Social Networks and Cyber-bullying among Teenagers

In the digital society, even if ICT offers new opportunities and benefits to teenagers, it also poses significant challenges to them. More and more teenagers are becoming victims of aggression via ICT. In Europe, among the 9-16 year-old participants in the EU Kids Online survey (2011): 33 % were bothered or upset by inappropriate material online, 12 % were bothered or upset meeting online contacts offline, and 80 % were fairly or very upset by cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying does not respect borders but perception of the problem strongly depends on aspects including the culture, the history, the social context and political history of the country or area in question. In Europe, in order to prevent cyber-bullying, policy decisions have been taken and numerous programmes have been defined and implemented. Nevertheless, the impact that this phenomenon has means that European institutions need to continue to research, to legislate and to encourage collective and individual actions in order to address it. The Institute for the Protection and the Security of the Citizen (IPSC) of the Joint Research Centre has organised a workshop on ‘Social Networks and cyber-bullying in the teenager population’. The aim of the workshop was to explore the ethical challenges arising from social networks for specific sectors of the population, namely individuals with limited legal capacity in order to support European Commission policies in this field. With the experts that were invited to this workshop, several recommendations were proposed. The workshop as showed that there are very urgent matters to deal with, beyond the current focus on privacy as far as ethical issues about ICT are concerned. What values are different generations willing to preserve? How are digital rights being reframed with the current appropriation of technology? Is duty of care the ethical value that will pervade and will be worth cultivating?JRC.G.7-Digital Citizen Securit

Interrogating Privacy in the digital society: media narratives after 2 cases

The introduction of information technology (IT) in the society and its pervasiveness in every aspect of citizens’ daily life highlight societal stakes related to the goals of IT uses, social networks being a most important example. This paper examines two cases which have in common a not straightforward link with privacy as addressed and protected by existing law in Europe (EU) and the United-States (USA), but whose characteristics, we reckon fall on other privacy function and properties. In Western societies individuals rely on normative discourses such as the legal one in order to ensure protection. Hence, the paper argues that other functions of privacy need either further framing into legislation or they need to constitute in themselves normative commitments of an ethical nature for technology development and use. Some initiatives at EU level recall such commitments namely by developing a normative discourse based on ethics and human values. We argue that we need to interrogate society about those normative discourses because the values we once cherished in a non-digital society are seriously being questioned.JRC.G.7-Digital Citizen Securit

The constitution of the Hybrid World

The development and widespread use of information and communication technologies (ICT) are having a profound impact in many aspects of our daily lives, transforming the conditions and procedures of work, changing the modes of communication and social interaction, and altering the fundamental nature of human action, insofar as they play an important role in shaping what we do and how we experienced the world. In fact, the re-conceptualisation of the very foundational assumptions of modern societies, the new configurations of natural and social life, and the blurring of ontological categories upon which our political, social and legal orders are based, point to fundamental aspects of the human condition that have been reshaped by the hybridisation processes characterising modern human entanglements with emerging technologies. Despite the constitutional nature of these transformations, the basic rules that bind a state to its citizens have undergone small adjustments and accommodations. This not only shows how constitutional rights continue to be regarded as the most stable elements of national life, but also calls attention to the need of looking for the ways in which unwritten and emergent rules of constitutional dimension are being crafted. Where can we observe the new constitutional order that is emerging at the present moment? What fundamental aspects of human life are being transformed by the mediated role played by new ICT? What are the far-reaching ethical, legal and social implications of these transformations? In what way the most fundamental human rights and the most fundamental relations between states and citizens are being reframed in view of cross-cutting transformations in law and new ICT? In this report we propose to address these questions by focusing our analysis on complex forms of mediation and translation that emerge from the use of the Internet and other ICT-based network arrangements.JRC.G.6-Digital Citizen Securit

Multicentre harmonisation of a six-colour flow cytometry panel for naïve/memory T cell immunomonitoring

Background. Personalised medicine in oncology needs standardised immunological assays. Flow cytometry (FCM) methods represent an essential tool for immunomonitoring, and their harmonisation is crucial to obtain comparable data in multicentre clinical trials. The objective of this study was to design a harmonisation workflow able to address the most effective issues contributing to intra- and interoperator variabilities in a multicentre project. Methods. The Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanita, ISS) managed a multiparametric flow cytometric panel harmonisation among thirteen operators belonging to five clinical and research centres of Lazio region (Italy). The panel was based on a backbone mixture of dried antibodies (anti-CD3, anti-CD4, anti-CD8, anti-CD45RA, and anti-CCR7) to detect naive/memory T cells, recognised as potential prognostic/predictive immunological biomarkers in cancer immunotherapies. The coordinating centre distributed frozen peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and fresh whole blood (WB) samples from healthy donors, reagents, and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to participants who performed experiments by their own equipment, in order to mimic a real-life scenario. Operators returned raw and locally analysed data to ISS for central analysis and statistical elaboration. Results. Harmonised and reproducible results were obtained by sharing experimental set-up and procedures along with centralising data analysis, leading to a reduction of cross-centre variability for naive/memory subset frequencies particularly in the whole blood setting. Conclusion. Our experimental and analytical working process proved to be suitable for the harmonisation of FCM assays in a multicentre setting, where high-quality data are required to evaluate potential immunological markers, which may contribute to select better therapeutic options

