A Tool to Measure Teachers’ Soft Skills: Results of a Pilot Study

Soft Skills are a set of skills of fundamental importance in the performance of work activities; they are not technical or specific skills but are strongly related to personal qualities and attitudes and social and management skills. Due to their intangibility, some of them are difficult to recognize, quantify, evaluate and develop. The acquisition of such skills for teachers is indispensable to successfully address different contextual situations (Schulz, 2008). Soft Skills are necessary to interpret and understand complex situations, also in order to design training courses that enhance the personal qualities of the students. (Ngang, Yie, & Shahid, 2015). Our study aims to develop a tool capable of measuring the Soft Skills needed to effectively carry out the teaching profession, in order to promote activities aimed at strengthening them in the training courses: initial and in itinere. This paper presents the structure of the instrument, the sample to which it was administered, the descriptive statistics and indices of normality relating to the subdimensions of the questionnaire and, therefore, the analysis of the items and reliability

Comparison between topographic and photogrammetric techniques for deformation monitoring of the dome of the Massimo Theatre in Palermo

This paper shows the first results of a study aimed at monitoring the deformations of the dome of the Massimo Theatre in Palermo caused by thermal dilatations, with the use of topographic and photogrammetric integrated techniques. Particularly, two robotic total stations and high precision digital photogrammetric systems were employed. In order to correlate the displacements of the rollers on which the steel structure of the dome rest with the thermal gradients, different thermal images were acquired by a thermal imaging camera. The main goal of the work was to compare the two techniques with reference to very small (submillimeter) deformation measurements. The obtained results show that the rollers are still working correctly. In fact, for a thermal gradient of 6 °C both topographic and photogrammetric techniques determined displacements in the order of 0.8 mm, according with the expected deformations of the theoretical model

MODELLING PLASTIC DEFORMATION OF STAINLESS STEEL PIPES

Plastic deformation is the most common technique adopted to manufacture complex shape pieces in the most efficient way. Even higher requirements need to be faced in the different applications. In order to target such requirement quality and compliance tests are carried out aimed to guarantee that these standards are faced; this often means a waste of material and economic resources. A far as concerns welded stainless steel pipes many criticises affecting the general trend of subsequent machining need to be considered. In this paper the effects of different process parameters and geometrical constrains on austenitic stainless steel pipe forming are studied by Finite Elements Method (FEM) simulations. The model sensitivity to input parameters is reported. The feasibility of the simulated process is evaluated through the use of Forming Limit Diagrams (FLD). </p

Nuove tecnologie e didattica: uno studio comparativo tra i tradizionali e i nuovi ambienti della formazione

Gli attuali ambienti virtuali, orientati alla diffusione di modalità finalizzate all’insegnamento- apprendimento, richiamano moltepliciinnovazioni tecnologiche. Tali in - novazioni, da un lato, comportano la rivisitazione e il confronto dei paradigmi da mettere in atto per una impostazione e riadattamento dei percorsi formativi, dall’altrolato consentono di attuare una didattica innovativa, proponendo nuovi modelli valutativi. Occorre, quindi, riflettere sugli aspetti didattici e tecnici dei processi di formazione e sugli strumenti che favoriscono e supportano una migliore acquisizione degli apprendimenti negli ambienti in rete. In riferimento a quanto suddetto, questo lavoro presenta una sperimentazione pilota condotta nell’ambito di un corso universitario, con l’intento di verificare se gli studenti che utilizzano ambienti di apprendimento in rete innovativi conseguono migliori o simili risultati rispettoalle prestazioni degli studenti che seguono le lezioni in presenza

Service Learning e Alternanza Scuola Lavoro: un possibile raccordo per maturare le Soft Skills richieste dal mondo del lavoro. Una indagine esplorativa

