The effect of being awardees for academic careers. ERC and FIRB recipients' outcomes compared to ordinary academics – performances and promotions

Some individual funding schemes aim at recognize excellence of early and/or mid-career researchers in order to allow them boost their potential. Some schemes are munificent endowments, assuring autonomy and security. This is the case of one of the European flagship schemes – the European Research Council (ERC). In Italy, a very similar scheme called FIRB has a similar rationale. Both schemes are supposed to make excellence “fly higher”. The paper checks whether such ERC and FIRB recipients are thereafter more productive in terms of quality and influence testing against a control group of Italian academics of similar age, rank and discipline who did not win such individual grants. Results show that ERC recipients ameliorate research performance more than FIRB recipients did, although differences with control group don’t show always a particular additional effect in research outputs when comparing with pre-awarding performances (difference-in-difference tests). On the other hand, we find a strong Matthew effect in promotions, being the credential of having recipient of an ERC or a FIRB per se the strongest predictor of promotion, other achievements being equal. Policy recommendations speculate whether an egalitarian non-stratified higher education system like the Italian one is ideal home for these schemes, and whether the Italian system can afford a national scheme overlapping international ones, considering long-lasting shortage of financial resources and the egalitarian structure of its system

The gender promotion gap in Italy

The topic of gender differences and career progression is high not only on the scholarly agenda, it is often discussed in the media as well – sometimes in quite controversial terms. We investigate this theme in Italy, a country that in recent years introduced a level of institutional autonomy in determining the career paths of academics. We provide analysis of census data about promotion to full professorship, looking at indicators of productivity, rank, age and prestige of an individual’s department of affiliation. Our analysis also takes into account institutional performative indicators, which affect promotion probabilities. Our study (Marini & Meschitti 2018) found that when promotion decisions lacked transparency a strong discrimination existed against women, despite their productivity matching that of their male counterparts. However, gender discrimination was almost absent when fully transparent procedures were adopted. The seminar will also look at whether this discrimination can be explained by similarities in professors’ communities (those in charge of bestowing promotions), considering specifically the combination of discipline and institution

Mechanical behaviour with temperatures of aluminum matrix composites with CNTs

Aluminum is a very useful structural metal employed in different industrial sectors, in particular it is used in large quantities in automotive, aeronautic and nautical industries. The main reasons of its wide use are: a very good oxidation resistance, excellent ductility, low melting temperature (660 °C) and low density (2.71 g/cm3). However, in order to reduce the emissions and fuel consumption is necessary to reduce the overall weight of vehicles by increasing mechanical properties of the structural material. The improvement of mechanical properties is normally achieved through use of reinforcement in materials, used like matrix, in order to improve some specific characteristics. In this work composites of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) dispersed in aluminum were made. The most difficulties in the preparation of this type of composite are represented by the low wettability between metallic matrix and fillers and the possibility of the oxidation of metal during melting with consequent decreasing of mechanical proprieties. The composite was obtained by three consecutive step: the first one is the functionalization of fillers surface to improve the fillers dispersion, the second one is the dispersion of fillers in the matrix by powder mixing and the third one is the melting and casting of the mix prepared. In particular, fillers used are multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with functionalized surface by treatment with a solfonitric solution. Melting and casting are carried out with the aid of an induction furnace with a controlled atmosphere system and centrifugal casting. Argon is the inert gas used to prevent the oxidation of aluminium during fusion. Young’s modulus was evaluated at different temperature and correlated with the different CNTs percentage. The dispersion rate of fillers and the microstructure of the sample were evaluated by FESEM micrograph

Electrokinetic Lattice Boltzmann solver coupled to Molecular Dynamics: application to polymer translocation

We develop a theoretical and computational approach to deal with systems that involve a disparate range of spatio-temporal scales, such as those comprised of colloidal particles or polymers moving in a fluidic molecular environment. Our approach is based on a multiscale modeling that combines the slow dynamics of the large particles with the fast dynamics of the solvent into a unique framework. The former is numerically solved via Molecular Dynamics and the latter via a multi-component Lattice Boltzmann. The two techniques are coupled together to allow for a seamless exchange of information between the descriptions. Being based on a kinetic multi-component description of the fluid species, the scheme is flexible in modeling charge flow within complex geometries and ranging from large to vanishing salt concentration. The details of the scheme are presented and the method is applied to the problem of translocation of a charged polymer through a nanopores. In the end, we discuss the advantages and complexities of the approach

From endorsement of ambivalent sexism to psychological IPV victimization: The role of attitudes supportive of IPV, legitimating myths of IPV, and acceptance of psychological aggression.

