1,721,349 research outputs found
The Scope of Religious Freedom in Europe: Tolerance, Democratic Equality and Political Autonomy
No full textReligious freedom is widely claimed as a fundamental principle of liberal democracy, and, yet, the relation between religious freedom, tolerance, and democratic equality is a matter of ongoing negotiation. This chapter clarifies the relationship between two central tenets of liberalism: a robust protection of citizens’ religious freedom, and a view of tolerance committed to public justification that secures the stability ‘for the right reasons’ of liberal institutions. While liberalism suggests that these two tenets are compatible, there is considerable tension between them. This chapter shows that these two can work in harmony on the basis of a fundamental commitment to securing citizens’ political autonomy. Standard liberal egalitarian responses to the problem of accommodating religious freedom, which appeal to a view of equality of treatment, face the problem of disregarding what is really at stake in these cases. To determine the scope of religious freedom is a problem of non-comparative justice, one that guarantees the (equal) access to a constitutional right. This, nevertheless, is still a problem of egalitarian justice as far as it asks to determine the most appropriate view of citizens’ equality, which helps to single out legitimate claims of religious integrity. The chapter suggests that Rawls’ political value of autonomy and the related notion of democratic equality significantly help in determining the scope of religious freedom in contemporary European democracies
A stand-alone micro heat pump for personalized environmental control system (PECS)
Full text linkThis experimental study presents the design, development, and testing of a micro-scale vapor compression (VC) heat pump prototype tailored for novel Personalized Environmental Comfort Systems (PECS). The system employs a natural refrigerant (HC-290) to align with new environmental regulations, and integrates both compressor speed and expansion valve modulation, enabling continuous and precise control of cooling power and temperature – features rarely found in miniaturized systems. A key innovation is the integration of a 20-liter heat thermal energy storage unit (either sensible or latent) to buffer condensation heat and support standalone operation up to 8 h, without outdoor ducting or heat rejection. Experimental results show that localized cooling at approximately 20 °C can be maintained even in ambient conditions up to 36 °C, with an average Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) of around 2 when using a latent heat thermal storage system based on phase change materials. The optimized configuration delivers a stable cooling output of ∼200 W, sufficient to meet the thermal needs of a single occupant while minimizing the impact on indoor air conditions. By reducing the volume of conditioned space and enabling direct user-level control, the proposed system supports a shift toward decentralized comfort solutions, with the potential to relax central HVAC setpoints and reduce overall building energy consumption. The study also provides a comprehensive experimental characterization
Low-Cost Tracer Gas Sensor for Building Ventilation
Full text linkThe accurate assessment of Indoor Air Quality is crucial for occupant health, yet traditional methods for evaluating ventilation rates, such as tracer gas techniques using photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS), face limitations in cost, logistics, and response time. This study presents the development and validation of a low-cost, fast-response sensor system for tracer gas measurement, capable of detecting multiple gases. The sensor employs a Non-Dispersive Infrared (NDIR) detector with wireless communication based on the asynchronous Bleak protocol, enabling spatially resolved IAQ monitoring. Laboratory validation using SF6 as tracer gas in a small volume of 40 liters and against the PAS reference device demonstrated an accuracy within ±20% for ventilation rates between 1 and 7 air changes per hour (ACH). Unlike PAS, which provides one measurement per minute, the low-cost sensor captures up to 50 readings per second, offering superior tracking of transient ventilation events and dynamic IAQ variations. The results suggest that this system provides a practical alternative for real-time IAQ monitoring, supporting energy-efficient and health-conscious building management
La formazione docenti in ambito TEL: implementazione e sperimentazione di un modello di formazione
Full text linkIl progetto di ricerca presentato in questa tesi verte sul tema della formazione insegnanti nella cornice del Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), e nello specifico sull’impatto della formazione riguardante le tecnologie a servizio di una didattica costruttivista. Il contesto in cui si cala la ricerca è quello delle scuole secondarie di secondo grado e muove dall’assunto della necessità di formare ade-guatamente gli insegnanti in questo ambito, attraverso percorsi coeren-ti coi temi trattati e che quindi per primi prevedano un uso attivo e co-struttivo delle tecnologie, col fine ultimo di favorire una rivisitazione delle pratiche pedagogiche dei docenti a vantaggio di un apprendi-mento duraturo e significativo per i loro studenti. Le basi teoriche del lavoro di ricerca, oggetto della prima parte della tesi, sono raggruppabili in tre temi fondamentali, fra loro collegati: • lo stato dell’arte della formazione insegnanti in Italia, con particolare riferimento alla formazione in servizio per do-centi di scuola secondaria di II grado sul tema del Technology Enhanced Learning; • come si progetta un percorso di formazione rivolto a adulti che svolgono la professione dell’insegnate: i vari step che ca-ratterizzano la costruzione e