Edificio in via Turati 1953-1955, Vito e Gustavo Latis

scheda redatta per l'Ordine degli Architetti, pianificatori, paesaggisti e conservatori della provincia di Milano. Scaricabile in formato pdf al link: http://fondazione.ordinearchitetti.mi.it/files/2009-02-02-18-14-48-latis turati_aff.pd

Attitudes Toward Active Voluntary Euthanasia Among Community-Dwelling Older Subjects:

The major extension of late-life expectancy has increased the significance of end-of-life issues, particularly among elderly people, considering both the role of medical practices in shaping and defining dying trajectories and the differences in national laws and in public attitudes about preservation of self-dignity and removal of pain in death. Avoiding a prolonged, painful, and undignified death provides for many a rationale for euthanasia. On the contrary, the fear of increased pressure to end one's life prematurely and of potential abuses became often the main argument of opposition among vulnerable groups, like older people, especially when suffering from disability, chronic diseases, and lacking of autonomy. Through a representative cross-sectional survey, we studied 1,782 community-dwelling over-65s residents in Genoa (Italy), examining with bivariate and binary logistic regression analysis their attitudes toward active voluntary euthanasia (AVE), and exploring associations with sociodemographic characteristics, health and socioeconomic conditions, ideological orientations, and cultural practices. About 39.9% of our sample fully disagreed with AVE, 26.7% expressed tolerance, and 35.2% agreed completely. Results showed significant associations of different attitudes toward AVE with cultural values and moral practices, as well as with health and disability conditions, evidencing increasing full rejection toward AVE among over-75s profiles (46.3%). Our results suggest major intergenerational differences among older people, showing significant cultural change in attitudes toward end-of-life issues. If and to the extent that older age plays a role, it is rather still strongly associated with rejection than with acceptance of AVE

A Qualitative Study on Co-designing a Domestic Robot with Senior People: Attitudinal Differences Among the Profiles of Boomers and the Silent Generation

L'integrazione dei robot domestici nella vita degli anziani riflette una possibile soluzione per fornire un'adeguata assistenza a una popolazione sempre più anziana. Tuttavia, non è ancora ben chiaro come gli anziani percepiscano i robot domestici e se siano effettivamente disposti ad adottarli nelle loro case. Questo articolo analizza gli atteggiamenti degli anziani nei confronti dei robot domestici, mostrando i risultati di uno studio qualitativo condotto durante un'esperienza di co-progettazione di un robot prototipo, su un campione sociologico di 30 ultrasessantacinquenni residenti a Genova, in Italia. I risultati mostrano come gli atteggiamenti nei confronti del robot differiscono a causa di caratteristiche individuali e strutturali, ma soprattutto per fattori generazionali e culturali, in particolare tra i baby boomer più giovani e gli intervistati più anziani. In conclusione, il nostro studio fornisce suggerimenti interessanti per progettisti e ingegneri per considerare le differenze generazionali come fattori predittivi di accettazione dei robot domestici da parte degli utenti senior.Integrating domestic robots into the lives of older adults reflects a possible solution to provide adequate caregiving to an increasingly ageing population. Still, it is unclear how older adults perceive domestic robots and whether they are willing to adopt them into their homes. This paper analyses the attitudes of older adults towards domestic robots by proving the results of a qualitative study conducted during an experience of co-designing a robotic prototype, addressing 30 community-dwelling over-65s who are residents in Genoa, Italy. Our results show how attitudes toward the robot differ both due to individual and structural characteristics, but especially owing to generational and cultural factors, particularly between younger-old Baby Boomers and older old respondents. In conclusion, our study provides interesting suggestions for designers and engineers to consider generational differences as predictive factors of acceptance of domestic robots by senior end-users

the cats of louis wain a thousand ways to draw one s mind

n/

Distributed Raman optical amplification in phase coherent transfer of optical frequencies

