Smart Specialisation Strategies for Supporting Europe 2020 Vision. Looking at the American Experience: the Case of the Boston Area

These reflections aim to highlight the crucial challenge that European Regions are called to face applying the ‘Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization’ policy for pursuing the virtuous implementation of EU Cohesion Policy and ‘Europe 2020’ Agenda. The original cultural style of the ‘US Smart Specialization model’, supported by the ‘cluster theory’ and the ‘innovation paradigm’, represents a significant lesson in Boston area

New business model and local governance in supporting social and environmental solutions: a social network analysis to evaluate the Italian local action group’s “Terra è Vita” role

Current issues, such as climate change and social and economic disparities, are complex and context-dependent, influencing several economic and social actors. Micro-small and medium enterprises that populate rural areas often have lower risks than other companies but less innovation and fewer financial resources and capabilities. Here, a local convenor could help support these enterprises to drive their social, environmental, and economic behaviours to safeguard natural resources, respond to social community needs, and fulfil their economic goals. The European Union’s Community-Led Local Development programme defines local action groups as actors who help develop and grow local areas in social and economic fields. We analyse this role, highlighting that by focusing on social and environmental issues, the convenor can stimulate changes in the traditional business model and the social business model characterised by the business ambidexterity involved in producing economic value that is also relevant to addressing the community’s needs. We study the effectiveness of a local action group in its convenor role for local actors’ behaviours on economic, social, and environmental themes. The study uses social network analysis to extract the network backbone that links 150 local area entrepreneurs according to their perceptions of the local area’s main weaknesses. The results are twofold: they indicate that the local action group is perceived as an effective convenor and that its activities are instrumental in improving local area stakeholders’ performance

Space-time least squares approximation for Schr\"odinger equation and efficient solver

In this work we present a space-time least squares isogeometric discretization of the Schr\"odinger equation and propose a preconditioner for the arising linear system in the parametric domain. Exploiting the tensor product structure of the basis functions, the preconditioner is written as the sum of Kronecker products of matrices. Thanks to an extension to the classical Fast Diagonalization method, the application of the preconditioner is efficient and robust w.r.t. the polynomial degree of the spline space. The time required for the application is almost proportional to the number of degrees-of-freedom, for a serial execution.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1909.0730

Laparoscopia vs. laparotomia nelle resezioni per cancro colorettale. Metanalisi dei principali trial

The objective of this study is in the critical analysis of the results of the lap and open surgery in the colorectal carcinoma, through the meta-analysis of the principal trials. Patients and methods. A systematic search of the comparative studies has been made among lap and open surgery in the colorectal carcinoma, using PubMed and Cochrane Library. Among these, have been selected perspective studies containing the description of the surgical techniques, the perioperative results and the oncological long term results. Statistic analysis has been performed with the program NCSS (Kaysville 2006, Utah). Results. From the revision of the literature, 7 perspective studies have checked fit to a meta-analysis, for a total of 3580 patients. Among the operative outcomes, has been observed, with statistically significant, a reduction of the blood loss and of the morbidity, an earlier resumption to passing flatus and to normal diet, a reduction of the postoperative hospitalization for the lap; shorter operative time is releaved for the open surgery. Statistically significant differences have emerged neither on the other surgical outcomes (included mortality) nor on relapset of illness (regional or metastasis), crab-correlated mortality, long term survival. Conclusions. The laparoscopic can be considered a valid alternative to the traditional open surgery in the therapy of the colorectal carcinoma: the advantages consist in smaller trauma and reduction of morbidity and postoperative stay. The oncological results are the same of the open surgery

Thinking for Three: Mothers' and Fathers' Narratives on Transition to Parenthood

Background: The birth of the first child represents a challenging event in the new-parents' life. Although literature highlighted that this period is experienced in a different way by the new mothers and new fathers, little is known about the broader evolutionary challenge that the transition to parenthood entails, also due to the difficulty of starting to think for three. Objective: The present study aims to explore the new-parents' autobiographical narratives after childbirth, to examine the meaning they construct of this event, and investigate the differences between the experience of new mothers and new fathers. Methods: Thirteen couples were recruited for the study. After childbirth, an individual open interview was conducted in order to collect information of the personal experience of becoming a parent. All interviews, audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, were analyzed by T-Lab software in order to explore similarities and differences between them, using thematic analysis to perform unsupervised clustering of narrations to highlight the emerging themes, and we evaluated the elementary contexts of the narratives. A subsequent in-depth analysis regarding the process of delivery was conducted through the LIWC Results: Similar but not overlapping themes emerged from narratives. Overall, parents have to face three crucial issues: giving a meaning to the childbirth experience, reorganizing family life, and managing the newborn. However, new-mothers and new-fathers live this period not only with different roles, but also referring to different contexts and seem to house two different spaces: one mental and one physical. Fathers more than mothers highlighted the social aspects of childbirth. Conclusion: Results highlight that childbirth represents an important turning point, which implies the transition from thinking for two to thinking for three. In this process, the two parents play, narratively, two different roles. Limitations, strengths, and implications are discussed

Effects of the structure of variable practice on the learning of a coincident timing task in children

