Repeatability and Two-Dimensionality of Model Scale Sloshing Impacts

Canonical test cases for sloshing wave impact problems are pre-sented and discussed. In these cases the experimental setup has been simpli?ed seeking the highest feasible repeatability; a rectangular tank subjected to harmonic roll motion has been the tested con?guration. Both lateral and roof impacts have been studied, since both cases are relevant in sloshing assessment and show speci?c dynamics. An analysis of the impact pressure of the ?rst four impact events is provided in all cases. It has been found that not in all cases a Gaussian ?tting of each individual peak is feasible. The tests have been conducted with both water and oil in order to obtain high and moderate Reynolds number data; the latter may be useful as simpler test cases to assess the capabilities of CFD codes in simulating sloshing impacts. The re-peatability of impact pressure values increases dramatically when using oil. In addition, a study of the two-dimensionality of the problem using a tank con?guration that can be adjusted to 4 di?erent thicknesses has been carried out. Though the kinemat-ics of the free surface does not change signi cantly in some of the cases, the impact pressure values of the ?rst impact events changes substantially from the small to the large aspect ratios thus meaning that attention has to be paid to this issue when reference data is used for validation of 2D and 3D CFD codes

Itineraries of an Anthropologist. Studies in Honour of Massimo Raveri

This book is being dedicated to Massimo Raveri on the occasion of his retirement. It is designed to recreate the various thematic itineraries that he has traced and followed in his career. Each of the essays included represents a topic in which Prof. Raveri has shown great interest, paving the way for further studies. In offering these essays to him, his friends and colleagues are both bearing witness to his interest in such topics and contributing to their study. Contributions by former students of Prof. Raveri’s further show how these fields of study are being developed in his footsteps

The Gig is Up: Who does Gig Economy actually Benefit?

This article takes on the task of exploring gig economy in its various forms and definitions, starting from its economic origins as a way to reduce transaction costs and overheads in firms making use of modern technology, and working up to some of its social consequences, such as the transforming of employees in just-in-time resources, fragmenting their labour and eroding their ability to organize and unionize in order to better defend their rights. Focussing on the influence platforms have on their users, be it in the role of workers or customers, it questions their far-reaching impacts on society and economy in terms of their positive, neutral or negative consequences for workers, as most of the literature agrees on the heavily skewed positive consequences for businesses. In order to make sense of existing research made on “giggers” this article tries to provide a scope of the gig economy using, which has been difficult to achieve as numerous researchers, institutions, and even states, define gig economy in different ways, with their data varying depending on definitions, dates, and methodological approaches. Finally, the article explores three distinct “selling points” of gig economy, namely: the possibility to generate (not always) steady income, the flexibility it offers to its users, and its consequences on workers’ social and emotional state, putting into question their benefits for workers, for the profit of platforms and businesses

See the winds. Practical dimensions of weather forecasting in a Japanese coastal community

The article examines how folk methodologies for weather prediction in- fluence small-scale agricultural and fishing activities of a Japanese coastal community. Specifically, the article addresses some anthropological questions on how local fishermen predict the weather by developing two different fore- casting practices: takayama, a practical weather observation technique that combines the observation of the clouds with a traditional nautical technique for orientation at sea and, okite, a model-based weather prognostication used to forecast long-term weather trends for the following year

Graph Isomorphism Parameterized by Elimination Distance to Bounded Degree

A commonly studied means of parameterizing graph problems is the deletion distance from triviality [11], which counts vertices that need to be deleted from a graph to place it in some class for which e cient algorithms are known. In the context of graph isomorphism, we de ne triviality to mean a graph with maximum degree bounded by a constant, as such graph classes admit polynomial-time isomorphism tests. We generalise deletion distance to a measure we call elimination distance to triviality, based on elimination trees or tree-depth decompositions. We establish that graph canonisation, and thus graph isomorphism, is FPT when parameterized by elimination distance to bounded degree, extending results of Bouland et al.The work was supported in part by EPSRC grant EP/H026835, DAAD grant A/13/05456, and DFG project Logik, Struktur und das Graphenisomorphieproblem.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00453-015-0045-

