Immigrants’ Religious Transmission in Southern Europe: Reaction or Assimilation? Evidence from Italy

In recent decades, scholars have been increasingly interested in analysing immigrants’ religiosity in Europe. In this article, we provide evidence about how the patterns of religious transmission are shaped by religious characteristics of both the origin and receiving contexts. We do so by focusing on Italy, which is both an almost homogeneously Catholic country and a fairly recent immigration destination, and by analysing three different dimensions of religiosity: service attendance, prayer and importance of religion. By relying on the “Social conditions and integration of foreign citizens” survey (ISTAT, 2011–2012), we fill an important theoretical and geographical gap by analysing differences in religiosity between parents and children. We claim that immigrant groups who share many characteristics with the natives tend to assimilate by adopting the same patterns of transmission (for example, Romanians in Italy). In contrast, immigrants who come from very different religious contexts, such as the Muslim Moroccan group, strongly react to this diversity by emphasising the transmission of their own religiosity. If, instead, immigrants come from a very secular country, such as Albania, they also tend to replicate this feature in the receiving countries, thus progressively weakening their religiosity and also their denominational differences. Overall, it is the interplay between origin and destination context which matters the most in shaping the patterns of religious transmission

Here, there, in between, beyond…: Identity negotiation and sense of belonging among Southern Europeans in the UK and Germany

Whilst most of the research on intra-EU mobility has mainly focused on the reasons behind young Southern Europeans leaving their home countries, and secondly on their experiences within the new context, little is known about their sense of belonging and identities. This article aims to fill this gap by exploring Italian and Spanish migrants\u2019 social identity repositioning and the cultural change characterising their existential trajectories. Drawing on 69 semi-structured interviews with Italians and Spaniards living in London and Berlin, this article shows that the sense of belonging to one or more political communities and boundary work are related to individual experiences and can change due to structural eventualities such as the Brexit referendum. While identification with the host society is rare, attachment to the home country is quite common as a result of people\u2019s everyday experiences. Cultural changes and European/cosmopolitan identification are linked to exposure to new environments and interaction with new cultures, mostly concerning those with previous mobility experience, as well as to a sentiment of non-acceptance in the UK. However, such categories are not rigid, but many times self-identification and attachments are rather blurred also due to the uncertainty around the duration of the mobility project. This makes individual factors (gender, age, family status, employment, education) that are often considered as determinants of identification patterns all but relevant

The Efficiency Gap

Parameter estimation via M- and Z-estimation is broadly considered to be equally powerful in semiparametric models for one-dimensional functionals. This is due to the fact that, under sufficient regularity conditions, there is a one-to-one relation between the corresponding objective functions - strictly consistent loss functions and oriented strict identification functions - via integration and differentiation. When dealing with multivariate functionals such as multiple moments, quantiles, or the pair (Value at Risk, Expected Shortfall), this one-to-one relation fails due to integrability conditions: Not every identification function possesses an antiderivative. The most important implication of this failure is an efficiency gap: The most efficient Z-estimator often outperforms the most efficient M-estimator, implying that the semiparametric efficiency bound cannot be attained by the M-estimator in these cases. We show that this phenomenon arises for pairs of quantiles at different levels and for the pair (Value at Risk, Expected Shortfall), where we illustrate the gap through extensive simulations

Prvi nalaz tupousne barakude Sphyraena chrysotaenia (Klunzinger, 1884) i indopacifičke vrste ježinca Diadema setosum (Leske, 1778) u morskom zaštićenom području otoka Zakintos, Jonsko more, Grčka

In 2021, three specimens of the Lessepsian yellowstripe barracuda Sphyraena chrysotaenia and eight specimens of the Indo-Pacific needle-spined sea urchin Diadema setosum were recorded along the coasts of Zakynthos Island, some within the Marine Protected Area.U 2021. godini, tri primjerka lesepsijske tupousne barakude Sphyraena chrysotaenia i osam primjeraka indo-pacifičke vrste ježinca Diadema setosum su pronađeni u području oko otoka Zakintos, neki unutar morskog zaštićenog područja

Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy with late disease onset: clinical and molecular characteristics of 20 patients

Background: Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is a mitochondrial disease that typically causes bilateral blindness in young men. Here we describe the clinical and molecular characteristics of 20 patients with disease onset after the age of 50 years (late onset-LHON). Methods: From a cohort of 251 affected and 277 unaffected LHON carriers, we identified 20 patients with onset of visual loss after the age of 50 years. Using structured questionnaires, data including basic demographic details, age of onset, progression of visual loss and severity as well as exposure to possible environmental triggers including alcohol, smoking and illicit drugs were retrospectively collected. Groups were compared using the Mann-Whitney-U-Test for two independent groups of sampled data. Results: The proportion of late onset-LHON in our cohort was 8% (20 patients, 15 males, 5 females). The mtDNA mutations m. 11778G  > A and m. 3460G  > A were found in 16 and 4 patients, respectively. Among 89 asymptomatic carriers above the age of 50 years (28 males, 61 females), the mtDNA mutations m. 11778G > A, m. 3460G  > A and m. 14484 T  > C were found in 60, 12 and 17 carriers, respectively. Late onset-LHON patients had significantly higher mean cumulative tobacco and alcohol consumption compared with unaffected carriers. However, there was no significant difference between late onset-and typical LHON patients with regard to daily tobacco and weekly alcohol consumption before disease onset. Conclusion: As already shown for typical LHON, alcohol consumption and smoking are important trigger factors also for the late manifestation. LHON should be considered in the differential diagnosis of subacute blindness even in older patients

Stability of the non-extremal enhancon solution I: perturbation equations

We consider the stability of the two branches of non-extremal enhancon solutions. We argue that one would expect a transition between the two branches at some value of the non-extremality, which should manifest itself in some instability. We study small perturbations of these solutions, constructing a sufficiently general ansatz for linearised perturbations of the non-extremal solutions, and show that the linearised equations are consistent. We show that the simplest kind of perturbation does not lead to any instability. We reduce the problem of studying the more general spherically symmetric perturbation to solving a set of three coupled second-order differential equations.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, references added, typos fixed, version to appear in PR

METIS D3.4: Final workshops packages: workshops for different educational levels and education contexts

Several decades of research in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) have clearly demonstrated the potential of digital technology to transform education. Yet the impact of TEL research on daily teaching-learning practices is still far from fulfilling this potential. Arguably, this is a gap in the capacity for learning design: educators need the tools and competencies which would allow them to identify educational challenges, describe the context in which they arise, identify the opportunities afforded by technology, project the insights derived from research, and devise new learning experiences. To address this gap, educators need tools and practices. Tools that would support them through the cycle of learning design – from conception to deployment and evaluation of techno-educational innovations. Professional practices that use such tools to ensure the robustness and effectiveness of their innovations and make learning design a daily habit and part of their professional identity. The METIS project (http://metis-project.org/) aims to contribute to this aim, by providing educators with an Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE) (Hernández-Leo, Asensio-Pérez, Derntl, Prieto, & Chacón, 2014; Hernández-Leo et al., 2015) and a workshop package for training educators in using the ILDE to support effective learning design. Work Package 3, led by the OU (UK), is concerned with the design and development of the workshop package. This deliverable is the final version of the METIS workshop package. It includes • a meta-design for METIS workshops that provides a flexible reusable structure so that workshops can be customised to meet different needs , • a description of the rationale and pedagogical methodology on which the meta-design is based • guidance for instantiating the meta-design in different contexts and • example workshop packages based on the meta-design for three different educational sectors. This document provides educators with a basis for delivering workshops about using the ILDE to support effective learning design. To create and run a workshop suitable for your own context, please proceed in the following way. Firstly, consider the meta-design; then choose one of the example workshop packages closest to your context; finally, use the guidelines to adapt it for your needs

Cost-effectiveness of short-protocol emergency brain MRI after negative non-contrast CT for minor stroke detection

