Who Did Participate in the Online Primary Elections of the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy? Causes, Features and Effects of the Selection Process

This research would analyze causes, characteristics and consequences of online primary elections organized by Five Star Movement (M5s), in December 2012, to select its MPs candidates. In particular, present work considers all the phases of this specific example of candidates selection process. Based on original and empirical data collected by C&LS research team, the work can be divided into four parts: after a general introduction, the article focuses its attention on the rules of the game (selectorate and candidacy rules) and measures the inclusion/exclusion level of the process, according to the scheme used by Reuven Hazan. So, this electoral study deals with the participation level and the voting distribution: how many people took place in the candidates selection process? How much “attractive” was the primary election and what was the level of competitiveness among candidates? The next part underlines the socio-graphical characteristics of the aspires MPs: who were the candidates and among these, what was the best candidates’ profile? What were the variables that took some candidates to a successful results and other candidates to the in-success? Finally, what are the consequences of this specific case of primary elections

Who is left out?: Understanding the Sources of Platform Utilization by the Demographics of the Monterey Bay Region\u27s Entrepreneurs Participating in Programs of the Institute for Innovation & Economic Development

Background: As the United States becomes a more racially diverse country, particular challenges face specific demographics of people. The practical and policy ideas to address the disparities of race/ethnicity, gender, or age. While entrepreneurial startup activity is on the rise, some particular entrepreneurs remain underrepresented. Entrepreneurs of minority, including race, gender, and age, continue to have lower rates of entrepreneurship than their White men counterparts do. The barriers of entrepreneurship among minority people and outcomes are particular challenges and influenced by a combination of factors. Such as family, education, and availability of financial and social support. However, not many studies have been conducted in the Monterey Bay Region, consisting of Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz Counties in the central coast of California, just south of the San Francisco Bay area. Limitations in the research significantly contribute to our lack of understanding of the potential intertwining of factors that likely influences startup-related outcomes among minorities in the Monterey Bay Region. Purpose:In this study, we aim to understand the demographic background of the entrepreneurs of the Institute for Innovation and Economic Development. To investigate the institute’s program sources of platform utilization of the Monterey Region\u27s entrepreneurs by using demographic background and platform sources. This project aims to improve the ability of policymakers and service providers to assist in the planning and implementation of services that meet the diverse entrepreneurial needs of the local population—ensuring that all groups have equal access to entrepreneurship programs. Methods:In this exploratory study, we conducted 62 entrepreneurial surveys to investigate the demographic factors, including gender, age, racial group (White & non-White), and education level. To identify the relationship of entrepreneurs by different backgrounds and the source of platform utilization that they are used to gathering from the Institute for Innovation & Economic Development’s programs. Conclusion:This paper reveals the relationship between existing challenges from different demographic backgrounds and various platform sources of information on entrepreneurial drive among minority entrepreneurs and the impact of business growth in the Monterey Bay Region. Institute for Innovation & Economic Development could strengthen the market on the school and teacher platform. Additionally, they could collaborate with other related institutes and help them do propaganda among the business ecosystem

The Paradox of Popularity: Why Popularity Does Not Signal Participation

Although strong ties are typically formed in shared settings, we know little about the characteristics of settings that attract and retain people. Meanwhile, the Internet has broadened the search for settings. As people turn to the web to find local, offline social settings to join, simple, searchable features– notably location, interest, size and age–guide their choices. Whether such features are helpful for establishing meaningful social relations has not been empirically tested. Using unique data on participation in online to offline communities, we explore the characteristics that attract members and the features that aid in their retention. We find that, although prospective members seek large and established groups when searching for organizations, such groups are less likely to foster community through repeated participation

Public Procurement of Innovation Through Increased Startup Participation: The Case of Digipolis (Research-in-progress)

Previous research has identified numerous obstacles that hinder the efficient procurement of innovation by the public sector. This paper introduces the case of Digipolis - the public ICT service provider of the City of Antwerp in Belgium. In 2015, the company implemented a comprehensive overhaul of its procurement strategy centered around 3 key components: a flexible procurement process, a community built around Digital Antwerp, and a challenge-oriented company culture. The case adopts a holistic perspective on the implementation of innovation procurement in a local public sector organization, and investigates the specific conditions and mechanisms that allowed to leverage the Antwerp startup community in order to increase the number of purchased innovative solutions. The case also sheds light on how public procurement of innovation can lead to knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship - an area that is still largely undiscovered

