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The theoretical strenghts of Charles Darwin’s argument in the Origin of Species In the last 160 years, evolutionary biology has witnessed a considerable expansion in its theoretical structure and the wealth of empirical evidence to its support. In this paper I analyse the evidence presented in The origin of species (1859), with the aim of arguing for some specific theses in the philosophy of science, namely: (1) that the employment of a diverse array of methods, as well as of (2) a diverse array of evidence provides the theory with scientific robustness; (3) that explanation and prediction are both important for the success of the theory; (4) that laws are not necessary to confer evolutionary biology the status of science; (5) that crucial experiments are not possible in this domain.

Dick Richards’s “Farewell My Lovely” (1975) is a remake of – but not only – Edward Dmytryk’s film, “Murder, My Sweet” (1944). This essay explores the dialogue between Richards’s film and two texts, as well as between classical and modern cinema. In addition, it offers a close comparision between Richard’s film and its hypotext, Raymond Chandler’s novel, “Farewell My Lovely” (1940).

This paper provides a quantitative assessment of Shigeto Kawahara’s phonetics teaching method. A senior high school class from a liceo scientifico in Scandicci (Florence) was involved in a small language awareness program. The students were taught about basic concepts concerning sound symbolism and social meaning through two lessons differing in modality of presentation, i.e., a “standard” lesson vs. a lesson containing multiple Japanese pop examples (Kawahara method). Students attending the latter performed better in an assessment test; moreover, their response accuracy grew along with the number of Japanese pop examples used to explain the related concepts. A statistical interaction between modality of presentation and student attitude towards the Florentine speech variety used to teach during the awareness program was also retrieved: students benefited from Kawahara’s method only when they manifested a positive attitude towards the teacher’s speech variety. Overall, this paper suggests a compact experimental procedure to test for the effectiveness of specific teaching methods in linguistics and beyond. Various strategies for achieving control in teaching experiments are advanced, concerning, among other factors, the evaluation of the individual student’s involvement in acquiring new knowledge, the teacher’s demeanor, and the scoring method. Lastly, future intersections between the scholarship of teaching and learning and sociophonetics are sketched out and promoted. Insegnare il simbolismo sonoro attraverso la cultura pop giapponese. Una risposta A Kawahara (2018) L’articolo esamina quantitativamente l’efficacia del metodo di insegnamento della fonetica di Shigeto Kawahara. Una classe quinta di un liceo scientifico a Scandicci (Firenze) è stata coinvolta in un breve programma di restituzione in seguito a un esperimento linguistico. Agli studenti sono stati insegnati concetti di base relativi al fonosimbolismo e al significato sociale durante due lezioni diverse per stile di presentazione, ovvero una lezione “standard” vs. una lezione con vari esempi presi dalla cultura pop giapponese (metodo Kawahara). Gli studenti che hanno assistito a quest’ultima hanno ottenuto risultati migliori in una successiva prova di valutazione; inoltre, le loro probabilità di rispondere correttamente sono state più alte qualora i concetti fossero stati spiegati con un numero consistente di esempi giapponesi pop. I risultati hanno anche messo in luce un’interazione statistica tra il metodo di insegnamento e l’atteggiamento dimostrato dagli studenti nei confronti della varietà linguistica fiorentina usata dall’insegnante durante le lezioni: il metodo di Kawahara è stato fruttuoso soprattutto per quegli studenti con atteggiamento positivo nei confronti della varietà dell’insegnante. In generale, l’articolo propone un protocollo sperimentale compatto per esaminare l’efficacia di metodi d’insegnamento in linguistica e oltre. Vengono inoltre suggerite varie strategie per ottenere controllo sperimentale nelle ricerche didattiche (quantificazione del coinvolgimento degli studenti nell’acquisizione di nuove conoscenze; comportamento e aspetto del docente; metodo di assegnazione di punteggi). L’articolo promuove infine future possibili intersezioni disciplinari tra la ricerca sulla didattica e la sociofonetica.

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has become a widely used tool with a plethora of applications in neuroscience [...]

Abstract While the share of services in international trade has been increasing very slowly over the years, oscillating around 20 per cent since the 1990s, their role has constantly gained importance. Trade in services certainly faces many more obstacles than trade in goods, but its impact on globalization and countries’ competitiveness is crucial, and it is therefore worth investigating its characteristics. The present work aims to analyse the networks of international trade in services and to unveil specific properties by exploiting a number of existing methodologies and algorithms. After describing the global properties of the networks of the various service classes, we investigate differences and similarities among them, and we highlight the most influential countries in the trade of specific services. We find that traded services display sharply different characteristics and they can be grouped in two different sets according to their network structures. Countries’ positions in these networks are diversified, with connections unevenly distributed, especially for some service categories. We discover that the structure of links, i.e. the topology of the networks, identifies the role of countries much more clearly than the sole amount of services traded. Overall, the results highlight important features, as well as changes over time, in the landscape of the international services.