Research on intimate partner violence (IPV) has recognized psychological abuse as a precursor of physical and sexual violence in intimate relationships. However, risk factors in predicting women’s psychological abuse victimization in such a context are still unclear. The goal of the present work was to investigate the role of ambivalent sexism on psychological IPV victimization, by taking into account in the same study the effect of three additional social-psychological factors: women’s i) attitudes supportive of IPV, ii) endorsement of legitimating myths of IPV, and iii) acceptance of psychological aggression in intimate relationships. A total of 408 Italian young women (Mage = 23.87; SD = 2.39) involved in non-marital heterosexual romantic relationships completed measures aimed at assessing i) hostile and benevolent sexism, ii) attitudes supportive of IPV, iii) legitimating myths of IPV, iv) prevalence of psychological abuse experienced within the last 12 months, and performed a task developed ad hoc to measure v) acceptance of psychological aggression in intimate relationships. Results showed that the effect of ambivalent sexism on participants’ prevalence of psychological abuse was mediated by the endorsement of attitudes supportive of IPV and legitimating myths of IPV, as well as by acceptance of psychological aggression. Findings are discussed based on literature about ambivalent sexism, and attitudes and beliefs about IP

On autotopies and automorphisms of n-ary linear quasigroups

In this article we study structure of autotopies, automorphisms, autotopy groups and automorphism groups of nary linear quasigroups. We find a connection between automorphism groups of some special kinds of n-ary quasigroups (idempotent quasigroups, loops) and some isotopes of these quasigroups. In binary case we find more detailed connections between automorphism group of a loop and automorphism group of some its isotope. We prove that every finite medial n-ary quasigroup of order greater than 2 has a nonidentity automorphism group. We apply obtained results to give some information on automorphism groups of n-ary quasigroups that correspond to the ISSN code, the EAN code and the UPC code

Giovani lavoratori e contratto di apprendistato. Evidenza italiana.

Il presente lavoro analizza la dinamica del fenomeno occupazione in Italia limitatamente alle fasce più giovani della popolazione (15 – 29 anni) e ad una sola tipologia di rapporto di lavoro, il contratto di apprendistato. Alla stregua delle esperienze positive degli altri Paesi europei, il contratto di apprendistato è considerato dai governi italiani del XXI secolo una forma ottimale di ingresso nel mondo del lavoro principalmente per i più giovani non solo perché completa la formazione con il praticantato, ma anche perché costituisce una modalità di acquisizione di competenze ed esperienze lavorative da spendere nella professione. Il lavoro si delinea come un tentativo di fotografare un fenomeno ben circoscritto utilizzando il dato di fonte ISTAT riveniente dalla Rilevazione Continua delle Forze di Lavoro, per il periodo I trim. 2014 – II trim. 2018. Nonostante le note criticità del dato utilizzato, i risultati ottenuti sono soddisfacenti. Dall’analisi è emerso come il contratto di apprendistato venga sottoutilizzato in Italia per una serie di limitazioni che non solo sono propriamente ricollegabili alle caratteristiche del settore produttivo italiano, ma anche all’impianto della norma di riferimento. I risultati dell’analisi evidenziano caratteristiche di genere importanti sia per quel che riguarda l’inquadramento del lavoratore, sia per quel che riguarda il titolo di studio posseduto. Evidenze ricollegabili anche alle azioni del governo messe in atto su più fronti e dirette al mercato del lavoro emergono dall’analisi in modo evidente

Application of a comprehensive methodology for the evaluation of social innovations in rural communities

open4noThis project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Grant Agreement No. 677622 (H2020 SIMRA–Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas–Project).Despite the growing interest in social innovation (SI) in agriculture, the literature lacks validated tools for evaluating such initiatives. This paper provides an empirical application of the evaluation approach developed within the H2020 SIMRA project to a pilot experience conducted in a rural area of Southern Italy. The value added by this case study is the application of the five types of criteria used by the OECD for the evaluation of development programs, which are commonly referred to as REEIS: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability. This experiment demonstrates the adequacy of the evaluation framework in identifying strengths and weaknesses of the initiative, according to a multifaceted perspective. The overall evaluation proves that most indicators fall under the high (48%) and medium categories (36%), and only few indicators are low (16%). The usefulness of the evaluation results is manifold. First, this evaluation highlights relevant arguments to support the communication strategy addressed at civil society, therefore reinforcing the civic engagement of the initiative, which is the distinctive feature of SI. Second, it supports project managers in addressing interventions to face emerging weaknesses. Finally, the evaluation provides factual evidence to policy makers to perform cost-effective analysis of rural development policies.openBaselice A.; Prosperi M.; Marini Govigli V.; Lopolito A.Baselice A.; Prosperi M.; Marini Govigli V.; Lopolito A

Amplification of surface plasmon polaritons in the presence of nonlinearity and spectral signatures of threshold crossover

We describe effects of nonlinearity on propagation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) at an interface between a metal and an amplifying medium of the externally pumped two-level atoms. Using Maxwell equations we derive the nonlinear dispersion law and demonstrate that, the nonlinear saturation of the linear gain leads to formation of stationary SPP modes with the intensities independent from the propagation distance. Transition to the regime of stationary propagation is similar to the threshold crossover in lasers and leads to narrowing of the SPP spectrum.Comment: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ol/abstract.cfm?uri=ol-34-18-286