Why education matters to employers: a vignette study in Italy, England and the Netherlands

This book presents a comparative study of school-to-work transitions in Italy, England and the Netherlands, with a focus on why education matters to employers during the hiring process. Three possible explanations are discussed: education is a provider of productivity-enhancing skills; education is a signal of expected trainability; education is a legitimized closure practice. These theories are related to various features of educational attainment: level of education, field of study, grades, study duration, credentials, internships. Through a web-based vignette study, 131 employers took part in a simulation of a hiring process. Findings show that Dutch employers are more likely to reward education because it provides job-specific skills. In the Netherlands, educational credentials serve as a closure practice within a labour market strongly segmented by qualifications. Employers in England expect new hires to learn skills on the job and rely on grades to identify the applicants with the lower training costs. Results are less straightforward in Italy, where employers seem to simultaneously reward skills and trainability; closure, by degrees or by networks, is nearly absent. The book also proposes a theoretical model that relates organizational factors (e.g. recruitment practices, training investment and job type) to a continuum between open and closed employment relationships. Results indicate that while moving from open to closed relationships, employers are less likely to reward job-specific skills and more likely to associate education with expected trainability

Dynamic escape game

We introduce Dynamic Escape Game (DEC), a tool that provides emergency evacuation plans in situations where some of the escape paths may become unavailable at runtime. We formalize the setting as a reachability two-player turn-based game where the universal player has the power of inhibiting at runtime some moves to the existential player. Thus, the universal player can change the structure of the game arena along a play. DEC uses a graphical interface to depict the game and displays a winning play whenever it exists

Noise, emissions and costs trade factors for regional jet platforms using a new software for aircraft preliminary design

A multidisciplinary analysis approach plays a very important role in the development of future transport aircraft, being able to interconnect all aircraft-related subjects and suppliers. A major issue, which has prevented aircraft manufacturers from implementing efficient and cost-effective design processes, is the loose integration of engine models into iterative aircraft design workflows. The continuous improvement of computer calculation capabilities over years has allowed the growth of a large family of software dedicated to aircraft preliminary design activities concerning also multi-disciplinary analyses, and optimizations. In this context, a new software for aircraft preliminary design, multi-disciplinary analyses and optimizations named JPAD (Java toolchain of Programs for Aircraft Design) has been developed at the University of Naples Federico II. The main purpose of this paper is to show the capabilities of the JPAD software applied to typical preliminary design problems. Thus, results of the activities carried out by means of JPAD in the scope of the Work Package 2 (WP2) of the European CleanSky2 project ADORNO will be shown. Those will concern trade factors and response surfaces related to environmental noise, DOC, and pollutant emissions (linked to the design mission block fuel) for a Rear-Mounted engines (RM) reference 2014 aircraft configuration

evaluation of ovine milk clotting aptitude

A comparative study of the lactodynamographic parameters was carried out on ovine milk. Besides evaluating the repeatability and reproducibility of the analytical method, the influence of some variables such as the genetic type (three breeds), the kind of milk (whole or skimmed), and its concentration after reconstitution (12g or 20g /100 ml) was evaluated. The working plan involved 6 laboratories for the final statistic analyses, by the use of freeze-dried milk samples (adequately reconstituted on the basis of established methods) from Sardinia, Comisana, and Massese ewes. All the considered variability factors showed a highly significant effect (P<0.001) on the lactodynamographic parameters considered. In particular, Massese ewe milk showed the shortest curd speed (k20) and the best coagulum strength (a30 and a45), although clotting time (CT) was the highest one. The same trend was registered for skimmed milk and for the most concentrated one (20g). Repeatability values within laboratories were 96% and 97% for CT and k20, lowering for a30 e a45, (respectively 87% and 85%). Much lower coefficients were found for the among laboratories reproducibility, ranging from a maximum of 58% for CT to a minimum of 18% for k20. The wide variability observed indicates that lactodynamographic parameters are comparable only within the same lab. Further investigation is needed to compare different labs in order to obtain more homogeneous results

Biostimulant activity of azotobacter chroococcum and trichoderma harzianum in durum wheat under water and nitrogen deficiency

Biostimulants hold great potential for developing integrated sustainable agriculture systems. The rhizobacteria Azotobacter chroococcum strain 76A and the fungus Trichoderma harzianum strain T22, with demonstrated biostimulant activity in previous systems, were evaluated in Triticum durum cv Creso for their ability to enhance growth and tolerance to drought stress. Growth and drought tolerance were evaluated in conditions of low and high soil nitrogen, with two levels of water stress. T. harzianum increased plant growth (+16%) under control conditions and tolerance to moderate drought stress (+52%) under optimal fertilization, while A. chroococcum conferred a growth penalty (−28%) in well-watered conditions under suboptimal fertilization and increased tolerance only under extreme drought stress (+15%). This growth penalty was ameliorated by nitrogen fertilization. T. harzianum abundance was found to be positively correlated to extreme soil drying, whereas A. chroococcum-induced tolerance was dependent on soil nitrogen availability. These results indicate that while biostimulants may enhance growth and stress tolerance, nutrient availability soil and environmental conditions heavily influence these responses. These interactions should be considered when designing biostimulant products targeted to specific cultural conditions