Design of a Virtual Reality-based Framework for Supporting the Work Reintegration of Wheelchair Users

Accidents at work often lead the involved people to severe impairments, which can seriously compromise their life and their work activities. Various studies have proven that, for disabled people, being employed contributes to a better quality of life, thus it is important to give them the opportunity to continue their profes-sional career. This paper presents a framework aimed at supporting the training and the work-reintegration of people that, after an accident, are forced to use a wheelchair. In the proposed work, the Virtual Reality is the leading technology for allowing the wheelchair users to be trained in simulated environments where, in safe conditions, they become aware of their capabilities, while facing different challenging situations. More-over, the behaviour of the users is tracked during the whole training session for monitoring, processing and assessing, through semantic models, their functional level and the jobs that are still suitable for them

An Empirical Analysis on Board Monitoring Role and Loan Portfolio Quality Measurement in Banks

This paper aims to analyze the effectiveness of the board monitoring role on specific loan portfolio quality measures in banks (default rate, recovery rate and provisioning rate). We use a sample comprises a totality of Italian-based banks, listed at Borsa Italiana SpA in 2006-2008 and a number of accounting proxies to express the loan portfolio quality of a bank. The results of the analysis show an overall weakness of the board role (expressed by Independents and Audit Committee on board) in monitoring loan portfolio quality of the bank, with the subsequent damage of the interests of stakeholders. A positive contribution of board monitoring, even if partial, is highlighted in two cases: Independents seems improve recovery rate, while the Audit committee enhances provisioning rate in banks. With reference to default rate, a total negative effect of board monitoring is reported. On the base of these results, some managerial implications are proposed

Migrants’ Paths in the Italian Labour Market and in the Migrant Regulatory Frameworks: Precariousness as a Constant Factor

Even though every development of Italian migration policy has included aspects of discontinuity, often presented as remedies for the failure of previous laws, it is possible to trace a strong line of continuity, both in terms of its policy elaboration and of its effectiveness. Recent studies on the origins of Italian migration policies have pointed to a steady presence of a demand for “pragmatic functionalism” from employers and the persistence of a powerful alignment between this and attitudes of solidarity, represented by the advocacy coalition (Zincone, 2006). Other studies have highlighted the presence of a high level of discretionary power that has distinguished all Italian migration policy (Triandafyllidou, 2003; Dell’Olio, 2004). This chapter will try to identify some common themes across different Italian migration policies, to relate them to the way in which migrants have been inserted into the labour market. The aim is not to demonstrate that migration policies are the only factor determining the migrant labour market experience. Nevertheless it seems legitimate to argue that, on the one hand migrant policies have nourished chronic problems within the Italian labour market (such as the widespread and structural persistency of irregular employment) and on the other hand have played a role in encouraging transformations in labour conditions (as evidenced by the increasing demand for flexible work conditions) by ignoring the specific situation of migrant workers. We then move our focus on two recurrent factors in migration policies: the extended use of mass legalizations, as the principle device for regularizing migrants’ residency; and the continuing development, within the legal dimension, of a hierarchical integration model for migrants. In a second section of the chapter, based on some results of survey, conducted in 2003, on 1.654 migrant workers living in a prosperous region in the North East, we highlight the specifics of migrants’ working conditions. Finally in the last section we explore the relationship between the labour market and migration, using the Marxian theory of a reserve army of labour, which we view, in its most authentic interpretation, as a core or functional element (rather than a marginal or dysfunctional one) in the processes of the reproduction of capital and at the same time as a component of the supply of labour, not solely reducible to the categories of unemployment, secondary labour market or marginal mass, as it has often been characterised