OBJECTIVES To investigate the cost-effectiveness of supplemental short-protocol brain MRI after negative non-contrast CT for the detection of minor strokes in emergency patients with mild and unspecific neurological symptoms. METHODS The economic evaluation was centered around a prospective single-center diagnostic accuracy study validating the use of short-protocol brain MRI in the emergency setting. A decision-analytic Markov model distinguished the strategies \textquotedblno additional imaging\textquotedbl and \textquotedbladditional short-protocol MRI\textquotedbl for evaluation. Minor stroke was assumed to be missed in the initial evaluation in 40% of patients without short-protocol MRI. Specialized post-stroke care with immediate secondary prophylaxis was assumed for patients with detected minor stroke. Utilities and quality-of-life measures were estimated as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Input parameters were obtained from the literature. The Markov model simulated a follow-up period of up to 30 years. Willingness to pay was set to $100,000 per QALY. Cost-effectiveness was calculated and deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analysis was performed. RESULTS Additional short-protocol MRI was the dominant strategy with overall costs of$26,304 (CT only: $27,109). Cumulative calculated effectiveness in the CT-only group was 14.25 QALYs (short-protocol MRI group: 14.31 QALYs). In the deterministic sensitivity analysis, additional short-protocol MRI remained the dominant strategy in all investigated ranges. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis results from the base case analysis were confirmed, and additional short-protocol MRI resulted in lower costs and higher effectiveness. CONCLUSION Additional short-protocol MRI in emergency patients with mild and unspecific neurological symptoms enables timely secondary prophylaxis through detection of minor strokes, resulting in lower costs and higher cumulative QALYs. KEY POINTS • Short-protocol brain MRI after negative head CT in selected emergency patients with mild and unspecific neurological symptoms allows for timely detection of minor strokes. • This strategy supports clinical decision-making with regard to immediate initiation of secondary prophylactic treatment, potentially preventing subsequent major strokes with associated high costs and reduced QALY. • According to the Markov model, additional short-protocol MRI remained the dominant strategy over wide variations of input parameters, even when assuming disproportionally high costs of the supplemental MRI scan

Social-ecological features of set nets small-scale fisheries in the context of Mediterranean marine protected areas

The small-scale fisheries (SSF) sector has attracted considerable attention over the last decade due to its major importance in sustaining the livelihoods of coastal communities worldwide, poverty alleviation, food security, social wealth and traditions. Despite this importance, quantitative and qualitative information on SSF is still largely lacking and when available, it tends to be scattered or very localized. SSF are also among the very few professional extractive activities generally allowed within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and are therefore expected to acquire further momentum in the near future in light of the projected increase of protected marine surface area due to international commitments. However, SSF associated with areas including MPAs may differ from those operating in unprotected contexts with regard to a range of socio-ecological aspects, thus potentially making management strategies currently in force unsuitable, and requiring the development of ad hoc local and regional policies. Here, we assessed the socio-ecological dimension of SSF operating within and around 11 Mediterranean MPAs, in six EU countries, with the aim of identifying relevant patterns that could inform policy and management relative to this fishing sector in view of the forthcoming increase of the marine surface area under protection. To do so, we have adopted a collaborative approach with fishers and combined a photo-sampling survey of 1,292 set net (mainly trammel-nets) fishing operations at landing with 149 semi-structured interviews with fishers, to gather information on features and catches of SSF fleets (e.g. vessel characteristics, gears, catch composition, catch and revenue per unit of effort). Overall, results highlighted: 1) multiple shared features emerging at regional level (i.e. among the 11 study areas), such as the predominant use of set nets, the major contribution of a limited number of species to the overall catch and revenue, the occurrence in the catch of threatened species and/or undersized individuals; 2) a variety of distinctive socio-ecological features differentiating local SSF communities such as the species mainly contributing to catch and revenue, species size distribution and fleet characteristics. In addition to presenting elements to inform common policies and strategies for SSF management in the context of MPAs, our study provides guidance for the development of a standard methodology for the full documentation of SSF in the Mediterranean Sea