Hierarchical vs. sequential web forums. Methodological issues in interaction analysis

The wide spread of Social Network Analysis in the field of online interactions is developing interesting lines of research regarding methodologies to be adopted in encoding data and interpretation of results. Many important methodological implications in the application of SNA are becoming central in the comparison between automated systems versus non-automatic procedures. The paper investigates the attribution of addressees role in sequential and hierarchical web forums. Specific empirical issues are presented about generic messages (no addressee is selected), regards and coding procedures in different online environments. The authors also present some developments in the semantic analysis combined with structural analysis potentiated (S/SC), together with some operational proposals suitable for different kinds of communication contexts.La continua diffusione della Social Network Analysis nell\u27ambito delle interazioni online sta sviluppando interessanti filoni di ricerca per quanto riguarda le metodologie da adottare nella codifica dei dati e nella fase di interpretazione dei risultati. Emergono, infatti, importanti implicazioni metodologiche nell\u27applicazione della SNA con sistemi automatizzati rispetto a strumenti non automatizzati. La problematica indagata dal paper riguarda, in particolare, l\u27attribuzione del ruolo del destinatario e del mittente in ambienti di comunicazione sequenziali e gerarchici, con particolare riguardo ai forum (dove i messaggi vengono spesso indirizzati a tutto il gruppo) ed estensibile anche a contesti interattivi diversi, in cui sia difficile individuare in modo univoco la direzione dei messaggi. Gli autori presentano alcuni sviluppi del semantic analysis combined with potentiated structural analysis (S/SC) model, con la proposta di soluzioni operative utili a diversi contesti di interazione e apprendimento online

Economic Behavior under Alcohol Influence: An Experiment on Time, Risk, and Social Preferences

We report results from an incentivized laboratory experiment to provide controlled evidence on the causal effects of alcohol consumption on risk preferences, time perception and altruism. Our design allows disentangling the pharmacological effects of alcohol intoxication from those mediated by expectations, as we compare behaviors of three groups of subjects: those participating to an experiment with no reference to alcohol, those exposed to the possibility of consuming alcohol but assigned to a placebo and those having effectively consumed alcohol. Once randomly assigned to one treatment, subjects were administered a series of consecutive economic tasks, being the sequence kept constant across treatments. After controlling for both the willingness to pay and the potential misperception of probabilities as elicited in the experiment, we do not detect any effect of alcohol in depleting subjects’ risk tolerance. On the contrary, we find that alcohol intoxication increases impatience. Moreover, we find that alcohol makes subjects less generous as we detect a negative relationship between the blood alcohol concentration and the amount of money donated to NGOs

Third molar maturity index by measurements of open apices in a Libyan sample of living subjects

In most countries, forensic age estimation in living subjects has become increasingly important in the last few years. In addition, as the age of legal majority ranges from 14 to 18 in many countries, and in Libya it is 18 years, radiographic assessment of the degree of third molar development is essential for forensic age estimation of adolescents and young adults. The aim of this paper is to assess the accuracy of the cut-off value of 0.08, by measurements of third molar index (I3M), in determining if a subject is adult or not in Libyan population. Digital panoramic radiographs of 307 healthy subjects (163 girls, 144 boys), aged between 14 and 22, were analysed. The I3M, the age and the sex of the subjects were used as predictive variable for age estimation. Using a cut-off of 0.08, the sensitivity of the test for boys was 90.9% and the specificity 100%. The proportion of correctly classified individuals was 95.1% (95% CI: 91.5–98.7%). The sensitivity for girls was 90.6% and the specificity 100%. The proportion of correctly classified individuals was 94.5% (95% CI: 90.9–98.1%). Estimated post-test probability in boys and girls was 100%. Further analyses, performed using a cut-off of 0.09, do not affect the specificity (100%) while they improve the sensitivity for both boys and girls

Validation of third molar maturity index (I 3M ) for discrimination of juvenile/adult status in South Indian population

Deliberate falsification of age was considered to be one of the main reasons for forensic age estimation of the living individuals. This posed to be a challenging task during criminal and legal proceedings, and ultimate care must be taken not to classify juveniles as adults. Third molars are the only developing teeth during late adolescence and early adulthood. Our study was designed to analyze the usefulness of the third molar maturity index (I3M) specific cut-off value (I3M < 0.08) to discriminate adults (≥18 years) and juveniles (<18 years) in South Indian children. 216 panoramic radiographs (114 females and 102 males) of living subjects aged between 14 and 21 years were analyzed. Our results demonstrated high sensitivity (83.3% and 90.2%) and specificity (98.3% and 95.1%) for females and males respectively. The positive likelihood ratios of being adult were 50.00 and 18.35 while the negative likelihood ratios were 0.17 and 0.10 in females and males respectively. The estimated posttest probability was 98.0% in females and 94.8% in males. The obtained results showed that the specific cut-off value of I3M < 0.08 may be a useful additional tool in discrimination of individuals who are around 18 years of age

Social Network in campo educativo? Cum grano salis

Alcune riflessioni metodologiche per l’integrazione dei Social Network in campo formativo ed educativ

Knowledge Building Community in classe. Progettazione, realizzazione e valutazione.

L'implementazione di un modello di comunita' a scuola richiede un profondo ripensamento delle pratiche scolastiche utilizzate oggi dagli insegnanti e un radicale cambiamento nella formazione degli stessi. La prassi ancora oggi piu' diffusa a scuola prevede, infatti, sequenze di lavoro basate su spiegazione dell'insegnante ed esercitazione a struttura individuale o, in rari casi, lavori di gruppo

Strumenti per i webinar: quali piattaforme?

Analisi degli strumenti più usati per condurre webinar e alcuni criteri per sceglierl

L'invisibilità tangibile dei webinar

Riflessioni sullo stato della ricerca e sul fenomeno dei webinar in educazione, con un occhio agli aspetti tecnici, economici e metodologici

Il modello di orientamento "a stanze"

Analisi dei bisogni nel settore della formazione universitaria a distanza. Il contributo descrize una ricerca qualitativa basata sull’analisi dei messaggi prodotti online da tutte le persone che hanno manifestato l’intenzione di iscriversi al corso di laurea in Discipline della Ricerca Psicologico Sociale presso l’Universita’ di Milano-Bicocca