Playing with Virtual Reality: Early Adopters of Commercial Immersive Technology

This dissertation examines early adopters of mass-marketed Virtual Reality (VR), as well as other immersive technologies, and the playful processes by which they incorporate the devices into their lives within New York City. Starting in 2016, relatively inexpensive head-mounted displays (HMDs) began to be manufactured and distributed by leaders in the game and information technology industries. However, even before these releases, developers and content creators were testing the devices through “development kits.” These de facto early adopters, who are distinctly commercially-oriented, acted as a launching point for the dissertation to scrutinize how, why and in what ways digital technologies spread to the wider public. Taking a multimethod approach that combines semi-structured interviews, two years of participant observation, media discourse analysis and autoethnography, the dissertation details a moment in the diffusion of an innovation and how publicity, social forces and industry influence adoption. This includes studying the media ecosystem which promotes and sustains VR, the role of New York City in framing opportunities and barriers for new users, and a description of meetups as important communities where devotees congregate. With Game Studies as a backdrop for analysis, the dissertation posits that the blurry relationship between labor and play held by most enthusiasts sustains the process of VR adoption. Their “playbor” colors not only the rhetoric and the focus of meetups, but also the activities, designs, and, most importantly, the financial and personal expenditures they put forth. Ultimately, play shapes the system of production by which adopters of commercial VR are introduced to the technology and, eventually, weave it into their lives. Situating play at the center of this system highlights that the assimilation of digital media is in part an embodied and irrational experience. It also suggests new models by which future innovations will spread to the public

The citizen-user and the crowd-mediated politics of the Five Star Movement

This thesis described the trajectory of the Italy’s Five Star Movement (M5S, 2005- 2014) from the perspective of the citizens who, as Internet users, participated in in the political enterprise. Citizen-users, enabled and empowered by Internet and mobile technologies, shaped and sustained the identity and evolution of the movement that became the M5S. The case study selected for this research, the M5S, is exceptional due to the magnitude of its success; but its features (Internet-centered and fluid ideology) are becoming more common among political organisations in Western democracies. The goal of the thesis is to assess the impact of the Internet on the political process, through its connecting, mobilising, organising, and to characterise the shape of political talk among citizens. This is achieved by applying quantitative methods, including network analysis and natural language processing, on 10 years of user-generated data collected mainly from four sources: the blog of the Movement’s founder, the M5S official forum, Facebook and Meetup.com. The thesis finds that the online discussion fora fostered diversity without fragmentation, and contributed on at least one occasion to shape the policy agenda of the M5S. Furthermore, the meetups of the Movement maintained their capacity to attract and mobilise users, and their territorial distribution clearly correlate with local results of the M5S in two elections, suggesting a positive impact of Internet-enabled mobilisation. Finally, given the votes received in the 2013 general election, the political communication generated over the Internet offset the low attention dedicated by TV news broadcast to the Movement during the electoral campaign. As Internet and mobile technologies are routinised, it is easy to see how their importance in political organisation and deliberation will grow. By studying the application of ICTs in the case of the M5S, this thesis offers insights into their use in practice, as well as pointing to possible democratic risks if online deliberation is non controlled to guarantee its fairness and openness but instead steered by the leadership, turning a deliberating community of citizen-users into a noisy crowd

Yeah, But Can It Kill You? Understanding Endometriosis in the Atlanta Area

This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on women with endometriosis, a gynecological condition in which tissue similar to the endometrium, or lining of the uterus which is shed during menses, grows elsewhere in the body. Despite a growing understanding of the disease in medical literature, it is still not well known by the general population or fully understood by the medical community. The paper incorporates a biomedical understanding with Emma Whelan’s idea of these women as an epistemological community, autoethnography, and narratives of sufferers in order to understand how women discuss, experience, and form communities around it. It draws upon individual interviews, a focus group, and readings of medical and social science literature and found that women of dissimilar socioeconomic backgrounds approached and discussed the disease distinctively from one another with three phases of coping with the illness: the discovery, quest, and revelation

Civic Hackers’ User Experiences and Expectations of Seattle’s Open Municipal Data Program

This study examines the challenges and the expectations that civic hackers bring to the use of open government data, building on Gurstein’s theory of barriers to effective use. Civic hackers are hobbyists who use open government data for social good applications. Drawing on individual interviews and a focus group with fifteen total civic hackers in Seattle, Washington, we synthesize findings on their experiences using open government data, including their expectations for the kinds of data formats, metadata, API functionality, and datasets that should be provided on the city’s open data portal. Respondents report challenges using the data, including low data availability, outdated datasets, limited API functions, proprietary formats, lack of metadata, and untidy datasets. These acted as barriers to their effective use of open data. Respondents expect higher quality data and more usable data portal functionality, in part because of their professional experience in the technology sector. In our discussion, we examine the organizational structure of the open data program, and the constraints it poses for the achievement of respondent expectations. Our analysis points to a demand for an additional, third party civic institution (like a local newspaper) to host cleaned data for wider use.

Continuous Obstructed Detour Queries

In this paper, we introduce Continuous Obstructed Detour (COD) Queries, a novel query type in spatial databases. COD queries continuously return the nearest point of interests (POIs) such as a restaurant, an ATM machine and a pharmacy with respect to the current location and the fixed destination of a moving pedestrian in presence of obstacles like a fence, a lake or a private building. The path towards a destination is typically not predetermined and the nearest POIs can change over time with the change of a pedestrian\u27s current location towards a fixed destination. The distance to a POI is measured as the summation of the obstructed distance from the pedestrian\u27s current location to the POI and the obstructed distance from the POI to the pedestrian\u27s destination. Evaluating the query for every change of a pedestrian\u27s location would incur extremely high processing overhead. We develop an efficient solution for COD queries and verify the effectiveness and efficiency of our solution in experiments