Energy and technological refurbishment of the School of Architecture Valle Giulia, Rome

Modern architecture built in historical urban contexts represents a demanding issue when its energy efficiency should be improved. Indeed, the strongest efforts have to be made to maintain the architectural identity and its harmony with the surrounding cultural heritage. This study deals with the main building of the School of Architecture Valle Giulia in Rome, designed by Enrico Del Debbio in the 30’s. Further constraints are related to several interventions of airspace expansion starting from 1958 which involved the building starting from 1958. So, preservation would mean highlighting its historic change but, adapting the built environment to the contemporary users’ needs. As above-mentioned, the building belongs to the Valle delle Accademie, within the historic park of Villa Borghese, so that to acquire landscaping values. Those latter ones call for ulterior requirements when any new design process is conceived. The study provides a global renewal of the building accounting for the current low Indoor Environmental Quality in both summer and winter seasons and the lack of suitability to the contemporary University student’s needs. The interaction between building performance and HVAC systems was studied by collecting data and architectural surveys conducted by all the architects who modified the building. This procedure was chosen since thermo-physical investigations are considered destructive due to required perforations to identify the actual wall layers. Moreover, thermographic surveys were carried out to validate the modelled building response. The result of the study is the identification of viable interventions to improve the accessibility and fruition of the building as well as its energy performance. A specific cost-benefit analysis was done to prioritize the design options along with considering the measures needed to preserve all the architectural features and values

Signaling from blood vessels to CNS axons through nitric oxide

Brain function is usually perceived as being performed by neurons with the support of glial cells, the network of blood vessels situated nearby serving simply to provide nutrient and to dispose of metabolic waste. Revising this view, we find from experiments on a rodent central white matter tract (the optic nerve) in vitro that microvascular endothelial cells signal persistently to axons using nitric oxide (NO) derived from the endothelial NO synthase (eNOS). The endogenous NO acts to stimulate guanylyl cyclase-coupled NO receptors in the axons, leading to a raised cGMP level which then causes membrane depolarization, apparently by directly engaging hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channels. The tonic depolarization and associated endogenous NO-dependent cGMP generation was absent in optic nerves from mice lacking eNOS, although such nerves responded to exogenous NO, with raised cGMP generation in the axons and associated depolarization. In addition to the tonic activity, exposure of optic nerves to bradykinin, a classical stimulator of eNOS in endothelial cells, elicited reversible NO- and cGMP-dependent depolarization through activation of bradykinin B-2 receptors, to which eNOS is physically complexed. No contribution of other NO synthase isoforms to either the action of bradykinin or the continuous ambient NO level could be detected. The results suggest that microvascular endothelial cells participate in signal processing in the brain and can do so by generating both tonic and phasic NO signals

Convective regularization for optical flow

We argue that the time derivative in a fixed coordinate frame may not be the most appropriate measure of time regularity of an optical flow field. Instead, for a given velocity field $v$ we consider the convective acceleration $v_t + \nabla v v$ which describes the acceleration of objects moving according to $v$. Consequently we investigate the suitability of the nonconvex functional $\|v_t + \nabla v v\|^2_{L^2}$ as a regularization term for optical flow. We demonstrate that this term acts as both a spatial and a temporal regularizer and has an intrinsic edge-preserving property. We incorporate it into a contrast invariant and time-regularized variant of the Horn-Schunck functional, prove existence of minimizers and verify experimentally that it addresses some of the problems of basic quadratic models. For the minimization we use an iterative scheme that approximates the original nonlinear problem with a sequence of linear ones. We believe that the convective acceleration may be gainfully introduced in a variety of optical flow models

