Making Sense of Gov 2.0 Strategies: "No Citizens, No Party"

One of the main factors contributing to the limited impact of eParticipation projects is the presence of a high level of social complexity that has been identified by Macintosh as one of the five challenges in the implementation of eParticipation practices. How to make sense of social complexity is still an open issue as well as the way governments can take benefit from the wealth of information that is already available on their constituencies' collective behaviour. In this paper, we contend that the presence of a considerable variance in terms of political interests, educational level and technological skills makes it very difficult to design workable and effective systems to support participation. A modular strategy is then recommended requiring policy designers to make a step towards citizens rather than expecting the citizenry to move their content production activity onto the "official" spaces created for ad hoc participation

Selberg integrals in 1D random Euclidean optimization problems

We consider a set of Euclidean optimization problems in one dimension, where the cost function associated to the couple of points $x$ and $y$ is the Euclidean distance between them to an arbitrary power $p\ge1$, and the points are chosen at random with flat measure. We derive the exact average cost for the random assignment problem, for any number of points, by using Selberg's integrals. Some variants of these integrals allows to derive also the exact average cost for the bipartite travelling salesman problem.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

A More Comprehensive Index in the Evaluation of Scientific Research: The Single Researcher Impact Factor Proposal

Good alternatives to the Impact Factor (IF) algorithm are needed. The Thomson IF represents a limited measure of the importance of an individual article because 80% of a journal's IF is determined by only the 20% of the papers published. In the past few years, several new indexes has been created to provide alternatives to the IF algorithm. These include the removal of self citations from the calculation of the IF using the Adjusted IF, Index Copernicus initiative and other modifications such as the Cited Half-Life IF, Median IF, Disciplinary IF, and Prestige Factor. There is also the Euro-Factor, born in Europe to avoid the strong US centrality, and the English language basis of the Thomson database. One possible strategy to avoid "IF supremacy" is to create a new index, the Single Researcher Impact Factor (SRIF), that would move the evaluation from the power of scientific journals to the quality of single researchers. This measure can take into account the number and quality of the traditional publications and other activities usually associated with being a researcher, such as reviewing manuscripts, writing books, and attending scientific meetings. Also, in funding policy, it might be more useful to consider the merits, contributions, and real impact of all the scientific activities of a single researcher instead of adding only the journals' IF numbers. The major aim of this paper is to propose and describe the SRIF index that could represent a novel option to evaluate scientific research and researchers

Internet-Based Behavioral Interventions for Obesity: An Updated Systematic Review

The objective of this systematic review is to update a previous systematic review on the effectiveness of internet-based interventions for weight loss and weight loss maintenance in overweight and obese people with new or additional studies. A literature search from 2008 to March 2010 was conducted. Studies were eligible for inclusion if: participants were adults with a body mass index ≤ 25, at least one study arm involved an internet-based intervention and the primary aims were weight loss or maintenance. Eight additional studies over the eighteen included in the previous review met the inclusion criteria. Data were extracted on sample characteristics, attrition, weight loss, duration of treatment and maintenance of weight loss. Effect sizes (Hedges g) and relative 95% confidence intervals were calculated for all two-way comparisons within each study. No attempt was made to pool the data in a meta-analysis because of the great heterogeneity of designs among studies. An examination of effect sizes show that the higher significant effects pertain studies that found a superiority of behavioral internet-based programs enhanced by features such as tailored feedback on self-monitoring of weight, eating and activity over education only internet-based interventions. However, control groups are very different among studies and this heterogeneity probably accounts for much of the variance in effect sizes. Hence, questions still remain as to the effectiveness of web-based interventions in achieving weight loss or maintenance. Implications for further research include using a “real” control group in order to make meta-analysis possible and developing multi-factorial design in order to separate components of interventions and identify which of them or patterns of them are keys to success

Correction to: Implicit facial emotion recognition of fear and anger in obesity.

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Brief Strategic Therapy vs Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for the Inpatient and Telephone-Based Outpatient Treatment of Binge Eating Disorder: The STRATOB Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

This paper describes the results of the STRATOB (Systemic and STRATegic psychotherapy for OBesity) study, a two-arm randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) comparing Brief Strategic Therapy (BST, Nardone or Arezzo model) with the gold standard CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) for the inpatient and telephone-based outpatient treatment of obese people with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) seeking treatment for weight reduction. Primary outcome measure of the randomized trial was change in the Global Index of the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ 45.2). Secondary outcome measures were BED remission (weekly binge episodes < 2) and weight loss. Data were collected at baseline, at discharge from the hospital (c.a. 1 month after) and after 6 months from discharge.. No significant difference between groups (BST vs CBT) was found in the primary outcome at discharge. However, a greater improvement was seen in the BST vs the CBT group (P<.01) in the primary outcome at 6 months. About secondary outcomes, no significant difference between groups were found in weight change both at discharge and at 6 months. Notably, a significant association emerged between treatment groups and BED remission at 6 months in favor of BST (only 20% of patients in BST group reported a number of weekly binge episodes > 2 vs 63.3% in CBT group)

Finite Element Thermal Analysis of Metal Parts Additively Manufactured via Selective Laser Melting

In this chapter, a three-dimensional finite element model is developed to simulate the thermal behavior of the molten pool in selective laser melting (SLM) process. Laser-based additive manufacturing (AM) is a near net shape manufacturing process able to produce 3D objects. They are layer-wise built through selective melting of a metal powder bed. The necessary energy is provided by a laser source. The interaction between laser and material occurs within a few microseconds, hence the transient thermal behavior must be taken into account. A calibration procedure is carried out to fit the numerical solution with the experimental data. Once the calibration has corrected the thermal parameters, a dynamic mesh refinement is applied to reduce the computational cost. The scanning strategy adopted by the laser is simulated by a path simulator built using MatLab®, while numerical analysis is carried out using ANSYS®, a commercial finite element software. To improve the performance of the simulation, the two codes interact each other to solve the analysis. Temperature distribution and geometrical feature of the molten pool under different process conditions are investigated. Results from the FE analysis provide guidance for setting up the optimization of process parameters and develop a base for further residual stress analysis

On the use of a temperature based friction model for a virtual force sensor in industrial robot manipulators

In this paper we propose the use of a dynamic model in which the effects of temperature on friction are considered to develop a virtual force sensor for industrial robot manipulators. The estimation of the inertial parameters and of the friction model are explained. The effectiveness of the virtual force sensor has been proven in a polishing task. In fact, the interaction forces between the robot and the environment has been measured both with the virtual force sensor and a common load cell. Moreover, the advantages provided by considering the temperature dependency are highlighted