Archivio della ricerca della Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
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Life Cycle Assessment as an Enabler of an Environmental Sustainability Strategy Evolution Amid Institutional Pressures: A Best Practice from the Furniture Industry..
Get PDFA Gait Imagery-Based Brain–Computer Interface With Visual Feedback for Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation on Lokomat
No full textObjective: Motor Imagery (MI)-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have been proposed for the rehabilitation of people with disabilities, being a big challenge their successful application to restore motor functions in individuals with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). This work proposes an Electroencephalography (EEG) gait imagery-based BCI to promote motor recovery on the Lokomat platform, in order to allow a clinical intervention by acting simultaneously on both central and peripheral nervous mechanisms. Methods: As a novelty, our BCI system accurately discriminates gait imagery tasks during walking and further provides a multi-channel EEG-based Visual Neurofeedback (VNFB) linked to (8-12 Hz) and (15-20 Hz) rhythms around Cz. VNFB is carried out through a cluster analysis strategy-based Euclidean distance, where the weighted mean MI feature vector is used as a reference to teach individuals with SCI to modulate their cortical rhythms. Results: The developed BCI reached an average classification accuracy of 74.4%. In addition, feature analysis demonstrated a reduction in cluster variance after several sessions, whereas metrics associated with self-modulation indicated a greater distance between both classes: passive walking with gait MI and passive walking without MI. Conclusion: The results suggest that intervention with a gait MI-based BCI with VNFB may allow the individuals to appropriately modulate their rhythms of interest around Cz. Significance: This work contributes to the development of advanced systems for gait rehabilitation by integrating Machine Learning and neurofeedback techniques, to restore lower-limb functions of SCI individuals
Environmental Sustainability Award Winners: Do They Communicate Their Environmental Performance Without Potential Greenwashing?
Get PDFSustainability awards are often seen as a mark of credibility and can help companies attract new customers, investors and partners. However, there is some question as to whether the companies that win sustainability awards—and therefore who ought to be genuinely committed to sustainability—correctly communicate their environmental performances according to internationally recognised principles for the fair use of environmental labels and claims such as those set by ISO standards. This study examined the web communication practices of a sample of 100 Italian companies that had won a sustainability award. Our findings showed that, while most of these companies boasted their environmental performance in several ways, they did not always follow the above-mentioned communication principles. This suggests that companies need further training and education on how to communicate their environmental performance correctly and in a substantiated manner, thus preventing the risk of greenwashing
Diritto della blockchain e contrattazione meccanica: ricadute in tema di data protection
No full textElectric Field Cycling of Physisorbed Antibodies Reduces Biolayer Polarization Dispersion
No full textThe electric dipoles of proteins in a biolayer determine their dielectric properties through the polarization density P. Hence, its reproducibility is crucial for applications, particularly in bioelectronics. Biolayers encompassing capturing antibodies covalently bound at a biosensing interface are generally preferred for their assumed higher stability. However, surface physisorption is shown to offer advantages like easily scalable fabrication processes and high stability. The present study investigates the effects of electric-field (EF)-cycling of anti-Immunoglobulin M (anti-IgM) biolayers physisorbed on Au. The impact of EF-cycling on the dielectric, optical, and mechanical properties of anti-IgM biolayer is investigated. A reduction of the dispersion (standard deviation over a set of 31 samples) of the measured P values is observed, while the set median stays almost constant. Hence, physisorption combined with EF cycling, results in a biolayer with highly reproducible bioelectronic properties. Additionally, the study provides important insights into the mechanisms of dielectric rearrangement of dipole moments in capturing biolayers after EF-cycling. Notably, EF-cycling acts as an annealing process, driving the proteins in the biolayer into a statistically more probable and stable conformational state. Understanding these phenomena enhances the knowledge of the properties of physisorbed biolayers and can inform design strategies for bioelectronic devices
Lightweight design of polymeric thin-walled components: Latticization and elastic–plastic homogenization
Get PDFForme di protezione internazionale e complementare per fattori climatico-ambientali di migrazione
No full textRegional variations in Italy’s COVID-19 death toll: a descriptive analysis of excess mortality and associated factors from 2020 to 2021
Get PDFBackground: Italy implemented various measures, including lockdowns and a mass vaccination campaign, to address the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to describe the temporal and regional differences in mortality trends between March 2020 and December 2021, along with associated socioeconomic, policy, and behavioral factors. Methods: We used National Ministry of Health data on COVID-19 mortality, excess mortality (EM), and vaccine uptake, along with data from the Italian arm of a European survey of preventive behaviors and attitudes, such as trust in institutions. The analysis was conducted across four macro regions and five study periods. Avertable mortality was calculated as observed EM minus the lowest EM at the macro-regional level for each study period. Results: In 2020–21, the estimated total EM was 180,169 deaths, with 76.4% officially attributed to COVID-19. This proportion ranged from 13.5% in the South and Islands (June–October 2020) to 140.0% in the Northeast (March–July 2021). Excess and avertable mortality peaked in the North during the first two periods (March 2020 – February 2021) and in the South and Islands thereafter (March–December 2021). Survey data revealed reduced adherence to stay-at-home orders in the North and lower trust in hospitals and reduced vaccine uptake, especially among the elderly, in the South and Islands. After the initial period, 33,587 deaths (18.6%) could have been averted if each macro-region had matched the lowest rates observed in that period. An estimated 40.7% of avertable deaths occurred in Southern and Insular Italy, which constitutes 33.7% of the national population. Conclusions: Due to differential misreporting, EM estimates offer a more accurate view of regional and temporal patterns in COVID-19 mortality than official rates. The higher EM in northern Italy during the first year of the pandemic might be linked to lesser adherence to control policies, possibly associated with higher private-sector employment. The higher EM in the South and Islands post-March 2021, contributing to 40.7% of avertable EM, could be partly explained by the lower vaccination rates in the population aged 80 and older, who experienced the highest age-specific mortality rates and lower trust in the healthcare system in this macro-region
