Change management and new expertise in AEC firms: improvement in environmental competence

The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of the change management inherent Architecture, Engineering and Construction firms, focusing the attention on the transformation made by environmental issues and their related drivers. Over the last years, building sector has become increasingly complex, due to the heavy demand of a wide range of requirements and to the globalization of the market. This leads on one side the innovation of digital tools, as a result of the development of Information and Communication Technology – ICT, and on the other the division of labour in AEC firms, that is socially spread with an even more highly specialization. The fragmentation can take place in two directions: along what is conventionally defined as the vertical dimension of the process (i.e. the sequence of operations that proceed from inception to implementation phase) as well as along the horizontal dimension (i.e. operations occurring at any given stage). The paper shows the results of the analysis carried out on some of the AEC firms established at international level, highlighting the inner structure, organization, competences and tools used in practice. The configuration of the process structure and the consequent division of labour turn out to be established by a set of internal conditions, generated by the project itself as well as the available technology. Furthermore, the decision to structure internal firm hierarchies or to have external equipment (both experts and tools) depends on the cost that the firms should undertake in order to acquire knowledge, services or products that are external to their sphere of governance. The overview gives an evidence that the explosion of product/service options and the connected specialized systems for the whole building, from exterior cladding to computer-controlled HVAC, require even more a highly amount of knowledge and skills and the demand of new competences and expertise. In particular, the study shows the increasingly request in AEC firms of experts and tools, to deal with the challenging environmental topics. Firms themselves are taking advantage by the integration of environmental topics and goals, as proven by the fact that in the top ten global AEC firms seven of them are considered environmentally friendly (source: ENR). The paper highlights that many drivers are pushing effort in that direction: on one hand, policy and legislation at international and national level, incentive programs and also voluntary certification such as Green Building Rating System; and on the other hand design firms themselves, stimulated by competiveness or, in few case, by their philosophy

Bayesian Multivariate Nonlinear State Space Copula Models

In this paper we propose a flexible class of multivariate nonlinear non-Gaussian state space models, based on copulas. More precisely, we assume that the observation equation and the state equation are defined by copula families that are not necessarily equal. For each time point, the resulting model can be described by a C-vine copula truncated after the first tree, where the root node is represented by the latent state. Inference is performed within the Bayesian framework, using the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo method, where a further D-vine truncated after the first tree is used as prior distribution to capture the temporal dependence in the latent states. Simulation studies show that the proposed copula-based approach is extremely flexible, since it is able to describe a wide range of dependence structures and, at the same time, allows us to deal with missing data. The application to atmospheric pollutant measurement data shows that our approach is suitable for accurate modeling and prediction of data dynamics in the presence of missing values. Comparison to a Gaussian linear state space model and to Bayesian additive regression trees shows the superior performance of the proposed model with respect to predictive accuracy

Internationalisation, cultural distance and country characteristics: a Bayesian analysis of SME's financial performance

Relying on the accounting data of a panel of 403 Italian manufacturing SMEs collected over a period of 5 years, we find results suggesting that multinationality per se does not impact on the economic performance of international small and medium sized firms. It is the characteristics of the country selected i.e. the political hazard, the financial stability and the economic performance that significantly influence SMEs financial performance. The management implication for small and medium sized firms selecting and entering new geographic markets is significant, since our results show that for SMEs it is the market selection process that really matters and not the degree of multinationality

A copula-based approach for the estimation of wave height records through spatial correlation

publisher: Elsevier articletitle: A copula-based approach for the estimation of wave height records through spatial correlation journaltitle: Coastal Engineering articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2016.06.008 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

Large-scale response of the Eastern Mediterranean thermohaline circulation to African monsoon intensification during sapropel S1 formation

This study was supported by Shell International Exploration and Production Inc. We thank the R/V URANIA crew for at sea assistance. This is the ISMAR contribution n. 1914. We thank Dr. L. Capotondi and Dr. L. Vigliotti for their constructive comments on the first draft of the manuscript. We also thank Dr. Daria Pasqual (University of Padova, Dept. of Geosciences) for her assistance in XRF analyses. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the Editor H. Bauch for their constructive comments. We also acknowledge Prof. Gerhard Schmiedl (Universität Hamburg) and Associate Prof. Syee Weldeab (Earth Science, UC Santa Barbara) for providing published data used in this study.Peer reviewedPostprin

Intratumor Regulatory Noncytotoxic NK Cells in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Previous studies support the role of natural killer (NK) cells in controlling hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression. However, ambiguity remains about the multiplicity and the role of different NK cell subsets, as a pro-oncogenic function has been suggested. We performed phenotypic and functional characterization of NK cells infiltrating HCC, with the corresponding nontumorous tissue and liver from patients undergoing liver resection for colorectal liver metastasis used as controls. We identified a reduced number of NK cells in tumors with higher frequency of CD56(BRIGHT)CD16(-) NK cells associated with higher expression of NKG2A, NKp44, and NKp30 and downregulation of NKG2D. Liver-resident (CXCR6(+)) NK cells were reduced in the tumors where T-bet(hi)Eomes(lo) expression was predominant. HCCs showed higher expression of CD49a with particular enrichment in CD49a(+)Eomes(+) NK cells, a subset typically represented in the decidua and playing a proangiogenic function. Functional analysis showed reduced TNF-alpha production along with impaired cytotoxic capacity that was inversely related to CXCR6(-), T-bet(hi)Eomes(lo), and CD49a(+)Eomes(+) NK cells. In conclusion, we identified a subset of NK cells infiltrating HCC, including non-liver-resident cells that coexpressed CD49a and Eomes and showed reduced cytotoxic potential. This NK cell subset likely plays a regulatory role in proangiogenic function

Sub-surface modifications in silicon with ultra-short pulsed lasers above 2 µm

Nonlinear optical phenomena in silicon such as self-focusing and multi-photon absorption are strongly dependent on the wavelength, energy, and duration of the exciting pulse, especially for wavelengths >2µm. We investigate the sub-surface modification of silicon using ultra-short pulsed lasers at wavelengths in the range of 1950–2400 nm, at a pulse duration between 2 and 10 ps and pulse energy varying from 1 µJ to 1 mJ. We perform numerical simulations and experiments using fiber-based lasers built in-house that operate in this wavelength range for the surface and sub-surface processing of Si-wafers. The results are compared to the literature data at 1550 nm. Due to a dip in the nonlinear absorption spectrum and a peak in the spectrum of the third-order nonlinearity, the wavelengths between 2000 and 2200 nm prove to be more favorable for creating sub-surface modifications in silicon. This is the case even though those wavelengths do not allow as tight focusing as those at 1550 nm. This is compensated for by an increased self-focusing due to the nonlinear Kerr-effect around 2100 nm at high light intensities, characteristic for ultra-short pulses