Who is a Distracted Driver? Associations between Mobile Phone Use while Driving,Domain‐Specific Risk Taking,and Personality

Mobile phone use while driving (MPUWD) is an increasingly common form of distracted driving. Given its widespread prevalence, it is important for researchers to identify factors that may predict who is more likely to engage in this risky behavior. The current study investigates associations between MPUWD risk behaviors, domain‐specific risk perceptions, and broad personality dimensions. An Italian community sample (n = 804) completed a survey regarding MPUWD risk perceptions and engagement in MPUWD, in addition to the HEXACO‐PI‐R, a broad six‐factor personality inventory (honesty‐humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience), and the DOSPERT, a six‐factor domain‐specific self‐report risk‐taking measure (health/safety, recreational, social, ethical, gambling, and investment). With respect to domain‐specific risk taking, greater frequency of SMS use while driving most strongly was associated with greater risk taking for the health/safety, gambling, and ethical risk domains. Further, greater honesty‐humility and conscientiousness, two traits related to cognitive control and risk behaviors, and to a lesser extent openness to experience, were associated with less frequent MPUWD, and positively associated with MPUWD risk perceptions. With growing public safety concern surrounding MPUWD, understanding associated personality factors is not only important for identifying psychological mechanisms underlying risk behavior, but also for more effective prevention and intervention programs.     

Identifying radon-prone building typologies by marginal modelling

Radon is a naturally occurring decay product of uranium known to be the main contributor to natural background radiation exposure. It has been established that the health risk related to radon exposure is lung cancer. In fact, radon is considered to be a major leading cause of lung cancer, second only to smoking. In this paper, we identified building typologies that affect the probability of detecting indoor radon concentration above reference values, using the data collected within two monitoring campaigns recently conducted in Northern Italy. This information is fundamental both in prevention, i.e. when the construction of a new building is planned and in mitigation, i.e. when a high concentration detected inside buildings has to be reduced. A spatial regression approach for binary data was adopted for this goal where some relevant covariates on the soil were retrieved by linking external spatial databases.     

THE BALANCED US PRESS

We measure the relative ideological positions of newspapers, voters, interest groups, and political parties, using data on ballot propositions. We exploit the fact that newspapers, parties, and interest groups take positions on these propositions, and the fact that citizens ultimately vote on them. We find that, on average, newspapers in the United States are located almost exactly at the median voter in their states—that is, they are balanced around the median voter. Still, there is a significant amount of ideological heterogeneity across newspapers, which is smaller than the one found for interest groups. However, when we group propositions by issue area, we find a sizable amount of ideological imbalance: broadly speaking, newspapers are to the left of the state‐level median voter on many social issues, and to the right on many economic issues. To complete the picture, we use two existing methods of measuring bias and show that the news and editorial sections of newspapers have almost identical partisan positions.     

The institutional concealment of the Romanies’ culture: the ongoing legacy of Fascist Italy

This paper presents the case of the Romanies in Italy and the ‘forgotten’ nature of their genocide. The crimes committed by the Fascist regime towards these peoples during the Second World War were not disclosed until recently. In past decades it was commonly believed that Fascism had targeted Romanies merely as a problem of ‘public order’, rather than as a racial issue. This study argues that a lack of official acknowledgement, together with recent authoritarian approaches towards them (such as the introduction of 2008 ‘Nomad Emergency’ and the ongoing adoption of the highly criticized ‘camps policy’), could all be interpreted as an indirect consequence of the government's incapacity to deal with a shameful past and its unbroken ties. The existence of ‘gaps’ in Italian collective memory is now harming the health of Italy's democratic polity, allowing racism to re-emerge, while resuscitating a deep-seated belief in the ‘legendary generosity’ of Italians.     