Corporate culture in Japan – a Western view

Kultura korporacyjna w każdym kraju stanowi pochodną kultury narodowej. Autorka wskazuje na fakt, że znajomość kultury kraju, z którym utrzymywane są stosunki ekonomiczne, kontakty handlowe i inwestycyjne, jest nie do przecenienia. Ponad 300 japońskich firm na stałe wpisało się już w gospodarczy krajobraz Polski, dając zatrudnienie więcej niż 40 tys. pracowników, dlatego też problematyka artykułu jest tak istotna. W tekście zostały przedstawione poglądy naukowców z dziedziny teorii organizacji, socjologii, psychologii, m.in. Geerta Hofstede, Alfonsa Trompenaarsa oraz ekspertów z dziedziny praktyki gospodarczej (Denise Pirrotti-Hummel). G. Hofstede, w pionierskich badaniach, prześledził opinie ponad 1600 respondentów – pracowników IBM z 70 krajów. Pytania dotyczyły „cech narodowych”, zdaniem Hofstede, różnicujących poszczególne kultury biznesu. Jako determinanty tych różnic uwzględnił: hierarchiczność struktur i stosunek do kwestii nierówności społecznych, postawy wobec ryzyka i niepewności, indywidualizm (priorytet jednostki albo grupy), a także stopień maskulinizacji społeczeństwa. W toku późniejszych badań autor dodał do wyżej wymienionych „papierków lakmusowych” pragmatyzm oraz samoocenę. Z kolei A. Trompenaars w latach 1886–1993, na podstawie ankiet skierowanych do 15 tysięcy menedżerów z 50 krajów, określił, jego zdaniem, zestaw najważniejszych cech specyficznych, przesądzających o odmienności narodowych kultur korporacyjnych. W artykule omówiono niektóre z nich: (1) uniwersalizm kontra partykularyzm; (2) opanowanie kontra emocjonalność; (3) ocena ex post według faktycznych osiągnięć kontra przypisanie znaczenia ex ante; (4) synchroniczność kontra sekwencyjność w pojmowaniu czasu. I wreszcie ostatni z wymienionych na wstępie badaczy kultury biznesowej, Denise Pirrotti-Hummel, zwraca uwagę na szczególne, jej zdaniem, cechy japońskich partnerów gospodarczych: długi horyzont podejmowania decyzji (planowanie), pełna akceptacja zasady starszeństwa, czy niewerbalny charakter komunikacji międzyludzkiej. Autorka artykułu nie tylko zapoznaje czytelnika z wieloma determinantami zachowań Japończyków w biznesie, ale i poddaje krytycznej analizie konsekwencje, jakie mogą one mieć dla przebiegu negocjacji w dziedzinie gospodarki oraz w procesach decyzyjnych.The organizers of the conference wish to acknowledge the National Bank of Poland’s generous funding of this publication

A Holistic Investigation on Terahertz Propagation and Channel Modeling Toward Vertical Heterogeneous Networks

User-centric and low latency communications can be enabled not only by small cells but also through ubiquitous connectivity. Recently, the vertical heterogeneous network (V-HetNet) architecture is proposed to backhaul/fronthaul a large number of small cells. Like an orchestra, the V-HetNet is a polyphony of different communication ensembles, including geostationary orbit (GEO), and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites (e.g., CubeSats), and networked flying platforms (NFPs) along with terrestrial communication links. In this study, we propose the Terahertz (THz) communications to enable the elements of V-HetNets to function in harmony. As THz links offer a large bandwidth, leading to ultra-high data rates, it is suitable for backhauling and fronthauling small cells. Furthermore, THz communications can support numerous applications from inter-satellite links to in-vivo nanonetworks. However, to savor this harmony, we need accurate channel models. In this paper, the insights obtained through our measurement campaigns are highlighted, to reveal the true potential of THz communications in V-HetNets.Comment: It has been accepted for the publication in IEEE Communications Magazin

Worldliness in Husserl's late manuscripts on the constitution of time

Os chamados manuscritos C, recentemente publicados, têm um interesse especial para a clarificação da constituição do mundo na medida em que mostram como, a partir de um mundo primordial ou quasi-mundo correlato à pré-intencionalidade, se atinge o mundo plenamente intersubjetivo constituído por uma intencionalidade de interesses desde uma práxis comunicativa. Segundo os manuscritos, esse artigo tem um propósito quádruplo: 1) tentar discernir diferentes caracterizações do mundo como horizonte universal, representação-mundo, todo, forma, idéia e fundamento; mostra-se, assim, o papel da temporalidade na raiz desses traços de mundanidade; 2) níveis de constituição do mundo são desvelados a fim de diferenciar um fundamento previamente dado de um fundamento que se desenvolve através dos estágios do mundo egóico, mundo da casa, mundo da vida e mundo-em-si; desvela-se aqui um emcaixamento desses horizontes um no outro; 3) uma análise posterior dos níveis é dada através do questionamento retroativo na primalidade (Urtümlichkeit) como um retrocesso que revela o desenvolvimento de um pré-mundo a um mundo genuíno; uma gênese permanente, antes de uma gênese do passado, é realçada; 4) finalmente, mostrar-se-á como antecipações de fenomenologia pós-husserliana nos remetem a uma abertura originária do mundo em sua mundanidade, um âmbito que é anterior à manifestação de um mundo de objetos e uma ordem de manifestação diferente daquela do mund