The Usage of Credit Cards: An Empirical Analysis on Italian Households Panel Data

Credit cards, both as mean of payment and borrowing, rise many economic issues. The credit card services can be viewed as a two-sided network platform affected by indirect network externalities. The distribution of prices faced by the two sides influences market participation and the overall volume of demand. Consumers may hold or use credit cards from multiple networks leads to a ‘multi-homing’ effect that is of great importance in determining the outcome of the industry. Moreover, some studies show that the multiple credit cards can be seen as a device to access to more financing, making family bankruptcy more likely. In this paper we model the number of credit cards held by a panel of Italian household over the period 1991-2010 using demographic, socio-economic and geographical variables as potential predictors and panel data techniques for count data. The reached results can be of interest for implementing market strategies in credit card industry and, in particular, to investigate peculiar effect such as “multihoming” and “co-holding”. Keywords: Credit cards, Panel data, Count-data model

La visione distopica di Philip K. Dick. Indagine su "The Man in the High Castle": dal romanzo al processo seriale

The essay analyzes the series The Man in the High Castle, based on the homonymous novel by Philip K. Dick published in 1962. It is an audiovisual project targetted Amazon TV, substantially faithful to the novel by the American writer. The essay reconstructs the central moments of this “translation” and underlines its great contemporaneity. Also in the series we find the perfection of the dystopian narration of Philip K. Dick and its ability to describe a totalitarian society that exerts its power over citizens through the media, mystification and police.The essay analyzes the series The Man in the High Castle, based on the homonymous novel by Philip K. Dick published in 1962. It is an audiovisual project targetted Amazon TV, substantially faithful to the novel by the American writer. The essay reconstructs the central moments of this “translation” and underlines its great contemporaneity. Also in the series we find the perfection of the dystopian narration of Philip K. Dick and its ability to describe a totalitarian society that exerts its power over citizens through the media, mystification and police

Sed non satiata. Per una fenomenologia del male nell’immaginario letterario del dandysmo

Sed Non Satiata. For a Phenomenology of Evil in the Literary Imaginary of Dandyism. Our inquiry starts from a sociological key (with some references to Benjamin, Sartre and Bataille) and it has the objective to cartography the Evil’s phenomenology in dandyish imaginary in late ‘800 and early ‘900. In dandy we can see a way of being, to live, to take position towards the world. It’s an experience between “art and life” (typical of ‘800’s dandy) that is expressed especially throught the theory of provocation and the literary texture. It’s the evil’s theme to live in dandyish imaginary. Evil is for dandy’s culture an aesthetic tipology, you can think to sin parallelism trasferred on canvas by Fussli,Moreau, Redon, Whistler, Toulouse-Loutrec. In dandyism (Baudelaire, but also Wilde, Byron and Beerbohom) evil is an experience of strong anti-emotivity, artificiality and individualism that are expression of a humanity far from its charcteristic signs towards an invention level of good unmasking, of a desecrating irony

Sed non satiata. Per una fenomenologia del male nell’immaginario letterario del dandysmo

Sed Non Satiata. For a Phenomenology of Evil in the Literary Imaginary of Dandyism. Our inquiry starts from a sociological key (with some references to Benjamin, Sartre and Bataille) and it has the objective to cartography the Evil’s phenomenology in dandyish imaginary in late ‘800 and early ‘900. In dandy we can see a way of being, to live, to take position towards the world. It’s an experience between “art and life” (typical of ‘800’s dandy) that is expressed especially throught the theory of provocation and the literary texture. It’s the evil’s theme to live in dandyish imaginary. Evil is for dandy’s culture an aesthetic tipology, you can think to sin parallelism trasferred on canvas by Fussli,Moreau, Redon, Whistler, Toulouse-Loutrec. In dandyism (Baudelaire, but also Wilde, Byron and Beerbohom) evil is an experience of strong anti-emotivity, artificiality and individualism that are expression of a humanity far from its charcteristic signs towards an invention level of good unmasking, of a desecrating irony

