The Pointing–Vocal Coupling Progression in the First Half of the Second Year of Life

This study investigated the development of the pointing–vocal coupling system. We were interested in the infants’ behavior to attune prosody with pointing intentions. Twenty‐five children were involved at 12, 15, and 18 months of age in an experimental procedure devised to elicit imperative and declarative pointing. Pointing, vocality associated with pointing, and the prosody of that vocality were analyzed. A significant increase in the coupling of pointing and vocality was observed from 12 to 15 months, and in the ability to differentiate prosody with respect to the intention of the gesture from 15 to 18 months. Also, the infants who pointed declaratively at 12 months were likely to couple declarative pointing with vocality at 15 months, and the infants who coupled at 15 months were likely to differentiate prosody by the pointing intention at 18 months. Results suggest that the match between prosody and pointing intentions emerges gradually during the first half of the second year of life. They also show a relationship between earlier and later pointing–vocal coupling, and a role for declarative communication in promoting that progression. Overall, our study supports the view of intentional communication as a time‐based and context‐based developmental process.     

How emerging digital technologies affect operations management through co-creation. Empirical evidence from the maritime industry

Abstract

Globalization, variation in customer expectations, and the developments connected to Information & Communication Technology are usually considered as the main drivers of changes in Operations Management (OM) strategies by firms in both manufacturing and service industries. Emerging digital technologies, such as Internet of Things or Cloud Computing, represents a novel paradigm that is rapidly affecting on several aspects of everyday-life of private and business users. This paper contributes to extant literature about the relationship between emerging digital technologies and OM, by stressing the value co-creation issue. Specifically, we investigate how emerging digital technologies affect OM through value co-creation in the maritime industry. Our study reports the case of FairWind project, an open technology marine service and graphic user interface enabling sailors to personalize their experience on board through 3rd party boat applications. The case of Fair Wind points out how emerging digital technologies contribute to OM within both organizations and, more in general, maritime industry, as well as the critical role of user’s co-creation in defining and managing on-board operations.     

Reliability and Validity of the Pathological Gambling Adaptation of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (PG-YBOCS)

The Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale adapted for Pathological Gambling (PG-YBOCS) was developed to measure the severity and change in severity of pathological gambling symptoms. The PG-YBOCS is a 10-item clinician-administered questionnaire that measures the severity of PG over a recent time interval (usually within the past one/two week(s)). In order to assess and validate the scale, it was administered to 337 subjects: 188 pathological gamblers and 149 healthy controls. Internal consistency and correlations between individual items and total score were assessed for various permutations of the sample. Other scales were administered to assess convergent, discriminant and content validity. Sensitivity to change was evaluated in treatment studies with fluovoxamine, lithium, and valproate. Each item was frequently endorsed across a range of severity. Good inter-rater reliability and internal consistency were obtained. The PG-YBOCS showed high validity and reliability for total score, item-total correlations, and for each subscale (Thoughts/Urges and Behavior). PG-YBOCS scores correlated with global severity and South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) scores. The scale was also sensitive to change in pathological gambling severity. PG-YBOCS thus appears to be a reliable and valid measure of pathological gambling severity, and can be regarded as an important tool for clinicians and researchers treating pathological gamblers.     

Can antenatal classes reduce the rate of cesarean section in southern Italy?

Background

Among European Countries, Italy has the highest rate of cesarean section (36.8%), and in the Campania region this rate reaches 60.0%.

Is Domestic Abuse an Adult Social Work Issue?

Within a global profession with a stated definition that includes ‘promoting social change and development, social cohesion and the empowerment and liberation of people’ (online), it would be expected that the issue of domestic abuse would be integral to the training and role of all social workers. This article reports on research, which highlighted both a lack of understanding of the role of adult social worker within cases of domestic abuse and also a desire for further training around the issue. However, this article sets out how the current UK (in particular, English) context of social work marginalises the issue of domestic abuse within practice with adults. This marginalisation has been achieved through the construction of domestic abuse as a children and families issue and limited duties, powers and resources within statutory work to support victims/survivors in their own right, rather than as ‘failing’ parents. However, the article argues that the role of social work education should be wider than teaching to the current policy or procedures and instead encourage a wider appreciation of the social, historical and political context. The article concludes with tentative suggestions for how domestic abuse could be considered within the social work curriculum for adult practitioners. This is in acknowledgement that social workers can be well positioned for the detection, investigation and support of those experiencing abuse.     

The City Park as a Public Good Reference for Internet Policy Making

Extensive literature has provided evidence of the organic nature of the Internet as a domain for different sorts of activities. Most policy making regarding the Internet, however, has focused on its economic dimensions (e.g. e-commerce, copyrights, privacy) while taking timid steps when it comes to its cultural and social dimensions. We propose a more comprehensive approach for global policy making on the Internet by looking retrospectively at processes that led to the creation of urban parks, and examining those processes in light of public goods theory. We conducted historical and theoretical analyses to show that, in the same way urban parks define spaces that mediate between different functions of the city, it is possible to define buffer spaces within the Internet that mediate between competing spheres of activity. As a complex phenomenon involving infrastructure, applications, and content, the Internet possesses features that can be located at different points between purely private and purely public goods. This fact parallels the growing attention that public goods theorists are paying to non-economic factors to explain the provisions of goods under circumstances that do not easily fit supply/demand laws. We argue that urban parks, as hybrid public goods, offer a reference for the design of policies that harmonize competing interests because they are spaces justified by manifold rationales (economic, political, social and cultural). As parks offer possibilities for spontaneous re-appropriations of the city as a cohesive entity (i.e. something beyond a disconnected collection of populations), defining similar multi-purpose spaces on the Internet would facilitate coexistence of competing and complementary behaviours by allowing users to re-appropriate this technology as a comprehensive entity beyond a mere aggregation of transactions and interests.     

Impact of Adolescents' Filial Self‐Efficacy on Quality of Family Functioning and Satisfaction

In this prospective study, we tested a structural model in which adolescents' perceived self‐efficacy to manage parental relationships affected their satisfaction with family life both directly, and indirectly, through its impact on family practices. Findings based on 380 Italian adolescents showed that perceived filial self‐efficacy was linked directly and indirectly to satisfaction with family life, and that these relations held both concurrently and longitudinally. In particular, the greater adolescents perceived their self‐efficacy, the more they reported open communication with their parents, the more accepting they were of their parents' monitoring of their own activities outside the home and the less inclined they were to get into escalative discord over disagreements. Regardless of whether perceived filial self‐efficacy was placed in the conceptual structure as a contributor to the quality of family interactions or as a partial product of family functioning, it consistently predicted satisfaction with family life.     

Job Satisfaction: A Study of Sydney Adults

About one quarter of the 20,434 men and about one fifth of the 17,211 women who had a Medicheck screening expressed dissatisfaction with their job. Single men and single women were the least satisfied. The most positive aspects of work for men and women were that the job was interesting and that there was independence and freedom. Boredom, as well as not using one's potential, discriminated clearly between those satisfied with their job and those not, for both men and women. Job dissatisfaction was closely associated with other psychosocial problems and in particular with life dissatisfaction.