Does Citizenship Still Matter? Second Birth Risks of Migrants from Albania, Morocco, and Romania in Italy

In this article we investigate the propensities to have the second child in Italy for foreign women from Albania, Morocco, and Romania. Our study contributes to the international debate on migrant fertility by testing the main competing hypotheses present in literature, using the Italian case as an illustration. Italy is an important case study because it has been a country of immigration for only a few decades and because the literature on this topic was limited in Italy by the difficulties in obtaining proper longitudinal data. An important component of our work was therefore to build a new data set, using record linkage procedures that allow us to improve the information from Survey on Birth and Resident Permit Registers and to study the individual childbearing trajectories. Our results confirm the importance of the mother??s citizenship. The impact remains strong after controlling for the main demographic and migratory characteristics. We found that older cohorts experience a disruption effect but that a native Italian partner can promote an adaptation process such as a convergence in fertility behavior toward that of native Italian women.     

From the manifestations of culture to the underlying sensemaking process. The contribution of semiotic cultural psychology theory to the interpretation of socio-political scenario

Several explanations of the current syndrome affecting advanced democracies make reference to a process of cultural change that has been triggered by the complex and interrelated phenomena known as globalization. The rise of populist-authoritarian parties, the advent of post-truth politics and the increasing dissatisfaction with democracy are seen by many political scientists as rather direct consequences of social and economic transformations which had changed the context in which the democratic process takes place. The main limitation of this literature is that it treats culture as a black box receiving inputs from the social context and translate them into political consequences. By doing so it cannot explain why the same conditions produce different consequences in different contexts and it is silent on the criteria to develop anti-crisis policies. This article argues that some of the insights offered by the Semiotic Cultural Psychology Theory, most notably the idea that cultural evolution is moved by the need to find affect-laden, simplified interpretations of the reality to restore the capacity of making sense on an uncertain socio-political context, can enhance the ability of political scientists to understand the current political phenomena and to develop methodological criteria to counteract the current scenario of democratic crisis.     

Gene–Environment Interplay: Where We Are,Where We Are Going

The idea that both genetic and environmental influences contribute to behavioral outcomes is widely accepted. However, the practice of examining candidate Gene × Environment interaction (cGxE) is controversial. In this article, we summarize some of the key issues involved in cGxE research and provide recommendations for work in this area. Highlighted challenges include the selection of the gene, the development of the cGxE hypothesis, and the coding of the genotype. To address these challenges and gain confidence in cGxE findings, we recommend using empirical data to select and code genes/variants, using theory to develop cGxE hypotheses and a rigorous and transparent approach to hypothesis testing. Family researchers have much to offer to the study of Gene × Environment research in view of their process‐oriented theories that are grounded in decades of nuanced measurement of the environment; implementing these best practices will help deliver on that promise.     

SCOAP3 and Open Access

Abstract

SCOAP3 is an innovative Open Access initiative for publishing in high-energy physics. The model is viewed by many as a potential solution to multiple issues related to the financial crisis, the peer review system, scholarly communication, and the need to support institutional repositories. This installment of “The Balance Point” presents articles written by three Open Access advocates, outlining the SCOAP3 proposal, benefits of participation, and some of the roles libraries, publishers and scientists can play in making important changes to scholarly communication. Contributors discuss scalability and transferability issues of SCOAP3, as well as other matters of concern.     

RUTA: A framework for assessing and selecting additive value functions on the basis of rank related requirements

In this paper, we present a new preference disaggregation method, called RUTA, which infers a set of additive value functions from the preference information referring to the desired ranks of some reference alternatives. Real-life experience indicates that people willingly refer to the range of allowed ranks that a particular alternative should attain, or to constraints on the final scores of the alternatives. We develop a mathematical model for incorporating such preference information via mixed-integer linear programming (MILP). Then, we discuss how decision making could be supported with the use of the already proposed extreme ranking analysis (ERA), which indicates the best and worst ranks gained by each alternative over the set of compatible preference model instances. We also introduce a new interactive UTA-like technique, which aims at selecting a single value function representing the outcomes of ERA. In the interactive process, the decision maker (DM) is assigning priorities to different pre-defined targets, which are built on results of ERA, and refer to the comparison of the best and/or worst ranks for pairs of alternatives. In particular, the DM may choose to emphasize or neglect the advantage of some alternatives over the others, in terms of results of ERA. In this way, one obtains a synthetic representation of extreme ranking analysis at a higher level of abstraction.