Do Linguistic Style and Readability of Scientific Abstracts affect their Virality?

Reactions to textual content posted in an online social network show different dynamics depending on the linguistic style and readability of the submitted content. Do similar dynamics exist for responses to scientific articles? Our intuition, supported by previous research, suggests that the success of a scientific article depends on its content, rather than on its linguistic style. In this article, we examine a corpus of scientific abstracts and three forms of associated reactions: article downloads, citations, and bookmarks. Through a class-based psycholinguistic analysis and readability indices tests, we show that certain stylistic and readability features of abstracts clearly concur in determining the success and viral capability of a scientific article.Comment: Proceedings of the Sixth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2012), 4-8 June 2012, Dublin, Irelan

A conceptual model to design recycled aggregate concrete for structural applications

2013 - 2014This thesis proposes a conceptual formulation for controlling the resulting mechanical properties of Recycled Aggregate Concretes (RACs) via generalised mix-design rules intended at covering the specific features of Recycled Concrete Aggregates (RCAs). As a matter of fact, the RCAs are characterised by a higher porosity and water absorption capacity than ordinary aggregates and, hence, general mix-design rules for ordinary structural concrete cannot be applied to RACs as such. Therefore, as a further step that goes beyond the currently available experimental and empirical investigations, the research presented in the present thesis proposes a rational mix design method for predicting the compressive strength evolution of RACs by considering both the mixture composition and the key properties of RCAs (i.e.; the amount of the attached mortar and indirectly the water absorption capacity). The formulations proposed in this thesis are based upon the results of several investigations carried out for characterising both RCAs and RACs. In fact, several tests were performed on different kinds of recycled aggregates, taking into account their origin, the processing procedure adopted for crushing the concrete demolition debris and their resulting size grading. The analysis of the results obtained in these tests led to proposing a comprehensive conceptual formulation that links the main engineering properties of aggregates to the porosity, particle density and attached mortar content of RCAs. Moreover, several concrete batches were produced for investigating the influence that three key parameters (viz. aggregate replacement ratio, nominal water-to-cement ratio and initial moisture condition of aggregates) have on the relevant properties for structural concrete. The behaviour of structural concrete is then analysed at a “fundamental” level, with the aim of scrutinising the physical properties and the mechanical behaviour of RACs, by taking into account the actual mixtures composition. Particularly, it is based on observing the hydration process developing inside RACs during the setting and hardening phase, and how these are influenced by the presence of RCAs. The activities described in this work were carried out at the laboratories of the University of Salerno (IT), the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (BR), as part of the “EnCoRe” Project (FP7- PEOPLE-2011-IRSES n. 295283; www.encorefp7.unisa.it) funded by the European Union within the Seventh Framework Programme, and Delft University of Technology (NL). [edited by Author]XIII n.s

Performance of a school hosted within a historical complex affected by the 2016 seismic sequence

Immediately after the August 24th, 2016, earthquake in Central Italy, universities have been asked to inspect schools and assess their usability, under the coordination of ReLUIS (Rete Laboratori Universitari Ingegneria Sismica = Earthquake Engineering University Laboratories Network). Later on, about one hundred schools deemed as unfit to use have been evaluated in order to establish if it was possible to repair them before September 2017 or if it was more appropriate to build a new school. Among investigated buildings there are not only those in the epicentral area, but also some located even 30-45 km from the epicentres of the main events. One of those is the music high school located in Teramo, Abruzzi region, housed within the former monastery of San Giovanni a Scorzone established in 1384. The seismic vulnerability of the building was investigated in 2014 according to the Italian Building Standard. Based on the documentation produced therein, observations made after the August event, and a new inspection carried out in December 2016, the building has been assessed according to the procedure proposed after the Emilia 2012 Earthquakes. Despite ground shaking not being very severe, due to high vulnerability, the performance was that of a damage level 2 (damage between significant and severe), with important distress to non-structural elements. Such performances call into question the suitability of housing critical functions in historical buildings that, however, can suffer an accelerated decay if left unused and, thus, unmaintained

Self-Other Positioning in Obesity: A Pilot Study Using Repertory Grid Technique

Self-other positioning was investigated in a group of obese youths in order to empirically test the clinical hy-pothesis – based on the constructionist theory of Family Semantic Polarities – that obese people are affected by a negative self-perception and low self-esteem. Repertory grid technique was used with 30 participants (15 obese-overweight and 15 control) to elicit and compare their personal constructs and assess, via ad hoc measurement indices, the positions they as- signed to the self and significant others in relation to these constructs. The results confirmed the research hypotheses, with obese subjects displaying a tendency to pos ition both self and others at the negative pole of bipolar constructs and reporting greater self-ideal discrepancy. These findings and their limitations are discussed in relation to their clinical applications and in light of the methodologi cal issues arising from the study

Combining Biomarkers by Maximizing the True Positive Rate for a Fixed False Positive Rate

Biomarkers abound in many areas of clinical research, and often investigators are interested in combining them for diagnosis, prognosis and screening. In many applications, the true positive rate for a biomarker combination at a prespecified, clinically acceptable false positive rate is the most relevant measure of predictive capacity. We propose a distribution-free method for constructing biomarker combinations by maximizing the true positive rate while constraining the false positive rate. Theoretical results demonstrate good operating characteristics for the resulting combination. In simulations, the biomarker combination provided by our method demonstrated improved operating characteristics in a variety of scenarios when compared with more traditional methods for constructing combinations

Impact of Innovative Agricultural Practices of Carbon Sequestration on Soil Microbial Community.

This chapter deals with the impact on soil microbiology of innovative management techniques for enhancing carbon sequestration. With in the MESCOSAGR project, the effect of different field treatments was investigated at three experimental sites differing in pedo-climatic characteristics. Several microbiological parameters were evaluated to describe the composition of soil microbial communities involved in the carbon cycle, as well as to assess microbial biomass and activity. Results indicated that both compost and catalyst amendments to field soils under maize or wheat affected microbial dynamics and activities, though with out being harmful to microbial communities