Disegno d’ombre. L’innovazione scenica del Bauhaus

The essay investigates how the Bauhaus theatre fits within the avant-garde chapter recovering the concept of "shadow" and which innovation elements of the Bauhaus are present in contemporary stage experimentation. Everything starts from the shadows. In fact, the return to the shadow theatre assumes, in the context of the Bauhaus, the same value that in the field of cinematographic experimentation meant focusing on the frame: 1) the elimination of any ornamental and superfluous element; 2) the return to the essential element of theatricality.With the shadow theatre, the scene is stripped of the scenography, the actors and the meanings it brought with it from antiquity. The Bauhaus in the domain of the shadow theatre is inherent in the rediscovery of this artistic form, which, after the nineteenth century, had lost followers, and we find them in the technological experiments carried out in the German school and which influenced subsequent artists in the realization of hoc to project their own shadow shows. Theessay analyses the works of the main heir of the experiments on the shadows of Bauhaus culture: the French artist Christian Boltanski. And following this linear “hereditary” he focuses on the works of Worthington, Kuwakubo and the “Interactive Media Foundation” where, in 2019, Das Total Tanz Theateris conceived and created or the theatrical experience in which Schlemmer’s legacy is strongly evident

Nft e Concerti: l’industria musicale tra liveness, sperimentazioni e alternative future

La pandemia ha definito diverse declinazioni della liveness nella dimensione digitale. Tra i settori più colpiti e che hanno dovuto reinventare linguaggi e forme comunicative, accanto al teatro quello della musica live (il tema disciplinare sul quale vogliamo riflettere). L’industria musicale, da sempre fortemente legata alla prossimità fisica, al necessario rapporto con la strada, inteso come luogo d’ispirazione e nutrimento (immaginiamo le subculture giovanili: dai teddy boys, ai mods, dal movimento hippie, al punk, dall’hip hop alla trap) si è tenacemente reinventata negli ultimi anni negli innovativi spazi digitali: dai social network ai concerti sui videogames (sperimentando un nuovo modo di comunicare e dando vita ad un rinnovato immaginario). Attraverso questo saggio si intende procedere verso una ricognizione e analisi delle pratiche della liveness multimediali, transmediali, intermediali nell’ambito musicale esaminando, in particolare, come gli NFT musicali (Non Fungible Tokens) si siano rivelati come una delle strade più promettenti per continuare a mantenere il legame emotivo, culturale ed identitario tra i performer e i fans. E gettando le basi per un’economia alternativa futura.The coronavirus pandemic has brought about several changes in the liveness of the digital dimension. The most damaged sectors that had to rethink languages and forms of communication, include theatre but also live music which is the focus of our paper. The music industry – strictly linked to the physical proximity and to the necessary connection with the street intended as a place of inspiration and nourishment (think of youth subcultures: form Teddy Boys, to Mods, from Hippies to Punks, from Hip Hop to Trap) – has stubbornly reinvented itself in recent years making the most of digital spaces: from social networks to virtual concerts in video games (developing a new way to communicate and giving life to a renewed imagery). The aim of this paper is to move towards a survey and analysis of multimedia, transmedia, and crossmedia liveness practices in music looking in particular at how music NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) have proved to be one of the most promising ways to preserving an emotional, cultural and identity-making connection between performers and fans. And to lay the foundations for a future alternative econom

Diels-Alder Chemistry to Develop Self-Healing Epoxy Resins and Composites Thereof

Self-healing polymers are a class of smart materials able to recover after sustaining damage. A family of thermosetting epoxy resins, containing Diels-Alder (DA) adducts in the epoxy precursor backbone, has been prepared and characterized. The DA adducts can be reversibly cleaved and reformed under the appropriate thermal conditions, and this feature has been exploited to produce intrinsically self-repairing materials. This chapter focuses on the effects of different structural features, such as average number of cross-linking functionality and molecular mobility of epoxy precursors, on the efficiency of healing process. High cross-linking density and molecular stiffness improve mechanical performances, such as elastic modulus and glass transition temperature, and allow fabrication of self-healing fiber-reinforced composites by conventional manufacturing technologies. Within this chapter, the molecular design, the preparation, and the evaluation of properties of self-healing epoxy and its composites have been discussed

