Road rules : analyzing traffic signs through a socio-cognitive approach

Around 1.3 million people die every year because of road traffic crashes. Although safety rules, vehicle standards and post-accident health care, have all seen significant improvement, rising population and quick motorization rates have added to the casualty numbers. Road safety has been included among the Sustainable Development Goals, but the target set of halving the number of road deaths by 2020 will be missed. With the emergent attention to road safety, several approaches may be adopted. One is tightening penalties to induce more prudent behavior. The second is to improve protection devices and vehicles. The third is to adapt road designs, including roadside signs, to modern roads and vehicles and to human behavior. This last approach in particular is the one where I think that substantial improvements may still be achieved. One of the most interesting aspects in terms of impact and effectiveness of rules, may be understood by focusing on the cognition process of the rule that is incorporated into a road sign, and by how this cognition can be framed so that voluntary compliance is enhanced. Road signs have always made extensive use of explanatory images. But it is also the unconscious social pressure that one\u2019s driving behavior is being watched that produces compliance. A normative-semiotic perspective should be integrated by a cognitive perspective, so thatinsights from both the natural and the social sciences may achieve higher degrees of precision and predictability

Italian Mediators in Action : the Impact of Style and Attitude

We analyzed a questionnaire sent to Italian mediators. We sought to investigate three areas: style of mediation, personal attitude toward the con\ufb02 ict, and e\ufb00 ectiveness in leading the parties to a negotiated agree- ment in mediation. We found no signi\ufb01 cant correlations between the style of mediation and the attitude of the respondents to the con\ufb02 ict. Respondents with postgraduate training in economics or accounting achieved higher rates of settlement. \ue003 e style of the mediator may be of some use as a paradigm of orientation, but has no su\ufb03 cient predictive value to be con\ufb01 rmed as a key to the functioning of the mediation

Concetto e dinamiche della disputa nelle scienze sociali

Il movimento per le Adr - Teorie della disputa - Metodi di risoluzione - Senso di giustizia e barriere cognitive: il contributo delle scienze biologiche - Il dibattito sull\u2019AD

In Search of Justice between Adjudication and Mediation

The mediation demise - The Adr movement - Cognitive biase

On the Implementation of Location Obfuscation in openwifi and Its Performance

Wi-Fi sensing as a side-effect of communications is opening new opportunities for smart services integrating communications with environmental properties, first and foremost the position of devices and people. At the same time, this technology represents an unprecedented threat to people’s privacy, as personal information can be collected directly at the physical layer without any possibility to hide or protect it. Several works already discussed the possibility of safeguarding users’ privacy without hampering communication performance. Usually, some signal pre-processing at the transmitter side is needed to introduce pseudo-random (artificial) patterns in the channel response estimated at the receiver, preventing the extraction of meaningful information from the channel state. However, there is currently just one implementation of such techniques in a real system (openwifi), and it has never been tested for performance. In this work, we present the implementation of a location obfuscation technique within the openwifi project that enables fine manipulation of the radio signal at transmitter side and yields acceptable, if not good, performance. The paper discusses the implementation of the obfuscation subsystem, its performance, possible improvements, and further steps to allow authorized devices to “de-obfuscate” the signal and retrieve the sensed information

Previous Crop Impacts Winter Wheat Sowing Dates, Available Water at Sowing, and Grain Yield

Cropping systems choices can directly affect the sowing date for winter wheat, which is among the most important variables that determine attainable yields in the U.S. Central Great Plains. Our objective was to investigate the effect of the previous crop on winter wheat grain yield through the modulation of sowing date and its impact on plant available water at sowing, and temperatures during the critical period for yield determination. A no-tillage rainfed field experiment was established in 2019 at Ashland Bottoms, KS. Winter wheat was sown either after summer fallow, full-season soybean, double-cropped soybean, or corn—thus, resulting in a range in sowing dates of 270–326 days of the year (September 27 to November 22). The optimum sowing date for the site based on grain yield was estimated at day of year 296 ± 5 (October 18 to 28). Winter wheat after summer fallow and after a fullseason soybean crop resulted in the greatest yields, whether sown at the optimum date or slightly later than optimum. Winter wheat yield was positively related to plant available water at sowing. Later sowing dates were most likely to reduce plant available water at sowing, and could delay wheat’s development resulting in higher temperatures occurring during the critical period for yield determination (i.e., the days surrounding anthesis). Later sowing also shortened grain filling duration due to an overall later cycle and elevated temperatures. Thus, adjusting winter wheat sowing dates is the first step that determines the crop’s yield potential through improved plant available water at sowing, and reduced temperatures during the critical period for yield determination. When following a summer crop, winter wheat should be sown as soon as the previous crop is harvested to try to mitigate these negative effects of late sowing

Probiotic bacteria regulate intestinal epithelial permeability in experimental ileitis by a TNF-dependent mechanism

Background: We previously showed that the probiotic mixture, VSL#3, prevents the onset of ileitis in SAMP/YitFc (SAMP) mice, and this effect was associated with stimulation of epithelial-derived TNF. The aim of this study was to determine the mechanism(s) of VSL#3-mediated protection on epithelial barrier function and to further investigate the "paradoxical" effects of TNF in preventing SAMP ileitis. Methods: Permeability was evaluated in SAMP mice prior to the onset of inflammation and during established disease by measuring transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER) on ex vivo-cultured ilea following exposure to VSL#3 conditioned media (CM), TNF or VSL#3-CM + anti-TNF. Tight junction (TJ) proteins were assessed by qRT-PCR, Western blot, and confocal microscopy, and TNFRI/TNFRII expression measured in freshly isolated intestinal epithelial cells (IEC) from SAMP and control AKR mice. Results: Culture with either VSL#3-CM or TNF resulted in decreased ileal paracellular permeability in pre-inflamed SAMP, but not SAMP with established disease, while addition of anti-TNF abrogated these effects. Modulation of the TJ proteins, claudin-2 and occludin, occurred with a significant decrease in claudin-2 and increase in occludin following stimulation with VSL#3-CM or TNF. TNF protein levels increased in supernatants of SAMP ilea incubated with VSL#3-CM compared to vehicle, while IEC-derived TNFR mRNA expression decreased in young, and was elevated in inflamed, SAMP versus AKR mice. Conclusions: Our data demonstrate that the previously established efficacy of VSL#3 in preventing SAMP ileitis is due to direct innate and homeostatic effects of TNF on the gut epithelium, modulation of the TJ proteins, claudin-2 and occludin, and overall improvement of intestinal permeability. © 2012 Corridoni et al