Urban Revolution at Times of Creative Food Cycles

Contemporary cities are constantly evolving and digital processes seem to have entered overwhelmingly into every activity daily life as well as into everyone's home. But how much and in which way this transition will affect positively our social and working life is still to be demonstrated. In food supply chains, whether in production, processing or disposal applications, the innovation factor related to digital processes still represents an early-stage field of investigation. Advanced research on Bio-materials derived from food-waste are a strong bet for urban environments, where product replacement can significantly reduce CO2 emissions and foster the implementation of a new raw material policy to rebalance the support bio-based strategies versus industrial material use. This paper explores some urban challenges and examples related to ICT implementation and creative methods connected to 3D printing and digital fabrication connected to food waste valorisation able to influence we live our domestic spaces

Dalla neuroeconomia alla neuroetica: verso una neuroscienza delle decisioni individuali e socio-morali

Riassunto: Neuroeconomia e neuroetica sono settori delle neuroscienze cognitive che studiano i correlati neurali di aspetti distinti, sebbene strettamente interconnessi, del processo decisionale. Mentre la neuroeconomia studia i meccanismi cerebrali che guidano verso la massimizzazione dell’utilità economica personale, la neuroetica integra tali conoscenze con quelle fornite dalle neuroscienze sociali per affrontare domande tipiche dell'etica e della filosofia morale. Gli studi oggi disponibili in questo ambito vengono qui discussi al fine di mettere a confronto l’ipotesi secondo cui le scelte economiche individuali e socio-morali sono supportate da un unico circuito cerebrale con differenti input specifici per dominio (Extended Common Currency Schema) rispetto a quella che prevede basi cerebrali specifiche per la scelta in ambito socio-morale (Social-Valutation-Specific Schema). In linea con il primo dei due modelli, i dati presenti in letteratura sembrano confermare l’esistenza di un singolo sistema cerebrale associato ai diversi tipi di scelta, indipendentemente dal contesto decisionale individuale vs. socio-morale.Parole chiave:  Decision-making; Neuroeconomia; Neuroetica; Extended Common Currency Schema; Social Valutation Specific Schema From Neuroeconomy to Neuroethics: Towards a Neuroscience of Individual and Socio-Moral DecisionsAbstract: Neuroeconomics and neuroethics are subfields of cognitive neuroscience that address the neural correlates of distinct, although strongly intertwined, facets of decision-making. While neuroeconomics investigates the neural mechanisms underlying the maximization of personal economic utility, neuroethics integrates such knowledge with that provided by social neurosciences, in order to address typical questions in ethics and moral philosophy. We review the available research to contrast the hypothesis that both individual economic and socio-moral choices rely on a common brain network receiving domain-specific inputs (Extended Common Currency Schema) and the claim that a specific brain network underpins choices in a socio-moral context (Social-Valutation-Specific Schema). In line with the former model, currently available evidence supports the existence of a single brain network associated with both choice types, regardless of the economic individual vs. socio-moral decisional context.Keywords: Decision-making; Neuroeconomics; Neuroethics; Extended Common Currency Schema; Social Valutation Specific Schem

Specificity of Esthetic Experience for Artworks: An fMRI Study

In a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, where we investigated the neural correlates of esthetic experience, we found that observing canonical sculptures, relative to sculptures whose proportions had been modified, produced the activation of a network that included the lateral occipital gyrus, precuneus, prefrontal areas, and, most interestingly, the right anterior insula. We interpreted this latter activation as the neural signature underpinning hedonic response during esthetic experience. With the aim of exploring whether this specific hedonic response is also present during the observation of non-art biological stimuli, in the present fMRI study we compared the activations associated with viewing masterpieces of classical sculpture with those produced by the observation of pictures of young athletes. The two stimulus-categories were matched on various factors, including body postures, proportion, and expressed dynamism. The stimuli were presented in two conditions: observation and esthetic judgment. The two stimulus-categories produced a rather similar global activation pattern. Direct comparisons between sculpture and real-body images revealed, however, relevant differences, among which the activation of right antero-dorsal insula during sculptures viewing only. Along with our previous data, this finding suggests that the hedonic state associated with activation of right dorsal anterior insula underpins esthetic experience for artworks

Advanced Urbanism / UNIGE Approaches

Abbordaggio critico sulla condizione contemporanea del progetto architettonico e lo spazio urbano in relazione alle nuove tecnologie e la societ\ue0 della informazione. Progetto KAAU, Konsortium For Advanced Architecture and Urbanism, collegato con un Erasmus Grant. Report del Symposium International Meeting KA-AU ADVANCED URBANISM, NEW WAYS FOR DESIGN 2018, Ordine degli Architetti Genova 24/09/201

MAPS OF STRATEGICAL, PHYSICAL, SOCIAL (AND EMOTIONAL) GEOGRAPHIES

Today the urban planners, through the study of the SMGI data, are able to quickly obtain quantitative and quantitative information on the spatial dynamics of the citizens in the urban context. This practice will be increasingly exploited in the future, especially in the context of environmental or culpable disasters, in which the redesign of an area requires tight deadlines. The question that arises is spontaneous: it will be possible to rethought an urban context in which everyone, being able to access the social networks, will have power to represent their future image of space? What would be the consequences of the user\u2019s immediate responses? Starting from Google Maps and Instagram would you see an overlap or a split between the maps of the physical movements and the maps of the emotional geographies

