On the Presence of Green and Sustainable Software Engineering in Higher Education Curricula

Nowadays, software is pervasive in our everyday lives. Its sustainability and environmental impact have become major factors to be considered in the development of software systems. Millennials-the newer generation of university students-are particularly keen to learn about and contribute to a more sustainable and green society. The need for training on green and sustainable topics in software engineering has been reflected in a number of recent studies. The goal of this paper is to get a first understanding of what is the current state of teaching sustainability in the software engineering community, what are the motivations behind the current state of teaching, and what can be done to improve it. To this end, we report the findings from a targeted survey of 33 academics on the presence of green and sustainable software engineering in higher education. The major findings from the collected data suggest that sustainability is under-represented in the curricula, while the current focus of teaching is on energy efficiency delivered through a fact-based approach. The reasons vary from lack of awareness, teaching material and suitable technologies, to the high effort required to teach sustainability. Finally, we provide recommendations for educators willing to teach sustainability in software engineering that can help to suit millennial students needs.Comment: The paper will be presented at the 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering Curricula for Millennials (SECM2017

Epidemic Management via Imperfect Testing: A Multi-criterial Perspective

Diagnostic testing may represent a key component in response to an ongoing epidemic, especially if coupled with containment measures, such as mandatory self-isolation, aimed to prevent infectious individuals from furthering onward transmission while allowing non-infected individuals to go about their lives. However, by its own nature as an imperfect binary classifier, testing can produce false negative or false positive results. Both types of misclassification are problematic: while the former may exacerbate the spread of disease, the latter may result in unnecessary isolation mandates and socioeconomic burden. As clearly shown by the COVID-19 pandemic, achieving adequate protection for both people and society is a crucial, yet highly challenging task that needs to be addressed in managing large-scale epidemic transmission. To explore the trade-offs imposed by diagnostic testing and mandatory isolation as tools for epidemic containment, here we present an extension of the classical Susceptible-Infected-Recovered model that accounts for an additional stratification of the population based on the results of diagnostic testing. We show that, under suitable epidemiological conditions, a careful assessment of testing and isolation protocols can contribute to epidemic containment, even in the presence of false negative/positive results. Also, using a multi-criterial framework, we identify simple, yet Pareto-efficient testing and isolation scenarios that can minimize case count, isolation time, or seek a trade-off solution for these often contrasting epidemic management objectives

Subjective Job Insecurity During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy

This article studies subjective job insecurity in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused structural, economic and policy changes. It employs data drawn from the “Extraordinary Survey on Italian Families in 2020” released by the Bank of Italy in 2021. The work estimates a zero one inflated beta model (ZOIB). The main results show that (1) worsening household economic conditions is associated with an increase in householder workers subjective job insecurity; (2) receiving a wage guarantee fund in 2019 is associated with an increase in subjective job insecurity; and (3) increasing the number of people working from home within the household is associated with an increase in subjective job insecurity. Moreover, having a temporary contract and working in the private sector is associated with an increase in subjective job insecurity

Severe chest allodynia as an unusual first presentation of hydatid disease. A case report

Background: Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a worldwide zoonosis and the liver is the most commonly affected organ. Clinical manifestations range from completely asymptomatic cysts to a potential lethal cyst rupture and anaphylaxis. Case presentation: Severe chest allodynia was an unusual clinical presentation of hepatic cyst rupture in the retroperitoneal space, without any other specific symptoms. CE diagnosis was confirmed by computed tomography scan and magnetic resonance. The patient underwent hepatectomy with complete resolution of the neuropathic pain. Conclusions: Retroperitoneal hydatid cyst rupture is a rare event and its clinical manifestation may mimic other chest neuropathies

Cardiac and vascular characteristics and gender-related modifications induced by ageing in the founder population of SardiNIA project (ProgeNIA)

