Students' transition into higher education: The role of self-efficacy,regulation strategies,and academic achievements

Transition into higher education (HE) has received increased interest in recent years, since it represents a challenging period for students. The aim of this study was to further understand the associations between self-efficacy, academic achievements, and regulation in first-year university students during their transition into HE. The convenience sample consisted of 374 first-year university students (230 females, 61.5%), aged from 18 to 33 (M = 19.86, SD = 1.51) and recruited from an Italian university. Self-efficacy was assessed using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire; regulation strategies were assessed with the Inventory of Learning Patterns of Students; and a self-reported grade point average was taken as an indicator of each student's academic performance. Result shows that students' self-efficacy was positively associated with self-regulation and negatively associated with a lack of regulation. Students with higher self-efficacy and self-regulation strategies had better academic performance. Female students performed better in academic activities and adopted more external regulation strategies. The findings represent an opportunity for university institutions to consider the interventions they provide to first-year students in order to facilitate the successful transition from secondary school; they also provide researchers with further knowledge about the effect of self-efficacy, and regulation strategies on students' adjustment to HE.     

欧足联前主席米歇尔·普拉蒂尼上诉案的法理分析

国际足联前主席约瑟夫·S.布拉特和欧足联前主席米歇尔·普拉蒂尼腐败案是2016年国际足联的重大事件之一。普拉蒂尼在受到国际足联道德委员会的处罚后,上诉到国际足联上诉委员会,而后上诉到国际体育仲裁院,最后又上诉到瑞士联邦高等法院。本文通过对普拉蒂尼上诉案,尤其是上诉到瑞士联邦高等法院案进行法理分析,并就此案深入地探讨了瑞士法律与基于瑞士法律的国际足联规则和国际体育仲裁规则的适用情况,进一步透视了瑞士法律对于此案件的处理机制,并指出该案判决仍然可能存在罪罚相称性的问题。     

Some practical approaches to a course on paraconsistent logic for engineers

This paper describes a non-classical logic course primarily indicated for graduate students in electrical engineering and energy engineering. The content of this course is based on the vision that it is not enough for a student to indefinitely accumulate knowledge; it is necessary to explore all the occasions to update, deepen, and enrich that knowledge, adapting it to a complex world. Therefore, this course is not tied to theoretical formalities and tries at each moment to provide a practical view of the non-classical logic. In the real world, the inconsistencies are important and cannot be ignored because contradictory information brings relevant facts, sometimes modifying the entire result of the analysis. As consequence, the non-classical logics, such as annotated paraconsistent logic – APL, are efficiently framed in the approach of complex situations of the real world. In APL, the concepts of unknown, partial, ambiguous, and inconsistent knowledge are referred not to trivialise any system in analysis. This course presents theoretical and applicable aspects of APL, which are successfully used in decision-making structures. The course is divided into modules: Basic, 2vAPL, 3vAPL, 4vAPL, and Final Project.     

Does Graduating from a Private University Make a Difference? Evidence from Italy

The main aim of this article is to explore similarities and differences in the institutional features of private and state universities in the Italian higher education system and to assess whether graduating from a private university conveys advantages in the labour market. In the first part we use administrative data to describe the main institutional features of the two types of university, looking at organisational aspects, enrolments and graduates, financial resources, tuition fees, and teachers' characteristics. In the second part we develop a theoretical framework looking at sociological and economic theories of education and labour market, from which we derive some hypotheses on the expected results. In the last part, we apply a propensity score matching analysis on data from the Italian University Graduates Survey conducted in 2007 by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, which provides information on more than 40,000 graduates who obtained their degree in 2004. The main results indicate that graduates from private universities are younger, have a higher socio-economic background and a slightly better previous school career than those from state universities. Contrary to a widespread belief, once accounted for self-selection into the type of university using a wide range of variables, graduating from a private university has neither a significant nor a substantial effect on employment probability, hourly wage and occupational level three years after graduation.     

An interpretative model from the elasticity theory to explore knowledge integration in new product development

This paper presents a conceptual model to explore the knowledge integration (KI) practices of internal and external company actors involved in the New Product Development (NPD) process of the aerospace industry. The model is based on the linkage of elasticity principles, particularly Hooke’s Law, to Knowledge Management theory. KI practices are considered as a force pushing the NPD process and are metaphorically described as the spring addressed by Hooke’s law. The integration of the knowledge of internal and external company actors impacts NPD, reducing the dimensions of the whole process, in terms of phases, through the application of the concurrent engineering approach. The whole NPD process is improved in terms of the reduction of uncertainty and complexity, and with an ‘integrated energy’ that sustains the pressure of the fast-changing competitive environment. The model is explored to provide an interpretation of the conceptualisation phase of a new aerospace product development process. Qualitative data were collected and analysed. Insights regarding the applications of the model and the theoretical implications are also provided for applications in other industries.     

The Media as a Policy Instrument in Influencing the Business Model of Professional Soccer: Evidence From Italy

Italian soccer clubs in the first division have individually sold broadcasting rights for their home matches, until new laws imposed pooling and joint-selling those rights through the league and established a mandatory sharing rule to redistribute revenues in order to improve on-the-pitch competitive balance (CB). This article compares the two institutional designs. While reducing revenue inequality, the new regime distorts allocative efficiency and informational rent appropriation, opens up costly ex post renegotiations and antitrust litigations, and does not improve CB.     

Spectroscopic analyses of Hellenistic painted plasters from 2nd century B.C., Sicily (South Italy)

In the present work, an analytical characterization of painted plaster samples coming from ancient buildings dated back to 2nd cent. B.C., located in Licata (Sicily, Southern Italy), has been carried out. The investigation has been performed through different spectroscopic techniques: X-ray fluorescence (XRF) using an handheld energy-dispersive XRF analyzer, scanning electron microscopy equipped with an Energy Dispersive Spectrometry microanalysis detector (SEM-EDS) and Fourier transform infrared absorbance spectroscopy (FT-IR). The main goal is to identify the plaster and pigments material. In particular, the XRF investigation of surfaces is the first step for a preliminary elemental characterization. Then, through SEM-EDS measurements, a quantitative analysis of the chemical composition of the plaster and the pigmenting agents along with eventual components related to deterioration processes has been obtained. Finally, FT-IR absorbance spectra have proven to be a useful tool to investigate the molecular nature of the used materials.     

Combination of a Liquid-Dispensing and Micro-Aspiration Device for the Cleaning of Sensitive Painted Surfaces

Many painted surfaces, not necessarily only those with a contemporary binding media, display high sensitivity to water. The resulting damage, including swelling, leaching out of some components, even partial solubility, may lead to a shrunken, impoverished, de-plasticized, more porous paint film. Different approaches to the cleaning of such surfaces have been developed throughout the years, as awareness of this sensitivity grew worldwide. Some deal with the proper physico-chemical conditions of the aqueous solutions, and others with the proper ways of delivering these solutions to the surface. The strategy proposed in this technical note is concerned with the latter, the application stage, and is based on the combined and simultaneous use of a device capable of delivering a constant, precise amount of the aqueous cleaning solution and a surgical micro-aspirator to immediately remove the soiled solution from the surface and speed up its drying. Also, using a different apparatus, non-polar solvents can be delivered, for cleaning surfaces contaminated by non-polar, more lipophilic soiling materials.     

On cross-lingual retrieval with multilingual text encoders

Information Retrieval Journal - Pretrained multilingual text encoders based on neural transformer architectures, such as multilingual BERT (mBERT) and XLM, have recently become a default paradigm...