48 research outputs found
La costruzione dello storytelling. La logica della pratica dietro alla logica della rappresentazione nella comunicazione organizzativa.
No full textIl presente studio vuole descrivere come la logica della pratica e la logica della teoria interagiscano per arrivare a definire la logica della rappresentazione. L’opportunità per descrivere questa relazione, viene dalla pratica dello storytelling.
Lo storytelling in quanto tale non è, quindi, il focus di questo lavoro, ma ne rappresenta una cornice, una sorta di contestualizzazione. Questo lavoro mira piuttosto ad illustrare come le rappresentazioni narrative siano costruite nella pratica.
Empiricamente, questo elaborato è il frutto di tre anni di lavoro e di osservazione all’interno di un contesto organizzativo. Perciò, esso vuole prima fornire una riflessione e un’analisi della particolare condizione all’interno del sito studiato, che è definita facendo riferimento al concetto di liminalità (Czarniawska e Mazza, 2013). In effetti, questa condizione ha determinato e influenzato la conduzione e l’oggetto finale di questo lavoro di ricerca e non può, pertanto, non essere presa in considerazione nella descrizione dei fenomeni osservati.
Questo elaborato prende in considerazione le rappresentazioni narrative dell’organizzazione studiata e ne descrive il processo di costruzione. In questo modo, vuole pervenire alla costruzione di una teoria locale valida per il contesto specifico (Czarniawska, 2001).
In particolare, questo lavoro vuole dunque essere uno studio praxiografico (Mol, 2002): partendo dai prodotti del lavoro in impresa e, attraverso un’analisi fondata sull’osservazione, l’auto-osservazione e l’osservazione retrospettiva, ricostruisce i processi organizzativi che sono stati necessari alla loro realizzazione prima, e alla loro diffusione poi.
Avendo svolto tali attività di comunicazione partecipando al lavoro in due contesti estremamente diversi appartenenti alla stessa organizzazione, l’ufficio comunicazione e quello di ricerca per l’innovazione, in questo lavoro sono contemplati e messi a confronto diversi tipi di rappresentazioni e diversi processi di costruzione delle narrazioni.
Questo elaborato presenta quattro delle narrazioni sviluppate nei due diversi contesti e ne ricostruisce i processi di costruzione e di diffusione. La scelta è ricaduta sulle rappresentazioni narrative che potessero essere più significative, sia da un punto di vista dei temi descritti e rappresentati, sia per l’importanza rivestita dalle stesse all’interno del contesto organizzativo di riferimento.
L’elaborato procede poi tracciando un modello che sintetizzi e includa gli step attraverso cui si perviene alla
costruzione di una rappresentazione narrativa nel sito di studio. Si tratta quindi di un modello e dunque di una generalizzazione, ma che ha valenza locale, perché appunto relativo al mio "sito".
Da questo modello, in seconda istanza, emergono dei temi e delle riflessioni di portata più ampia, che acquistano valore alla luce del confronto con la letteratura e le pratiche osservate.This dissertation aims to describe the interaction of how the logic of practice with the logic of theory to reach the logic of representation. The chance to describe this relation comes from the practice of storytelling.
Storytelling itself is not the focus of this research, but it provides a framework, a kind of contextualization to it. On the contrary, this research aims to illustrate how narrative representations are built in practice.
Empirically, this dissertation is the result of a three-year period spent within an organizational context, both working and observing. Consequently, it begins providing a reflection and an analysis of this peculiar role of the researcher within the fieldwork. This condition is defined using the concept of liminality (Czarniawska and Mazza, 2013). Indeed, this condition inevitably shaped and influenced both the conduction and the result of the research work, thus it can’t be ignored while describing the observed phenomena.
This dissertation takes into account the narrative representations of the studied organization and describes the construction processes. In this way, it aims to build a local theory that is related to the specific context (Czarniawska, 2001).
In particular, this research work wants to be a praxiography (Mol, 2002). Starting from the products of my work for organizational communication, through an analysis based on observation, self-observation and retrospective analysis, it retraces the organizational processes that were necessary to their realization and diffusion.
Moreover this research work was conducted within two different offices of the same organization, the communication and the research for innovation ones. Consequently, this dissertation considers and compare the narrative representations related to these two different contexts and their related processes of construction.
This dissertation presents four of these narratives and describes their construction and diffusion processes. The choice of these four examples was made considering the heterogeneity and the importance of their dynamics and themes for both this research and the organization itself.
