A Social‐Cognitive Model of Pandemic Influenza H1N1 Risk Perception and Recommended Behaviors in Italy

The outbreak of the pandemic influenza H1N1 2009 (swine flu) between March and April 2009 challenged the health services around the world. Indeed, misconceptions and worries have led the public to refuse to comply with precautionary measures. Moreover, there have been limited efforts to develop models incorporating cognitive, social‐contextual, and affective factors as predictors of compliance with recommended behaviors. The aim of this study was to apply a social‐cognitive model of risk perception and individual response to pandemic influenza H1N1 in a representative sample of Italian population. A sample of 1,010 Italians of at least 18 years of age took part in a telephone survey. The survey included measures of perceived preparedness of institutions, family members and friends’ levels of worry, exposure to media campaigns (social‐contextual factors), perceived coping efficacy, likelihood of infection, perceived seriousness, personal impact, and severity of illness (cognitive evaluations), affective response and compliance with recommended behaviors. Results demonstrated that affective response fully mediated the relationship between cognitive evaluations and social‐contextual factors (with the exception of exposure to media campaigns) and compliance with recommended behaviors. Perceived coping efficacy and preparedness of institutions were not related to compliance with recommended behaviors.     

Wholly proprietary versus wholly open knowledge strategies: some empirical evidences from Italian biotech firms

This paper focuses on biotechnologies and biotech companies. Our aim is to develop a model for assessing the openness degree of knowledge governance strategies, applying it to the biotech firms. Biotech production is described as an emerging meta-industry in the global economy, fostering through new products, many socio-economic fields. Its main features are: a close relationship among knowledge, innovation and competitiveness; the need for collaborative research; the importance of small firms. Our paper begins with a brief characterization of the biotech meta-sector. We then review the literature regarding the advantages and disadvantages of ??wholly proprietary?? versus ??wholly open?? knowledge strategies. Next we propose a model and report the main results of its application to biotech companies in Italy. In conclusion, we evaluate the degree of openness of the company knowledge strategies based upon empirical evidence from our research in the field.     

Using Expert Models in Human Reliability Analysis—A Dependence Assessment Method Based on Fuzzy Logic

In human reliability analysis (HRA), dependence analysis refers to assessing the influence of the failure of the operators to perform one task on the failure probabilities of subsequent tasks. A commonly used approach is the technique for human error rate prediction (THERP). The assessment of the dependence level in THERP is a highly subjective judgment based on general rules for the influence of five main factors. A frequently used alternative method extends the THERP model with decision trees. Such trees should increase the repeatability of the assessments but they simplify the relationships among the factors and the dependence level. Moreover, the basis for these simplifications and the resulting tree is difficult to trace. The aim of this work is a method for dependence assessment in HRA that captures the rules used by experts to assess dependence levels and incorporates this knowledge into an algorithm and software tool to be used by HRA analysts. A fuzzy expert system (FES) underlies the method. The method and the associated expert elicitation process are demonstrated with a working model. The expert rules are elicited systematically and converted into a traceable, explicit, and computable model. Anchor situations are provided as guidance for the HRA analyst's judgment of the input factors. The expert model and the FES‐based dependence assessment method make the expert rules accessible to the analyst in a usable and repeatable way, with an explicit and traceable basis.     

Between research and revival. Emerging trends among highly religious young Catholics in Italy

Research shows that Italians’ religiosity is in constant decline. Religious literacy, individual and collective practice, participation in rituals, faith’s transmission and symbols’ sharing seem to be following a slow but inexorable downward trend. Catholic communities are being depopulated and churches are emptying out. These phenomena, already emerging in those generations born during the economic boom, seem to have a greater impact on younger generations: the decline of Catholicism as a socio-cultural phenomenon is characterising our era. Despite those general trends, young generations are not merely abandoning their faith. Even if faith has lost its social function, young Catholics in Italy often cultivate it on an individual level, between the autonomous search for their own spiritual path and the reproduction of forms of high religiosity derived from the family. In some cases, the younger generations show a renewed religiosity, stronger and more secure than that of their parents, which may sometimes involve them in a path of Catholicism’s rediscovery. The article presents and discusses results on highly religious young Catholics deriving from empirical research on intergenerational religious transmission in Italian families, which has been conducted through focus groups and in-depth interviews between 2020 and 2022.     