The epidemiology of mumps in Italy

In Italy, although vaccination has been recommended for a number of years, vaccination coverage for mumps is still sub-optimal. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the seroprevalence of mumps antibodies in the Italian population, stratified by age, gender and geographical area. The proportion of individuals positive for mumps antibodies remained stable in the age classes 0-11 months and 1 year (25.4% and 30.8%, respectively) and showed a continuous increase after the second year of life. The percentage of susceptible individuals was higher than 20% in persons 2-14 years of age and exceeded 10% in persons 15-39 years of age. No statistically significant differences were observed by gender or geographical area. Comparison between these results and the data obtained from a 1996 survey showed a statistically significant increase in seroprevalence in the age class 2-4 years. No changes were observed in the other age-groups. The results of this study confirm that the efforts made in recent years to improve vaccination coverage within the second year of life should be strengthened. \ua9 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

AMBRA1 regulates cyclin D to guard S-phase entry and genomic integrity

Mammalian development, adult tissue homeostasis and the avoidance of severe diseases including cancer require a properly orchestrated cell cycle, as well as error-free genome maintenance. The key cell-fate decision to replicate the genome is controlled by two major signalling pathways that act in parallel-the MYC pathway and the cyclin D-cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)-retinoblastoma protein (RB) pathway(1,2). Both MYC and the cyclin D-CDK-RB axis are commonly deregulated in cancer, and this is associated with increased genomic instability. The autophagic tumour-suppressor protein AMBRA1 has been linked to the control of cell proliferation, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we show that AMBRA1 is an upstream master regulator of the transition from G1 to S phase and thereby prevents replication stress. Using a combination of cell and molecular approaches and in vivo models, we reveal that AMBRA1 regulates the abundance of D-type cyclins by mediating their degradation. Furthermore, by controlling the transition from G1 to S phase, AMBRA1 helps to maintain genomic integrity during DNA replication, which counteracts developmental abnormalities and tumour growth. Finally, we identify the CHK1 kinase as a potential therapeutic target in AMBRA1-deficient tumours. These results advance our understanding of the control of replication-phase entry and genomic integrity, and identify the AMBRA1-cyclin D pathway as a crucial cell-cycle-regulatory mechanism that is deeply interconnected with genomic stability in embryonic development and tumorigenesis

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Curiosità per la matematica 'INUTILE': uno strumento per migliorare il pensiero critico

Ristampa, con qualche piccola modifica dell'articolo con lo stesso titolo pubblicato su L'Educazione Matematica, Anno XXIX - Serie VIII - Vol. 4, n.3, p. 19 - 30

Ethics of Social Networks for Special Needs Users - Editorial

Millions of persons around the world are regular users of social networking sites. Their number is still on the rise, despite indications that there are people dropping out from the most popular of these sites. While their social and political functions are widely recognised, online social networking practices also are enhancing or creating new problems with regard to the rights, needs and interests of vulnerable citizens, such as children, women in many cases, elderly, persons with disabilities, as well as citizens in precarious social or economical situations (e.g. unemployed). These categories represent what we have called here “special needs users”, i.e. people with often limited legal capacity, their social networking practices raising specific challenges for which care and different types of solidarity are key. Hence, many of the discussions about understanding, supporting or helping “special needs users” with the use of SN revolve around arguments that include e-inclusion, accessibility to social networks, protection from harm and exploitation, and, in order to accommodate these users’ special needs, strategies to support their social emancipation and political participation, as well as to encourage solidarity and partnerships among them and with the wider society. This special issue invited submissions of original research exploring the interplay between Ethics, on-line social networks, and special needs users.JRC.G.7-Digital Citizen Securit

Building a resilient community through social network: ethical considerations about the 2011 Genoa floods

This paper considers the role of social media in the response to the flooding of 2011 in Genoa (Italy), caused by flash floods during torrential rainfall. Volunteer students created a Facebook page to communicate with citizens and organise support and rescue activities. In this paper, we first look at the story of the 2011 Genoa floods from the point of view of the news media in order to gain insights of the imaginaries of care behind social media use in situations of natural disaster. Hence, we look at a communication partnership between citizenry and public authorities for its value in building resilience to disaster among communities. Ethical and social dimensions of these partnerships are analysed.JRC.G.6-Digital Citizen Securit