Sexual Minority Status, Anxiety–Depression, and Academic Outcomes: The Role of Campus Climate Perceptions among Italian Higher Education Students

Students from sexual minorities generally describe Higher Education contexts as unwelcoming and chilly environments. Based on the Minority Stress theory, these disparities in climate perceptions may lead sexual minority students to negative health and academic outcomes. To date, research documenting the experience of sexual minority students within European Higher Education Institutions is limited. Framed within campus climate literature, the current study aimed to expand on previous knowledge by investigating the associations between sexual minority status, students’ perceptions of campus climate and psychological (i.e., anxiety–depression), and academic outcomes (i.e., intellectual and academic success and considering leaving the university) using a self-selected sample of 868 Italian university students (17.9% sexual minority students). The results showed that sexual minority status was associated with negative perceptions of campus climate, which, in turn, were associated with higher levels of anxiety–depression symptoms, lowered academic success, and a high probability of considering leaving university. Further research is needed to investigate the experience of sexual minority students within European Higher Education contexts and to explore possible actions that could contribute to fostering a greater sense of belonging to the campus community for all students, and particularly for students from sexual minority groups

La propiedad intelectual y su vinculación con la gestión del conocimiento en la Universidad: caso Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar algunos planteamientos que han venido surgiendo en torno a la propiedad intelectual y su vinculación con la gestión del conocimiento en la Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado (UCLA). El eje central del análisis se constituye, en principio, a partir de la necesidad de reglamentación de la propiedad intelectual mediante una normativa especial que garantice y proteja la creatividad intelectual que dentro de la UCLA se está produciendo, y orientado tanto al marco legal nacional como al internacional. Luego, se indaga sobre la gestión del conocimiento, tomando como punto focal la propiedad intelectual, para efectos de este trabajo. Finalmente, se presentan algunas pautas a considerar en la estructuración y conformación de la instancia que debe realizar la gestión del conocimiento, en la UCLA, desde una perspectiva normativa. La recopilación de información se ha realizado, en primer lugar, mediante documentos, siendo variadas las fuentes consultadas. En segundo lugar, mediante un cuestionario con preguntas de respuestas dicotómicas y múltiples. Todo ello ha permitido llegar a una serie de reflexiones finales, entre ellas la de que en la gestión universitaria se evidencia una tímida iniciativa en la planificación, en los programas, proyectos y acuerdos específicos para el área de la Propiedad Intelectual, así como la existencia de un vacío jurídico y estratégico-organizacional, en cuanto a reglamentación especial se refiere; aun cuando hay tímidos avances para su reconocimiento, por parte de las autoridades de la UCLA, al crear la Comisión de Propiedad Intelectual, aprobar una asignatura optativa y estar en la etapa de redacción del Reglamento especial sobre la materia

The oxidative damage to the human telomere: effects of 5-hydroxymethyl-2'-deoxyuridine on telomeric G-quadruplex structures

As part of the genome, human telomeric regions can be damaged by the chemically reactive molecules responsible for oxidative DNA damage. Considering that G-quadruplex structures have been proven to occur in human telomere regions, several studies have been devoted to investigating the effect of oxidation products on the properties of these structures. However only investigations concerning the presence in G-quadruplexes of the main oxidation products of deoxyguanosine and deoxyadenosine have appeared in the literature. Here, we investigated the effects of 5-hydroxymethyl-2’-deoxyuridine (5-hmdU), one of the main oxidation products of T, on the physical–chemical properties of the G-quadruplex structures formed by two human telomeric sequences. Collected calorimetric, circular dichroism and electrophoretic data suggest that, in contrast to most of the results on other damage, the replacement of a T with a 5-hmdU results in only negligible effects on structural stability. Reported results and other data from literature suggest a possible protecting effect of the loop residues on the other parts of the G-quadruplexes

Adolescents' exposure to community violence: links with cognitive, affective and temperamental dimensions.

