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The overall purpose of the study is to facilitate and execute research on vaccine confidence, and more specifically a vignette experimental survey with the aim of identifying behavioural determinants of vaccine hesitancy, for a specific category of vaccine (bivalent COVID-19 vaccination) across the European Union. The project consists of an online survey filled in by adults above the age of 18. Participation to the survey is voluntary and the compensation for the participation will be remitted by the partnered contractor responsible for the recruitment of participants (Prolific Academic Ltd). The average payment for participants will be 3£. The vignette will illustrate an hypothetical situation where an individual is waiting for a medical consultation in a local hospital, and overhears a conversation about the COVID-19 bivalent vaccine between two doctors. In one treatment the doctors agree about recommending the vaccine, in the other the doctors disagree. We then ask the participants what they would do in the shoes of the aforementioned individual: would they get vaccinated or not? Following the vignette a series of questions will be asked to participants. Participants will be asked to voluntarily disclose the number of doses received for the COVID-19 vaccination and their intention to get vaccinated with the bivalent vaccine in the future, and the reasons why yes/no. They will be complete a set of questions to measure the psychological antecedents of vaccination (Betsch et al 2018), and they will answer a set of questions on the current phase of the pandemic and the likelihood of a next wave (Baggio et al 2022).

Several scholars and activists are worried that the large-scale availability of deepfake technology could broaden the scope of the field of possible victims of non-consensual diffusion of intimate images (NCII). However, building on recent claims that the spread of deepfake technology will downplay the epistemic status of photographs and videos, including genuine ones, Viola and Voto (2023) have recently argued that, in the long run, the awareness of the spread of deepfakes will end up dampening the allure of NCII for perpetrators, as well as their potential to harm the victims. Their argument, however, hinges upon an important premise, i.e., that believing or even suspecting that an image is fabricated (instead of being a genuine photography) makes it more arousing for perpetrators. Yet, as of today, we have but indirect evidence supporting this premise. To gather more direct evidence for this hypothesis, we will run some online behavioral experiments on subjects of both sexes, investigating whether being told (and believing) that a picture depicts a fake (AI-generated) person decreases sexual arousal as compared to pictures told (and believed to) depict real persons. Viola, M., & Voto, C. (2023). Designed to abuse? Deepfakes and the non-consensual diffusion of intimate images. Synthese, 201(1), 1-20.

During Summer 2022, many European countries started administering the second booster dose of Covid-19 vaccines following the rapid development of an efficacious vaccine against the new detected variants. According to the latest studies on the booster dose, vaccine acceptance among the general population appears to have a decisive role in mitigating the pandemic evolution and, more importantly, the overload of national health systems (Andrews et al., 2022). However, despite governmental data and several previous findings reported both actual and potential high acceptance rates (Lazarus et al., 2021), very little is known about the diachronic evolution of the citizens' engagement, trust, and perception relative to vaccine-related concerns. This study aims in the first place to give an up-to-date overview of Italy's second booster dose COVID-19 vaccination intention rates. Second, since it has been shown that the perceived vaccine safety and efficacy are strongly associated with the intention to take the vaccine (Soares et al., 2021), the present research studies how the differential presentation of positively-framed messages regarding the scientific evidence on the safety and efficacy of the fourth dose could influence citizens' beliefs and responsiveness. In this connection, following previous insights from an Italian study on healthcare respondents, vaccine safety is expected to be the primary driver of population compliance to the national vaccination campaign. Third, this survey explores the distinctive role of trust in the public authorities responsible for vaccine approval and of trust in the scientific community who tried and tested the new vaccines. In this perspective, we hypothesize a different role of trust in these institutions in predicting vaccination compliance. Similarly, we suggest a distinct evolution of the perceived trust in political and scientific authorities with the progress of the pandemic. Finally, by means of a structured multi-scale survey-based questionnaire, this study retrospectively investigates the evolution of the beliefs behind the decision to vaccinate in each of the different stages of the vaccination campaign (i.e., from the first up to the third booster dose) and how they are related to the actual willingness to continue to adhere to the governmental indications. Overall, theory-driven structural equation analysis will reveal what factors act as significant predictors of the willingness to vaccinate.

Esta pesquisa tem como objeto de estudo os itens de Biologia do Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (ENEM), presentes nas edições de 2009 a 2014. Utilizando a Taxonomia de Bloom Revisada, foram feitas análises com vistas a identificar a demanda cognitiva e a dimensão do conhecimento. Os resultados apontam a ocorrência de itens com domínios de baixa ordem cognitiva, aproximadamente 84% e apenas 16% com domínios de alta ordem cognitiva. Considerando a abrangência do referido exame sugere-se a elaboração de instrumentos com uma melhor distribuição entre itens de alta e baixa demanda cognitivas envolvendo conceitos de biologia, assegurando o cumprimento dos diferentes objetivos associados ao ENEM.