We describe the application of Raman Optical-fiber Amplification (ROA) for the phase coherent transfer of optical frequencies in an optical fiber link. ROA uses the transmission fiber itself as a gain medium for bi-directional coherent amplification. In a test setup we evaluated the ROA in terms of on-off gain, signal-to-noise ratio, and phase noise added to the carrier. We transferred a laser frequency in a 200 km optical fiber link with an additional 16 dB fixed attenuator (equivalent to 275 km of fiber on a single span), and evaluated both co-propagating and counter-propagating amplification pump schemes, demonstrating nonlinear effects limiting the co-propagating pump configuration. The frequency at the remote end has a fractional frequency instability of 3e-19 over 1000 s with the optical fiber link noise compensation

Deep Latent State Space Models for Time-Series Generation

Methods based on ordinary differential equations (ODEs) are widely used to build generative models of time-series. In addition to high computational overhead due to explicitly computing hidden states recurrence, existing ODE-based models fall short in learning sequence data with sharp transitions - common in many real-world systems - due to numerical challenges during optimization. In this work, we propose LS4, a generative model for sequences with latent variables evolving according to a state space ODE to increase modeling capacity. Inspired by recent deep state space models (S4), we achieve speedups by leveraging a convolutional representation of LS4 which bypasses the explicit evaluation of hidden states. We show that LS4 significantly outperforms previous continuous-time generative models in terms of marginal distribution, classification, and prediction scores on real-world datasets in the Monash Forecasting Repository, and is capable of modeling highly stochastic data with sharp temporal transitions. LS4 sets state-of-the-art for continuous-time latent generative models, with significant improvement of mean squared error and tighter variational lower bounds on irregularly-sampled datasets, while also being x100 faster than other baselines on long sequences

Más allá de Estereotipos: Talento, Recursos y Activación Social en Personas Mayores Postmodernas

Desirable proposals in terms of active ageing are constrained by the heterogeneous conditions of elderly people, often affected by inequalities and social frailty. Added to this, elderly people are frequently limited by homogenising representations, reproducing a sense of non-productivity and marginalisation according to an obsolete industrial model of the life cycle. However, it has to be highlighted that among elderly people it is often possible to observe the emersion of ‘social talent’, performed through activeness in different forms of civic engagement. This paper aims to highlight the determinants of social activity behind the deep versatilities of old age through the results of quanti-qualitative research conducted in Genoa, an Italian town with a high ageing index. By identifying the interactions of multiple indicators, regarding value systems, socioeconomic conditions and different lifestyles of elderly people, the importance of social activity and its determinant predictors among elderly people are highlighted: rethinking their role in contemporary society, enlarging their horizons of capabilities and opportunities and overcoming latent homogenising stereotypes through the promotion of an effective path of active citizenship. Propuestas deseables en términos de envejecimiento activo están condicionadas por la heterogeneidad de las personas mayores. La exploración de tal complejidad se encuentra limitada por representaciones homogeneizadoras que reproducen la sensación de falta de productividad y marginación en relación con un obsoleto modelo industrial del ciclo de vida. Sin embargo, a menudo, entre las personas de edad avanzada, es posible observar la emergencia de un “talento social”, conformado a través de la activación de diferentes formas de compromiso cívico. Este artículo identifica factores determinantes de la activación social que hay detrás de la profunda versatilidad de la vejez, a través de los resultados de un estudio cuanti-cualitativo realizado en Génova, una de las ciudades italianas con índice más alto de envejecimiento. Observando interacciones de múltiples indicadores sobre los sistemas de valores, condiciones socioeconómicas y diferentes estilos de vida, se pone de relieve la importancia de la activación social y sus determinantes entre las personas mayores, ayudando a repensar su papel en la sociedad, ampliando sus posibilidades y superando estereotipos homogeneizadores latentes a través de la promoción de un camino efectivo de ciudadanía activa

Spectral Light Transmission Measure and Radiance Model Validation of an innovative Transparent Concrete Panel for Façades

Abstract This paper presents an approach to measure, characterize and simulate photometric performances of light transmission efficiency of an innovative transparent concrete panel for facades. The transparency was obtained by a texture of PMMA resin insertions in the fiber reinforced concrete panel. In the first part of the paper integrating sphere measurements were collected to derive spectral optical properties of the panel. The optical properties of a specimen were measured for incidence angles between normal and 60° and the spectral results were reported. The data collected during the measures were used to: create and validate a simplified Radiance model of the panel and to optimize simulation parameters to estimate properly the total internal reflections effects thought the PMMA resin insertions