Savoring authenticity: food consumption and nostalgia in Japan

The Japanese culinary tradition and contemporary food-related values are often characterized by an emotional and evocative tone that can be traced back to nostalgia, a global multidimensional phenomenon that blends cultural anxieties, sentimental values and sense of place. The desire to remember home through food consumption, as a valuable way of approaching the past, enables the construction or redefinition of ethnic identities, cultural boundaries and a sense of uniqueness. This paper offers some introductory reflections on present-day practices and affective aspects related to Japanese food culture from the point of view of their symbolic meaning in media narratives

Introduction

This volume is a Festschrift in honour of Massimo Raveri, Honorary Professor of Japanese Religions at the Department of Asian and North-African Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. This wide-ranging collection features essays that pay homage to his extensive academic interests and his interdisciplinary approach to the study of classical and contemporary Japanese religions. It is a tribute by friends and colleagues wishing to express their esteem and affection towards a scholar who, over the course of his long career, has shared many research experiences with them, in a spirit of unfailing support and collaboration

GUEST EDITORS\u27 NOTE

This thematic issue of Psychological Topics is devoted to the gut-brain axis, the cross-talk between the gut, its microbiota and the brain, and its role in understanding the underlying mechanisms that explain the complex interactions between the biological, psychological and social aspects of functional gastrointestinal, metabolic and weight disorders. Research on the role of the gut-brain axis in health and disease is quite new, and we hope that the articles published in this issue will contribute to further understanding of this interesting and important scientific topic. This issue presents a broad range of research reports, theoretical contributions and review papers on the effects of various functional gastrointestinal disorders and weight regulation issues on physical and mental health, and the quality of life in general.   Accordingly, the articles published in this issue of Psychological Topics cover a variety of topics, such as regulation of functions of the brain and body by the principle of predictive coding and implications for impairments of the brain-gut axis; gut microbiota and its role in human health and body weight; psychological factors and metabolic outcomes in overweight and obese individuals with type 2 diabetes; correlates of body mass index and the role of brain-gut miscommunication in irritable bowel syndrome; parents and childhood functional abdominal pain and the conjoint role of dieting and health complaints of adolescents.   We would like to express our thanks to all the authors for their contributions to this issue of Psychological Topics. Last but not the least, special thanks go to the Editor-in Chief, the Editorial Board and the academic reviewers.   Mladenka Tkalčić and Alessandra Pokrajac-Bulia

Engineering Job Skills in Croatian Economy: Employers’ Perspective

Different actors, or stakeholders, are interested and want to participate in discussions and interventions related to the topic of skills as an important outcome of engineering education. In the Croatian context, the entire process is still predominantly internally driven and determined by academic evaluations while the involvement of the alumni and employers as external stakeholders is sporadic and under researched. Since Croatian employers are not sufficiently familiar with the levels and structures of reformed study programs, the main objective of this research was to assess to what extent the current and largely accepted set of engineering skills fit their expectations. By reviewing available literature, 36 key skills were identified and used in a questionnaire administrated to Croatian employers, resulting in 418 completed and usable responses. Results show that employers find every assessed skill as somewhat/extremely valuable. However, it is found that employers most valued skills related to the wider set of transferable skills with somewhat greater emphases on skills that reflect professionalism and work ethic. In general, it turned out that employers approach transferable skills in terms of their functionality. Mean comparison within subgroups has shown statistically significant differences with regard to respondent’s gender. In general, women fit the theorized dimensions more than their male counterparts, perhaps indicating that they understand all skills, and transferable skills in particular, more holistically than men. Finally, in order to understand the underlying structure of the explored items, exploratory factor analysis was employed, resulting in 8 clear dimensions suggesting engineering “employability skills” in the Croatian context