•Metrics increasingly guide academic hiring and promotion.•Since 2010 Italian academics have to meet metrics thresholds to become professor.•Scientists quickly responded to citations metrics by ...increasing self-citations.•The increase was stronger for social scientists (up to +179%).•If not properly designed, metrics favour the diffusion of questionable practices.
There is limited knowledge on the extent to which scientists may strategically respond to metrics by adopting questionable practices, namely practices that challenge the scientific ethos, and the individual and contextual factors that affect their likelihood. This article aims to fill these gaps by studying the opportunistic use of self-citations, i.e. citations of one’s own work to boost metric scores. Based on sociological and economic literature exploring the factors driving scientists’ behaviour, we develop hypotheses on the predictors of strategic increase in self-citations. We test the hypotheses in the Italian Higher Education system, where promotion to professorial positions is regulated by a national habilitation procedure that considers the number of publications and citations received. The sample includes 886 scientists from four of science’s main disciplinary sectors, employs different metrics approaches, and covers an observation period beginning in 2002 and ending in 2014. We find that the introduction of a regulation that links the possibility of career advancement to the number of citations received is related to a strong and significant increase in self-citations among scientists who can benefit the most from increasing citations, namely assistant professors, associate professors and relatively less cited scientists, and in particular among social scientists. Our findings suggest that while metrics are introduced to spur virtuous behaviours, when not properly designed they favour the usage of questionable practices.
The introduction of competitive funding mechanisms in higher education is found to generally increase research productivity. However, the diversity within higher education systems may lead ...universities to behave in substantially different ways in response to the adoption of competitive funding criteria. In particular, we argue that the legitimacy of universities, defined as their level of recognition based on the adherence to socially accepted norms and expectations, is crucial in shaping their reaction. This paper investigates the change in research productivity experienced by Italian universities following the introduction of the first Performance-based Research Funding System (PRFS) in 2003, focusing on the moderating effect of university legitimacy. Using a sample of 75 universities observed during the period 1999–2011, we find that the introduction of PRFS leads to an increase in research productivity, and this increase is significantly more pronounced among more legitimate universities.
Modern societies regularly face crises that have major disruptive effects. Learning from past crises can inform better choices and policies when facing a new one. Following the 2008 global financial ...crisis, higher education scholars explored its effects on students’ tuition fees through cuts in public funding. This article instead investigates how universities’ decisions on tuition fees have been affected by other factors, beyond the decrease in public funds. As such, it explores the role of competition and reputation in affecting universities’ decisions on tuition fees when facing a crisis. Using data from 59 public Italian universities in the period between 2003 and 2014, we found that universities increased tuition fee by an average of 27% per student in response to the crisis. At the same time, high competition mitigated the increase of tuition fees, except for the case of highly reputed universities, which charged even higher tuition. These findings highlight the importance of monitoring fees in times of crises, as well as the complex role of competition and reputation in containing or inflating university tuition fees.
This paper studies the impact of regulation on IPO markets using historical data. Regulatory interventions have different effects on the development of public equity markets under different ...conditions. Studying the whole population of 879 Italian IPOs from the unification of Italy (1861) through the present, we find that tightening regulatory changes improve IPO survival rates. In contrast, easing of regulations tends to harm IPO survival rates, without increasing the number of IPOs.
•We examine the impact of regulation on IPO markets using historical data.•The population of Italian IPOs is analyzed from the unification of Italy (1861).•The effects of regulatory interventions depend on the conditions of the market.•Tightening regulatory changes improve IPO survival rates.•Regulations harm IPO survival and do not affect IPO activity in expansion periods.
Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are an established method for assessing the predictive capacity of a continuous biomarker for a binary outcome. However, in some cases, outcomes are ...time dependent. Although the literature has proposed packages for performing ROC analysis of time-independent outcomes, a package is not yet available for analyzing the predictive capacity of continuous biomarkers when the binary outcome is time dependent. In this article, we present stroccurve, a new command for performing ROC analysis within a survival framework.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In this study, we analyse the relationship between competition and programmatic diversification in 75 Italian universities from the academic years of 2003/2004 to 2011/2012. Results show that local ...competition, rather than national competition, influences programmatic diversification. The relationship between local competition and programmatic diversification is found to be quadratic such that when competition increases, diversification decreases and specialisation increases, and both relationships are reversed after a certain threshold. We argue that under moderate levels of competition, universities tend to respond to local competition for students by differentiating their programmatic offerings from their competitors. However, when the level of competition is minimum or extreme, universities tend to follow an isomorphic strategy. After the reduction in student demand and the reform of the higher education system in 2008/2009, the relationship was no longer curvilinear because universities operating in extremely competitive environments began to adopt more risk-taking behaviour by engaging in diversification strategies.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background Early repolarization pattern (ERP) is considered a common training‐related and benign ECG finding in young adult athletes. Few data exist on ERP in the pediatric athletes population. ...Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the ERP prevalence, characteristics, and prognosis in pediatric athletes aged ≤16 years. Methods and Results Eight‐hundred eighty‐six consecutive pediatric athletes engaged in 17 different sports (mean age, 11.7±2.5 years; 7–16 years) were enrolled and prospectively evaluated with medical history, physical examination, resting and exercise ECGs, and transthoracic echocardiography during their preparticipation screening. Known cardiovascular diseases associated with sudden cardiac death was considered exclusion criteria. Athletes were followed up yearly for 4 years. The prevalence of ERP was 117 (13.2%), equally distributed in both sexes ( P =0.072), irrespectively of body mass index and classification of sports. The most common ERP localizations were inferolateral and inferior leads (53.8% and 27.3%, respectively). Notching J‐point morphology was the most prevalent (70%), and rapidly ascending ST elevation (96%) was the most common ST‐segment morphology. Athletes with ERP were older ( P <0.001) had lower rest and recovery heart rates ( P <0.001), increased precordial and limb R‐wave voltages ( P <0.001), increased R/S Sokolow index ( P <0.001), and longer PR interval ( P =0.006) in comparison with the athletes without ERP. Neither major cardiovascular nor arrhythmic events, nor sudden cardiac death were recorded over a median follow‐up of 4.2 years. One hundred seventeen (80.3%) athletes with ERP exhibited a persistent ERP. ERP localization and J‐point morphology changed during follow‐up in 11 (11.7%) and 17 (18%) of athletes, respectively. Conclusions ERP is common in pediatric athletes. It was mostly located in the inferolateral leads and associated with concave ascending ST segment with other training‐related ECG changes. The lack of either sudden cardiac death or cardiomyopathies linked to sudden cardiac death over follow‐up suggests that in pediatric athletes, ERP may be considered a benign training‐related ECG phenomenon with a potential dynamic pattern.
This study evaluates the attractiveness of self-hubbing in terms of the (a) symmetry of itineraries and the consequences for passengers in the case of missed flights. We compute the most attractive ...European origin-destination (O-D) pairs through self-connection and evaluate their robustness by estimating the expected delays relative to connecting times and the travel options available when a connection is missed.
Results show that the potential of self-connecting markets is reduced when accounting for asymmetrical travel options and the consequences for travelers in the case of missed flights. In terms of frequencies, self-connecting passengers are, on average, found to have fewer alternatives to complete a given O-D pair than in the case of alliance-based connections (− 33%). Our findings moderate the confidence of past evidence on self-hubbing in light of the concrete reliability of self-connections for passengers. The itinerary choice made by passengers inevitably depends on the evaluation of travel quality attributes related to the (a) symmetry of the itineraries and the costs incurred through missed connections.
As the global mobility of researchers increases, many of whom are supported by
national funding agencies’ mobility schemes, there is growing interest in
understanding the impact of this overseas ...mobility on knowledge production and
networking. This study addresses a relatively understudied mobility—the
temporary international mobility of PhD students in STEM fields—and its
relation to the establishment of research collaborations between mobile PhD
students and researchers at the host university and with other researchers
overseas. First, we find that 55% of the participants established
relevant international collaborations (i.e., with hosting supervisors and/or
others at the hosting university), and we explore these collaboration patterns
in detail by taking a novel research propagation approach. Second, we identify
features of the visiting period that influence the formation of research
collaborations abroad, such as the prestige of the host university, the duration
of the international mobility period, the cultural distance, and the number of
peer PhD students at the host university. Previous research collaborations
between the home and host supervisors are also found to play a crucial role in
research collaboration development. Age at the time of mobility is not found to
be particularly relevant. We find that female PhD students are less able to
benefit from collaborative research efforts than male students. These findings
advance the knowledge of global research networks and provide important insights
for research funding agencies aiming to promote international research mobility
at the doctoral level.
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