Changing attitudes about self-injury prevention management: lessons learned

In the behavioral health environment, nurses often use continuous staff monitoring and, at times, physical restraints, to manage the severity of patients' self-injury. Both options put staff in control, are the most restrictive in nature, and can be financially draining on the hospital's budget. This can result in negative reactions by both patients and staff. It is important to develop a program that will empower patients to control their behavior and allow staff to be aware of their perceptions and attitudes toward patients who self-injure. This article describes the leadership initiative that drove the development, training, and implementation of a self-injury prevention project and the lessons learned by staff.     

The disenchantment of Bitcoin: unveiling the myth of a digital currency

Bitcoin and its peculiar, decentralized transaction system, have already ignited interest by professional and retail traders in search for profits and by economists and legal experts, looking for possible regulation to contain illegal uses. We instead examine the unexpected and ongoing success of Bitcoin from a sociological perspective, first questioning its unusual legitimation system, backed by the so called ‘blockchain technology’, instead of by governmental authorities. Then we collect data and elements to reconstruct Bitcoin’s history as a cryptocurrency, starting from the mysterious story surrounding its birth. We then follow its spread and development through social networks and words of mouth, together with its sudden booms and bursts, finally to suggest that both users and institutional regulators should be aware of the risks of Bitcoin and of its alleged power to challenge our very notion of money.     

The Prosecution of Political Corruption: France,Italy and the USA - A Comparative View

The 1948 Italian Constitution provides for the independence of judges and magistrates. As a result of the tragic outcome of the war, of efforts to prevent dictatorships, war and the violation of human rights, the Italian framers have created an institutional system which can resist political interference in the cases in which elected officials and cabinet ministers are involved. A comparative analysis of France and the USA highlights that in those countries magistrates do not enjoy the same constitutional protection. The state, therefore, and the community, is not adequately protected by a system where power-holders can stop and divert investigations on political corruption.     

When money does not buy happiness: The case of “frustrated achievers”

An increase in real per capita income is generally expected to be associated with nonnegative variations in life satisfaction. The alternative (association with negative changes) is generally defined as “frustrated achievement” [Graham, C., Pettinato, S., 2002. Happiness and Hardship: Opportunity and Insecurity in New Market Economies. The Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C.].We investigate the determinants of “frustrated achievement” in the German socioeconomic panel on more than 30,000 individuals collected between 1992 and 2004. We observe a parallel reduction in self-declared life satisfaction corresponding to almost one-third of yearly increases in (equalised) real household income.Our econometric findings show that the lack of a full-time job, health deterioration, relative income effects, marital status shocks and poorer social life are the main factors associated with this phenomenon.     

Public corruption: A study across regions in Italy

This work explores the determinants of public corruption using a regional panel dataset on crimes perpetrated in Italy by public officials against the public administration in combination with a set of demographic and socio-economic variables. The results suggest that both the size and the composition of public spending at the local level explain corruption. We also find that regions where social capital is higher are more likely to face a lower incidence of corruption crimes. Moreover, regions which have historically placed less importance on rooting out corruption may be stuck in a vicious circle of higher levels of corruption.     

Ergonomics and design for sustainability in healthcare: ambient assisted living and the social-environmental impact of patients lifestyle

This work presents considerations on Ergonomics and Design for Sustainability in the healthcare field based on research experiences of the Technology and Design for Healthcare (TeDH) research group of INDACO (Industrial design, communication, arts and fashion) department of Politecnico di Milano. In order to develop a multidisciplinary approach to design able to answer to specific user needs such as elderly in an environmental sustainable way (1) this paper shows the results we achieved concerning ergonomics and environmental impact in product development (2), the extension of this approach to interior and home design and the advantage of the application of Information Communication Technologies (ICT). ICT can help people with special needs to make their everyday life easier and more safe, at the same time, ICT can make social-environmental impact of everyday behavior evident and can be applied to manage sustainability. The specific theme is thus to integrate ergonomics and sustainability competences in the development of Ambient Assisted Living through a Product- Service System approach. The concept of product service system has the potential to improve product performances and services, establish new relations and networks with different actors in order to satisfy user needs and apply a systems approach considering environmental, social and economic factors in the users' environment.     

Human Capital,Wages and Family Interactions

The majority of studies of the returns to human capital investment have generally considered the relationship among wages and individuals’ investment in education. However, among factors which increase individuals’ stocks of human capital and affect their labour market performances there are variables linked to the relevant social environment, such as the family. This paper takes into consideration intra‐generational relations which form between spouses through marriage, as well as inter‐generational relationships between parents and their sons/daughters. The empirical work investigates the effects of some family background variables on individuals’ economic performances, using data drawn from the 1995 survey of household income and wealth conducted by the Bank of Italy. The results of the analysis show that individuals’ wages do not depend only on their own human capital endowment, but also on that of other family members (parents and partners).