K-Trek: A Peer-to-Peer Approach To Distribute Knowledge In Large Environments

In this paper, we explore an architecture, called K-Trek, that enables mobile users to travel across knowledge distributed over a large geographical area (ranging from large public buildings to a national park). Our aim is providing, dis-tributing, and enriching the environment with location-sensitive information for use by agents on board of mobile and static devices. Local interactions among K-Trek devices and the distribution of information in the larger environment adopt some typical peer-to-peer patterns and techniques. We introduce the architecture, discuss some of its potential knowledge management applications, and present a few experimental results obtained with simulation

The contribution to poverty persistence of children, adults, and the elderly: some empirical evidences from eleven European countries

This paper aims to communicate a new conceptualization of persistent poverty used to build the class of longitudinal poverty indices by Mendola et al. (2011), and to show how these indices could be helpful in analyzing the characteristics of persistence of poverty in different age groups. The indices are based upon the idea that the longer the sequence of consecutive high poverty gaps is, the worse the situation experienced. An empirical application on European Community Household Panel data compares the contributions of age groups to the overall index in some European countries and allows to identify the strata of population more exposed to poverty persistence

The effect of women’s participation in labour market on postponement of childbearing: a comparison between Italy and Hungary

This paper analyses the effect of the increasing female participation in the labour market onthe transition to first childbirth. In this analysis both the ge nerational and the regional perspective are taken into account to understand, how postponement behaviour is spreading from one region to the other and from one generation to the next. The analysis is based on the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey of Italy and Hungary. It adopts a multilevel event history model to focus on the micro-level relationship between the transition to adulthood and reproductive behaviour, to understand the empirical importance of macro-level factors related to regional socio-economic and cultural differences and to indicate differences in micro-level relationships among people of different family, socio-economic, and educational backgrounds. The results of the model shows that the delayed entry into labour market has a significant negative effect on the probability of having a child. This effect remains significant also controlling for generations, regional heterogeneity and increasing of female participation

The impact of attractiveness on job opportunities in Italy: a gender field experiment

none3This paper assesses the impact of being attractive and not being native on the gender gap in the opportunity of obtaining a job in Italy. To do so, we propose a field experiment that consists in sending 9680 fictitious curricula vitae to real firms looking for employees. We estimate an Heckit model in order to consider different response from firms and then to calculate the probability to receive a callback. We show that gender gap in opportunity of receiving a callback is a very important issue and this gap is affected by interaction with both attractiveness and not being italian natives, especially for the most qualified jobs.Pubblicazione online open access agosto 2020. Pubblicazione cartacea 2021openBusetta, Giovanni; Fiorillo, Fabio; Palomba, GiulioBusetta, Giovanni; Fiorillo, Fabio; Palomba, Giuli

Weight-Based Discrimination in the Italian Labor Market: an Analysis of the Interaction with Gender and Ethnicity

Access to the Italian job market is undermined by several kinds of discrimination influencing the opportunities for individuals to obtain a job. In this study, we analyze together the impact of three of the most relevant kinds of discrimination operating in the Italian labor market: gender, race, and weight. Our aim is to assess whether gender and race either increase or decrease the impact of weight-based discrimination. In this respect, we submit a set of fictitious r\ue9sum\ue9s including photos of either obese or thin applicants in response to real online job offers. Our results indicate that the strongest kind of discrimination operating in the Italian labor market is the one connected to the candidate\u2019s geographical origin. Moreover, we find discrimination based on body weight to be more relevant within immigrants than within natives, and gender gap appears to be higher within the obese candidates\u2019 group compared to the normal-weight candidates\u2019 one. This last result is particularly relevant, as the growing rates of obesity forecasted for the next years could in turn produce an increase in the gender gap, which in Italy is already massive

Mutual Loan-Guarantee Societies, Small Firms and Banks: An Empirical Investigation

The paper analyzes the relationships between mutual loan-guarantee societies (MLGS), small firms and banks trying to evaluate the role played by the guarantees granted by MLGSs and by different banks on the availability and the cost of credit. We focus on a sample of firms member of a specific MLGS and we run different econometric exercises in order to identify the effects of the interaction between local firms, banks and MLGS on credit rationing, on the cost of credit, and on the time and the number of guarantees required to obtain a line of credit. Our findings suggest a critical relevance of the MLGS guarantees on the local firms’ credit access and conditions. Finally, while the existing evidence points out a reduction in the cost of credit due to MLGSs intermediation, our analysis stresses the heterogeneity of the benefits for local firms, which depends substantially by the guarantees provided by the MLGS and by the reference banks.Mutual Loan Guarantee Societies (MLGS), Guarantee, Small business lending, Local banks

Jonas Mekas, Serpentine Gallery, London, 5 December 2012-27 January 2013

Jonas Mekas turned ninety on 25 December 2012, and the sixty-year career of the Lithuanian-born artist, poet and filmmaker has been at the centre of several events, talks, screenings and exhibitions organised in London and Paris. The Centre Pompidou in Paris and the BFI Southbank in London both presented screenings of Mekas’s older and recent works, and the London Serpentine Gallery programmed a series of seminars and films, coinciding with a central solo show on the life and work of the filmmaker. The Serpentine Gallery presents different elements of the filmmaker’s personal story—such as photographs, printed stills, videos, writing, documents, a selection of poems translated from the Lithuanian, a display of Bolex cameras and even a copy of Mekas’s passport—which are put together in an extensive collage