The new frontiers of innovation: recognizing and enhancing professional skills in organizations

This publication was produced by a job on a bilateral basis within the project MEC-LAB: "The new frontiers of automation - training days for employees seniors”. This work has allowed a theoretical study and moments of reflection on skills, negotiation, career plans, highlighting the centrality of the relationship between business and trade unions on these issues and to try to recognize and pathways within careers and skills of workersprofessional skills; career pathways; human capital

What do humans feel with mistreated humans, animals, robots and objects? Exploring the role of cognitive empathy

The aim of this paper is to present a study in which we compare the degree of empathy that a convenience sample of university students expressed with humans, animals, robots and objects. The present study broadens the spectrum of elements eliciting empathy that has been previously explored while at the same time comparing different facets of empathy. Here we used video clips of mistreated humans, animals, robots, and objects to elicit empathic reactions and to measure attributed emotions. The use of such a broad spectrum of elements allowed us to infer the role of different features of the selected elements, specifically experience (how much the element is able to understand the events of the environment) and degree of anthropo-/zoomorphization. The results show that participants expressed empathy differently with the various social actors being mistreated. A comparison between the present results and previous results on vicarious feelings shows that congruence between self and other experience was not always held, and it was modulated by familiarity with robotic artefacts of daily usage

Le nuove frontiere dell'innovazione: riconoscere e valorizzare le competenze professionali in azienda

This publication was produced by a job on a bilateral basis within the project MEC-LAB: "The new frontiers of automation - training days for employees seniors”. This work has allowed a theoretical study and moments of reflection on skills, negotiation, career plans, highlighting the centrality of the relationship between business and trade unions on these issues and to try to recognize and pathways within careers and skills of worker

Le nuove frontiere dell'innovazione: riconoscere e valorizzare le competenze professionali in azienda

This publication was produced by a job on a bilateral basis within the project MEC-LAB: "The new frontiers of automation - training days for employees seniors”. This work has allowed a theoretical study and moments of reflection on skills, negotiation, career plans, highlighting the centrality of the relationship between business and trade unions on these issues and to try to recognize and pathways within careers and skills of worker

Durability assessment of soft elastomeric capacitor skin for SHM of wind turbine blades

Renewable energy production has become a key research driver during the last decade. Wind energy represents a ready technology for large-scale implementation in locations all around the world. While important research is conducted to optimize wind energy production efficiency, a critical issue consists of monitoring the structural integrity and functionality of these large structures during their operational life cycle. This paper investigates the durability of a soft elastomeric capacitor strain sensing membrane, designed for structural health monitoring of wind turbines, when exposed to aggressive environmental conditions. The sensor is a capacitor made of three thin layers of an SEBS polymer in a sandwich configuration. The inner layer is doped with titania and acts as the dielectric, while the external layers are filled with carbon black and work as the conductive plates. Here, a variety of samples, not limited to the sensor configuration but also including its dielectric layer, were fabricated and tested within an accelerated weathering chamber (QUV) by simulating thermal, humidity, and UV radiation cycles. A variety of other tests were performed in order to characterize their mechanical, thermal, and electrical performance in addition to their solar reflectance. These tests were carried out before and after the QUV exposures of 1, 7, 15, and 30 days. The tests showed that titania inclusions improved the sensor durability against weathering. These findings contribute to better understanding the field behavior of these skin sensors, while future developments will concern the analysis of the sensing properties of the skin after aging

Wheat-based breads with slowly digestible starch properties by increasing the amylose content: an in vitro approach

BACKGROUND: Previous experiences revealed that increasing the amylose content through the substitution of normal amylose (NA) with high amylose (HA) flours can improve slowly digestible starch properties of cereal-based foods. However, data for wheat-based breads are not clear, since HA sources are frequently used in combination with organic acids and/or specific baking conditions know to reduce rate and extent of starch digestion. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to conduct an in vitro evaluation of starch digestibility of wheat-based breads characterised by increasing amylose levels. METHODS: Wheat-based breads were formulated with increasing amylose levels derived from the substitution of NA white wheat (NAWW) flour with HA maize starch (HAMS) represented by substitution ratio of 0%, 15% and 30% on a total flour basis. RESULTS: Dietary fibre increased (p < 0.05) whereas crude protein decreased (p < 0.05) when the level of HAMS increased in the recipe. The resistant starch and slowly digestible starch fractions increased (p < 0.05), whereas the predicted glycaemic index and the in vitro rate of starch hydrolysis decreased (p < 0.05) when HAMS increased in the formulation. CONCLUSIONS: Present findings suggested that the use of HA ingredients could contribute to formulate wheat-based breads with overall slowly digestible starch properties

Smart environments and context-awareness for lifestyle management in a healthy active ageing framework

Health trends of elderly in Europe motivate the need for technological solutions aimed at preventing the main causes of morbidity and premature mortality. In this framework, the DOREMI project addresses three important causes of morbidity and mortality in the elderly by devising an ICT-based home care services for aging people to contrast cognitive decline, sedentariness and unhealthy dietary habits. In this paper, we present the general architecture of DOREMI, focusing on its aspects of human activity recognition and reasoning

Durability and weatherability of a styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS) block copolymer-based sensing skin for civil infrastructure applications

Structural health monitoring of civil infrastructure requires low-cost, scalable, long-term, and robust sensing technologies due to the size and complexity of the geometries under consideration. This paper investigates the durability and weatherability of a large area sensing skin engineered for civil infrastructure applications. This sensing skin is based on a soft elastomeric capacitor made of three thin layers based on an SEBS block co-polymer matrix. The inner layer is filled with titania and acts as the dielectric, while the external layers are doped with carbon black and work as the conductive plates. In this work, a variety of specimens, including the dielectric layer without the conductive plates, were fabricated and tested within an accelerated weathering chamber by simulating thermal, humidity, and UV radiation cycles. Beyond the accelerated weathering tests, a sensor deployed on a bridge in Iowa for six and a half years was removed from the field and analyzed in the laboratory. A variety of other tests were performed in order to characterize the specimens’ mechanical, thermal, optical, and electrical performance. Additionally, strain sensitivity analyses were performed on specimens of interest. Results showed that titania inclusions improved the sensor dielectric\u27s durability against weathering, while the carbon black doped conductive layers provided the skin sensor with a high level of durability and weatherability protection. The results in this work contribute to a better understanding of the degradation of SEBS-based matrices as well as the behavior of these skin sensors when deployed for the monitoring of civil infrastructure