1,354,114 research outputs found
Gamification and Sustainable Water Use: The Case of the BLUTUBE Educational Program
No full textIn a world increasingly stressed by climate change and scarcity of natural resources, the prosocial behaviors of new generations become increasingly essential, especially when aimed at sustainability. This study aims to investigate the gamified system applied to the game-based educational program BLUTUBE, designed to promote better practices regarding virtuous water usage in the primary schools of the Municipality of Lucca
From niches to norms: the promise of social tipping interventions to scale climate action
No full textAbstract The net-zero transition poses unprecedented societal challenges that cannot be tackled with technology and markets alone. It requires complementary behavioral and social change on the demand side. Abandoning entrenched detrimental norms, including those that perpetuate the fossil-fueled lock-in, is notoriously difficult, preventing change and limiting policy efficacy. A nascent literature tackles social tipping interventions—STI, aiming at cost-effective disproportionate change by pushing behaviors past an adoption threshold beyond which further uptake is self-reinforcing. Intervening on target groups can greatly reduce the societal cost of a policy and thus holds promise for precipitating change. This article takes stock of the potential of STI to scale climate action by first reviewing the theoretical insights arising from behavioral public policy based on applications of threshold models from sociology and economics; then, it assesses the initial evidence on the effectiveness of STI, in light of the outcomes of laboratory and online experiments that were designed to study coordination on an emergent alternative to the initial status quo. Lastly, the article identifies potential conceptual limitations and proposes fruitful avenues for increasing the robustness of STI assessments beyond theory and small-scale experimentation
Il gioco come motore di prosocialità
No full textNew Frontiers in Gaming è una raccolta di contributi sul tema del gioco e di come il gioco e il gaming cambieranno (e già stanno cambiando) la nostra vita. L’obiettivo di questo volume è quello di affrontare il tema delle prospettive future del mondo del gaming affrontando il presente e il passato del mondo del gioco, per dare gli strumenti necessari a capire la rivoluzione culturale in atto, per poi arrivare alle prospettive, possibilità e conseguenze future.New Frontiers in Gaming è promosso dal Neuroscience Lab di Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center e del partner scientifico, la Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca.Tutti gli autori e le autrici vengono dal mondo universitario (da vari settori: Economia, Neuroscienze, Tecnologia, Design della Comunicazione, Pedagogia ecc), all’interno della collaborazione con il Game Science Research Center
Should digoxin be proscribed in elderly subjects in sinus rhythm free from heart failure? A population-based study.
No full textIncreased mortality in digoxin-treated subjects has been demonstrated in patients with recent myocardial infarction. Those with congestive heart failure (CHF) due to causes other than myocardial infarction seem to be free from this effect. No information is currently available concerning mortality in elderly people who are frequently prescribed digitalis even in the absence of CHF. The aim of this study was to investigate whether subjects improperly receiving digoxin were worse off than those not receiving this drug. This analysis is a part of CASTEL, a population-based prospective study that has enrolled a cohort of 2,254 subjects aged > or = 65 years. CHF was diagnosed in 187 subjects and atrial fibrillation (AF) in 90. The remaining 1,977 were free from CHF and in sinus rhythm, but 447 were treated with digitalis. Cumulative mortality and morbid events by digitalis treatment were calculated in all these categories. Among subjects free from CHF and AF (improper use), all-cause and cardiovascular mortality was significantly higher among those taking digitalis than in those who did not. Non-fatal events including CHF were also more apparent in the former than in the latter. Cox analysis confirmed digitalis as a predictor of mortality in these subjects. No effect of digitalis on survival was found in patients with CHF or AF (proper use). In elderly subjects without atrial fibrillation or CHF, the use of digitalis worsens morbidity and mortality
Multilevel public goods game: Levelling up, substitution and crowding-in effects
No full textIn an online multilevel public goods experiment, we implement four treatments where we gradually increase the marginal per capita return of the global public good. First, we find evidence of an increase in the contribution to the global good (levelling-up effect). Secondly, subjects fund their higher contribution to the global good by reducing their contribution to the local good (substitution effect) rather than by increasing total contribution, i.e., the sum of their contributions to the local and the global good (marginal crowding-in effect). Moreover, we observe that total contribution increases as a consequence of the mere introduction of the global good (categorical crowding-in effect). Finally, we observe that subjects continue to contribute to both public goods even when they are dominated in terms of costs and returns
