Indicators for the monitoring and evaluation of sociohousing management in non-metropolitan cities

En América Latina los centros no metropolitanos verifican una mayor concentración de situaciones deficitarias a nivel habitacional y urbano que los que no lo son, manifestándose a la vez como los escenarios prioritarios y con mayor flexibilidad para combatirlas. Estos aspectos han incitado a que los gobiernos locales de estas ciudades resignifiquen sus viejas funciones a fin de lograr mayor eficacia y eficiencia en sus acciones. De esta manera, los municipios se han visto obligados a asumir, a pesar de sus limitaciones, actitudes activas orientadas al desarrollo local. Para tal fin, nuevos requerimientos metodológicos e instrumentales a nivel de gestión local del hábitat son demandados, a fin de incrementar el impacto y la capacidad para actuar eficazmente frente a la problemática socio-habitacional. El presente artículo intenta definir las principales dimensiones, variables e indicadores a considerar, a la hora de monitorear la gestión local del hábitat en ciudades no metropolitanas desde una perspectiva integral y asociativa del hábitat social. Se busca con ello brindar elementos objetivos para incrementar la capacidad institucional de los gobiernos locales ante la problemática socio-habitacional a la que deben hacer frente.In Latin America, non-metropolitan centers present great shortfalls at housing and urban levels than other type of cities, thus becoming the primary and more flexible spaces to tackle such difficulties. These aspects have made the local governments of these cities to redefine their old functions in order to achieve efficacy and efficiency. In this way, municipalities have been forced to assume, despite their limitations, active developmentoriented attitudes. To this end, new methodological and instrumental tools at local housing management level are required to increase the impact and capacity to effectively address socio-housing problems. This paper makes an attempt to define the main dimensions, variables and indicators when monitoring local housing management in nonmetropolitan cities from an integral and associative perspective of social housing. The aim of this research is to provide objective elements aimed at increasing the institutional capacity of local governments when facing socio-housing problems.Fil: Gargantini, Daniela Mariana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnológico Cordoba. Centro Experimental de la Vivienda Economica(i); Argentin

Form and function in doing business rankings: is investor protection in Italy still so bad?

The World Bank’s Doing Business Report (DBR) ranks every year numerous jurisdictions across the globe according to their ability to facilitate business activities. Among the indexes contributing to the definition of the global competitiveness of the legislations, the “Protecting investors index” (PII) measures the protection of minority shareholders in listed companies. In this paper, we analyse the DBR’s assessment of the Italian regulatory framework on investor protection. We find that the PII falls short of properly evaluating the applicable rules. First, it underrates Italy because the DBR evaluation falls short of properly evaluating the role performed by independent directors under Italian rules on related party transactions. In particular, the DBR fails to properly account for independent directors’ power to veto unfair transactions before they are submitted to the board, a safeguard that ensures minority investors’ protection at least as well as mandatory abstention by conflicted directors. Second, past DBR overrated the PII, so that subsequent reforms that substantially improved investor protection have not been grasped by more recent assessments, giving the misleading impression that no relevant changes have occurred. Far from representing one of the multiple coding errors reported in the literature, these flaws aptly show that the DBR methodology, while correctly attempting to preserve consistency in the evaluation of different jurisdictions, adopts an excessively formalistic approach and disregards the function of the rules it scrutinizes. In light of the influence that the DBR exerts on national policymakers, this approach is detrimental because it might induce window-dressing reforms. Moreover, it may rule out experimentation, which is key to ensuring that the applicable rules keep pace with the variety of techniques adopted to expropriate minority shareholders.The World Bank’s Doing Business Report (DBR) ranks every year numerous jurisdictions across the globe according to their ability to facilitate business activities. Among the indexes contributing to the definition of the global competitiveness of the legislations, the “Protecting investors index” (PII) measures the protection of minority shareholders in listed companies. In this paper, we analyse the DBR’s assessment of the Italian regulatory framework on investor protection. We find that the PII falls short of properly evaluating the applicable rules. First, it underrates Italy because the DBR evaluation falls short of properly evaluating the role performed by independent directors under Italian rules on related party transactions. In particular, the DBR fails to properly account for independent directors’ power to veto unfair transactions before they are submitted to the board, a safeguard that ensures minority investors’ protection at least as well as mandatory abstention by conflicted directors. Second, past DBR overrated the PII, so that subsequent reforms that substantially improved investor protection have not been grasped by more recent assessments, giving the misleading impression that no relevant changes have occurred. Far from representing one of the multiple coding errors reported in the literature, these flaws aptly show that the DBR methodology, while correctly attempting to preserve consistency in the evaluation of different jurisdictions, adopts an excessively formalistic approach and disregards the function of the rules it scrutinizes. In light of the influence that the DBR exerts on national policymakers, this approach is detrimental because it might induce window-dressing reforms. Moreover, it may rule out experimentation, which is key to ensuring that the applicable rules keep pace with the variety of techniques adopted to expropriate minority shareholders.Refereed Working Papers / of international relevanc

Exploiting the ASM method within the Model-driven Engineering paradigm

Model-driven Engineering (MDE) is an emerging approach for software development. It uses metamodels to define language (or formalism) abstract notation, so separating the abstract syntax and semantics of the language from their different concrete notations. However, metamodelling frameworks lack of a way to specify the semantics of languages, which is usually given in natural language. We claim that the MDE paradigm can gain rigor and preciseness from the integration with formal approaches, and we propose the integration with the ASMs to define a unified methodology for metamodel-based language syntax and semantics definitions