l’erogazione di un percorso formativo, ma anche i vari modelli che ne guidano la strut-turazione poiché i docenti sono professionisti che devono possedere competenze afferenti a più domini, da quello me-todologico a quello psicologico, passando per le competenze legate all’uso didattico dei singoli strumenti; • le tecnologie nella didattica e i loro possibili usi in funzione dell’approccio all’apprendimento che si intende abbracciare. In particolare, verranno presentati approcci collaborativi, quale l’Approccio Trialogico all’Apprendimento, applicato nelle più longeve comunità che costruiscono conoscenza di Scardamalia e Bereiter (2006). A seguito delle basi teoriche, verranno introdotti la cornice metodo-logica generale e gli strumenti utilizzati per raccogliere i dati. Si tratta di una ricerca che segue la metodologia mista quali-quantitativa, avvalendosi di strumenti quali questionari, interviste e focus group. Inoltre, si ispira alla metodologia della Ricerca-Formazione, che ha come obiettivo quello di formare i docenti stimo-lando una trasformazione delle pratiche didattiche attraverso la pro-mozione di una forma mentis riflessiva nel docente. Infine, verranno presentati i tre studi che costituiscono la ricerca: lo Studio Esplorativo, lo Studio Pilota e lo Studio Applicativo sul Campo. Nello Studio Esplorativo, oltre ad analizzare la letteratura sul tema che ha fornito materiale per le basi teoriche di questo lavoro, sono stati raccolti dati sulla formazione TIC erogata ai docenti operanti in Italia e sugli atteggiamenti nei confronti delle tecnologie e l’efficacia percepita nel padroneggiarle degli insegnanti. A partire dai dati raccolti ed analizzati è stato ideato un modello di formazione per docenti di scuola secondaria di II grado. Allo Studio Esplorativo è seguito lo Studio Pilota in cui è stato ero-gato a un gruppo ristretto di docenti il corso formazione basato sul suddetto modello, in modo da verificarne l’efficacia, i punti forti e i punti deboli e migliorarlo. Lo Studio Applicativo sul Campo si è sostanziato nell’erogazione del percorso di formazione migliorato, preceduta e seguita da una analisi in profondità delle pratiche pedagogiche e della loro relazione con la formazione ricevuta
CFD optimization of large water storages for efficient cooling of high power intermittent thermal loads
Full text linkThe design optimization of water basins for the refrigeration of intermittent high-power heat sources, by mean of CFD simulations, is presented. A case study of an experimental facility is considered, that foreseen two large water basins as thermal storage, with volume of 315m3 and 500m3 respectively, and an installed nominal cooling power around 25MW for the cooling of an intermittent load, with peak power of around 65MW. A strong horizontal stratification has been looked after in the preliminary design, which include a labyrinth of walls and weirs, and water inlet/outlet plugs positioned at the opposite side of the basins. The intensity and the role of this stratification have been explored using a CFD software, simulating both winter and summer sceneries. Some variants to the original design have been studied, in order to optimize the stratification of water temperatures. Itis shown that a large water storage with an optimal design could help very much in reducing cooling power demand in case of intermittent thermal load
Spaces of tolerance: Theories, Contested Practices and the Question of Context
No full textIn today’s Europe, religions and religious individuals are increasingly framed as both an internal and external security threat. This is evident in controls over the activities of foreign preachers but also, more broadly, in EU states’ management of migration flows, marked by questions regarding the religious background of migrating non-European Others. This book addresses such shifts directly by examining how understandings of religious freedom touch down in actual contexts, places and practices across Europe, offering multidisciplinary insights from leading thinkers in from political theory, political philosophy, anthropology and geography. The volume thus aims to ground ideal liberal democratic theory and, at the same time, to bring normative reflection to grounded, ethnographic analyses of religious practices. Such ‘grounded’ understandings matter, for they speak to how religions and religious difference are encountered in specific places. They especially matter in a European context where religion and religious difference are increasingly not just securitized but made the object of violent attacks
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
METHOD FOR PRODUCTION OF WATER FROM AIR BASED ON LOW-TEMPERATURE HEAT, AND MACHINE AND SYSTEM THEREOF
No full textA method for production of water from air comprises cyclically and successively repeating the following two phases: - a first phase a), which includes the following steps: a1) taking air from the outside, a2) conveying the air towards an enthalpic exchanger (EHX) containing an adsorbent material (MAT_AD) that internally accumulates the moisture that is present in the air, a3) outputting dry air, and - a second phase b), which includes the following steps: b1) supplying heat to the enthalpic exchanger (EHX) by means of a low-temperature heat source, b2) conveying an air flow through the enthalpic exchanger (EHX), wherein the air in contact with the enthalpic exchanger (EHX) is heated and at the same time collects the moisture contained in the adsorbent material (MAT_AD), and b3) bringing the heated and humidified air flow to ambient temperature in order to cause the moisture contained therein to condense, thereby obtaining water
Experimental investigation of adsorption performances of an heat exchanger packed with silica gel for application in solar desiccant systems
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