Just a Matter of Time? Women’s Career Advancement in Neo-Liberal Academia. An Analysis of Recruitment Trends in Italian Universities

Recently, the Italian higher education system has experienced two profound changes: the strong feminization of its academic staff and the implementation of market-based reforms aimed at fostering cost efficiency and economic productivity. Such reforms include the reshaping of the academic career ladder envisaged by the last university reform, the so called Gelmini reform (law 240/2010), and the adoption of a performance-based funding system. Both elements occurred in parallel with a strong cut in turnover. By accessing unique data on recruitment covering the last two decades, which were provided by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research’s statistical office, this study aims at investigating these changes from a gendered perspective. More specifically, it firstly aims at analyzing if the feminization of the academic staff is due to an effective improvement of gender equality in recruitment or, rather, to demographic dynamics; secondly, it investigates to what extent the recent neo-liberal transformations, and more specifically the reshaping of the career structure combined with the limitations on hiring, has had any implications in terms of women’s recruitment and advancement. The results suggest that the road to gender equality is extremely slow and non-linear. The introduction, with the Gelmini reform, of the new fixed-term assistant professor has tightened female access to the tenure track. Moreover, female recruitment remained substantially unchanged over the period among associate and full professors, thus suggesting that the feminization of the academic staff is not due to an effective improvement of gender equality in recruitment, but also to demographic dynamics, such as the retirement of men who are concentrated in the older cohorts

Development of porous coatings enriched with magnesium and zinc obtained by DC plasma electrolytic oxidation

Coatings with developed surface stereometry, being based on a porous system, may be obtained by plasma electrolytic oxidation, PEO (micro arc oxidation, MAO). In this paper, we present novel porous coatings, which may be used, e.g., in micromachine's biocompatible sensors' housing, obtained in electrolytes containing magnesium nitrate hexahydrate Mg(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O and/or zinc nitrate hexahydrate Zn(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O in concentrated phosphoric acid H3PO4 (85% w/w). Complementary techniques are used for coatings' surface characterization, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), for surface imaging as well as for chemical semi-quantitative analysis via energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES), and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The results have shown that increasing contents of salts (here, 250 g/L Mg(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O and 250 g/L Zn(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O) in electrolyte result in increasing of Mg/P and Zn/P ratios, as well as coating thickness. It was also found that by increasing the PEO voltage, the Zn/P and Mg/P ratios increase as well. In addition, the analysis of XPS spectra revealed the existence in 10 nm top of coating magnesium (Mg2+), zinc (Zn2+), titanium (Ti4+), and phosphorus compounds (PO43-, or HPO42-, or H2PO4-, or P2O74-).Web of Science97art. no. 33

GENDER INEQUALITIES IN MEDICAL CAREERS

Women have made a significant progress in the medical profession. In 2013, they accounted for 46.8% of total physicians in OECD countries, a 10% increase from 2003. In Italy, women account for almost 40% of the medical work-force in 2013 and their increase has been very strong in years, up to +34% in the decade 2001-2011 and up to +3% from 2012 to 2013. Notwithstanding the strong feminization of the medical workforce, gender inequalities still persist. Empirical research has shed light on gender inequalities in pay, leadership and specialty fields. It is widely acknowledged that women physicians earn less than men, cluster in less remunerative specialties and progress more slowly through ranks. Most of these studies have taken place in the United States, where cross-sectional and longitudinal dataset are available. This research is part of the wider European project S.T.A.G.E.S. (Structural Transformation to Achieve Gender Equality in Science) at the University of Milan and it aims to fill the gap in the literature \u2013 with respect to the European context \u2013 on gender inequalities in medical careers. Data on more than one thousand physicians working in five hospitals in the Lombardy Region have been collected through an online survey with a rate of response of 48.7%. Data have been analysed through descriptive statistics and through regression analysis. The results point out that women earn 15% less than men, controlling for human capital, work and family characteristics, while they are 44.4% less likely to be promoted to the intermediate levels of the career ladder. Female physicians tend to cluster in medical specialties, while surgery still remains a male-dominated specialty area. Moreover, they do less private practice than their male colleagues, which is highly remunerative. Compared to private institutions, public hospitals seem to guarantee a stronger equality in earnings. The division of paid and unpaid work appears strongly unbalanced, with women as the main responsible for the care of children and the elderly. As a consequence, they tend to solve their work-life conflict by outsourcing care activities while reducing the number of children or renouncing to motherhood (39% of women in the dataset are childless). Regression analysis show that mechanisms of gender discrimination take place both in pay and promotions. Moreover, the same attributes are differently \u201crewarded\u201d whether they refer to women or men. Hence, being father significantly increase men\u2019s income and their likelihood to promotion. The pay penalty for motherhood is significant at 90% level from the third child, while it negatively affects promotion from the second child. Overall, the fatherhood premium appears stronger than the motherhood penalty. Being married positively increases male\u2019s income but it doesn\u2019t have any effect on female colleagues. Educational credential \u201cpays\u201d more for men than for women in terms of pay, as well as being a surgeon and a head of a unit. Doing private practice is more rewarding, controlling for work hours, for men than for women. The amount of time spent at work and the years of work experience are also differently rewarded in terms of career outcomes, suggesting that gender inequalities are not only a matter of \u201cbeing like men are\u201d. Overall, these results fill a gap in knowledge and argue that structural constraints \u2013 preventing female physicians to earn as much as men do and to have the same chances of career than men have \u2013 are taking place

