From trans-disciplinary to "undisciplined" design learning: educating through/to disruption

The paper is fruit of a coordinated work, however the author of paragraphs 1 and 4 is Flaviano Celaschi, the author of paragraph 2 is Elena Formia and the author of paragraphs 3 and 5 is Eleonora Lup

Beyond the eidetics of living beings: contingency, plasticity, individuality

Saving living phenomena means saving their contingency, their plasticity, their indi-viduality. A fruitful dialogue between metaphysics, phenomenology and morphology can be of help to investigate the ontological question of form, giving us the possibility to investigate the question of form and its epistemological significance providing a revision of that eidetic approach which instead is in danger of losing the sense of the continuous plastic morphogenesis of living beings

The role of the cerebellum in unconsciuos and conscious processing of emotions: a review

Studies from the past three decades have demonstrated that there is cerebellar involvement in the emotional domain. Emotional processing in humans requires both unconscious and conscious mechanisms. A significant amount of evidence indicates that the cerebellum is one of the cerebral structures that subserve emotional processing, although conflicting data have been reported on its function in unconscious and conscious mechanisms. This review discusses the available clinical, neuroimaging and neurophysiological data on this issue. We also propose a model in which the cerebellum acts as a mediator between the internal state and external environment for the unconscious and conscious levels of emotional processing

Enhancing regional ocean modeling simulation performance with the Xeon Phi architecture

Ocean studies are crucial to many scientific disciplines. Due to the difficulty in probing the deep layers of the ocean and the scarcity of data in some of the oceans, the scientific community relies heavily on ocean simulation models. Ocean modeling is complex and computationally intensive, and improving the performance of these models will greatly advance and improve the work of ocean scientists. This paper presents a detailed exploration of the acceleration of the Regional Ocean Model System (ROMS) software with the latest Intel Xeon Phi x200 architectures. Both shared-memory and distributed-memory parallel computing models are evaluated. Results show run time improvements of nearly a factor of 16 compared to a serial implementation. Further experiments and optimizations, including the use of a GPU acceleration model, are discussed and results are presented

I mercati emergenti come sbocco per l'offerta di beni di lusso

Questo articolo si concentra sui mercati emergenti e sul loro rapporto con il mercato dei beni di lusso. Ciascuna economia emergente ha caratteristiche peculiari che rendono il proprio mercato più o meno appetibile per l'investitore estero. Lo studio portato avanti propone una prima parte descrittiva focalizzata sulle economie emergenti ed i loro potenziali di sviluppo futuro. La seconda parte dell'articolo è incentrata sul mercato del lusso nei paesi emergenti e sulle opportunità future di sviluppo di tali mercati. Dalle conclusioni di tale studio emerge che i mercati emergenti si dimostrano essere potenziali mercati strategici per lo sviluppo del settore del lusso

Le peculiarità del mercato del lusso

Questo articolo analizza il mercato del lusso soffermandosi in particolare sulle caratteristiche principali dei prodotti luxury good. Fondamentali sono: l'unicità, il pregio, la qualità eccellente ed il prezzo elevato. Grazie alla legge di Hengel è stato possibile centrare l'indagine sul diverso andamento incrementale dei beni inferiori, normali e di lusso all'aumento della fascia di reddito da parte dei soggetti. Si è posto l'accento su come il mercato del lusso sia quello maggiormente incrementato da parte dei soggetti di fascia alta. Negli ultimi anni a differenza dei beni inferiori e normali, il mercato dei beni di lusso ha subito un incremento del 35,7%

I trend del mercato azionario globale 2008/2014

In questo articolo si affronta il tema del mercato azionario. Esso ha assunto un ruolo crescente nell'ambito del sistema finanziario. La sua caratteristica più importante è la capacità di rappresentare la situazione in cui si trova l'economia reale. L'andamento del mercato azionario può essere influenzato in larga parte dall'andamento dell'economia reale e di conseguenza dalla fiducia degli investitori. L'andamento degli indici a zionari è in grado, nell'arco temporale 2008/2014, di darci un quadro chiaro delle ripercussioni della crisi finanziaria sul mercato azionario. L'articolo è diviso in due parti. La prima descrive il mercato azionario e i fattori che lo influenzano. Nella seconda parte, analitica, vengono presi in esame i tre indici che più rappresentano il reale andamento del mercato azionario, Ftse - mib, Cac40 e S&P500

Fourier-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography and Microperimetry Findings in Retinitis Pigmentosa

PURPOSE: To investigate the relation between the optical coherence tomography (OCT) findings and retinal sensitivity in patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) by assessing the retinal thickness and retinal function using Fourier-domain OCT (FD-OCT) and microperimetry, respectively. DESIGN: Observational case series. METHODS: Fifty-nine patients (118 eyes) were enrolled, mean age 47 +/- 14.8 years. Thirty-two healthy subjects (HS) were enrolled as a control group. Patients were assessed by means of FD-OCT and microperimetry. We analyzed the average foveal thickness (diameter of 1 mm centered on the point of fixation), the value of the retinal sensitivities corresponding to the 4 degrees centered on the fixation point, and logMAR visual acuity for regression analysis converted from Snellen chart. RESULTS: We distinguished 4 groups of RP patients according to the macular pattern seen on OCT images. The first group of 36 eyes, mean age of 33.5 +/- 7.4 years, had no macular changes, mean best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of 0.95 +/- 0.07, mean foveal thickness of 256.3 +/- 9.14 mu m, and mean retinal sensitivities inside the central 4 degrees of 19.27 +/- 0.87 dB (P > .05 for all the values). The second group of 28 eyes, mean age 35.4 +/- 6.3 years, showed clinical macular edema (CME) on OCT images with mean BCVA of 0.72 +/- 0.22, mean foveal thickness of 363.5 +/- 93.45 mu m, and mean retinal sensitivity inside the central 4 degrees of 15.94 +/- 3.6 dB (P < .01 for all the values). The third group of 26 eyes, mean age 50.8 +/- 8.7 years, showed macular vitreoretinal traction on OCT images with a mean BCVA of 0.5 +/- 0.2, mean foveal thickness of 337.1 +/- 71.7 mu m, and mean retinal sensitivity inside the central 4 degrees of 11.78 +/- 3.09 dB (P < .01 for all the values). The last group of 28 eyes, mean age 52.1 +/- 13.6 years, showed macular retinal thinning on OCT images with mean BCVA of 0.36 +/- 0.15, mean foveal thickness of 174.2 +/- 24.40 mu m, and mean retinal sensitivity inside the central 4 degrees of 10.22 +/- 3.82 dB (P < .01 for all the values). CONCLUSIONS: MP-1 and FD-OCT showed high sensitivity for identifying functional and structural macular abnormalities, respectively. Future studies should investigate the relationships among photoreceptor cell loss, retinal sensitivity, and fixation in patients with RP. (Am J Ophthalmol 2011;151:106-111. (C) 2011 by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.