The labor market, in addition to specific professional skills, requires workers to masterSoft Skills. Hence the need to qualify an education system that allows to acquire the disciplinaryskills and the necessary skills to live and govern the complexity in its characterizationsof uncertainty and less predictability. A didactic methodology that can favorthe maturation of Soft Skills is Service Learning (SL). The exploratory survey presentedhere is based on the hypothesis that the SL can help students to mature the Soft Skillsto be used also in the world of work. The survey also allowed to detect the close relationshipbetween SL, Soft Skills maturation and School-Work Alternation (SWA) programs,highlighting the need to integrate the activities of SL with those of the SWA tomature the variety of Soft Skills.Il mercato del lavoro, oltre alle competenze tecnico-professionali, richiede sempre più dipadroneggiare Soft Skills. Da ciò la necessità di qualificare un sistema d’istruzione checonsenta di acquisire, non solo competenze disciplinari, ma anche competenze necessarieper abitare e governare la complessità nelle sue caratterizzazioni di incertezza e di minoreprevedibilità. Una delle metodologie didattiche che può favorire la maturazione di SoftSkills è il Service Learning (SL). L’indagine esplorativa qui presentata si fonda sull’ipotesiche il SL può aiutare gli studenti a maturare le Soft Skills da far valere anche nel mondodel lavoro. Lo studio ha consentito, inoltre, di rilevare la stretta relazione esistente fra SL,maturazione di Soft Skills e programmi di Alternanza Scuola Lavoro (ASL), evidenziandol’opportunità di integrare i progetti di SL con quelli di ASL per far acquisire la varietà delleSoft Skills

Monitoraggio topografico e fotogrammetrico della cupola del teatro Massimo

L’articolo riporta i primi risultati di uno studio finalizzato al monitoraggio delle deformazioni della cupola del Teatro Massimo di Palermo provocate dalle dilatazioni termiche, con l’impiego di tecniche topografiche e fotogrammetriche integrate. In particolare, sono state utilizzate due stazioni totali robotizzate e sistemi di fotogrammetria digitale di elevata precisione. Per correlare gli spostamenti dei carrelli sui quali poggia la struttura in acciaio della cupola con i gradienti termici, sono state acquisite immagini termiche diversificate. L’obiettivo principale del lavoro consisteva nel confronto delle due tecniche di rilievo in relazione a misure di deformazione di entità molto ridotta (sub-millimetrica). I risultati ottenuti dimostrano che i carrelli funzionano ancora correttamente. Infatti, per un gradiente termico di 6°C misurato dalla termo camera, entrambe le tecniche topografiche e fotogrammetriche hanno evidenziato spostamenti dell’ordine di 0.8 mm, in accordo con le previsioni del modello deformativo teorico

effect of thermo mechanical processes on microstructure evolution in austenitic stainless steels

n/

Design and implementation of a smart system to control aromatic herb dehydration process

Drying is a process aimed at reducing the water content in plant materials below a limit where the activity of microbes and decomposing enzymes deteriorate the quality of medicinal and aromatic plants. Today, the interest of consumers towards medicinal and aromatic herbs has registered a growing trend. This study aims at designing a low-cost real-time monitoring and control system for the drying process of aromatic herbs and evaluating drying ecacy on the microbial community associated with the studied herbs. Hot-air drying tests of sage and laurel leaves were carried out in a dryer desiccator cabinet at 40 C and 25% relative humidity using three biomass densities (3, 4 and 5 kg/m 2 ). The prototype of the smart system is based on an Arduino Mega 2560 board, to which nine Siemens 7MH5102-1PD00 load cells and a DHT22 temperature and humidity sensor were added. The data acquired by the sensors were transmitted through Wi-Fi to a ThingSpeak account in order to monitor the drying process in real time. The variation in the moisture content of the product and the drying rate were obtained. The system provided a valid support decision during the drying process, allowing for the precise monitoring of the evolution of the biomass moisture loss and drying rate for laurel and sage. The three dierent biomass densities employed did not provide significant dierences in the drying process for sage. Statistically significant dierences among the three tests were found for laurel in the final part of the process. The microbial loads of the aromatic herbs after drying were influenced by the dierent leaf structures of the species; in particular, with laurel leaves, microbial survival increased with increasing biomass density. Finally, with the drying method adopted, the two species under consideration showed a dierent microbial stability and, consequently, had a dierent shelf life, longer for sage than laurel, as also confirmed by water activity (aw) values