Living arrangements in Europe: whether and why paternal retirement matters

This paper uses retrospective micro data from eleven European countries to investigate the role of paternal retirement in explaining children’s decisions to leave the parental home. To assess causality, I use a bivariate discrete-time hazard model with shared frailty and exploit over time and cross-country variation in early retirement legislation. Overall, the results indicate a positive and significant influence of paternal retirement on the probability of first nest-leaving of children residing in Southern European countries, for both sons and daughters. Focusing on Southern Europe, I find that the increase in children’s nest-leaving around the time of paternal retirement does not appear to be justified by changes in parental resources. Rather, channels involving the supply of informal child care provided by grandparents or the quality of the home should be the focus of study.     

CONSUMPTION EXTERNALITIES AND MONETARY POLICY WITH LIMITED ASSET MARKET PARTICIPATION

This article explores the interaction between consumption externalities and limited asset market participation (LAMP) in the standard New‐Keynesian model. We assess the performance of simple Taylor‐type interest rate rules with respect to (a) equilibrium determinacy, (b) the model's ability to simultaneously generate output and inflation volatility similar to the pre‐Volcker era, and (c) the model's response to a technology shock. We find that when individual preferences are affected by average household consumption (Aggregate Consumption Externality), stronger externalities increase the range of LAMP for which multiple equilibria arise even if the policy rule satisfies the Taylor principle. The interaction of LAMP and externalities can generate vast inflation/output relative volatility in line with the one observed in the data in the 1970s. According to our analysis, consumption externalities also affect the responses of endogenous variables to total factor productivity shocks. (JEL E4, E5)     

The role of age in the relationship between work social characteristics and job attitudes

Despite the amount of research on the link between work social characteristics and job attitudes, there is a lack of work on moderators of this relationship. In the present study, we examine the role of age as a moderating effect of this relationship using life-span development theory. The aim of this paper is to study the moderator effect of age in the relationship between two work social characteristics (interaction outside the organization and interdependence) and job attitudes (i.e., general job satisfaction and work engagement). Participants were 258 workers from private organizations. Data were collected at two time points (2 to 4 weeks between T₁ and T₂). Results showed that the relationship between interdependence and work engagement was stronger for older workers than for younger workers. In addition, the relationship between interaction outside the organization and general job satisfaction was stronger for younger than for older workers. Because increased engagement and satisfaction in an age-diverse workforce is important, organizations may benefit by challenging older workers with interdependent tasks, and younger workers with interaction with stakeholders outside the organization.     

“I Know That You Know How I Feel”: Behavioral and Physiological Signals Demonstrate Emotional Attunement While Interacting with a Computer Simulating Emotional Intelligence

Human–human communication studies have suggested that within communicative interactions, individuals acknowledge each other as intentional agents and adjust their emotion nonverbal behavior according to the other. This process has been defined as emotional attunement. In this study, we examine the emotional attunement process in the context of affective human–computer interactions. To this purpose, participants were exposed to one of two conditions. In one case, they played with a computer that simulated understanding of their emotional reactions while guiding them across four different game-like activities; in the other, the computer guided participants across the activities without mentioning any ability to understand emotional responses. Face movements, gaze direction, posture, vocal behavior, electrocardiogram and electrodermal activity were simultaneously recorded during the experimental sessions. Results showed that if participants were aware of interacting with an agent able to recognize their emotions, they reported that the computer was able to “understand” them and showed a higher number of nonverbal behaviors during the most interactive activity. The implications are discussed.