The Construction of a Synthetic Index Comparing Multidimensional Well-Being in the European Union

For many years, the quantification and measurement of level of well-being in a society has become an object of study by researchers, economists, international organizations and institutions. The purpose of these researches and applications is mainly the collection of data as accurate and complete as possible, dictating the paths of economic and social development policies, in order to help the economic problem of allocating scarce resources within a community, where not all individual needs can be fully met. The present work is intended as a part of that field. It will undertake the construction of a composite index of multidimensional well-being, through an aggregation of data, able to balance the trade-off between immediacy and completeness of information and to trespass the limits that characterize the commonly used income related measures. The method of factor analysis, which aims at detecting a statistically sufficient number of variables, is used to represent most of the explained variance of the phenomenon. Results are tested with different aggregative processes. This analysis is applied to the reality of the European Union, characterized by deep transformation and cultural, economic and social inequalities.     

Relational sociology: a well-defined sociological paradigm or a challenging ‘relational turn’ in sociology?

In this paper I present and summarize the theoretical proposals of four leading scholars of the so-called ‘relational sociology’. First of all I try to contextualize its emergence and developments in the increasingly globalized scientific system. From this particular (and international) point of view, relational sociology seems to develop through a peculiar scientific path opened and charted by well-identified actors and competitors, their invisible colleges, their global connections, cleavages, and coalitions. Whatever the structuring of this field, it accomplishes the criticism of classical individualistic and collectivistic sociological theories, a task strongly facilitated by the development of new methods and techniques of empirical research, and by the increasingly powerful computing capabilities. After this brief historical reconstruction, and following very strictly the contributions of the four scholars, I try to synthetize their theoretical designs, focusing the analysis on two scientific issues of great significance for the future of relational sociology: the specific ontology of ‘social relations’ and the methodologies used to observe it adequately. Finally, I wonder if we are facing a new sociological paradigm, already well structured and internationally established, or rather a ‘relational turn’ that probably will develop into a new ‘sociological field’ internally very differentiated and articulated.     

Saddlepoint approximations for some models of circular data

In this article we provide saddlepoint approximations for some important models of circular data. The particularity of these saddlepoint approximations is that they do not require solving the saddlepoint equation iteratively, so their evaluation is immediate. We first give very accurate approximations to P-values, critical values and power functions for some optimal tests regarding the concentration parameter under wrapped symmetric α-stable and circular normal models. Then, we consider an approximation to the distribution of a projection of the two-dimensional Pearson random walk with exponential step sizes.     

Performance management change in archaeological sites: The case of Herculaneum Conservation Project

This study focuses on the issues relating to the implementation of management accounting systems in complex settings such as archeological sites. The aim is to understand the conditions under which the implementation of performance management systems (PMS) may enable cultural organizations to fulfil their multiple objectives and the factors which play a crucial role in such dynamics. Focusing on the Herculaneum Conservation Project (HCP) the study explains how PMS came to be implemented having been made acceptable to all parties involved. The Middle Range Theory as developed by Broadbent and Laughlin (Accounting control and controlling accounting: interdisciplinary and critical perspectives, Bingley, Emerald, 2013) was utilized to explore how the PMS change took place in the HCP, and focus on the factors influencing this process. The findings reveal that the change in the PMS benefited from the involvement of a multidisciplinary Specialist Work Group. This involvement reduced the natural tendency to resist the forces of change and increased the commitment of the various groups of stakeholders to the new culture. The findings reveal how PMS were developed in the context of a multifaceted approach to change, allowing us to draw both theoretical and practical lessons that may be brought to bear in other complex contexts.     

School factors helping disadvantaged students to succeed: empirical evidence from four Italian cities

This research investigates a particular category of disadvantaged students, namely those who are able to overcome a situation of socio-economical disadvantage and obtain good academic results (here named ‘resilient students’). We have used micro-data provided by the Italian National Evaluation Committee for Education and focused on class and school-level characteristics that help disadvantaged students to become resilient students when they move from primary (grade 5) to lower secondary school (grade 6), concentrating our analysis on four major cities. We employed a probit regression and a propensity score matching model, finding that class and school factors do matter. In particular, we looked at whether the performance of their peers has a positive impact on that of disadvantaged students, estimating the increased probability of these students becoming resilient.