Il cosplay e le culture giovanili: interazione sociale, emozioni mediali e performance identitarie

The cosplay, as a subculture, is a complex and stratified media and socio-cultural phenomenon. The approach chosen in the study of some dimensions of the cosplay is that of the sociology of youth cultures. The first dimension analyzed concerns the distribution of symbolic capital (and in particular of subcultural capital) among the members of the cosplay groups, determining hierarchies and status. Secondly, we explored the social dimension of the phenomenon, using Georg Simmel’s sociology and, in detail, the concept of ‛sociability’ and the dynamics between individualization and homologation. Other dimensions explored concern fandom and media enthusiasm, the mediatization of experience, identity performances. The goal of the paper is to restore the complexity of cosplay, which is configured as a place of consumption, identity building and social interaction. Our analysis also focuses on the identity status of cosplayers, emphasizing their ability to produce performances in which the relationship with the characters of the beloved cultural heritage (manga and anime) is dramatized and staged

Immagini e riproducibilità del sé nella digital society: pratiche e strumenti digitali per la costruzione dell’identità

How are images changing in our contemporary world? How do individuals replicate themselves with the aim of constructing their own identity? In the era of digital society, exhibition is the keyword: what is not seen does not exist and every individual is an advertising object immersed into the consumer society. Public space becomes a stage and in this contex social media become spaces for the creation of one’s identity, providing the tools for staging the self. The need to be there in order not to disappear, and the possibility of representing oneself in the best possible way, encourages communication flows based on self-narration, giving rise to what Manuel Castells defines as mass self-communication. The transparency of each person, within the digital context, becomes a fundamental requirement of the social user. This essay aims to investigate the ways in which the reproducibility of the self, and in particular the branding of the self, which was foreseen by Andy Warhol, is a practice that is strongly present within social media. In particular, we intend to reflect on how digital presence becomes a tool for the creation of one’s identity. In this sense, we will analyse the variables of the body, which is subordinated to the same logic and variability of goods, in a perpetual tension towards beauty. Additionally, we will explore how body and face, as elements that aim to fix the human presence in a given event through the practice of selfies, strengthen their identity within the flow of images. Come cambiano le immagini nel nostro contemporaneo? In che modo ogni individuo replica sé stesso con l’obiettivo di costruire la propria identità? Nella digital society la parola d’ordine è esporre. Difatti ciò che non viene visto non esiste; ogni soggetto è l’oggetto pubblicitario di sé stesso immerso nella società dei consumi. Lo spazio pubblico diventa palcoscenico e in tal senso i social media diventano territori per la costruzione della propria identità, fornendo gli strumenti per la messa in scena del sé. La necessità di esserci per non scomparire e la possibilità di presentarsi nel modo migliore, favorisce i flussi comunicativi basati sulla narrazione di sé stessi, dando vita a quella che Manuel Castells definisce l’autocomunicazione di massa. La trasparenza di ognuno, all’interno del contesto digitale, diventa requisito fondamentale in quanto richiesto all’utente dei social. Il saggio vuol indagare le modalità della riproducibilità del sé, e in particolare la brandizzazione della propria persona, già anticipata dal lavoro di Andy Warhol, sia una pratica fortemente presente all’interno dei social media. In particolare si intende riflettere come la presenza digitale diventi dispositivo per la costruzione dell’identità. In tal senso analizzeremo le variabili del corpo sottoposto alle stesse logiche e variabilità delle merci in una perenne tensione verso la bellezza. E come corpo e viso, in quanto elementi che mirano a fissare la presenza umana in un dato evento, attraverso la pratica dei selfie, intendono rafforzare la propria identità inserendo sé stessi all’interno dei flussi di immagini