Design for Sustainable Behaviour to Design an Adaptive Climbing Wall

In recent years, Europe has been moving towards a concept of inclusivity as highlighted by the sixteenth goal of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda that promotes peaceful and inclusive societies. (UN Dept. of Global Communications, 2015). The increasing awareness of social diversity has attracted the attention of designers who started to adopt an inclusive design approach and design products or services to be usable by as many people as reasonably possible, without the need for specialised adaptions. The inclusive design approach has been largely applied in adaptive sports to improve levels of functioning and independence in daily living activities and increase physical capability, physiological capacity, social status, and sense of belonging. Adaptive sports can become a way to promote involvement as an active part of the rehabilitation exercise to stimulate neuromotor recovery, particularly in children with disabilities (Canina et al., 2020). Recent research has demonstrated that climbing could be an excellent rehabilitation tool that involves the child with disabilities in a natural way. This sport exploits the propensity to play, to sport, to compete, to stimulate the execution of specific exercises, can transform this effort into a game and multiply the effectiveness of the rehabilitation process (Reljin, V., 2019). An intensive rehabilitation from an early age guarantees the recovery of part of their neuromotor abilities. In order to achieve better results in rehabilitation, adaptive sports must adopt a holistic approach to the user considering both the physical and the psycho-perceptual aspects, i.e. the ability to do it but also the feeling of fulfilment in doing it. However, current climbing walls do not include these aspects of the adaptive sport. An adaptive climbing wall design requires identifying a methodology that could lead to a coherent and effective solution, using explicit attention for inclusiveness. The paper describes the Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB) approach adopted to design an adaptive climbing wall as a tool for the rehabilitation of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) by identifying the sustainable, inclusive requirements that consider children’s diversity. The DfSb approach, as user- and use-centred design that create preconditions for a sustainable everyday life, considers the sustainability aspects from two essential points of view. The user's sustainable behaviour, in which inclusiveness is a fundamental part of these attitudes, and the product's sustainability that uses new recycled materials create a more natural environment (similar to climbing in natural environments). Indeed, the project considers first the sustainable behavioural aspects, spreading climbing as a tool to improve the health conditions of CP children, introducing them to climbing by making it accessible and inclusive, intending to help children with different abilities to build trust and awareness of their potentialities, and a sense of accomplishment while training problem-solving and decision-making skills. As a second point of DfSB, the climbing wall and holds are designed with sustainable materials (waste material content) that provide the feeling of natural stone considering the entire product lifecycle. This paper shows how the DfSB approach can support the definition of design requirements of a training tool introducing children with CP to climbing as a natural approach to rehabilitation, making it accessible and inclusive. The project brings children with disabilities closer to the adapted sport through an indoor and democratic recreational activity

Strategic Price Positioning for Revenue Management: The Effects of Relative Price Position and Fluctuation on Performance

Emerging price optimization models systematically incorporate competitor price information into the derivation of optimal price points. While consideration of competitor pricing at this tactical level is essential to maximizing short-term revenues, the long-term impact of competitive price positioning on revenue performance should not be overlooked. This study examines the effect of two key dimensions of strategic price positioning - relative price position and relative price fluctuation - on the revenue performance of 6998 US hotels over an 11-year period. It finds that revenue performance is strongest for hotels that price higher than the competition and maintain a consistent relative price over time. Implications for revenue management practitioners are discussed

Design of a sensor network for the quantitative analysis of sport climbing

We describe the design of a modular sensorized climbing wall for motion analysis in a naturalistic environment. The wall is equipped with force sensors to measure interaction forces between the athlete and the wall, which can be used by experienced instructors, athletes, or therapists, to gain insights into the quality of motion. A specifically designed triaxial load cell is integrated into each hold placement, invisible to the climber, and compatible with standard climbing holds. Data collected through the sensors is sent to an app running on a portable device. The wall can be adapted to different uses. To validate our design, we recorded a repeated climbing activity of eleven climbers with varying degrees of expertise. Analysis of the interaction forces during the exercise demonstrates that the sensor network design can provide valuable information to track and analyze exercise performance changes over time. Here we report the design process as well as the validation and testing of the sensorized climbing wall

Biases in Variance of Decomposed Portfolio Returns

Significant portfolio variance biases arise when contrasting multiperiod portfolio returns based on the assumption of fixed continuously rebalanced portfolio weights as opposed to buy‐and‐hold weights. Empirical evidence obtained using S&P 500 constituents from 2003 to 2011 demonstrates that, compared with a buy‐and‐hold assumption, applying fixed weights led to decreased estimates of portfolio volatilities during 2003, 2005 and 2010, but caused a significant increase in volatility estimates in the more turbulent 2008 and 2011. This discrepancy distorts assessments of portfolio risk‐adjusted performance when inappropriate weight assumptions are employed. Consequently, these variance biases have effect on statistical inference in factor models and may result in erroneous portfolio size recommendations for adequate diversification

