Development of the concepts of living and animal in the child

From Piaget’s research down to the most recent work of Carey and Wellman, it has been attempted to describe the development of basic concepts such as living and animal in the child. There have been less frequent attempts to draw from the results of these investigations suitable teachings for correct scientific education at school. The educational system continues to make proposals which clash clearly with the indications of research. The aim of our research is to bridge the gap between these two needs, as well as to study the development of the concept of living and animal in seven to twelve-year-olds and to draw the necessary educational conclusions. In particular, we have investigated how these concepts are modified at the various ages, between boys and girls and between country dwellers, who have a direct experience of animals, and town dwellers, who do not. The results are on the one hand in agreement with those of international research, adding information concerning the variables sex and direct experience, hitherto relatively uninvestigated; on the other, they provide definite indications as to the succession of contents to offer in a science syllabus, to the advisability of taking into account the considerable difference between boys and girls, and to the need to enhance the role of practical experience of exploring and laboratory work in studying natural science.     

The Impact of the Bologna Process on Graduation: New Evidence from Italy

Research in Higher Education - Between 2001 and 2005, higher education in Italy went through a considerable process of reform according to the Bologna Process. This paper evaluates the effects of...     

Intercultural practices and inclusive education in Europe: can migration be a resource for individual and societal development?

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This is an introductory paper to the special section “Multilingual learning and social inclusion of children: The development of educational...     

Knowledge codification and the geography of innovation: the case of Brescia mechanical cluster

The paper re-examines the twin concepts of knowledge “tacitness” and “codification”, which both the literature on (broadly defined) industrial districts, and some recent econometric literature on “localized knowledge spillovers” have possibly mis-handled. Even within specialized local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) clusters, knowledge may be highly codified and firm-specific. The case study on Brescia mechanical firms shows that knowledge, rather than flowing freely within the cluster boundaries, circulates within a few smaller “epistemic communities”, each centered around the mechanical engineers of individual machine producers, and spanning to a selected number of suppliers’ and customers’ technicians. Physical distance among members of each community vary a lot, but even local messages may be highly codified.     

Venture capital investment strategies under financing constraints: Evidence from the 2008 financial crisis

This paper employs the 2008 financial crisis as an empirical setting to examine how investment strategies of venture capitalists (VCs) vary in the presence of a liquidity supply shock, and what the performance implications of these strategies are for their portfolio startups. We show that while, on aggregate, funded startups receive no less financing during the financial crisis than in non-crisis times, VCs allocate relatively more resources to startups operating in the VCs’ core sectors. We show that this skew allocation follows from VCs choosing to double down on their core-sector investing, rather than by a changed mix of investors or startups during the financial crisis. These effects are strongest for early-stage startups, for which information problems are most severe. Furthermore, these results are driven by the investment strategies of more-experienced VCs. Building on these findings, we find superior ex post performance among crisis-funded portfolio startups operating in more-experienced VCs’ core sectors.     

Innovation and Employment: a Reinvestigation using Revised Pavitt classes

The relationship between innovation and employment is addressed in this article through a model and empirical test at industry level for eight European countries in 1994-2004. We investigate this relationship for manufacturing and services and propose a Revised Pavitt taxonomy (covering both of them) in order to identify specific patterns of technological change and job creation and loss. The contrasting effects of strategies of technological or cost competitiveness are investigated using innovation variables from CIS2 and CIS3. Together with demand, wages and industry dynamics, they account for changes in employees and hours worked. The diversity in these relations across industries is also explored; when the model is applied to each Revised Pavitt class, different mechanisms of technological change and effects on jobs emerge.     

Network effects in technology acceptance: Laboratory experimental evidence

This research analyzes network effects in technology acceptance. The hypothesis is that the size of the user network affects technology acceptance. Even today, empirical measurement of network effects is challenging and there is a lack of experimental evidence. In order to investigate and measure the relationship between network size (number of adopters) and user acceptance, technology acceptance research needs to broaden its scope and approaches. To overcome this limitation we reproduce a particular type of technology acceptance process in a laboratory experiment, controlling for user network size and testing its influence on user perceptions and, ultimately, on acceptance decisions. We measured user perceptions and analyzed the data using consolidated and tested technology acceptance models. The results confirm our hypothesis, showing a significant effect of user network size on user perceptions. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our approach and findings.     

Cultural heritage interactive 3D models on the web: An approach using open source and free software

Cultural heritage sites and artefacts get a significant added value from high-resolution 3D models. These models are increasingly available due to improvements in technology and to higher integration of survey techniques such as laser scanning and photogrammetry. In this paper we present a case study on the development of a web-based application for user access and interactive exploration of three-dimensional models by providing integrated geometrical and non-geometrical information into an intuitive interface. The main feature of this interactive system is to provide the user with a completely new visit experience based on a free interactive exploration interface of the object (i.e., not constrained by any predefined pathway) and on the opportunity to get more detailed information on specific parts of interest. A parallel aim achieved was to use, in data processing and in the architecture, open source tools and free software, thus providing full transparency on adopted methodology and data processing methods, and a cost effective solution both for server and client. Furthermore, the aspect of data size has been considered using a segmentation and simplification scheme and server-side data management to keep transmission size to a minimum, thus improving access speed.     

Recent advances in swollen-state NMR spectroscopy for the study of drying oils

The cross-linking processes of three drying oils (poppy, linseed, walnut), a class of organic compounds very important in the field of artworks, were studied by means of ¹H-NMR spectroscopy, following the change of the protons signals when oils are heated at 60 °C in the presence of air or nitrogen gas. This preliminary information is particularly important to identify the presence of drying oils within a solid painting film. We demonstrated that it was possible to study these films by swollen-state NMR, an innovative spectroscopy method that can directly analyze very small semisolid samples instead of solutions. The main advantages of this method are the short time of analysis, the possibility to analyze samples without any preliminary treatment, and the small quantity of the sample required. Therefore, swollen-state NMR technique was used to characterize three real painting films: in this way, we succeeded in recognizing in real paintings specimens the presence of drying oils employed as binders, avoiding any interferences due to other organic compounds acting as binding agents, like waxes or egg-yolk media.