This dissertation goes on building a model that includes and synthetizes the observed stages necessary to construct a narrative representation within the field of study. Thus, this is a local model, because it represents a generalization that is referred to the specific field. Nevertheless, thanks to comparisons, this study offers broader reflections on the relation of representations and their hidden practice
La valutazione della sonnolenza e delle abilita’ di guida nella terza eta’
No full textL’eccessiva sonnolenza diurna (EDS) è una condizione patologica che interferisce con le attività quotidiane, causando un calo dei livelli di vigilanza che incide sulle capacità di concentrazione e di valutazione del tempo di reazione al pericolo. Tali aspetti sono particolarmente rilevanti nella valutazione delle performance di guida, che richiedono l’integrità di varie funzioni cognitive, fra cui le capacità attentive, percettive di valutazione del rischio nel traffico. Il normale invecchiamento fisiologico determina un aumento dei livelli di sonnolenza diurna, contestualmente a una frammentazione del sonno che diventa meno profondo e più frammentato. Al riguardo, alcuni studi hanno rilevato nelle persone anziane una prevalenza di EDS e una maggior vulnerabilità al rischio di incidenti stradali. Tuttavia, i dati relativi alle conseguenze di questi aspetti sulla quotidianità non sono stati sufficientemente indagati e i risultati disponibili non consentono di raccogliere informazioni esaustive. Peraltro, risulta mancante una validazione delle misure della sonnolenza nell’anziano sano alla guida. Lo studio si propone, quindi, di indagare la relazione tra qualità del sonno, sonnolenza diurna e performance di guida nella terza età. Metodo: 40 soggetti anziani (età 58-80) e 40 giovani (età 20-35) abilitati alla guida hanno effettuato una valutazione con i seguenti strumenti: Psychomotor Vigilance Task-PVT per la sonnolenza oggettiva comportamentale; Karolinska Sleepiness Scale-KSS ed Epworth Sleepiness Scale-ESS per la sonnolenza soggettiva; Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index-PSQI per la qualità del sonno percepita; Cognitrone-COG/S11, Adaptive Tachistoscopic Traffic Perception Test-ATAVT e Vienna Risk-Taking Test Traffic-WRBTV (test della batteria Vienna Test System TRAFFIC) per la valutazione dell’attenzione selettiva alla guida, della percezione tachistoscopica e dell’assunzione del rischio nel traffico. Risultati e Conclusioni: Il confronto statistico effettuato per mezzo di un’ANOVA 2x2 between subjects (Età x Genere) ha mostrato: (1) una minor efficienza del sonno negli anziani rispetto ai giovani e delle tendenze a commettere un maggior numero di errori al PVT, con rallentamenti nel segmento dei tempi di reazione più rapidi; (2) un inatteso risultato relativo a maggior sonnolenza di stato da parte dei giovani; (3) delle robuste differenze legate all’età per quanto riguarda le variabili di guida, mostrando tempi di lavoro più lunghi, scarse performance attentive e percettive ma maggior prudenza nell’assunzione del rischio da parte degli anziani rispetto ai giovani. Un approccio previsionale condotto per mezzo di regressioni multiple ha dimostrato che fra le misure di qualità del sonno e sonnolenza soggettiva considerate, solamente il PSQI risulta in grado di predire la prestazione comportamentale al PVT. Infine, l’indagine condotta per mezzo di regressioni multiple, in merito alla predittività del comportamento di guida -da parte delle variabili relative ad età, qualità del sonno e sonnolenza comportamentale e soggettiva- ha mostrato, in primo luogo, un robusto valore predittivo dal parte dell’età mentre, in secondo luogo, è emersa una tendenza da parte del KSS e del PVT nel predire la prestazione rispetto ai tempi totali di lavoro e alla rapidità con cui vengono rifiutati gli stimoli distrattori nel compito di attenzione selettiva alla guida. I dati in merito a una minor efficienza del sonno nell’anziano risulterebbero coerenti con la letteratura di riferimento, sebbene tale aspetto non si rifletta in chiare differenze nelle performance al PVT. Al contrario, i giovani riportano maggior sonnolenza soggettiva di stato: tale inatteso risultato necessita di ulteriori chiarimenti e potrebbe rendere conto dell’assenza di specifiche differenziazioni prestazionali rispetto agli anziani. Infatti, rappresentando un limite intrinseco allo studio, potrebbe indebolire la successiva logica previsionale, volta specialmente all’individuazione della capacità del set delle misure soggettive e oggettive del sonno e della sonnolenza di predire le prestazioni nel comportamento di guida. D’altra parte, dagli approcci previsionali considerati a tale scopo, emerge il fattore età come unico e robusto predittore, mentre viene rilevata solo una tendenza da parte delle misure soggettive e oggettive della sonnolenza di prevedere la prestazione nei compiti di attenzione selettiva alla guida, confermando solo in maniera parziale le ipotesi di partenza
Scarpelli S., Bartolacci C., Rodini M., Cloos C., D’Atri A., Gorgoni M., De Gennaro L. Basi neurali del ricordo dei sogni: un protocollo di risvegli multipli notturni. XXVIII Congresso Nazionale AIMS (Associazione Italiana di Medicina del Sonno), Taormina 2018.
