing on decreasing alcohol consumption and encouraging individuals to obtain sufficient sleep should be implemented. Individuals living alone should focus more on healthcare, especially in those with previous fracture.
Land
Land imperviousness reflects settlement growth and urban sprawl. Grounded on a comparative approa... more Land imperviousness reflects settlement growth and urban sprawl. Grounded on a comparative approach, a set of multidimensional statistical techniques were adopted here to quantify the evolution of land imperviousness from Copernicus High-Resolution Layers (HRLs) in a representative case study of Southern Europe (Athens, Greece). A two-way data matrix reporting the percent share of the surface land exposed to different sealing levels (101 classes ranging continuously from 0% to 100%) in the total municipal area was computed for two years (2006 and 2018) individually for 115 municipalities in metropolitan Athens. This matrix represented the information base needed to derive place-specific urban footprints and a comprehensive (global) profile of land imperviousness. Results of a Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) delineated a metropolitan structure still organized along the density gradient, moving from dense settlements in central locations with dominant land classes sealed for m...
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
Socio-economic Planning Sciences, Aug 1, 2023
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
Social Indicators Research
Annals of Operations Research, Mar 2, 2023
In recent years, the research of statistical methods to analyze complex structures of data has in... more In recent years, the research of statistical methods to analyze complex structures of data has increased. In particular, a lot of attention has been focused on the interval-valued data. In a classical cluster analysis framework, an interesting line of research has focused on the clustering of interval-valued data based on fuzzy approaches. Following the partitioning around medoids fuzzy approach research line, a new fuzzy clustering model for intervalvalued data is suggested. In particular, we propose a new model based on the use of the entropy as a regularization function in the fuzzy clustering criterion. The model uses a robust weighted dissimilarity measure to smooth noisy data and weigh the center and radius components of the interval-valued data, respectively. To show the good performances of the proposed clustering model, we provide a simulation study and an application to the clustering of scientific journals in research evaluation.
Natural Resource Management and Policy, 2022
Quality & Quantity
A short-term issue that has been occasionally investigated in the current literature is if (and, ... more A short-term issue that has been occasionally investigated in the current literature is if (and, eventually, how) population dynamics (directly or indirectly) driven by COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to enlarge regional divides in specific demographic processes and dimensions. To verify this assumption, our study run an exploratory multivariate analysis of ten indicators representative of different demographic phenomena (fertility, mortality, nuptiality, internal and international migration) and the related population outcomes (natural balance, migration balance, total growth). We developed a descriptive analysis of the statistical distribution of the ten demographic indicators using eight metrics that assess formation (and consolidation) of spatial divides, controlling for shifts over time in both central tendency, dispersion, and distributional shape regimes. All indicators were made available over 20 years (2002-2021) at a relatively detailed spatial scale (107 NUTS-3 provinces) in Italy. COVID-19 pandemic exerted an impact on Italian population because of intrinsic (e.g. a particularly older population age structure compared with other advanced economies) and extrinsic (e.g. the early start of the pandemic spread compared with the neighboring European countries) factors. For such reasons, Italy may represent a sort of 'worst' demographic scenario for other countries affected by COVID-19 and the results of this empirical study can be informative when delineating policy measures (with both economic and social impact) able to mitigate the effect of pandemics on demographic balance and improve the adaptation capacity of local societies to future pandemic's crises.
Social Indicators Research Series, 2012
The official Italian well-being measuring system ("Equitable and Sustainable Well-being-BES") is ... more The official Italian well-being measuring system ("Equitable and Sustainable Well-being-BES") is probably the worldwide most advanced attempt to pursue the beyond GDP perspective effectively. In it, well-being is described in terms of 12 domains and a complex multi-indicator system of around 130 indicators, drawn mainly from Istat (official Italian statistical bureau) surveys and administrative archives. In order to get a more synthetic view of well-being, in the last four BES reports Istat employed aggregative procedures providing composite indicators for each well-being domain. The aggregative road to synthesis is however problematic, when complex and non-highly correlated indicator systems are to be summarized, mainly due to its compensative nature and interpretational difficulties. As a valuable alternative, in this paper we adopt a non-aggregative approach to synthesis, based on Partially Ordered Set Theory (Poset Theory) and show how it can be used to provide more "complexity-preserving"insights into well-being. In particular, we describe each well-being domain as a partially ordered set and compute synthetic indicators for wellbeing rankings at regional level for year 2017, getting more robust and interpretable results than with mainstream aggregative procedures.
Sustainability
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an abrupt break in economic, demographic and social dynamics, bo... more The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an abrupt break in economic, demographic and social dynamics, both in developing countries and advanced economies, perhaps with a more significant impact in the latter, though further evidence is needed to support this assumption. Unfortunately, earlier research on medium- and long-term impacts of the pandemic on urban and regional systems—with particular reference to the demographic dimension—have not yet reached a consensus on methodological and operational approaches. In the present study, we have applied an interpretative framework to the analysis of the demographic balance in Italy, one of the most affected countries in the world, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we have compared a wide set of demographic indicators at two time periods of equal duration (2002–2010 and 2011–2019) and in two subsequent years (2020 and 2021), controlling for the regional context. These periods were chosen as sufficiently long to be representat...
Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe - HAL - Inria, Jun 22, 2022
In recent decades, there has been a growing research interest in comparative studies of migrant i... more In recent decades, there has been a growing research interest in comparative studies of migrant integration, assimilation and the evaluation of policies implemented for these purposes. With this aim, the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) measures policies to integrate migrants in 52 countries all over the world, over time. However, the comparison of very different countries on complex and multidimensional phenomena can lead to misleading interpretations and evaluations of the results. In this paper, we improve and facilitate the comparison between the treated countries on 7 MIPEX dimensions, applying a Mixture of Matrix-Normals classification model for longitudinal data. Trough the analysis, 5 clusters of countries have been discovered, allowing us to add new levels of interpretation of the data.
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Papers by Leonardo Alaimo