La escuela artística de La Boca. Sus grandes maestros

Semino, Carlos. La escuela artística de La Boca. Sus grandes maestros. Buenos Aires: Dirección General Patrimonio e Instituto Histórico, 2010, 490 págs., 70 ils. color, ISBN: 978-987-1642-18-2

Psychosocial Training: A Case of Self-Efficacy Improvement in an Italian School

The changes that the regulatory institutions have imposed on the Italian school system over the last decades may actually result in contradictory effects at the individual and organizational levels: resistance or indifference on the one hand and training or coping strategies on the other. The paper focuses on the impact of such changes on teachers, as professional workers within public schools and individual participants of change. The paper refers to psychosocial training as a coping strategy, analysing how school teachers deal with work-related stress, and what impact a training intervention might have on some individual dimensions. Subsequently, in the longitudinal study presented, we analysed whether the training intervention conducted was effective in terms of learning and change. The case under consideration is a primary school located in the South of Italy, and the participants in the training and research were 92 female teachers. In order to investigate the effectiveness of the designed and applied training programme, we measured how some important psychological dimensions have changed over time: self-efficacy, job satisfaction and interpersonal strain. According to a sociological learning approach, the results suggest the effectiveness of training programmes as enablers of change and solutions to some change paradoxes; when they respond to the identified needs, they are based on practical activities that require a collective participation, they focus on social relationships and processes and the knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. In the school context, the psychosocial training might represent a solution, if not a prevention strategy, for change management

Engaging Public Servants: Public Service Motivation, Work Engagement and Work-Related Stress

Considering the ongoing international debate on the role of public administrations in economic systems, public service motivation (PSM) has significantly and increasingly attracted the attention of practitioners and scholars in the past two decades. Following the research streams that have investigated topics of organizational behavior in the public context, this study examines the influence of PSM on the feeling of job satisfaction for public employees. The novelty of the study lies in linking some features of the work context considered to be more prevalent in public organizations with specific job characteristics, seen as determinant antecedents of job satisfaction. Based on two complementary studies conducted in an Italian public administration, this paper shows how PSM influences job satisfaction, job engagement, and life satisfaction. Additionally, the findings display how job engagement affects both job and life satisfaction in these particular contexts. Furthermore, the paper sheds new light on how to deal with such problems and at the same time opens new avenues for investigation

Enhancing Productivity at Home: The Role of SmartWork and Organizational Support in the Public Sector.

In recent years, Italian Public Administrations (PAs) have swiftly adapted to flexible work arrangements due to the impact of COVID-19. The flexible work has led to addressing new challenges including the need to balance work demands with family commitments, a lack of social support, struggles with inadequate technology, and managing home interruptions that negatively affect home performance. Based on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, the present study aims at examining the negative impact of home interruptions on smart working performance and the moderating role of two potential job resources: organizational support and perceived quality of the smart working. A convenience sample of 301 Italian public employees engaged in smart working completed an online questionnaire. Multivariate regression analysis results showed that organizational support plays a moderating role in reducing the negative effect of interruptions on home performance. However, the findings did not support a moderating role for the perceived quality of smart working. Overall, these findings highlight the critical role of social factors in buffering the negative effects of smart working, as compared to the quality of the technological arrangements. This information could be valuable for organizations looking to enhance the effectiveness of smart working by focusing on organizational support

Coronaviridae and SARS-associated Coronavirus Strain HSR1

During the recent severe acute respiratory (SARS) outbreak, the etiologic agent was identified as a new coronavirus (CoV). We have isolated a SARS-associated CoV (SARS-CoV) strain by injecting Vero cells with a sputum specimen from an Italian patient affected by a severe pneumonia; the patient traveled from Vietnam to Italy in March 2003. Ultrastructural analysis of infected Vero cells showed the virions within cell vesicles and around the cell membrane. The full-length viral genome sequence was similar to those derived from the Hong-Kong Hotel M isolate. By using both real-time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction TaqMan assay and an infectivity plaque assay, we determined that approximately 360 viral genomes were required to generate a PFU. In addition, heparin (100 μg/mL) inhibited infection of Vero cells by 50%. Overall, the molecular and biologic characteristics of the strain HSR1 provide evidence that SARS-CoV forms a fourth genetic coronavirus group with distinct genomic and biologic features

Liver involvement and mortality in COVID-19: A retrospective analysis from the CORACLE study group

INTRODUCTION: liver abnormalities are common in COVID-19 patients and associated with higher morbidity and mortality. We aimed to investigate clinical significance and effect on the mortality of abnormal liver function tests (ALFTs) in COVID-19 patients. METHODS: we retrospectively evaluated in a multicentre study all patients admitted with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19. RESULTS: 434 patients were included in this analysis. Among overall patients, 311 (71.6%) had normal baseline ALT levels. 123 patients showed overall abnormal liver function tests (ALFTs) at baseline [101 ALFTs <2x UNL and 22 ≥2 UNL]. Overall in-hospital mortality was 14% and mean duration of hospitalization was 10.5 days. Hypertension (50.5%), cardiovascular diseases (39.6%), diabetes (23%) were frequent comorbidities and 53.7% of patients had ARDS. At multivariate analysis, the presence of ARDS at baseline (OR=6.11; 95% CI: 3.03–12.32; p<0.000); cardiovascular diseases (OR=4; 95% CI: 2.05–7.81; p<0.000); dementia (OR=3.93; 95%CI:1.87–8.26; p<0.000) and no smoking (OR=4.6; 95% CI: 1.45–14.61; p=0.010) resulted significantly predictive of in-hospital mortality. The presence of ALFTs at baseline was not significantly associated with mortality (OR=3.44; 95% CI=0.81–14.58; p=0.094). CONCLUSION: ALFTs was frequently observed in COVID-19 patients, but the overall in-hospital mortality was mainly determined by the severity of illness, comorbidities and presence of ARDS