No full textBartolacci C., Scarpelli S., Annarumma L., Cloos C., De Gennaro L. Valutazione della Sonnolenza e delle Abilità di Guida nella Terza Età. XXVIII Congresso Nazionale AIMS (Associazione Italiana di Medicina del Sonno), Taormina 2018.
No full textL'attività elettrica cerebrale (EEG) predice la presenza del ricordo dei sogni?
No full textL’osservazione empirica delle caratteristiche dei sogni ha rilevato che i contenuti onirici possono essere tra loro molto vari, sia da un punto di vista qualitativo che quantitativo. Per alcuni decenni la ricerca scientifica sul dreaming ha attribuito tali differenze alla specifica azione esercitata dallo stadio di sonno REM (Rapid Eye Movement) e dallo stadio di sonno NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement). In seguito, vari studi hanno cercato di superare la questione relativa alla dicotomia REM/NREM in merito alla produzione dei sogni. Fra questi, i
contributi provenienti dagli studi di lesione, dalle ricerche di neuroimaging e dai metodi polisonnografici hanno permesso di chiarire, almeno in parte, quali siano le strutture cerebrali maggiormente coinvolte nella generazione dei sogni. Alcune di queste strutture sembrerebbero coinvolte isomorficamente nell’elaborazione
dell’attività cognitiva durante la veglia. D’altra parte, ulteriori studi riportano una correlazione tra la rievocazione dell’attività onirica e una maggiore attivazione corticale durante il sonno. Attualmente, uno degli obiettivi principali è quello di chiarificare se la presenza del ricordo onirico possa essere predetta da specifiche attività oscillatorie a livello corticale oppure se dipenda dall’influenza di variabili di tratto che determinano differenze interindividuali nella capacità di richiamare i sogni al risveglio. Scopo della review è quello di illustrare in che modo il paradigma dicotomico sulla generazione del sogno si sia evoluto nel tempo e quali siano state le strade intraprese per superare tale questione. Saranno presi in considerazione gli studi che hanno apportato un contributo innovativo alla ricerca sui sogni, conducendo alla formulazione dei recenti ipotesi teoriche, valutando, in ultima analisi, l’auspicabile possibilità di procedere verso una teoria unificata del dreamin
Research, organization and applied innovation in Knowledge Management
No full textThe Volume represents and reflects the ongoing debate on Knowledge Management that keeps on growing and acquiring both scientific and practical relevance with its heterogeneity of studies, applications and solutions for the current scenario and the next future. In its continuous evolution, Knowledge Management has shifted from being a branch of a wider discipline (i.e. Organizational Science) to a discipline by itself. Also, Knowledge Management has entered and affected other disciplines and fields of study, widening its scope of themes, languages, tools, that now are merit studying through the Organizational and Management lenses. The volume includes the abstracts of 58 research works and it includes also a selection of nine eminent papers that touch on topics that stand out in the aforementioned debate for their current and future implications, i.e. cybersecurity (Koohang A. et al., Security policy and data protection awareness of mobile devices in relation to employees’ trusting beliefs; Carlton M. et al., Validation of a vignettes-based, hands-on cybersecurity threats situational assessment tool), effects of mobile-devices use (Polak P., The consequences of the use of online sour- ces of information and mobile devices in university classes), e-learning (Gafni R. et al., The effects of gamification elements in e-learning platforms), knowledge dynamics in a free- software community (Balle A. et al., Knowledge donation and knowledge collection pat- terns in a free software community), cognitive systems (Huber et al., Some design aspects of a cognitive user interface), conversational systems (Silber-Varod, Is human-human spoken interaction manageable? The emergence of the concept: ‘Conversation Intelligence’), consumers’ knowledge (Ziemba E. et al., Prosumers knowledge sharing to develop and manage products), and ontologies’ evaluation criteria (Dudycz H., Proposal of evalua- tion criteria for editors of ontologies created to represent knowledge in information systems). Overall, this volume deals with the technological aspects and discuss knowledge management at organizational level while being centred around the practical aspects of knowledge management at the individual level. Thus, what the selection wants to highlight is the imperative pivot role humans play in knowledge creation and innovation, thanks to their creativity that will be hard to be replaced by the technological and digital progress. This duality and paradox of complementarity and replacement of human creativity with the accelerating technological and digital progress will be at the heart of the research and practice of knowledge management in the first half of the 21st centur
The economic efficiency of waste management companies: a study on the business models, processes and cost analysis in the circular economy.