AN EVENT STUDY OF THE DELISTING OF HOSPITALITY STOCKS IN THE UNITED STATES

Managers make important corporate strategic investment decisions such as mergers and acquisitions to improve the long-term competitiveness of their organizations; while at times they may be forced to manage for the short-term in order to satisfy the demands from the stock market.However, there is a lack of empirical research to examine the short- versus long-term view of management decision-making.This study analyses the mergers and acquisitions activities in the hospitality industry and particularly, investigates delisting behaviour of publicly traded hospitality firms and whether companies exhibit distinct patterns before delisting. Consolidation is prevalent in a maturing industry such as hospitality which currently faces a fiercely competitive global environment. The results of the study show that there is substantial difference between hospitality and non-hospitality stocks: not much information leakage in the delisting of hospitality stocks and a marked increase in institutional holdings with time but significant information leakage in non-hospitality stocks as reflected by positive and significant abnormal returns

Examining the Impact of STR Weekly RevPAR Announcements on Lodging Stock Returns

This study investigated whether or not there were abnormal stock market returns on the announcement date of weekly RevPAR (revenue per available room) data by the lodging industry research firm STR. Using event study methodology, the study found that there were not statistically significant abnormal returns on the weekly RevPAR announcement date for the period from 2004 to 2009. The implications of this study are important to the hotel investment community including lodging stock owners and investors, stock analysts, investment bankers, and consultants as it indicates that there is not advance trading in lodging stocks based on the STR weekly RevPAR announcements

Yes, implied volatilities are not informationally efficient: an empirical estimate using options on interest rate futures contracts

The accuracy of volatility forecast estimators has been assessed using daily overlapping and non overlapping observations on two major short-term interest rate futures contracts traded in London. The use of a panelized data set has eliminated some of the drawbacks usually associated with non overlapping data estimation, such as the lack of accuracy due to an insufficient number of observations or the arbitrariness of the choice of tenor. In the same way non stationarity and long memory characteristics of daily overlapping time series are disposed of. Information content estimation in levels associated with the Hansen (1982) variance covariance matrix estimator provides reasonably accurate estimates, broadly similar to the corresponding benchmark panel data ones

Francesco Ferrara, il primo degli economisti cafoscarini

The paper presents the important personality of the great Italian economist Francesco Ferrara who has been the first Director of the new School of Commerce founded in Venice in 1868. The paper is divided in two parts: the first part presents the main features of Francesco Ferrara as an economist, showing how he was clearly a supporter of a free-market oriented vision of the economic analysis and of the economic policy, not liking at all a vision of the economic analysis separated from the political implications, but definitely favouring a political economy vision. He was a sharp opponent of socialism, although admiring the logical power of Marx's thought, but not Marxian ideas. But he was also an opponent of intermediate visions leading to mediations in the field of economic policy. His rather radical positions led him to resign from the role of minister of Finance. In the second part the paper shows how Ferrara accepted the proposal of Luigi Luzzatti to be appointed as director of new School of Commerce of Ca' Foscari in summer 1868; the paper shows how the relations between Ferrara and Luzzatti were characterized by polemical moments, both because of the lines followed by Ferrara in appointing the professors of the new school and because of the openness shown by Luzzatti, and not liked at all by Ferrara, towards policies showing a favorable attitude towards social interventions. Eventually the disagreements were solved. Finally, the paper shows how Ferrara succeeded in appointing at Ca' Foscari some of the most important Italian economists of his time, such as Maffeo Pantaleoni

Industry agglomeration, sub-national institutions and the profitability of foreign subsidiaries

This study investigates the impact of agglomeration and its interaction with subnational institutions on the profitability of multinational enterprises (MNEs) subsidiaries operating in an emerging economy. We argue that in an emerging economy like China, competition in product and factor markets is more intense between foreign firms than between foreign and domestic firms owing to market segmentation. Consequently, agglomerating with other foreign firms has negative impact on the profitability of foreign subsidiaries. In contrast, foreign firms agglomerating with domestic firms may reap gains owing to less competition and improved access to local resources and knowledge. We find that these effects are more pronounced to domestic-market-oriented foreign firms. Furthermore, sub-national institutions moderate the above relationships. Our arguments are supported by the empirical analysis based on a comprehensive dataset of foreign firms operating in China over the period of 1999-2005