Journals
2026 EN
Fontefrancesco Michele Filippo · Fusar Poli Elena
This article explores three applied anthropology interventions conducted in Italy, aiming to understand and value youth experiences in non-formal educational settings. Using a participatory methodological approach, the projects examine young people’s relationships with public space, food culture as an identity element, and psychological challenges in the post-pandemic context. The interventions (“Bang! Immagini da Valenza!”, “Il Cibo a 4 Occhi,” and “Pazzesk@”) focus on fostering youth identity co-construction and facilitating intergenerational dialogue. The findings demonstrate how an interdisciplinary, multimodal approach can provide a safe expressive space for youth, strengthening their role as active agents within communities. Finally, the article discusses the potential of applied anthropology to address educational and social issues and suggests ways to expand these practices into new territorial and institutional contexts to support the growth and social participation of future generations.
Journals
2026 EN
Raitano Michele
The standard definition of disposable income used in comparisons of inequality and poverty does not consider costs and benefits from housing. Such exclusion might bias comparisons of the features of the income distribution across countries. Against this background, the contribution of this article is twofold. First, it reviews the methods proposed to take account of the advantages coming from home ownership, assessing pros and cons of the imputed rent and the out-of-pocket approaches. Second, making use of the EU-SILC, it presents empirical evidence for EU-27 countries aimed at investigating whether: (i) cross-country comparisons of inequality and poverty levels are robust with respect to the approach used to consider housing; ii) individuals’ income rankings and poverty status dramatically change according to the approach to consider housing. We find that the inclusion of imputed rents engenders a non-negligible reduction in inequality and poverty in almost all countries, while both indices largely increase everywhere when housing costs are deducted from income. Furthermore, the extent of individuals’ re-ranking when different distributions are compared is impressive everywhere. We also find that countries characterised by a ‘unitary’ rental system are among those where the impact of housing on inequality and poverty reduction is the lowest.
Journals
2026 EN
Rowe Emily · Sullivan Anna · Tippett Neil
+5 more
Internationally, education systems face significant challenges in ensuring adequate teacher supply, and thus early career teacher retention is critical. Effective induction, as a component of an overall retention strategy, is vital for early career teachers transitioning into the profession. In this critical policy study, we examined the emergence of the policy problem of the induction of precariously employed early career teachers. We examined two key Australian induction policies and their related contexts to determine how precarious early career teachers are positioned and how this positioning has changed over time, to expose the underlying power dynamics. This study used a ‘public issues’ and ‘private troubles’ lens to explore how the private troubles that these teachers face stem from larger social issues. The findings suggest that the evolution of induction policies from 2016 to 2023 shows progress towards recognising the needs of precariously employed early career teachers, but significant gaps and private troubles for them remain. This study has implications for policy and practice to support precariously employed early career teachers as they enter the profession, and potentially for improving teacher retention rates, combatting the global teacher shortage.
Journals
2026 EN
Sulpizio Simone · Scaltritti Michele
This research used the progressive demasking paradigm to investigate whether perceptual word identification is facilitated by semantic information. Experiment 1 revealed faster identification for taboo than neutral words. Experiment 2 revealed faster identification for taboo than emotionally-comparable non-taboo words, whereas the difference with respect to neutral words was possibly mitigated by list-wise factors related to list composition. Moreover, the facilitation for taboo words was impervious to habituation. The taboo connotation advantage seemingly originates from the attentional capture triggered by tabooness, a socio-culturally determined semantic feature that, under appropriate contextual conditions, modulates perceptual word identification. Our results suggest that (a) semantic processing is a pervasive component of any task involving word processing, and (b) when semantic information does not hinder the main task, it may influence even the earliest stages of word perceptual identification.
Journals
2026 EN
Intili Giorgia · Fucarino Alberto · Burgio Stefano
+9 more
Asthma is a heterogeneous disorder in which a subset of patients exhibits a type 2 (Th2- or T2-high) endotype driven by eosinophilic, IL-4/IL-13–mediated inflammation. Traditional animal and 2D cell-based models incompletely reproduce human airway immune responses, particularly the Th2 phenotype. To address this gap, we developed a three-dimensional (3D) ex vivo model of human nasal respiratory mucosa incorporating type-2–biased immune stimulation. Primary nasal mucosal biopsies were expanded under air–liquid interface (ALI) conditions and either exposed to IL-4/IL-13 or co-cultured with autologous polarized CD4+ Th2 lymphocytes and dendritic cells to generate a Th2-dominated microenvironment. Tissue morphology and barrier function were monitored longitudinally by phase-contrast microscopy and transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER). Induction of a type-2 inflammatory state was confirmed by increased secretion of periostin, STAT-6, IL-4 and IL-13 in apical and basal compartments, together with modest TEER reduction and evidence of epithelial remodeling, whereas IL-8 and chitinase family proteins did not increase, thereby excluding a COPD-like or type-2–low phenotype. Rather than fully recapitulating clinical asthma, this methodological model reproduces key immunopathologic features of T2-high airway inflammation in a patient-derived 3D context. It provides a stable, human-relevant platform for mechanistic studies and for future preclinical screening of targeted anti-inflammatory therapies.