No full textIn recent years, many Countries were forced to assess their solid waste management programs, with emphasis given to the need to improve efficiency and to control the costs of collecting, transporting and processing urban solid waste. Prior literature highlights that process efficiency and cost and management accounting have become a critical issue for every waste management company in several Countries. Prior research investigated from an engineering perspective and little research has been dedicated to accounting and management-related issues. We propose a more integrated study on management and accounting, whose literature still lacks. Another gap this project fills in, is the consideration of all the processes of the Municipal Solid Waste management (MSW) system, studying not only the collection process but also the transport, selection, treatment, recycling or reuse and disposal of waste.
We adopt a constructive research methodology and using the Life Cycle Costing we assess the efficiency and economic viability of the waste treatment options. We will use various methods, including qualitative and quantitative research approaches.
The main target is to evaluate the efficiency in MSW companies and to identify the best practices. The specific results to be achieved are: A) The identification of the best business models to achieve efficiency in waste management companies; B) The measurement of the costs of each processes of collection, selection, treatment, recycling, reuse and disposals of MSW (from the selection it should be considered also the transport costs); C) The cost-benefit analysis of separated waste management versus undifferentiated waste management; D) The analysis of the determinants of the waste treatment costs (geographic area, population, tourism).
The project lasts 36 months, divided in 5 phases. In the first 6 months the two research units review the regulation and the literature. In the second phase they conduct the survey (12 months) and in the third they build the databases for the analysis (6 months). In the fourth phase the units make the statistical analysis and the case studies investigation. The results are presented to academic and public sector conferences (phase 5).
This project provides a twofold contribution to the literature on waste management. Firstly, it studies the waste management companies under an accounting and management perspective, which is key to develop more efficient and effective business models. Secondly, unlike prior studies focusing on specific process, we investigate the entire processes involved in the waste management system from collection to disposal.
The results are relevant at the national and international level. The findings can help in the creation of business models able to improve the efficiency of waste management companies. The findings can help the policy makers and local governments to develop regulation and prepare tender offer for the waste management services
History of Dreaming
No full textIn the late 1920s, the psychiatrist Hans Berger introduced a new technique to detect the cortical activity from the scalp of human being. In 1929, the physician showed the first registration of the cortical electric activity obtained by means of electroencephalography machine, from which it was possible to get an electroencephalogram (EEG) on printed paper. In subsequent years, such technique was also adopted for sleep recordings (Loomis et al., 1937), revealing that the electric activity was not homogeneous, but instead, it changed across each night.
For several decades, ocular movements observed during sleep were considered casual and insignificant. However, Eugene Aserinsky, a physiology student at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Nathaniel Kleitman, revolutionized sleep scientific research by measuring cerebral activity and ocular movements simultaneously through electrooculography (EOG). They discovered specific intervals with rapid and recurrent eye movement and burst of alpha activity, comparable to those during wakefulness (Aserinsky e Kleitman, 1953). They named this particular kind of sleep as Rapid Eye Movement (REM), which for its features (i.e., desynchronized EEG activity, muscular atonia and rapid eye movements) is also known as "paradoxical sleep". On the other hand, the Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep consists of 1 and 2 lighter sleep stages and 3 and 4 deeper sleep stages and exhibits slow and synchronized EEG activity. Essentially, the year 1953 coincides with the birth of psychophysiology of sleep.
Until then, psychoanalysis had the primacy in the study of dreams. Freudian theories about their interpretation considered the oneiric activity as a doorway to access the unconscious functions of mind in the neurosis care (Freud, 1899). From 1953, the enthusiasm for the discovery of REM sleep considerably influenced the following research about dreaming: it was developed the idea that the specific physiology of REM sleep would generate oneiric activity, since it was being observed the highest probability to find the dream recall at awake from this stage. IndeedAserinsky e Kleitman (1953b) , in their first studies, found dream reports with hallucinatory, complex and bizarre content in 74% of awakes from REM sleep. On the contrary, the same results were found only in 9% of awakenings from NREM sleep (Eiser, 2005), in which mental activity with poor mental images was more frequent, without structured plot or, in some cases, the impossibility to recall the dream (Horne, 1993).