Background. Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in Western countries and this is expected to worsen as the population is aging. Aging induces structural and functional changes in the heart and vessels which increase the likelihood of cardiovascular events. Little data is available about gender-related and population-related differences in cardiovascular adaptation to aging. In 2001 the SardiNIA (ProgeNIA) project began in Sardinia. It’s brief was to identify the genetic determinants of complex traits associated with aging in 6148 volunteers with documented Sardinian parentage, enrolled in four villages in the Ogliastra province. In 2013 echocardiography was introduced to investigate the structural and functional cardiac traits. Aim. 1) To describe the clinical and echocardiographic characteristics of a large sample of the SardiNIA cohort; 2) To assess the normal values of the echocardiographic parameters and the best method of their indexation for body size (height, weight, body mass index, body surface area), in a sample free of cardiovascular diseases; 3) To investigate the effects of ageing on the heart and aorta and the gender-specific differences. Methods. Of the original 6148 SardiNIA volunteers, 3131 subjetcs underwent a transthoracic echocardiogram according to a standardized protocol and were enrolled in this study. Complete clinical and laboratory data and good quality 2D and M-mode echocardiographic images were available in 2926 of them (47.6% of the whole SardiNIA cohort). All the echocardiographic images were analyzed by a single expert cardiologist. The following parameters were measured: end-diastolic left ventricular (LV) internal diameter (EDD) and volume (EDV), interventricular septum, posterior wall thickness, LV mass (LVM), ejection fraction (EF), stroke volume (SV), transmitral early (E) and atrial (A) flow velocity and their ratio (E/A), left atrial diameter (LAD) and volume (LAV), aortic root and ascending aorta dimensions. According to clinical and laboratory data, office blood pressure, ABPM, ECG and echocardiography, 1977 subjects (62% women) were free of diabetes and apparent cardiovascular disease and were considered normal. Results. The prevalence of some cardiovascular risk factors in the SardiNIA sample group was quite low, probably due to the relatively young mean age of the sample, but genetic and environmental factors may also play a role. Gender-specific normal reference values of the major echocardiographic parameters were obtained, after normalizing for body surface area (BSA). In the Sardinian population ageing is associated with significant left ventricular remodelling, left atrial enlargement and diastolic dysfunction, while systolic function is preserved. It is noteworthy that all these changes are quantitatively more pronounced in women. Discussion. This study provides normal reference values of the echocardiographic indices, specific for the Sardinian population. The best method of their indexation resulted in being the isometric scaling using BSA, whereas the allometric methods of normalizing LVM (LVM/height2.7 and LVM/height1.7) overestimated LVM in the smallest subjects (mostly women) of the Sardinian population, with potential distorsive effect in estimating the true prevalence of LV hypertrophy. This data suggests that the best methods of indexing LVM for body size depend on the anthropometric characteristics of the study population. In the Sardinian population, ageing is associated with significant left ventricular remodelling, left atrial enlargement, aortic dilatation and diastolic dysfunction, while systolic function is preserved. It is worth noting that all these changes are more pronounced in women

Design of flux-weakening space vector control algorithms for permanent magnet brushless DC machines on suitable synchronous reference frames

The design of Space Vector Control (SVC) systems suitable for flux-weakening operation of Permanent Magnet Brushless DC Machines (PMBDCMs) is presented in this paper. The proposed design approach enables overcoming the critical issues arising from the non-linearities of PMBDCM voltage and torque equations; these issues derive from the trapezoidal shapes of back-emfs and affect PMBDCM constraint management significantly. The SVCs presented in this paper have been developed within two different synchronous reference frames, both of which enable distinguishing torque and demagnetizing current components clearly. Therefore, reference torque current component is determined in accordance with PMBDCM torque demand, while reference demagnetizing current component is computed through a voltage follower PI regulator, which processes the voltage deficit detected on the DC-link. In this regard, a novel synchronous reference frame is proposed in this paper, which improves PMBDCM constraint management and results into a wider constant-power speed range, but at the cost of some torque ripple. The enhanced performances achievable by SVC approaches are highlighted by numerical simulations, which regard the comparison among the SVCs and an SVC with no flux-weakening capability, at different operating conditions