European Citizenship, Identity and Rights: A Survey on Italian Young Students

Developing Europe means, first of all, creating a pervasive feeling of European citizenship, and creating a sense of belonging to a community in all countries of the European Union. This paper focuses on extracting Italian students’ socio-psychological dimension with respect to their perception and feelings regarding European citizenship, and their knowledge of the most relevant rights. The study involves Italian students aged between 18 and 25. A hybrid methodology has been adopted, combining: data extracted from a questionnaire; text from the photo-stories; images of the photo-stories and interviews. The results underline that young people have a sense of belonging to the European community, with the same rights and benefits. Moreover, there is the need to have the same feeling of European citizenship everywhere in Europe. The request for a stronger and more active citizens’ involvement also emerged from the study

The MassiveBlack-II simulation: the evolution of haloes and galaxies to z 0

(Abridged for arXiv)We investigate the properties of halos, galaxies and blackholes to z=0 in the high resolution hydrodynamical simulation MassiveBlack-II (MBII) which evolves a LCDM cosmology in a comoving volume Vbox=100(Mpc/h)^3. MBII is the highest resolution simulation of this size which includes a self-consistent model for star formation, black hole accretion and associated feedback. We provide a simulation browser web application which enables interactive search and tagging of halos, subhalos and their properties and publicly release our galaxy catalogs. Our analysis of the halo mass function (MF) in MBII reveals that baryons have strong effects, with changes in the halo abundance of 20-35% below the knee of the MF (Mhalo < 10^13.2 Msun/h at z=0) when compared to fits based on dark matter only simulations. We provide a fitting function for the halo MF out to redshift z=11 and discuss how the onset of non-universality in the MF limits the accuracy of our fit. We study the halo occupation distribution and clustering of galaxies, in particular the evolution and scale dependence of stochasticity and bias finding reasonable agreement with observational data. The shape of the cosmic spectral energy distribution predicted by MBII is consistent with observations, but lower in amplitude. The Galaxy Stellar Mass Function (GSMF) function is broadly consistent with observations at z>=2. At z<2, the population of passive low mass (for M*<10^9 Msun) galaxies in MBII makes the GSMF too steep compared to observations whereas at the high mass end (M*>10^11 Msun) galaxies hosting bright AGNs make significant contributions to the GSMF. The quasar bolometric luminosity function is also largely consistent with observations. We note however that more efficient AGN feedback (beyond simple thermal coupling used here) is likely necessary for the largest, rarest objects/clusters at low redshifts.Comment: 26 pages, 25 figures. Submitted to MNRAS. High-resolution version and MBII galaxy catalogs can be found at http://mbii.phys.cmu.edu/data

IN "POLPO ... SITION" E ALTRI BREVI RACCONTI

Assalito dalla felicità corsi al mare, guardai l’acqua e fui preso da una forza, non mia, non umana che mi trascinò in acqua. Lì venni rapito da fantastiche sensazioni, l’adrenalina salì a mille, vidi un enorme creatura che suscitò in me delle emozioni mai provate prima, si era avvicinata talmente tanto che stava per toccarmi e, appena lo fece, il mio corpo si illuminò magicamente, le mie mani iniziarono pian piano ad assottigliarsi, il mio petto diventava sempre più piccolo e tondo e da lì a poco, ero diventato un polpo

Analysis of the Digital Educational Scenario in Italian High Schools during the Pandemic: Challenges and Emerging Tools

During the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions around the world were forced to move from face-to-face lessons to distance learning. The application of distance learning fostered the use of new tools and applications that impacted the school system and produced several challenges to be addressed. This paper provides an analysis of distance learning tools that have been used during COVID-19 in Italian schools and the related emerging needs and challenges. A quantitative survey was carried out by using a standardized online questionnaire that involved 420 Italian teachers of different ages, gender, and teaching areas. This survey collected information about experiences, opportunities, and challenges of distance learning, used tools, and students&rsquo; inclusion and involvement. In addition, this work analyses emerging technologies and how they can be integrated into distance learning tools to overcome the identified challenges