CROSSLANDS: RESILIENCE AND NEW METROPOLITAN POLARITIES IN THE PERIURBAN RIVER SPACES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN COAST. THE CASE OF VAL POLCEVERA

o studio territoriale di reti socio/infra/intra-strutturali ambisce non solo ad integrare differenti sistemi, quanto, e soprattutto, a creare fra questi sinergia e risonanza; focalizzandosi non unicamente sulla mobilit\ue0 urbana infrastrutturale, ma anche, sull\u2019interconnessione fra realt\ue0 geografiche e sociali oggi interrotte: territori oggi frammentati e complessi (come quello della val Polcevera) hanno la necessit\ue0 e l\u2019opportunit\ue0 di essere riattivati e rintrecciati in nuove trame geourbane, in cui connessioni ed interconnessioni assumono un ruolo fondamentale. L\u2019analisi strategica di questi casi di studio vuole illustrare un nuovo approccio contemporaneo ad una pianificazione pi\uf9 multi-sistemica (e multilivello) che invita all\u2019 esplorazione di nuovi tipi di cartografia, mappatura, analisi grafica (diagrammi, ideogrammi, schemi, masterizzazioni) associati ad una rappresentazione pi\uf9 espressiva, comunicativa, plastica e concettualmente esplicita del Disegno Urba

Prefrontal involvement in imitation learning of hand actions : effects of practice and expertise.

In this event-related fMRI study, we demonstrate the effects of a single session of practising configural hand actions (guitar chords) on cortical activations during observation, motor preparation, and imitative execution. During the observation of non-practised actions, the mirror neuron system (MNS), consisting of inferior parietal and ventral premotor areas, was more strongly activated than for the practised actions. This finding indicates a strong role of the MNS in the early stages of imitation learning. In addition, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was selectively involved during observation and motor preparation of the non-practised chords. This finding confirms Buccino et al.’s (2004a) model of imitation learning: for actions that are not yet part of the observer’s motor repertoire, DLPFC engages in operations of selection and combination of existing, elementary representations in the MNS. The pattern of prefrontal activations further supports Shallice’s (2004) proposal of a dominant role of the left DLPFC in modulating lower-level systems, and of a dominant role of the right DLPFC in monitoring operations

Agro.Med.Cities: riflessioni e approcci propositivi al paesaggio agricolo Mediterraneo

Urbanistica e strategia urbana. Abbordaggio critico e applicativo sullo spazio agro-urbano in relazione allo sviluppo sostenibile, l'attenzione al paesaggio, la rinaturalizzazione verde, le nuove tecnologie e la dimensione multifunzionale in la societ\ue0 della sensibilit\ue0 ambientale e la informazione

Nuevos métodos de tintura en frio para lana.

Este trabajo se inició como un estudio de la influencia de la urea en el proceso de tintura. Se investigaron los efectos de la urea sobre fibras y colorantes, teniendo presente sus dos posibles factores. 1. Las soluciones de urea hinchan la lana permitiendo el fácil acceso del colorante. 2. La urea dispersa y disgrega el colorante permitiendo un acceso más facil de las especies monomoleculares.Peer Reviewe

Neural Coding of Cooperative vs. Affective Human Interactions: 150 ms to Code the Action's Purpose

The timing and neural processing of the understanding of social interactions was investigated by presenting scenes in which 2 people performed cooperative or affective actions. While the role of the human mirror neuron system (MNS) in understanding actions and intentions is widely accepted, little is known about the time course within which these aspects of visual information are automatically extracted. Event-Related Potentials were recorded in 35 university students perceiving 260 pictures of cooperative (e.g., 2 people dragging a box) or affective (e.g., 2 people smiling and holding hands) interactions. The action's goal was automatically discriminated at about 150–170 ms, as reflected by occipito/temporal N170 response. The swLORETA inverse solution revealed the strongest sources in the right posterior cingulate cortex (CC) for affective actions and in the right pSTS for cooperative actions. It was found a right hemispheric asymmetry that involved the fusiform gyrus (BA37), the posterior CC, and the medial frontal gyrus (BA10/11) for the processing of affective interactions, particularly in the 155–175 ms time window. In a later time window (200–250 ms) the processing of cooperative interactions activated the left post-central gyrus (BA3), the left parahippocampal gyrus, the left superior frontal gyrus (BA10), as well as the right premotor cortex (BA6). Women showed a greater response discriminative of the action's goal compared to men at P300 and anterior negativity level (220–500 ms). These findings might be related to a greater responsiveness of the female vs. male MNS. In addition, the discriminative effect was bilateral in women and was smaller and left-sided in men. Evidence was provided that perceptually similar social interactions are discriminated on the basis of the agents' intentions quite early in neural processing, differentially activating regions devoted to face/body/action coding, the limbic system and the MNS