Herbert Simon's heritage

One year after Herbert Simon's death, this paper tries to highlight the most relevant elements for economists in his scientific heritage.

A cognitive approach to individual learning: some experimental results

This study describe an experiment on individual learning in the domain of cognitive economics. The authors’ main goal is to observe and to describe how subjects elaborate rules and regularities in problem solving. Involved subjects are asked to choose between different scores related to an evaluation of some hypothetical exams. The game is repeated a wide number of times, sufficient to permit the emergence of accurately observable results. Results seem to show that subjects elaborate coherent rules in a path-dependent way; they manifest a tendency to consolidate these rules also when they are aware that they are wrong; and, at the same time, they exhibit an opposite predisposition not to confirm some rights rules.subliminal extant Smith economagic gmm

Myocardial Viability: beyond improvement of function

Several studies have demonstrated that coronary revascularization is likely to improve left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), heart failure symptoms and prognosis predominantly in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and a substantial amount of viable myocardium but not in patients without viability. Some issues about myocardial viability in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy are still unsolved. In particular, why LVEF does not improve after revascularization in all patients with a substantial amount of viable myocardium is unknown. Also, it is unclear whether additional benefits, beyond improvement of LVEF, may be present after revascularization of viable myocardium. These issues were addressed in the present thesis

A Review of Cooperative Actuator and Sensor Systems Based on Dielectric Elastomer Transducers

This paper presents an overview of cooperative actuator and sensor systems based on dielectric elastomer (DE) transducers. A DE consists of a flexible capacitor made of a thin layer of soft dielectric material (e.g., acrylic, silicone) surrounded with a compliant electrode, which is able to work as an actuator or as a sensor. Features such as large deformation, high compliance, flexibility, energy efficiency, lightweight, self-sensing, and low cost make DE technology particularly attractive for the realization of mechatronic systems that are capable of performance not achievable with alternative technologies. If several DEs are arranged in an array-like configuration, new concepts of cooperative actuator/sensor systems can be enabled, in which novel applications and features are made possible by the synergistic operations among nearby elements. The goal of this paper is to review recent advances in the area of cooperative DE systems technology. After summarizing the basic operating principle of DE transducers, several applications of cooperative DE actuators and sensors from the recent literature are discussed, ranging from haptic interfaces and bio-inspired robots to micro-scale devices and tactile sensors. Finally, challenges and perspectives for the future development of cooperative DE systems are discussed

Business Models for Sustainable Finance: The Case Study of Social Impact Bonds

Business models for sustainability (BMfS) are relevant topics on research agendas, given their orientation toward sustainability issues. However, traditional versions of these models are often ill-equipped at solving complex social problems. Cross-sector partnerships for sustainability (CSPfS) have been recognized as a new paradigm that mitigates the failure of traditional models. Impact investing, and social impact bonds (SIBs) in particular, represent an interesting field of research in innovative business models for sustainable finance, even though the literature does not consider SIBs within this broader field. We propose an exploratory study based on qualitative methods aimed at conceptualizing SIBs within the framework of BMfS and understanding how SIB collaboration varies across social sectors and geographical areas. Our study identifies three different models of SIBs characterized by the different degrees of collaboration between actors: (i) SIB as a fully collaborative partnership; (ii) SIB as a low-collaborative partnership; and (iii) SIB as a partially collaborative partnership. Our findings are useful to policy makers and practitioners involved in the SIB design, suggesting that a fully collaborative SIB model may stand a better chance of achieving the expected social impacts

On the optimization of actuator saturation limits for LTI systems: an LMI-based invariant ellipsoid approach

This paper considers the problem of optimal actuator dimensioning for LTI systems, in the sense of choosing appropriate saturation limits for a given set of admissible initial conditions and for a predefined integral state-feedback control law. By using an invariant ellipsoid argument, it is shown that this problem can be described as a linear matrix inequality (LMI)-based optimization that can be solved efficiently. Moreover, the paper shows that the optimal actuator dimensioning is connected to the choice of the initial conditions of the integral states of the controller, which can be included in the overall optimization to improve further the results. Two different methods are described and analyzed by means of numerical simulation.publishedVersio