O objetivo da pesquisa foi comparar o efeito de diferentes estruturas de prática variada na aprendizagem de uma tarefa de “timing” coincidente. Participaram 80 escolares entre oito e nove anos de idade, distribuídos nos grupos bloco (BL), bloco aleatório (BAL), bloco seriado (BSR) e aleatório (AL). O instrumento utilizado foi o Temporizador de Antecipação de Bassin que permite a manipulação da velocidade de propagação de um rastro luminoso formado pelo acendimento seqüencial de 32 diodos. A tarefa consistiu em apertar o botão de resposta no momento de incandescência do último diodo da seqüência. Na fase de aquisição, as crianças realizaram 80 tentativas nas respectivas estruturas de prática. Na fase de transferência e, uma semana após, na fase de retenção, as crianças realizaram quatro tentativas, em duas velocidades diferentes das utilizadas na fase de aquisição. Nas fases de retenção e transferência não foram detectadas diferenças signiíicantes entre os grupos nas três medidas utilizadas. Estes resultados estão de acordo com a possibilidade de não encontrar efeitos de interferência contextual quando se utiliza tarefas de uma mesma classe de movimentos (Magill & Hall, 1990). No entanto, o gmpo BSR apresentou tendência de superioridade nas três medidas, implicando que estruturas de prática variada distintas podem provocar certas diferenças entre os grupos. Esta tendência c discutida e sugestões para futuras pesquisas são apresentadasThe purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of different variable practice structures on the learning of a coincident timing task. Eighty aged eigth and nine year old school children assigned to four groups, block (BL), random block (RAB), serial block (SRB) and random (RA) participated in the experiment. The apparatus used was a Bassin Anticipation Timer that allows the handling of the propagation speed of a luminous trackway formed by the sequential lighting of 32 LEDs. The task was to press the response button simultaneously with the lighting of the last diode of the trackway. The children performed 80 trials on the respective practice structures at the acquisition phase. At the transfer phase and one week later at the retention phase, they performed four trials in two velocities that were not practised during the acquisition phase. The results showed no significant differences among the groups in the transfer and retention phases concerning the three measures utilized. The possibility of no contextual interference » effects in tasks belonging to the same movement class, as argued by Magill & Hall (1990), was considered as a possible interpretation for these results. However, the tendency of a slight superiority of the BSR group in all three measures, suggests the possibility of distinct effects of variable practice structures but this needs to be investigated further in future studie

Motor schema formation in children in a task involving coincident timing

The purpose of the present study was to test the motor schema formation in children in a coincident timing task. One hundred and twenty nine-year old school-children participated in this research. The Bassin Anticipation Timer was used and the task consisted of pressing the response key simultaneously with the lighting of the last LED. The study involved three groups: control (CG), constant practice (CTE) and variable practice (VAR) and encompassed three learning phases: acquisition, transfer and retention. In the precision error measure (AE), the results did not show any significant difference (p > .05) among the experimental groups, suggesting that the variability of practice did not affect coincidence timing task learning as proposed by Schmidt (1975). The possible explanations for these results can be: 1) The difficulty in perceiving stimulus variability that enables practice variability. 2) The difficulty in the development of abstract rule as a result of task simplicity in the sense that children of VAR group established relations between similar sensory consequenses and performance results. 3) The similarity of stimulus velocity in the acquisition and transfer phase, making transfer task new only for the CTE groupO objetivo do presente estudo foi testar a formação de esquema motor em crianças numa tarefa de "timing” coincidente. Participaram do mesmo 60 escolares de nove anos de idade. O instrumento utilizado foi o Temporizador de Antecipação de Bassin e a tarefa consistiu em apertar o botão de resposta simultaneamente ao acendimento do último diodo. O estudo envolveu três grupos: controle (GC), prática constante (CTE) e prática variada (VAR) e, abrangeu três fases de aprendizagem: aquisição, transferência e retenção. Na medida de precisão (EA), os resultados não revelaram diferença significante (p > 0,05) entre os grupos experimentais, sugerindo que em uma tarefa de "timing" coincidente não se observa o efeito da variabilidade de prática, como proposto por Schmidt (1975). As possíveis explicações para estes resultados podem ser: 1) A percepção da variação dos estímulos, que garante a variabilidade de prática, pode ter sido dificultada. 2) As tarefas utilizadas envolveram respostas motoras simples levando as crianças do grupo VAR a relacionarem conseqüências sensoriais e resultados da resposta semelhantes, dificultando o desenvolvimento de regra abstrata. 3) Devido à proximidade de estímulo nas fases de aquisição e transferência para o grupo VAR, as tarefas de transferência podem ter sido novas somente para o grupo CT

Effects of mixture and thinning in a tree farming valuable broadleaves plantation more than 20 years after the establishment.

The results of peduncolate Oak plantation trials where the Oak is mixed to wild Cherry and narrow-leaf Ash per line and per close mixture with different proportions (25% and 50%) of N-fixing species (Black Locust and Italian Alder) are described in the paper. The plantation, carried out in winter 1988-89, was framed into a reafforestation plan for spoil banks restoration. On a share of the plantation area, free thinnings foreseeing the release of about 70 target trees per hectare, were undertaken in 2001 and 2003; 21% and 27% of basal area were removed, respectively. In the latter trial, the crowns of target trees were completely isolated by felling all the surrounding trees. The performances of valuable timber broadleaves, the effects of intercropping and thinning on the growth of Oak target trees were analysed. Three inventories (2001, 2004 and 2008) and the annual monitoring of target trees growth were performed at the purpose. The two peduncolate Oak and narrow-leaf Ash trees showed the best performances among the set of valuable broadleaves, whilst wild cherry resulted not suited to local site conditions. A higher tree mortality occurred in the mixture with Black Locust. The mixture with both Nfixing species provided a stimulus to the Oak growth both in terms of dbh and tree height. Italian Alder resulted anyway less competitive and easy to manage, considering its progressive self-thinning, while Black Locust was aggressive enough to necessitate the control of its development by pollarding 7 years after the plantation. In the thinned plots, target trees showed significant diameter increments in comparison with control plots; maintaining year by year constant dbh increments of about 1 cm and crown’s diameter increment of about 50 cm. Intercropping with Italian Alder showed to be more effective than thinning on growth of the target trees