Hochschulschriftenserver der Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart
Not a member yet
128342 research outputs found
Sort by
Serving time: Volunteer work, liminality and the uses of meaningfulness at music festivals
No full textDrawing from a participant‐observer study of volunteering in the context of UK music festivals, we examine how the sense of meaningfulness and community relate to instrumental goals of consumption and efficiency. We argue that the liminal nature of the festival setting supports an ambivalence in which meaningfulness is established through constructions of community, while the commodification of community feelings leads to heterogeneous understandings of the work setting. Our findings reveal heterogeneous ways in which work was rendered meaningful by festival volunteers, ranging from (1) A commodity frame, characterizing work as drudgery seeking ‘fun’ through consumption (2) A ‘communitas’ frame, emphasizing a transcendental sense of collective immediacy and (3) A cynical frame, where communitas discourse is used instrumentally by both managers and workers. We discuss meaningful work as caught between creative community and ideological mystification, and how alternative workspaces vacillate between emancipatory principles of solidarity and neo‐normative forms of ideological control
Analysis of the financial performance in Italian football championship clubs by Marginal Models (GEE) and diagnostic measures.
No full textFootball is undoubtedly the most powerful and most popular sport in Italy, linking communities and stirring emotions. The main goal of any Football Championship club is to achieve sport results. The study of the relationship between sport and economic results attracts the interest of many scholars belonging to different disciplines. The aim of this paper is to give an interpretation of this last link using the Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) for longitudinal data. Some diagnostic measures and simulate envelope for checking the adequacy of GEE method will be presented and used
Attitude estimation for cooperating UAVs based on tight integration of GNSS and vision measurements
No full textThis paper presents a cooperative navigation approach for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that allows robust and accurate attitude determination for a chief vehicle flying in formation with other deputy UAVs. The proposed method is based on a tightly coupled Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) that exploits the spatial diversity of measurements coming from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers and a vision system, which are integrated with inertial and magnetic sensor data. The focus is set on outdoor environments and the innovative idea is to extend attitude estimation approaches based on multiple GNSS antennas, to a multi-vehicle system where differential-GNSS and vision-based UAV-to-UAV tracking are exploited to build a virtual additional navigation sensor. Concept and processing architecture are described with emphasis on the EKF measurement update phase which is applicable for any number of cooperating deputies, and for different GNSS processing architectures. Performance of the proposed method is assessed through experimental tests involving two multi-rotors and two fixed ground antennas, one of which is used as Ground Control Point for pointing accuracy analysis. Results show the potential of the developed approach in terms of accuracy and capability to provide drift-free estimates, in real time or in post processing scenarios
Geotechnical Properties of Two Pyroclastic Deposits Involved in Catastrophic Flowslides for Implementation in Early Warning Systems
No full textAir-fall pyroclastic deposits on steep slopes in Campania (Southern Italy) are periodically
subjected to rainfall-induced landslides that may evolve into catastrophic flowslides. To protect
built-up areas, early warning systems (EWSs) have been implemented which are essentially based on
pluviometric thresholds or models unable to accurately monitor the physical phenomena responsible
for flowslide generation in pyroclastic deposits. Over the last 20 years, landslides with no evolution
in flows occurred in this area and the alarms generated by existing EWSs in the cases of rainfall
were both false and highly costly, thus eroding public trust in EWSs. To improve existing EWSs,
two complex models for pyroclastic soils (Cervinara and Sarno) are proposed in this paper. These two
models allow correct simulation of the physical processes, such as saturation increase due to rainwater
infiltration and mechanical degradation as far as undrained instability, which govern postfailure
evolution. The paper concludes with the presentation of a framework proposal to be used in defining
a soil database, as well as a framework for flowslide generation forecast to be used for implementation
within EWSs
Blockchain as a universal tool for business improvement
No full textAbstract: The aim of this work is to present the characteristics of the blockchain
technology and its potential in corporate case study applications. The paper presents
in detail an example of the implementation of permissioned blockchain and other
examples of blockchain (also of semantic type) applied to the temporal certification
of business processes of some brilliant southern Italy realities
Smart roads e testing di veicoli autonomi
No full textOpportunità e criticità relative alla guida autonoma e connesso ed alla realizzazione delle Smart Roa
I sistemi robotici ad autonomia crescente tra etica e diritto: quale ruolo per il controllo umano?