On 24 August 2016 a seismic event (Mw 6.0) was the first of the long Central Italy sequence (ongoing at the end of 2017) of medium-to-high magnitude earthquakes, with nine Mw ≥5 up to October 2017, and with about 74.000 seismic events registered after 1 year. The largest was the Mw 6.5 30 October 2016 event near Norcia. After the major seismic events, 17 mud volcanoes erupted around Monteleone di Fermo village (Marche region). Mud volcano eruptions generally occurred a few hours to a few days after the main earthquakes, suggesting a seismic triggering. We analyzed the peak ground velocities and dynamic stresses during the three largest earthquakes. We also evaluated the static stress changes in order to assess the potential influence of normal stress changes on the feeder system of the activated mud volcanoes. We find a correlation with dynamic stresses, whereas static stress changes are negligible or negative (with values reaching −0.44 bar, clamping feeder dykes). We conclude that seismic shaking (up to ~3.9 bar during Norcia earthquake) is the dominant driver for these eruptions. Finally, we evaluated the response ratio as a function of the dynamic stress. It increases exponentially with peak dynamic stress varying from 0.3 bar to >50% for peak dynamic stress >2 bar, indicating a link between earthquake shaking and mud volcano activity.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies implemented working from home to mitigate the spread of the disease among their employees. Using data from Corona Immunitas Nestlé, a seroepidemiological study conducted among employees from two Nestlé sites in Switzerland, we aimed to investigate whether there was a difference in SARS-CoV-2 infection rates between employees working most of the time from home and employees mobilized in a workplace equipped with a specialized occupational safety unit and strict sanitary measures. We also investigated whether this association was modified by household size, living with children, vulnerability, worries about an infection, and worries about adverse health consequences if infected. Data were collected between 8 December 2020, and 11 February 2021. Previous SARS-CoV-2 infections were ascertained by the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies in the blood. Of the 425 employees included (53% women; mean age 42 years ranging between 21 and 64 years), 37% worked most of the time from home in 2020 and 16% had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. Participants who worked most of the time from home in 2020 had slightly higher odds of being infected with SARS-CoV-2 compared to participants who never or only sometimes worked from home (adjusted OR 1.29, 95% CI 0.73–2.27). The association was stronger in participants living alone or with one other person (adjusted OR 2.62, 95% CI 1.13–6.25). Among participants living with two or more other persons (adjusted OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.30–1.39) and among vulnerable participants (adjusted OR 0.53, 95% CI 0.13–1.93), working from home tended to be associated with lower odds of infection. In conclusion, in a context of strict sanitary measures implemented in the workplace, employees working from home did not seem to be at lower risk of infection compared to those working on site, especially if living alone or with one other person.

Divergent thinking involves the ability to find many different and new responses or solutions to open-ended problems. The ability to think divergently has been associated with different cognitive processes, including intuitive and rational thinking styles. However, research has not specifically addressed the extent to which divergent thinking is associated to decision-making styles, which involve habits to react in a certain way in specific decisional contexts. The present study was devoted to explore the relationships between verbal and visual divergent thinking, assessed using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, and decision-making styles (e.g., rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous), assessed using the General Decision-Making Style inventory. The scores of both verbal and visual divergent thinking (e.g., fluency, flexibility, originality; elaboration only for visual divergent thinking) were converted in z-scores and summed separately in order to get verbal and visual composite creative indices. Results revealed that only and rational decision-making style predicted both creative indices. This finding confirms the key role of rationality during the creative process. Possible explanations for the lack of significance of intuitive decision-making style are presented. Future research directions are also discussed.

Abstract We provide here a first-hand description of the coseismic surface effects caused by the Mw 6.4 Petrinja earthquake that hit central Croatia on 29 December 2020. This was one of the strongest seismic events that occurred in Croatia in the last two centuries. Field surveys in the epicentral area allowed us to observe and map primary coseismic effects, including geometry and kinematics of surface faulting, as well as secondary effects, such as liquefaction, sinkholes and landslides. The resulting dataset consists of homogeneous georeferenced records identifying 222 observation points, each of which contains a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 14 numeric and string fields of relevant information. The earthquake caused surface faulting defining a typical ‘conjugate’ fault pattern characterized by Y and X shears, tension cracks (T fractures), and compression structures (P shears) within a ca. 10 km wide (across strike), NW–SE striking right-lateral strike-slip shear zone (i.e., the Petrinja Fault Zone, PFZ). We believe that the results of the field survey provide fundamental information to improve the interpretation of seismological, GPS and InSAR data of this earthquake. Moreover, the data related to the surface faulting may impact future studies focused on earthquake processes in active strike-slip settings, integrating the estimates of slip amount and distribution in assessing the hazard associated with capable transcurrent faults.

Atypicalities in sensory perception are observed in individuals diagnosed with ASD and ADHD but have rarely beencontrasted in experimental studies. In the visual domain, superior performance on visual search tasks and hypersensitivity toflickering lights have been cited as evidence of unusual sensory profiles.To measure a reliable visual response, black-and-white checkerboards were presented under free-viewing conditions to threegroups of 10-month-olds: siblings of children with ASD (N=47), ADHD (N=21) and controls (N=18). Continuous EEG wasrecorded and VEPs time-locked to checkerboards presentation computed.Analysis of VEPs amplitude and latency revealed statistically significant group differences in the first 200ms post-stimulusonset. Early components were enhanced in amplitude (P100) and delayed in latency (P100-N100) in at-risk infants comparedto controls (p