Journals
2026 EN
Civera Alice · Horta Hugo · Meoli Michele
+1 more
The presidents of universities are increasingly perceived as key contributors to university performance, but their contribution has been analysed mainly from the perspective of research performance. Our study assesses the impact of university presidents on university performance considering a wider range of university performance indicators that include research performance, student growth and spin-off creation. In particular, the study assesses the effect of having an inbred president on university performance. We analyse a sample of 1744 president–year observations, comprising 310 presidents of 90 Italian universities elected from 2001 to 2022. We find that universities led by inbred presidents tend to have a lower performance in terms of research output and productivity compared to those led by non-inbred presidents but outperform the latter in terms of student growth and particularly local student enrolment. No statistically significant findings are found concerning the creation of spin-offs. The results highlight the negative impact of academic inbreeding on scholarly activities related to research, in alignment with expectations from the literature, and suggest that the more research-oriented universities should not elect or appoint inbred presidents. In today's knowledge society, where knowledge creation is central, universities may consider employing inbred academics as part of their senior management teams in roles related to student growth and affairs, but not as presidents.
Journals
2026 EN
Msigwa Samwel · Jane Alty · St George Rebecca J
+1 more
Rhythmic auditory cueing (RAC) can enhance gait performance. However, little is known about its effect in people with cognitive impairment. The aim of this review was to describe, in studies of people with cognitive impairment: 1) the medical conditions and cognitive stages studied; 2) the RAC protocols and gait variables measured; and 3) whether cognitive stage or RAC protocols have differing effects on gait. Search terms included older age, cognitive impairment, auditory cueing, and gait. Three databases (PubMed, Embase via Ovid, Web of Science) were searched. Eight studies ( n = 204 participants) were included. The diagnoses were Alzheimer’s dementia, unspecified dementia, Parkinson’s disease and atypical parkinsonian disorders. Cognitive stages ranged from mild cognitive impairment to late-stage dementia. RAC was commonly by metronome or music, at a preferred cadence tempo. The most common gait variables were speed, step length and cadence. Electronic walkways, accelerometers, or stopwatches were the most common measurement tools. The effect of RAC on gait across cognitive stages and diagnoses was mixed, with most studies reporting worse, or no change, in gait. Cognitive impairment may influence the effect of RAC on gait. Studies with larger samples and a range of cognitive stages are needed.
Journals
2026 EN
Bellomo Michele
The Germanic folk tale “Rapunzel,” popularized by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, tells the story of a young woman who lets down her hair from a tower window, allowing a prince to climb up and visit her. But is such a situation realistic? Could someone’s hair actually grow that long? This article investigates, using mathematics, what would happen if a person decided to stop cutting their hair. Specifically, we introduce a stochastic model for hair growth and examine how the average length evolves as time tends to infinity. Besides offering curious insights about our hair, the proposed model provides an engaging and unconventional exercise in probability. It can also serve as an innovative way to introduce students and young researchers to the fascinating world of stochastic processes, particularly the Poisson process and renewal theory.
Journals
2026 EN
Levi Mary M. · Webster J. Matthew · Tillson Martha
+1 more
There is a known relationship between mental health, victimization, and perpetration of violence, yet few studies have investigated this relationship with substance-using women. The current study examined differences in psychological diagnoses, mental health symptoms, and interpersonal trauma between violent and nonviolent female offenders with opioid use histories. Findings revealed that lifetime mental health diagnoses and interpersonal trauma were uniquely associated with violent offending. Additionally, violent offending was associated with increased current mental health symptoms. These results highlight the importance of adapting treatments for women with violent offenses and substance use histories to include mental health and victimization experiences.
Journals
2026 EN
Bilal Rana Muhammad Hasan · Moscato Stefano · Borgese Michele
+3 more
This article proposes a scan compensation approach employing a superstrate and metallic vias to enhance the oblique incidence performance of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) absorbers. The design features a top resistive surface of tantalum nitride (TaN) printed on a gold-backed alumina substrate, achieving a broad absorption bandwidth from 70 to 117.6 GHz (FBW = 50.7%) with a reflection coefficient$ |\Gamma | $| Γ |, below −10 dB. An equivalent circuit model (ECM) is used to analyze the performance of the designed absorber at oblique incidence angles. The scan compensation approach is introduced based on an analytically optimized cost function, and its integration with metallic vias is investigated to further stabilize oblique incidence absorption. The proposed analytical method can be applied to any general frequency-selective surface (FSS) to improve angular stability.