No full textABSTRACT (in English, main text in Italian): To be counted as operationally autonomous relative to the execution of some given task, a robotic system must be capable of performing that task without any human intervention after its activation. Recent progress in the fields of robotics and AI has paved the way to robots autonomously performing tasks that may significantly affect individual and collective interests, which are deemed as worthy of protection from both ethical and legal perspectives. The present contribution provides an overview of ensuing normative problems and identifies some ethically and legally grounded solutions to them. To this end, three case studies will be more closely scrutinized, i.e. increasingly autonomous weapons systems, vehicles, and surgical robots. These case studies are used to illustrate, respectively, the preliminary problem of whether we want to grant certain forms of autonomy to robotic systems, the problem of selecting appropriate ethical policies to control the behavior of autonomous robotic systems, and the problem of how to retain responsibility for misdoings of autonomous robotic systems. The analysis of these case studies brings out the key role played by human control in ethical and legal problem-solving strategies concerning the operational autonomy of robotic and AI systems
La digitalizzazione dei flussi informativi per la fase operativa: il caso della Apple Developer Academy / Digital flows of information for the operational phase: the Facility Management of Apple Developer Academy
No full textThe operational/management phase is the one most affected by an ineffective organization of information, which occurred in the previous phases. The activity of this applied research had the objective of verifying the possibility of reducing the problems that arise between the executive phase and the Management phase, through the improvement of the interaction between the different protagonists in the exchange, sharing and updating of informational datasets. The work focused on the case study of the Apple Developer Academy in Naples, the first school in Europe for the development of digital mobile applications, with respect to which the management strategies were simulated starting from the development of an Informational Modeling functional to the operational phase of the spaces
Experimental Investigation of Capillary-Driven Two-Phase Flow in Water/Butanol under Reduced Gravity Conditions
No full textThe capillary flow of water/butanol mixture is investigated in a single groove heat pipe model on board theAirbus A310‘Zero-G’of the European Space Agency. As working fluid for evaporation-based heat transferdevices like conventional or pulsating heat pipes, these kinds of mixtures give more stable behaviour and higherdry-out limit with respect to pure water because of an anomalous behaviour of the surface tension with temper-ature. The groove is embedded in a semi-transparent test cell that allows for the qualitative visualization of theliquid distribution along the channeland is heated and cooled at two opposite sides with an electrical resistanceand a water circulation system. The evaporation/condensation process is regulated changing the power input in arange between 5 and 30 W and the liquid distribution is detected from a top windowusingaCCDcameraandaLED illumination device. The results show that the liquid distribution is affected by the gravity level and thiseffect is normally masked on ground
Cervical assessment by ultrasound for preventing preterm delivery
No full textBACKGROUND:
Measurement of cervical length by ultrasound is predictive of preterm birth (PTB). There are three methods of ultrasound cervical assessment: transvaginal (TVU), transabdominal (TAU), and transperineal (TPU, also called translabial). Cervical length measured by TVU is a relatively new screening test, and has been associated with better prediction of PTB than previously available tests. It is unclear if cervical length measured by ultrasound is effective for preventing PTB. This is an update of a review last published in 2013.
OBJECTIVES:
To assess the effectiveness of antenatal management based on transvaginal, transabdominal, and transperineal (also called translabial) ultrasound screening of cervical length for preventing preterm birth.
SEARCH METHODS:
For this update, we searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth's Trials Register, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) to 30 August 2018; reviewed the reference lists of all articles, and contacted experts in the field for additional and ongoing trials.
SELECTION CRITERIA:
We included published and unpublished randomised controlled trials (RCT) including pregnant women between the gestational ages of 14 to 32 weeks, for whom the cervical length was screened for risk of PTB with TVU, TAU, or TPU. This review focused on studies based on knowledge versus no knowledge of cervical length results, or ultrasound versus no ultrasound for cervical length. We excluded studies based on interventions (e.g. progesterone, cerclage) for short cervical length.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS:
We followed standard Cochrane methods.
MAIN RESULTS:
We included seven RCTs (N = 923): one examined asymptomatic women with twin pregnancies; four included women with singleton pregnancies and symptoms of preterm labour (PTL); one included women with singleton pregnancies and symptoms of preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM); and one included asymptomatic singletons. All trials used TVU for screening.We assessed the risk of bias of the included studies as mixed, and the quality of the evidence for primary outcomes as very low for all populations.For asymptomatic women with twin pregnancies, it is uncertain whether knowledge of TVU-measured cervical length compared to no knowledge reduces PTB at less than 34 weeks (risk ratio (RR) 0.62, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 0.30 to 1.25; 1 study, 125 participants) because the quality of the evidence is very low. The results were also inconclusive for preterm birth at 36, 32, or 30 weeks; gestational age at birth, and other maternal and perinatal outcomes.Four trials examined knowledge of TVU-measured cervical length of singletons with symptoms of PTL versus no knowledge. We are uncertain of the effects because of inconclusive results and very low-quality evidence for: preterm births at less than 37 weeks (average RR 0.59, 95% CI 0.26 to 1.32; 2 studies, 242 participants; I2 = 66%; Tau2 = 0.23). Birth occurred about four days later in the knowledge groups (mean difference (MD) 0.64 weeks, 95% CI 0.03 to 1.25; 3 trials, 290 women). The results were inconclusive for the other outcomes for which there were available data: PTB at less than 34 or 28 weeks; birthweight less than 2500 g; perinatal death; maternal hospitalisation; tocolysis; and steroids for fetal lung maturity.The trial of singletons with PPROM (N = 92) evaluated safety of using TVU to measure cervical length in this population as its primary outcome, not its effect on management. The results were inconclusive for incidence of maternal and neonatal infections between the TVU and no ultrasound groups.In the trial of asymptomatic singletons (N = 296), in which women either received TVU or not, the results were inconclusive for preterm birth at less than 37 weeks (RR 1.27, 95% CI 0.61 to 2.61; I2 = 0%), gestational age at birth, and other perinatal and maternal outcomes.We downgraded evidence for limitations in study design, inconsistency between the trials, and imprecision, due to small sample size and wide confidence intervals crossing the line of no effect.No trial compared the effect of knowledge of the CL with no knowledge of CL in other populations, such as asymptomatic women with singleton pregnancies, or symptomatic women with twin pregnancies.
AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS:
There are limited data on the effects of knowing the cervical length, measured by ultrasound, for preventing preterm births, which preclude us from drawing any conclusions for women with asymptomatic twin or singleton pregnancies, singleton pregnancies with PPROM, or other populations and clinical scenarios.Limited evidence suggests that knowledge of transvaginal ultrasound-measured cervical length, used to inform the management of women with singleton pregnancies and symptoms of preterm labour, appears to prolong pregnancy by about four days over women in the no knowledge groups.Future studies could look at specific populations separately (e.g. singleton versus twins; symptoms versus no symptoms of PTL), report on all pertinent maternal and perinatal outcomes, and include cost-effectiveness analyses. Most importantly, future studies should include a clear protocol for management of women based on TVU-measured cervical length