University of Verona
Catalogo dei prodotti della ricerca Università degli Studi di VeronaNot a member yet
126292 research outputs found
Sort by
Democratizing robotic prostatectomy: navigating from novel platforms, telesurgery, and telementoring
No full textN.A
La Villa dei Mosaici di Negrar (VR) e l'epistolario Preto
No full textThis article explores the history of study of the so-called Villa dei Mosaici in Negrar di
Valpolicella (VR), using some partially unpublished archival documents from the De Stefani Private Archive. The building in question, discovered in the last decades of the 19th century, is one of the most outstanding examples of a Late Antique villa in northern Italy. The aim of this study is to analyze the events that led to the discovery of part of the building and its mosaic between 1886 and 1893, among others by Stefano De Stefani, the excavation inspector at the time. A preliminary analysis will therefore consider, on the one hand, the already known archival material relating to the above-mentioned fund and, on the other hand, a critical investigation of the documentation. The latter includes a letter by Vittorio Preto to De Stefani, dated 19 January 1892 and containing a series of four photographs of part of the mosaic pavement of the villa in situ, before it was transported to the then Civic Museum of Verona. Another aim is to valorize the archival heritage as a memory, often a unique record of the archaeological datum, and an instrument of resilience and continuity between the ancient and contemporary datum
A Deep Learning-Based Emotion Recognition Pipeline for Public Speaking Anxiety Detection in Social Robotics
No full textSocial robots are increasingly employed as personalized coaches in educational settings, offering new opportunities for applications such as public speaking training. In this domain, emotional self-regulation plays a crucial role, especially for students presenting in a non-native language. This study proposes a novel pipeline for detecting public speaking anxiety (PSA) using multimodal emotion recognition. Unlike traditional datasets that typically rely on acted emotions, we consider spontaneous data from students interacting naturally with a social robot coach. Emotional labels are generated through knowledge distillation, enabling the creation of soft labels that reflect the emotional valence of each presentation. We introduce a lightweight multimodal model that integrates speech prosody and body posture to classify speakers by anxiety level, without relying on linguistic content. Evaluated on a collected dataset of student presentations, the system achieves 74.67% accuracy and an F1-score of 0.64. The model can operate completely disconnected from the transmission network on an NVIDIA Jetson board, safeguarding data privacy and demonstrating its feasibility for real-world deployment
Family issues: conceptualizing party family at the issue level
Full text linkThis article was submitted to the ‘The Legacy of Giovanni Sartori’ symposium on IPSR/RISP – Italian Political Science Review. The goal of this note is to suggest an alternative approach to the of party family. The literature agrees that individual party families should be ideologically distinct and cohesive but maintains a broad understanding of ‘ideology’. This comes with conceptual and operational complications, including rarely explicit definitions of party family and frequently inconclusive empirical evidence. Instead, I suggest that the historically rooted ideological distinctiveness and uniqueness of party families should be conceived at the issue level. Accordingly, an alternative conceptualisation of party family is proposed: groups of parties whose patterns of issue salience ideologically reflect their historical origins. Importantly, this approach revolves around the identification of party families’ core issues, based on their cleavage/historical origins. Parties belonging to a party family will be the most consistent emphasizers of their core issues within their party system. This note provides a first discussion of how this alternative approach may provide party family scholars with greater clarity, both conceptually and in proposed empirical applications
MAPPING GLOBAL GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE GUIDELINES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: THE AMBIGUOUS BALANCE BETWEEN INNOVATION AND REGULATION
No full textArtificial Intelligence (AI), especially Generative AI (GenAI), is impacting academic life for all stakeholders. While offering opportunities like enhanced learning and assessment, its uncritical and unethical use raises critical academic integrity, social, and environmental sustainability issues. This highlights a strong need for GenAI literacy and comprehensive institutional policies. As innovation centres, universities have a unique responsibility to guide GenAI's ethical and effective use. Many are developing guidelines, but the landscape is fragmented, creating an urgent need for clarity and systematic analysis. This research investigates how 16 leading universities (identified across major rankings) are formulating and communicating their GenAI guidelines to address these complexities. Using inductive content analysis of publicly available website materials, preliminary findings show that guidelines target all academic community members, stressing the key role of faculty and staff in disseminating directives or integrating them into curricula. Guidelines cover GenAI adoption actions: pre-usage elements that explain universities' attitudes towards AI and try to foster awareness; implementation actions that detail practical procedures; post-usage, which emphasises responsibility, ownership, and maintenance actions to promote a sustainable looking-forward approach. However, many guidelines remain general, allowing broad interpretation and not always offering optimal solutions. While valuable, guidelines are only one approach to managing GenAI. By providing a clearer picture of current developments, the research contributes to theoretical and practical advancements, offering a foundation for future inquiries into the role of GenAI in Higher Education. Future work should focus on reducing ambiguity and enhancing the applicability of these guidelines. By doing so, institutions could explore alternative approaches to foster a critical and effective integration of GenAI into teaching and learning
