Unwanted Online Attentions Among an Italian Students Sample

The use of the Internet and new technologies now seems to permeate the entire society, affecting every aspect of daily life. Although this change is characterized by undeniable positive aspects, it simultaneously bears a number of risks which are higher especially with respect to the growing number of younger users. In fact, young people, as the most involved in cyber space, are an age group most exposed to the dangers of improper and not aware use of electronic tools. The specific aim of this research was to study unwanted online attentions (UOA) among a sample of Italian students (N?=?585, mean age?=?14.5), identifying UOA as all those behaviors carried out through the Internet and technology to annoy, disturb, offend, humiliate, intimidate, threat, harass, harm or attack others. The online questionnaire investigated the online habits of the students, the presence of UOA and the characteristics of victims and perpetrators, the perception and emotional impact of such conducts, and the victims' possible reactions. The findings offer an estimate of the prevalence of these behaviors in the population of this age group in the area considered. More importantly, the results reveal a very high involvement in technology by the students accompanied by a lack of awareness regarding the risks connected to technology use as well as a low perception of UOA. These results give evidence of the needs in terms of prevention and education instruments in order to improve the system of responses to cybervictimization among young people.     

Covering Legal Mobilization: A Bottom‐Up Analysis of Wards Cove v. Atonio

We develop a political history of Wards Cove v. Atonio (1989) to show how Robert Cover's concepts of jurisgenesis and jurispathy can enrich the legal mobilization framework for understanding law and social change. We illustrate the value of the hybrid theory by recovering the Wards Cove workers’ own understanding of the role of litigation in their struggle for workplace rights. The cannery worker plaintiffs exemplified Cover's dual logic by articulating aspirational narratives of social justice and by critically rebuking the Supreme Court's ruling as the “death throe” for progressive minority workers’ rights advocacy. The cannery workers’ story also highlights the importance of integrating legal mobilization scholars’ focus on extrajudicial political engagement into Cover's judge‐centered analysis. Our aim is to forge a theoretical bridge between Cover's provocative arguments about law and the analytical tradition of social science scholarship on the politics of legal mobilization.     

Determinants of the university technology transfer policy-mix: a cross-national analysis of gap-funding instruments

University–industry technology transfer (TT) has become increasingly institutionalized and is supported by numerous reforms and initiatives at the national, regional and university levels. Most countries have implemented a policy mix involving a range of instruments to support the commercialization of research. Still, there is no systematic evidence indicating why the mix of policy instruments differs between countries. This study offers a novel cross-national investigation of the policy mix emphasizing the level of centralization and decentralization of policy instruments. We map and analyze two specific types of public instruments aimed at addressing the so-called funding gap in TT: proof of concept programs (POCs) and university-oriented seed funds (USFs). Based on a survey across 21 European countries, we find that such instruments are widely used but are organized differently depending on the level of implementation of TT practices in the country and the specific type of instrument considered. More precisely, we find a U-shaped relationship between the use of centralized gap-funding instruments and the country’s implementation of TT practices. Moreover, the type of gap-funding instrument (POC or USF) moderates this relationship. We discuss the implications of our findings and suggest that the policy mix of gap-funding instruments evolve with the maturity of the national TT infrastructure.     

Bribery and Public Debt Repudiation

In cases where policy makers accept ``bribes'' offered by organised lobbies or interestedparties, government decisions can be modelled as a first price menu auction. In this paper we adaptthis structure to model debt repudiation. We considera one-period model in which two generations, parents and children, are present, and debt titles are unevenlydistributed among parents. The government can repaythe debt by a combination of taxes on the children'sincome and on the outstanding debt. We excludeintergenerational conflicts, assuming that the parents'and children's objective is to maximise the utility ofthe family. In this perspective, families make offersthat relate monetary contributions to the taxstructures chosen by the government. On the hypothesisthat all interests are represented, we obtain theresult that the government is indifferent to the taxstructure.