1,721,060 research outputs found
Modernità e declino: il design senza committenza / Modernity and decline: design without customer
Full text linkThe economic crisis that has struck Western countries in the past few years has caused a considerable weakening of the entrepreneurial power of businesses: this aspect may be considered a characteristic of Modernity that designers are called to deal with. The crisis has led to a decline of the traditional role of customer in the design sector. The latter has responded to the new situation by creating new work and design methods, such as Exploring Design and Advanced Design (ADD). With the Exploring Design method, developed and tested within an undergraduate
degree course, the absence of a customer allows the (young) designers to explore much broader research fields, and to identify new markets and areas of implementation for which design may be a sparkplug of innovation, technology, and future meaning. This article presents the
development results achieved by the Exploring Design laboratory work in the past 6 years, and uses them to describe the most recent trends, taking into account the various fields of implementation (communication, food, interior design, etc.), as well as target markets and potential
new commissioned work, thus formulating an interpretation of new Modernity that in turn generates questions and perspectives on the transformation of design
Le sfide dell'aria in piccola scala
No full textThis contribution deals with the innovation introduced by air in many products and productive processes. The air, defined as a combination of oxygen, nitrogen, and small quantities of other gases that surround our Planet and form its atmosphere, can also be considered as one of the main materials used in various sectors, from packaging to sport, from automotive to safety. An overview on the several applications in which the air plays an important role is outlined in order to point out the most important properties and characteristics of this "material". The air, in fact, has load-bearing capacity and properties of containment, protection and shock-resistance; moreover, the air can be controlled, compressed or contained. The contribution presents some specific case studies of products and processes as a model for designers to develop innovative products and process in which the air is leading. The air represents a "new-ancient material" available to designers for facing new small and big design challenges
The sounding side of materials and products. A sensory interaction revaluated in the user-experience.
Full text linkThe new trends in the world of materials and products, growingly focused on a new eco-friendliness and interaction with nature – yet still distinguished by a strong anthropocentrism – lead to the development of materials, systems, technology, and smart, interlinked, expressive, communicative, alive, and hybrid products. A world in which it is almost difficult for designers to find their bearings: how can one interact with such materials and products What is their reaction to touch and smell? What are their distinguishing visual traits? What are their sounds? There is a vast number of tools to analyse and assess such aspects: this article will focus on the “sound” element of materials and products, and using one tool in particular, the SounBe, used to qualitatively assess the acoustics of materials and artefacts
MATeriali per il design. A misura di progetto
No full textMATto è la materioteca del Politecnico di Torino che, insieme a Camera di commercio di Torino, mette a disposizione delle aziende manifatturiere alcuni servizi di consulenza su materiali e processi produttivi per dare impulso e sostegno all’innovazione delle imprese industriali e artigianali: l'articolo descrive le attività di ricerca e i servizi di consulenza personalizzati dedicati ai materiali innovativi per il progetto svolti dalla materioteca MATto
Il valore dell'imballaggio flessibile in termini di leggerezza e sostenibilità
No full textChe mondo sarebbe senza packaging? La domanda rievoca questioni legate alla produzione di rifiuti da imballaggio e, anche, alla “demonizzazione” delle plastiche. Molteplici sono le tipologie di imballaggio oggi diffuse in tutto il mondo: dal packaging morbido e flessibile a quello rigido, dai monouso a quelli dotati di una lunga vita, dal mono al multi-porzione, e così via. L’imballaggio flessibile (impiegato principalmente nel settore alimentare e farmaceutico) e, ancor più nello specifico, il flowpack, rappresentano una tipologia di imballaggio che deve sempre più interfacciarsi con diverse criticità, tra cui l’utilizzo di materie plastiche, la tendenza alla riduzione dei contenitori monouso e il controverso tema del contatto con gli alimenti nel caso di film da plastica riciclata
How Natural Are the “Natural” Materials? Proposal for a Quali-Quantitative Measurement Index of Naturalness in the Environmental Sustainability Context
Full text linkThe overall purpose of the paper is overcoming the misunderstanding of the “naturalness” attribute of materials. This is due to the always-increasing innovative materials considered “environmentally sustainable” and “natural” by producers, material libraries, and designers. The investigated research problem is: how to simply and effectively evaluate the degree of naturalness of a material, preventing a complete and complex LCA analysis? The basic design of the study was focused on (i) creating a multicriteria quali-quantitative method—Material Naturalness Index (MNI)— in order to assess materials’ naturalness scientifically, and (ii) test it by running the evaluation on 60 innovative materials. MNI was set considering the least number of parameters of the Material Life Cycle (i.e., resource kingdom, material resource, material processing, post-use processing). The 60 latest materials selected from the “natural” material family of six international material libraries were selected to test the index. The data analysis was based on the Theory of Attractive Quality, considering attractive, must-be, or reverse qualities. Major findings concerning the index utility were found as a result. MNI was demonstrated to support different actors with different aims: (i) designers, in independently evaluating naturalness of materials using real evidence and pursuing a critical point of view not influenced by marketing claims; (ii) producers, in facing the challenge of naturalness; (iii) material libraries, which are collocated between the two other actors, in proposing measurable information concerning naturalness. In conclusion, the study demonstrated how the key-concept of “naturalness” should be assumed as an attribute rather than as a material family
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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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