Modeling and Simulation of Thermal Faults in Batteries for Enhanced Safety
No full textBatteries are a central component of many complex systems, including mobile devices, sensors, electric vehicles, etc. Keeping the battery working in normal conditions avoids dangerous hazards for the user or the system itself and helps extend the device's life. The battery temperature is one of the most delicate aspects of these devices since some dangerous scenarios, like thermal runaway, could occur due to variable conditions. This paper uses a battery model of an electric vehicle from the automotive area as a case study to simulate the thermal response to normal usage. Then, thermal fault scenarios are modeled within equivalent circuital device descriptions and analyzed regarding state-of-charge, temperature, and voltage output. The findings presented offer a valuable starting point for improving the design phase of the batteries in multiple fields by testing fault scenarios already during simulation
Nasal inhalation of antiviral microparticulate powders to target early infection of upper airways
No full textDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, several compounds among which chloroquine diphosphate (CqP), have been repurposed as anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs. Critically, studies were most often performed by systemic drug administration, whereas the early viral infection of human body appeared in the upper respiratory tract. This research addressed the delivery strategy for depositing a powder aerosol of CqP onto the upper airways by a nasal inhalation act. By formulating the drug as nasal microparticulate aerodynamic powder, the loco-regional application of particle aerosol concentrates the drug primarily on the upper airway epithelia where the virus replicates. Nasal microparticulate powders of CqP, with and without excipients, were engineered by spray drying, obtaining particle size, density and morphology suitable for aerosolization and deposition onto the upper respiratory tract. The powders were loaded into a pre-metered device for oral inhalation of dry powders that was innovatively actuated by a nasal sharp sniff. The generated nasal airflow, measured in healthy volunteers, enabled powder dose emission from the inhaler. Chloroquine diphosphate microparticles, deposited on rabbit nasal mucosa ex vivo, led in less than 45 min to CqP concentrations within the epithelial cells between 30-70 mM. The in vitro CqP concentrations inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 replication, were in the mu M range. The virus inhibition studied in Vero E6 cells was further enhanced when the cells were pre-treated with the drug powder before infection. In conclusion, the simple nasal sniff of an antiviral aerodynamic powder could be active against airborne viral early infection, limiting the exposition of the whole body to undesired drug effects
Unlocking the potential of Metschnikowia pulcherrima: a dive into the genomic and safety characterization of four plant-associated strains
No full textMetschnikowia pulcherrima includes strains of applied agro-food interest, particularly due to the antimicrobial activity against plant pathogens, contribution to the aroma of fermented beverages, and preliminary evidence related to probiotic activity. This biotechnological relevance sheds new light of interest on the biology of this yeast. To better understand and expand its biotechnological potential and applicability, the genomes of M. pulcherrima NRRL Y-7111 (T), NRRL Y-48695, CBS 10357, and NRRL Y-48712 were sequenced, and de-novo assembled. Between 10,671 and 14,548 genes were predicted and the cooperative genomic analyses were integrated with experimental assessments relating to traits relevant for biotechnological application and safety. In silico and in vitro safety assessment revealed intermediate sensitivity for itraconazole; furthermore, variants of the genes related to pulcherrimin production and transport were found in all the genomes. Moreover, an arsenal of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) was unravelled, and their predicted localization was investigated. This study expands the body of knowledge on M. pulcherrima, including traits relevant for defining its safety as a bioresource, which is a pivotal aspect for its possible inclusion in the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Qualified Presumption of Safety (QPS) list and its application in REgulated food/feed PROducts (REPRO) both in the European Union & aligned European countries
Comparing Theoretical Approaches to Neology: Are All New Words Neologisms, and Are All Neologisms New Words?
No full textThis paper proposes a comparative method for analysing neology theories and suggests a way of transposing their results into a systematic lexicographical representation