The present dissertation offers a contribution to the comprehension of the psychological and behavioral correlates of being exposed to community violence in a sample of Italian adolescents. The focus on the Italian context is a first important novelty in the research literature on the topic of community violence exposure, which has a long tradition in US, whilst its prevalence and the investigation of its consequences are relatively unexplored in adolescents living in European communities. Specifically, we examined (i) how self-regulatory temperament (i.e., effortful control) is longitudinally linked to community violence exposure and aggressive behavior, and (ii) whether a desensitization mechanism, both cognitive and emotional, can be invoked in the explanation of the relation between community violence and aggressive behavior. Implications and future directions are discussed

Ensuring Cyber-Security in Smart Railway Surveillance with SHIELD

Modern railways feature increasingly complex embedded computing systems for surveillance, that are moving towards fully wireless smart-sensors. Those systems are aimed at monitoring system status from a physical-security viewpoint, in order to detect intrusions and other environmental anomalies. However, the same systems used for physical-security surveillance are vulnerable to cyber-security threats, since they feature distributed hardware and software architectures often interconnected by ‘open networks’, like wireless channels and the Internet. In this paper, we show how the integrated approach to Security, Privacy and Dependability (SPD) in embedded systems provided by the SHIELD framework (developed within the EU funded pSHIELD and nSHIELD research projects) can be applied to railway surveillance systems in order to measure and improve their SPD level. SHIELD implements a layered architecture (node, network, middleware and overlay) and orchestrates SPD mechanisms based on ontology models, appropriate metrics and composability. The results of prototypical application to a real-world demonstrator show the effectiveness of SHIELD and justify its practical applicability in industrial settings

Traditional Male Role Norms and Sexual Prejudice in Sport Organizations: A Focus on Italian Sport Directors and Coaches

Despite the common belief that sport is an excellent instrument to promote social inclusion, distal minority stressors, such as homophobic slurs and insulting or degrading comments, are frequently reported in sport contexts. The aim of this contribution was to expand previous knowledge on negative attitudes toward sexual minorities (gay and lesbian people) in sport-related contexts, by examining how staff employed in organizational sport contexts scored on three different dimensions of sexual prejudice toward sexual minority athletes: open rejection (i.e., blatant prejudice), denial of visibility (i.e., negative attitudes toward the coming out), and gendering performance (i.e., gender stereotypes about sport performance and skills). Furthermore, we examined the relationship between traditional norms of masculinity and dimensions of sexual prejudice. The sample consisted of 178 Italian sport directors and coaches who were asked to complete an online survey (70 women and 108 men, mostly aged from 38 to 65 years old). A repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that participants scored higher on denial of visibility, with respect to open rejection and gendering performance, independently of gender and sport role. The structural equation model showed that endorsing traditional male role norms was significantly associated with open rejection and gendering performance, whereas no significant association was found with denial of visibility. The findings provide further evidence that sexual prejudice is prevalent in sport organizations, supporting the importance of raising awareness among sports personnel about prejudiced beliefs that may lead minority people to experience severe stress-inducing situations

The Impact of Personal Values, Gender Stereotypes, and School Climate on Homophobic Bullying: a Multilevel Analysis

Abstract Introduction Schools are among the most homophobic social contexts, where students who do not conform to gender norms are at high risk of stigma and discrimination. Method Using a multilevel approach, the aim of the current was to examine whether adolescents' engagement in homophobic bullying behavior was associated with personal values and stereotyped victim-blaming attributions at individual level, and perceptions of school as a community and frequency of teachers' reaction to bullying incidents at classroom level. Data were collected in 2010. The sample consisted of 2718 Italian middle and high school students (53.2% females; mean age = 15.36, SD = .85) from 144 classrooms. Results Results showed that self-transcendence values reduced the risk of engaging in homophobic bullying, whereas both self-enhancement values and stereotyped victim-blaming attributions were positively associated with homophobic bullying. At classroom level, only negative perceptions of school as a community had a unique positive contribution on homophobic bullying, over and above other individual and contextual factors. Two cross-level interactions were found, indicating that self-transcendence values had a significant effect in decreasing homophobic bullying in classrooms where teacher support was perceived as low, whereas stereotyped victim-blaming attributions had a significant effect in increasing homophobic bullying in classrooms where teacher support was perceived as high. Conclusion These findings provide further support to the social-ecological perspective as a useful guiding framework for understanding the complexity of factors predicting homophobic bullying. Policy Implications Efforts should be made to develop clear anti-bullying school policies explicitly dealing with the issue of homophobic bullying