Protective coatings for front surface silver mirrors by atomic layer deposition

Silver is a metal which provides the highest reflectivity in the very broad wavelength range as well as the lowest polarization splitting. However, it is not very stable chemically and silver mirrors are easily damaged in a corrosive or oxidizing environment, leading first to the drastic drop in reflection followed by the complete disintegration of a silver layer. For this reason aluminum is much more in use. The problem of protection of silver layer is a very important one for number of applications, requiring the front side reflection, such as telescopes mirrors, reflective IR imaging optics, gratings, photovoltaic concentrator mirrors, etc. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique using trimethylaluminum (TMA) and water as precursors provides a very efficient way to protect a sensitive surface of silver from a corrosive and oxidizing environment, because ALD coatings can be deposited at rather low temperature. Moreover, ALD layer provides extremely high conformality (even when deposited over high aspect ratio features) and has high integrity, efficiently blocking foreign species diffusion to silver-overcoat interface. In our studies we tested the efficiency of the protection of silver mirrors by ALD-deposited Al2O3 layers against oxygen plasma exposure by correlating the ellipsometric measurements with the absolute reflection measurements and Glow-Discharge Optical Emission Spectroscopy (GD-OES) data. We have found that for optimal protection the thickness of ALD deposited layer should exceed at least 15 nm (about 150 ALD cycles at 150 oC), as thinner layers do not provide reliable protection of silver surface against oxygen plasma. We have also demonstrated that the deposition of 15 nm of a protective ALD-deposited Al2O3 layer does not affect the absolute reflectivity of a silver mirror in a spectral range 300 -2500 nm.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, article is based on the regular talk given at The 8th International Conference on Spectroscopic Ellipsometry, May 26-31, 2019, Barcelon

Public History and Contested Heritage. Archival Memories of the Bombing of Italy

This article presents a case study of a collaborative public history project between participants in two countries, the United Kingdom and Italy. Its subject matter is the bombing war in Europe, 1939-1945, which is remembered and commemorated in very different ways in these two countries: the sensitivities involved thus constitute not only a case of public history conducted at the national level but also one involving contested heritage. An account of the ways in which public history has developed in the UK and Italy is presented. This is followed by an explanation of how the bombing war has been remembered in each country. In the UK, veterans of RAF Bomber Command have long felt a sense of neglect, largely because the deliberate targeting of civilians has not fitted comfortably into the dominant victor narrative. In Italy, recollections of being bombed have remained profoundly dissonant within the received liberation discourse. The International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive (or Archive) is then described as a case study that employs a public history approach, focusing on various aspects of its inclusive ethos, intended to preserve multiple perspectives. The Italian component of the project is highlighted, problematising the digitisation of contested heritage within the broader context of twentieth-century history. Reflections on the use of digital archiving practices and working in partnership are offered, as well as a brief account of user analytics of the Archive through its first eighteen months online

Gender-Dependent Specificities in Cutaneous Melanoma Predisposition, Risk Factors, Somatic Mutations, Prognostic and Predictive Factors: A Systematic Review.

