Fairness in Skill Acquisition

In this paper we try to determine which policy implements fairness in the distribution of educational outcomes, in a framework in which skills arise from the combination of circumstances, effort and transfers, and determine individual utility. Our definition of fairness relies on two ethical principles, liberal reward and compensation, which have been well defined and studied by many authors in the last decade, and is linked to the philosophical debate that, since the late '60, has debated about the meaning of educational opportunities. According to this definition, to be fair an allocation should remove inequalities not due to individuals' responsibility.

Fairness in education: The Italian university before and after the reform

In 2001 the Italian tertiary education system embarked in a broad process of reform. The main novelty brought by the reform was a reduction of the length of study to get a first level degree together with the introduction of a 2-years, second level, master degree. This paper aims at studying the effects of the reform in terms of fairness in educational opportunity. In order to do so we first define fairness criteria following a well-developed responsibility sensitive egalitarian literature, we then discuss existing inequality of opportunity measures consistent with these criteria, we show their relationship, and we adapt them to the educational framework. We finally employ this set of measures to show the evolution of fairness in the access to university in Italy before and after the reform.Equality of opportunity, higher education.

Symposium introduction - ethics and sustainable agri-food governance: appraisal and new directions

© Springer Nature B.V. 2019This Symposium contributes to a theoretical and methodological discussion on the role of ethics and responsibility in the governance of agri-food systems, as drivers for transitions towards sustainability. The papers in the Symposium are the outcomes of a collective reflection that was initiated at the European Society for Rural Sociology (ESRS) 2017 congress, within the Working Group on Ethics and sustainable agri-food governance. The session examined how ethics and ethical values drive change in the agri-food system, and how they increasingly evolve and influence food system governance. Building on the outcomes of the ESRS Working Group, the collection of papers in this Symposium fosters and deepens the discussion on the role of ethics in food systems, ranging across different food system actors, activities and contexts and presents new theoretical and methodological frameworks to understand the construction of more ethical agri-food systems.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Economic growth and equality of opportunity

In this paper we argue that a better understanding of the relationship between inequality and growth can be obtained by shifting the analisys from the space of final achievements to the space of opportunities. To this end, we introduce the Opportunity Growth Incidence Curve, that can be used to evaluate the income dynamics of specific groups of the population and to infer the role of growth in the evolution of inequality of opportunity over time. By employng a rank dependent social welfare function we provide a rigorous normative justification for the use of the OGIC: we obtain suitable dominance conditions and we show how they can be interpreted in terms of OGIC dominance. We also propose an index that can be used to measure the impact of growth in terms of ooopotunity redistribution. Finally, we provide two empirical illustrations, for Italy and for Brasil, which show the potentials of the tools we have introduced.INCOME INEQUALITY, INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY, ECONOMIC GROWTH

The Economic effects of a Local Minimum Income Support Program

Since Reddito Minimo d'Inserimento pilot experiment ended, a number of papers have attempted to study minimum income policies in Italy. Contributions have aimed at providing insight for possible future program implementations. In this paper we present a case study as an applied contribution to this debate. We analyze a minimum income support program implemented in a small town in the South of Italy, Mola di Bari, by using a new dataset which has been designed and collected for the purpose. With respect to the program, we describe the policy intervention and we analyze such issues as (i) the eligibility criteria, (ii) the targeting choices and results, (iii) the distributive and the welfare effects on the beneficiaries and on the overall town population (iv) the incentive effects, i.e. the effects on the labour market partecipation.minimum income; policy evaluation; poverty trap

Traction control system design for an all-wheel-drive electric vehicle

openThis work presents a traction control system (TCS) designed for the all-wheel drive electric vehicle of Race UP, the Formula SAE team of the University of Padua. The TCS aims at avoiding excessive slip at each wheel, by reducing the provided torque whenever the longitudinal slip exceeds a suitable upper threshold. This is achieved by: i) estimating vehicle velocity through a Kalman Filter, which processes data from the inertial measurement unit, steering angle, and motor speeds; ii) computing a torque correcting factor through a properly tuned proportional–integral–derivative controller. The TCS was designed in Simulink environment, where it was preliminarily validated and tuned. It was then implemented in the actual vehicle control unit, to be fine-tuned via experimental testing on race tracks

Opportunities and Barriers for Niche Marketing of Lamb in European LFAs based on Consumer Attitudes to Product Quality

With commodity prices continuing to decrease and with policy constraint that farmers cannot easily increase their incomes by increasing volumes of production, they must find alternative ways to maintain their standard of living. This can be achieved by either niche marketing of agricultural products or by environmental payments, which are either paid by the government or the consumer. The results of a consumer survey carried out in Less Favoured Areas in Scotland, Germany, Greece, France and Italy to assess consumer attitudes of what constitutes the quality of lamb and the extent to which this provides an opportunity to exploit niche marketing, are discussed. Consumers generally have much less interest in the use of regional labelling, ecologically friendly production systems or the linkage of landscape and production systems in the buying decision. It is concluded that potential exists to develop niche markets for lamb and that these niches demonstrate significant regional differences. Equally, however, it is concluded that there are only limited rewards for production systems which are sympathetic to the environment. To achieve this goal, policy intervention is required, geared directly to environmental management practices. Future policy support towards farmers in LFAs is needed as a mix of policy instrument. Nowadays, financial support of farming in LFAs is necessary to grant farmers income, but structural support (e. g. in marketing products under reliable labelling towards consumers’ requests with trust in the "added values") can help to increase LFA-farmers income without increasing subsidies

Problems Affecting Labor

Much experimental work has been devoted in comparing the folding behavior of proteins sharing the same fold but different sequence. The recent design of proteins displaying very high sequence identities but different 3D structure allows the unique opportunity to address the protein-folding problem from a complementary perspective. Here we explored by ℙ-value analysis the pathways of folding of three different heteromorphic pairs, displaying increasingly high-sequence identity (namely, 30%, 77%, and 88%), but different structures called G A (a 3-α helix fold) and G B (an α/β fold). The analysis, based on 132 site-directed mutants, is fully consistent with the idea that protein topology is committed very early along the pathway of folding. Furthermore, data reveals that when folding approaches a perfect two-state scenario, as in the case of the G A domains, the structural features of the transition state appear very robust to changes in sequence composition. On the other hand, when folding is more complex and multistate, as for the G Bs, there are alternative nuclei or accessible pathways that can be alternatively stabilized by altering the primary structure. The implications of our results in the light of previous work on the folding of different members belonging to the same protein family are discussed