Combinatorial Interaction Testing for Automated Constraint Repair

Highly-configurable software systems can be easily adapted to address user’s needs. Modelling parameter configurations and their relationships can facilitate software reuse. Combinatorial Interaction Testing (CIT) methods are already often used to drive systematic testing of software system configurations. However, a model of the system’s configurations not conforming with respect to its software implementation, must be repaired in order to restore conformance. In this paper we extend CIT by devising a new search-based technique able to repair a model composed of a set of constraints among the various software system’s parameters. Our technique can be used to detect and fix faults both in the model and in the real software system. Experiments for five real-world systems show that our approach can repair on average 37% of conformance faults. Moreover, we also show it can infer parameter constraints in a large real-world software system, hence it can be used for automated creation of CIT models

Rigorous development process of a safety-critical system: from ASM models to Java code

The paper presents an approach for rigorous development of safety-critical systems based on the Abstract State Machine formal method. The development process starts from a high level formal view of the system and, through refinement, derives more detailed models till the desired level of specification. Along the process, different validation and verification activities are available, as simulation, model review, and model checking. Moreover, each refinement step can be proved correct using an SMT-based approach. As last step of the refinement process, a Java implementation can be developed and linked to the formal specification. The correctness of the implementation w.r.t. its formal specification can be proved by means of model-based testing and runtime verification. The process is exemplified by using a Landing Gear System as case study

Body Image and Body Image Quality of Life in women with mastectomy. Comparison of women with immediate reconstruction, delayed reconstruction or without reconstruction

Aim: Analyze Body Image and its influence on Quality of Life in women who have undergone mastectomy as part of the treatment for breast cancer, with immediate reconstruction, delayed reconstruction or mastectomy without breast reconstruction. Method: The Body Image Scale (S-BIS) and the Body Image Quality of Life Inventory (BIQLI-SP) were administered to 30 women, divided into three groups: Immediate Reconstruction (n = 10); Delayed reconstruction (n = 10) and No reconstruction (n = 10). Result: Women who underwent immediate reconstruction presented less concerns with body image and higher body image quality of life. Furthermore, women without breast reconstruction presented higher concerns with body image and lower body image quality of life. The differences between groups did not reach statistical significance. Sexuality appears on both scales as an affected area. Finally, significant negative correlations were found between Body Image and Body Image Quality of Life in two groups: Immediate Reconstruction and No Reconstruction. Conclusions: Women who had breast reconstruction after mastectomy presented a better adjustment than those without reconstruction. Besides, women with immediate reconstruction shows less deterioration in body image than those with delayed reconstruction. However, some women evidence having integrated changes into a new body image without the need for reconstruction, demonstrating that choosing not to rebuild can also be a healthy and adequate option for many women. Regardless of their circumstances, every woman should have the right to choose the way to get through this situation and have access to all of the options.</p

Validation of Constraints Among Configuration Parameters Using Search-Based Combinatorial Interaction Testing

The appeal of highly-configurable software systems lies in their adaptability to users’ needs. Search-based Combinatorial Interaction Testing (CIT) techniques have been specifically developed to drive the systematic testing of such highly-configurable systems. In order to apply these, it is paramount to devise a model of parameter configurations which conforms to the software implementation. This is a non-trivial task. Therefore, we extend traditional search-based CIT by devising 4 new testing policies able to check if the model correctly identifies constraints among the various software parameters. Our experiments show that one of our new policies is able to detect faults both in the model and the software implementation that are missed by the standard approaches

Shape optimization under constraints on the probability of a quadratic functional to exceed a given treshold

This article is dedicated to shape optimization of elastic materials under random loadings where the particular focus is on the minimization of failure probabilities. Our approach relies on the fact that the area of integration is an ellipsoid in the high-dimensional parameter space when the shape functional of interest is quadratic. We derive the respective expressions for the shape functional and the related shape gradient. As showcase for the numerical implementation, we assume that the random loading is a Gaussian random field. By exploiting the specialties of this setting, we derive an efficient shape optimization algorithm. Numerical results in three spatial dimensions validate the feasibility of our approach

Online Model-Based Testing under Uncertainty

Modern software systems are required to operate in a highly uncertain and changing environment. They have to control the satisfaction of their requirements at run-time, and possibly adapt and cope with situations that have not been completely addressed at design-time. Software engineering methods and techniques are, more than ever, forced to deal with change and uncertainty (lack of knowledge) explicitly. For tackling the challenge posed by uncertainty in delivering more reliable systems, this paper proposes a novel online Model-based Testing technique that complements classic test case generation based on pseudo-random sampling strategies with an uncertainty-aware sampling strategy. To deal with system uncertainty during testing, the proposed strategy builds on an Inverse Uncertainty Quantification approach that is related to the discrepancy between the measured data at run-time (while the system executes) and a Markov Decision Process model describing the behavior of the system under test. To this purpose, a conformance game approach is adopted in which tests feed a Bayesian inference calibrator that continuously learns from test data to tune the system model and the system itself. A comparative evaluation between the proposed uncertainty-aware sampling policy and classical pseudo-random sampling policies is also presented using the Tele Assistance System running example, showing the differences in achieved accuracy and efficiency