Over the last decades, the incidence of melanoma has been steadily growing, with 4.2% of the population worldwide affected by cutaneous melanoma (CM) in 2020 and with a higher incidence and mortality in men than in women. We investigated both the risk factors for CM development and the prognostic and predictive factors for survival, stratifying for both sex and gender. We conducted a systematic review of studies indexed in PUB-MED, EMBASE, and Scopus until 4 February 2021. We included reviews, meta-analyses, and pooled analyses investigating differences between women and men in CM risk factors and in prognostic and predictive factors for CM survival. Twenty-four studies were included, and relevant data extracted. Of these, 13 studies concerned potential risk factors, six concerned predictive factors, and five addressed prognostic factors of melanoma. The systematic review revealed no significant differences in genetic predisposition to CM between males and females, while there appear to be several gender disparities regarding CM risk factors, partly attributable to different lifestyles and behavioral habits between men and women. There is currently no clear evidence of whether the mutational landscapes of CM differ by sex/gender. Prognosis is justified by a complex combination of phenotypes and immune functions, while reported differences between genders in predicting the effectiveness of new treatments are inconsistent. Overall, the results emerging from the literature reveal the importance of considering the sex/gender variable in all studies and pave the way for including it towards precision medicine. Men and women differ genetically, biologically, and by social construct. Our systematic review shows that, although fundamental, the variable sex/gender is not among the ones collected and analyzed

La narrazione storica nei videogiochi: il caso di Sid Meier’s Civilization

La ricezione delle concezioni e dei messaggi insiti nei videogiochi nonché il loro impiego nella didattica, hanno già rappresentato un terreno di indagine in diverse discipline delle scienze sociali. Tuttavia, il medium videoludico sconta ancora una scarsa considerazione da parte degli storici e fatica ad accreditarsi come vero e proprio oggetto di indagine, sebbene esistano molti titoli a tema storico. In tale margine non presidiato, stereotipi, falsi storici e narrazioni distorte hanno potenziale spazio per proliferare. Il contributo intende analizzare le eredità e gli immaginari della saga Civilization di Sid Meier, considerato uno dei videogiochi di strategia a tema storico più celebri nel mondo.The receptivity of the concepts and messages embedded in video games, as well as their use in education, have already been investigated in various social science disciplines. However, the video game medium still suffers from a lack of consideration by historians and struggles to establish itself as a real object of investigation, even though there are many titles dealing with historical themes. In this unguarded margin, stereotypes, historical fallacies and distorted narratives have potential space to proliferate. The paper aims to analyse the legacies and imaginaries of Sid Meier’s Civilization saga, considered one of the most famous history-themed strategy video games in the world

Fabrication and Characterisation of Porous Coatings Enriched with Copper on CP Titanium Grade 2 under Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation

In the present paper, coatings obtained on CP Titanium Grade 2 samples by Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) in electrolyte containing concentrated phosphoric acid H3PO4 with copper nitrate Cu(NO3)2∙3H2O, are studied with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS), X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectroscopy (GDOES). A three-layer model is proposed on the basis of GDOES depth profile signals and their first and second derivatives. It was found that the time of Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation process has an influence on the chemical composition and the thickness of the obtained porous coatings. The longer time the PEO treatment is applied, the thinner porous coatings are obtained and the lowest amounts of copper, phosphorus and oxygen inside them are found. The proposed model of PEO coatings consists of three layers, i.e. the top one "A", having a thickness corresponding to the sputtering time in GDOES of about 100 s; the operating conditions applied provide very porous and contaminated by organic substances layer down to about 50 s by sputtering time; the semi-porous sub-layer named "B" has a thickness that depends on the PEO treatment time. The sub-layer "B" of PEO coating is the thickest after one-minute PEO treatment and it decreases with increasing the treatment time. The PEO coating thickness also decreases after each successive PEO processing. The last layer (from the top surface), is the transition sub-layer named "C", and it has a thickness corresponding to a sputtering time equaling 450 s