Measuring the attitude towards a European public budget: A cross-country experiment
No full textWe use a multilevel public goods game to investigate attitudes towards national public budgets and a European public budget in six Member States of the European Union: Italy, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal. We test to what extent propensities to contribute to public goods differ across countries. Using two efficiency treatments, we also test whether each country group adjusts its contribution when the relative efficiency of the public goods changes. We find no differences across countries in the propensity to contribute to either public budget. Moreover, all country groups level up their contribution to the European public good following an increase in its relative efficiency. We also devise a questionnaire to assess the impact of a sense of identity on contribution decisions and to control for the impact of COVID-19 and the current war in Ukraine on country and EU perceptions
La gamification: cos’è e come funziona
No full textNew Frontiers in Gaming è una raccolta di contributi sul tema del gioco e di come il gioco e il gaming cambieranno (e già stanno cambiando) la nostra vita. L’obiettivo di questo volume è quello di affrontare il tema delle prospettive future del mondo del gaming affrontando il presente e il passato del mondo del gioco, per dare gli strumenti necessari a capire la rivoluzione culturale in atto, per poi arrivare alle prospettive, possibilità e conseguenze future.New Frontiers in Gaming è promosso dal Neuroscience Lab di Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center e del partner scientifico, la Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca.Tutti gli autori e le autrici vengono dal mondo universitario (da vari settori: Economia, Neuroscienze, Tecnologia, Design della Comunicazione, Pedagogia ecc), all’interno della collaborazione con il Game Science Research Center
Personal norms in the online public good game
No full textThis paper shows that personal norms have a prominent role in explaining pro-social contribution in an online public good game. This finding suggests that the role of social norms might be loosened when subjects are distanced and interaction occurs online and in complete anonymity. Moreover, we found no statistically significant difference between the elicited norms and the norms that were elicited in a group of subjects not facing the contribution task, thus ruling out a potential self-justification bias
Predictors of cancer mortality in elderly subjects.
No full textCancer mortality was analysed in 3282 elderly subjects aged > or =65 years from 2 cohorts of general population having different life-style patterns. They took part in the CASTEL (CArdiovascular STudy in the ELderly), a 12-year lasting prospective Italian study. The aim of the present analysis was to identify the items able to influence cancer mortality. A biochemical profile and a questionnaire on lifestyle were collected. Continuous items were averaged and compared with analysis of variance, frequencies with the Pearson's chi2 test. Mortality was recorded yearly for 12 years from the Registrar's Office and causes of death double-checked by consulting medical case sheets and family doctors' files. The influence of items on mortality was evaluated with the Cox multivariate analysis. Relative risk (RR) of each item was adjusted for confounders. Age, gender, tobacco smoking, the presence of respiratory symptoms, low body mass index in males, serum alanine transaminase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), as well as the town of residence, were powerful predictors of cancer mortality. In the entire population, 12-year overall mortality was 49.4%, cardiovascular 22.8%, and neoplastic 11%; the latter was higher in males than in females (15.7% vs. 7.9%, p or =8.7 mg/ dl) and males with low body mass index ( 177 U/I. When both serum enzymes were simultaneously raised, RR of cancer mortality increased to 2.84
Norms and Efficiency in a Multi‐Group Society: An Online Experiment
No full textIn this study, we measure personal normative beliefs, empirical expectations, and normative expectations in a multilevel public goods game, where two local public goods are nested in a global one. We use these measures as indexes of subjective personal and social norms to pursue a twofold objective. On the one hand, we aim to understand whether and to what extent contribution decisions are driven by personal or social norms. On the other hand, we aim to investigate whether changes in the relative efficiency of the two public goods affect norms and norm compliance. In our online experiment, personal norms emerge as the main driver of contribution decisions especially when the efficiency of the related public good increases. However, compliance to empirical expectations signals that social norms still play a role in both positively affecting the contribution to the relative public good and negatively the contribution to the other one
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