Yet the Poorest, Relatively Speaking: Italian Poverty Rates in International Perspective

Few works more than Esping-Andersen's 'Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism' have drawn researchers' attention on institutional features that characterize the diverse typologies of welfare regimes; yet the impact of the different institutional settings on income distribution has mostly been taken for granted. This paper uses cross nationally comparable data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) to assess the performance of Italian Welfare against that of other countries of the 'conservative' cluster (Germany, France and the Netherlands), as well as countries of the 'liberal' (United Kingdom) and 'social-democratic' (Sweden) regime. The results reveal that the institutional setting is strongly correlated with the antipoverty efficiency of social transfers (indeed in the direction one would expect), with the significant exception of Italy, whose performance approaches that of the United Kingdom. The reason for such performance must be found within the structure of social transfers. Italy's extremely generous pension system has in fact crowded out any form of support directed to younger families, both in child support or means-tested assistance. While two-earners-households find a good hedge against poverty risks in market income, one earner household shaped around the 'single male breadwinner model' face considerable poverty risks, which increase linearly by a factor of 10% according to the number of children in the household. As a consequence of the greater diffusion of such family model in Italy, child poverty rates tend to be double and almost ten times higher than the Swedish ones, approaching the British standard (almost 20%). Evidence also shows that what prevents a greater diffusion of the double income household is probably not as much related to cultural inheritance as to concrete difficulties encountered by women in young households combining parental and working responsibilities. In higher quintiles of disposable income, where services to families may be easily acquired on the market, female employment rate tend to be almost 3 times the average rate, approaching the Swedish rate. With respect to the foreseen tendencies towards higher wage dispersion (concentrated in the bottom part of the distribution), Italian welfare system (with its strong bias on old age pensions and the total lack of services to families) appear particularly unstable, as increased wage flexibility may only be acquired at the cost of falling deeper in the 'fertility trap', a problem shared by most Europe's continental countries, but which has taken a dramatic relevance in the case of Italy

Albert Bruce Sabin: the man who made the oral polio vaccine

Albert Bruce Sabin (1906–1993) was the man who made the oral polio vaccine (OPV). Sabin’s name will always be associated with poliomyelitis, a disease that claimed millions of victims in the 20th century, particularly among children. Sabin created his vaccine (OPV) at the Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati. The mass vaccination campaign in the Soviet Union demonstrated high vaccine effectiveness and resulted in licensure of OPV in the United States in 1961. Subsequently, in the United States, OPV rapidly replaced IPV during the 1960s as the vaccine of choice. Sabin’s vaccine, which was economical to produce and very easy to administer on a sugar lump to children, came to be used worldwide in the 1960s

The educational value, both past and present, of an ancient scientific collection: the collection of anatomical preparations illustrating the various phases of bone development, from the second month of intrauterine life to adulthood

Italy’s museums possess an enormous patrimony of historical scientific artefacts. This raises important questions regarding the conservation and safeguard of such materials and prompts reflection as to the utility of current modalities of popularising science. The collections housed in scientific museums were created in order to promote scientific education by making science more accessible and more comprehensible. The authors ask whether this heritage can still be used for educational purposes today, and examine a collection of preparations on the ossification of human bones in the Anatomical Museum of the University of Siena. They conclude that such materials can still be of educational value if they are made part of exhibitions that meet the needs of the public and of students in training. Indeed, it is essential to bear witness to the long pathway of the development of scientific knowledge and, in particular, to the value of the research on which this knowledge is based. Through the implementation of ad hoc exhibitions, this precious historical scientific patrimony can continue to play an important role in presenting medical/healthcare issues of topical interest without losing sight of the relevance of past experience to basic teaching

Strengths and Weaknesses in the Intellectual Profile of Different Subtypes of Specific Learning Disorder

The present study analyzes whether and how the most common diagnoses within the specific learning disorder (SLD) category are characterized by different intellectual profiles. The issue is relevant to the current debate on the unitary versus decomposable nature of the SLD category and may help define specific interventions. Intellectual profiles were obtained using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–IV (WISC-IV) on 1,049 children diagnosed with SLD using the ICD-10 codes. Four major subsamples were compared: reading disorder, spelling disorder, disorder of arithmetical skills, and mixed disorder of scholastic skills. The four main WISC-IV indexes (verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed) were considered. Results showed that all SLD subgroups share similar weaknesses in working memory and processing speed, but they also showed that the subgroups are characterized by partly different intellectual profiles. These specificities should be considered in the definition of SLD

Raising Capital Overseas

The article states that more and more companies are trying to raise capital by listing their securities for sale on foreign exchanges.More and more companies are trying to raise capital by listing their securities for sale on foreign exchanges. However, the way financial statements are prepared varies from one country to the next. U.S. companies looking to raise capital abroad must consider the myriad rules regarding financial statement presentation just as foreign companies listing stock in the United States must adhere to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Similarly, the costs of reconciling U.S. accounting standards to adhere to foreign standards also can be high, so it is important that U.S. companies know the questions they will face when going global. Although the details of additional disclosures must be determined case by case, they can be developed in the context of normal corporate reporting. However, U.S. public companies should determine the nature and extent of additional disclosures in advance to provide for an orderly approach to corporate reporting and to avoid any undue delay in the listing process

Global Auditing and Accounting Confusion

The article discusses about the accounting and audit standards in the United States, which is different from one country to another due to business practices, fiscal systems and the law regulating a company. The International Federation of Accountants and the International Accounting Standards Committee aimed to a have a consistency of audit and accounting standards around the world, although these diversities can easily identify a company\u27s national origin and as a basis of the financial statements presentation

The unitary ability of IQ and indexes in WAIS-IV

Lichtenberger and Kaufman (2009, p. 167) defined unitary ability as ‘an ability […] that is represented by a cohesive set of scaled scores, each reflecting slightly different or unique aspects of the ability’. Flanagan and Kaufman (2009) and Lichtenberger and Kaufman (2012) used a difference of 23 IQ points between the highest score (Max) and the lowest score (Min) obtained by a subject in the four Indexes of the WAIS-IV to define unitarity of the total IQ score. A similar method has been used to assess the unitary ability of the four Indexes, with a threshold of 5 points. Such difference scores (of 23 for IQ and 5 for Indexes) are considered high and infrequent and the authors therefore conclude that the corresponding Full-Scale IQ score or Index score is uninterpretable. In this paper we argue that these thresholds are inappropriate because they are based on the wrong standard deviation. The main aim of this study was to establish variability thresholds for IQ and the WAIS-IV Indexes for the American standardization sample and to compare these thresholds with those for the Italian standardization sample. We also consider an alternative approach to determining whether an IQ score represents a unitary ability, based on the maximum difference score for the 10 core subtests that contribute to Full-Scale IQ scores