For several years thereafter, almost the totality of studies was set up on the biunivocal correspondence REM=dreaming (Hobson & McCarley, 1977; Hobson, 1988; Maquet et al., 1996; Braun et al., 1997; Nofzinger et al., 1997; Hobson et al., 2000). In fact, because of the specific physiological differences between sleep stages, many researchers considered REM sleep as the neural correlate of dreaming. Researchers asked the subjects if they were dreaming something before awakening, influencing in this way the answer. Indeed, any individual could give a different subjective interpretation to the word "dream". Bearing in mind this consideration, in 1962 the psychologist David Foulkes realized that it was possible to obtain oneiric report also after awakenings from NREM sleep, just modifying the question and using more liberal criteria. More generally, Foulkes asked the participants if “anything passing through your mind” (Foulkes, 1962; Horne, 1993).
After several in-depth analyses in this direction, two fundamental studies questioned correspondence REM=dreaming. Antrobus (1983) and Foulkes & Schmidt (1983) reported that sleep mentation occurred for the whole night, without any qualitative or quantitative difference between REM and NREM sleep. Indeed, dreams occurred in any sleep stage, during the slow wave activity and the sleep onset or the relaxed wakefulness (e.g., hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations; Cavallero, 2000) and, sometimes, they could be longer in NREM than in REM sleep (Foulkes & Schmidt, 1983; Cavallero et al., 1990).
Currently, the correspondence REM sleep=dreaming is still present, but it is transformed in a long debate about different mechanisms of dream's generation (Nielsen, 2000). According to many neuropsychological, neuroimaging and EEG studies, it can be now stated that mental activity occurs for the entire period of sleep (Foulkes, 1962; 1967), although with some differences which concern dream-like features (many characters, vivid images, structured and bizarre plot), on one side, (Foulkes & Rechtschaffen, 1964; Foulkes, 1967; Foulkes & Schmidt, 1983; Antrobus, 1983; Casagrande, Violani & Bertini, 1996; Stickgold, Pace-Scott & Hobson, 1994; Waterman, Elton & Kenemans, 1993) and thought-like features (vague and few images; Foulkes, 1967), on the other.
In this contest, some researchers hypothesized that dreams produced from REM sleep would be more dream-like and that dreams generated from NREM sleep would be more thought-like and proposed the so-called Two-Generation Model (2-gen model; Hobson, Pace-Scott & Stickgold, 2000; Nielsen, 2000). Nevertheless, this hypothesis was not ever being demonstrated (Antrobus, 1983; Bartolacci, Scarpelli & De Gennaro, 2017). Indeed, many vivid and hallucinatory dreams also occur in NREM sleep, as pavor nocturnus from stages 3 and 4 (Nielsen, 2000; Fisher et al., 1970a; 1970b; 1973; Kahan, Fisher & Edwards, 1991) or hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations in transient states sleep-wakefulness (Nielsen, 2017). For these reasons, assuming the homogeneity of mental activity during the sleep, the One-Generation Model has been proposed (1-gen model; Solms, 2000; Foulkes, 1962; 1967), that will be discussed more in detail below
Spotlight on dream recall. The ages of dreams
No full textBrain and sleep maturation covary across different stages of life. At the same time, dream generation and dream recall are intrinsically dependent on the development of neural systems. The aim of this paper is to review the existing studies about dreaming in infancy, adulthood, and the elderly stage of life, assessing whether dream mentation may reflect changes of the underlying cerebral activity and cognitive processes. It should be mentioned that some evidence from childhood investigations, albeit still weak and contrasting, revealed a certain correlation between cognitive skills and specific features of dream reports. In this respect, infantile amnesia, confabulatory reports, dream-reality discerning, and limitation in language production and emotional comprehension should be considered as important confounding factors. Differently, growing evidence in adults suggests that the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the encoding and retrieval of episodic memories may remain the same across different states of consciousness. More directly, some studies on adults point to shared neural mechanisms between waking cognition and corresponding dream features. A general decline in the dream recall frequency is commonly reported in the elderly, and it is explained in terms of a diminished interest in dreaming and in its emotional salience. Although empirical evidence is not yet available, an alternative hypothesis associates this reduction to an age-related cognitive decline. The state of the art of the existing knowledge is partially due to the variety of methods used to investigate dream experience. Very few studies in elderly and no investigations in childhood have been performed to understand whether dream recall is related to specific electrophysiological pattern at different ages. Most of all, the lack of longitudinal psychophysiological studies seems to be the main issue. As a main message, we suggest that future longitudinal studies should collect dream reports upon awakening from different sleep states and include neurobiological measures with cognitive performance