Analysis of the Digital Educational Scenario in Italian High Schools during the Pandemic: Challenges and Emerging Tools

During the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions around the world were forced to move from face-to-face lessons to distance learning. The application of distance learning fostered the use of new tools and applications that impacted the school system and produced several challenges to be addressed. This paper provides an analysis of distance learning tools that have been used during COVID-19 in Italian schools and the related emerging needs and challenges. A quantitative survey was carried out by using a standardized online questionnaire that involved 420 Italian teachers of different ages, gender, and teaching areas. This survey collected information about experiences, opportunities, and challenges of distance learning, used tools, and students’ inclusion and involvement. In addition, this work analyses emerging technologies and how they can be integrated into distance learning tools to overcome the identified challenges

Towards Quality Digital Learning: Lessons Learned during COVID-19 and Recommended Actions&mdash;The Teachers&rsquo; Perspective

The research focuses on identifying challenges and lessons from distance learning experiences in Italy during COVID-19, on opportunities emerging from a more digitalized school in the post-COVID-19 crisis, and on preparedness for potential future emergencies. The study aims to analyze different teachers&rsquo; experiences, perceptions, and perspectives on distance learning and provide suggestions for addressing crises and emergencies. An online survey based on a semi-structured questionnaire was conducted targeting primary and secondary school teachers and including schools whose students are only from urban contexts and schools where students are also from rural areas. The main results indicated that teachers were resilient and proactive and found strategies and good practices to deal with distance learning, although several open technological and pedagogical challenges remain unsolved. Finally, some recommended priority actions for stakeholders and policymakers have been provided to face these challenges and ensure inclusive and equitable quality education

Investigation of seasonal differences in strawberry metabolism from flowering through ripening

See the attached pd

Against Cyberbullying Actions: An Italian Case Study

The paper aimed to analyse cyberbullying knowledge and awareness among students, teachers, and parents of 22 Italian primary schools to extract elements to consider for defining successful cyberbullying prevention and management strategies in coherence with some sustainable development goals defined in the 2030 Agenda. Four different research questions have been addressed to analyse: what the level of cyberbullying diffusion is, its triggering factors, its knowledge and awareness, and how the problem is addressed. The study highlighted both the importance of adopting a collaborative perspective among the students, teachers and parents, and to prevent and solve cyberbullying problems stimulating a collective awareness about cyber safety in schools. Some generalisable lessons emerged from the study

Partial vinylphenol reductase purification and characterization from Brettanomyces bruxellensis

International audienceBrettanomyces is the major microbial cause for wine spoilage worldwide and causes significant economic losses. The reasons are the production of ethylphenols that lead to an unpleasant taint described as 'phenolic odour'. Despite its economic importance, Brettanomyces has remained poorly studied at the metabolic level. The origin of the ethylphenol results from the conversion of vinylphenols in ethylphenol by Brettanomyces hydroxycinnamate decarboxylase. However, no information is available on the vinylphenol reductase responsible for the conversion of vinylphenols in ethylphenols. In this study, a vinylphenol reductase was partially purified from Brettanomyces bruxellensis that was active towards 4-vinylguaiacol and 4-vinylphenol only among the substrates tested. First, a vinylphenol reductase activity assay was designed that allowed us to show that the enzyme was NADH dependent. The vinylphenol reductase was purified 152-fold with a recovery yield of 1.77%. The apparent K(m) and V(max) values for the hydrolysis of 4-vinylguaiacol were, respectively, 0.14 mM and 1900 U mg(-1). The optimal pH and temperature for vinylphenol reductase were pH 5-6 and 30 degrees C, respectively. The molecular weight of the enzyme was 26 kDa. Trypsic digest of the protein was performed and the peptides were sequenced, which allowed us to identify in Brettanomyces genome an ORF coding for a 210 amino acid protein