1,720,963 research outputs found
Gambling on fairness: A fair scheduler for IIoT communications based on the shell game
No full textThe Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) paradigm represents nowadays the cornerstone of the industrial automation since it has introduced new features and services for different environments and has granted the connection of industrial machine sensors and actuators both to local processing and to the Internet. One of the most advanced network protocol stack for IoT-IIoT networks that have been developed is 6LoWPAN which supports IPv6 on top of Low-power Wireless Personal Area Networks (LoWPANs). 6LoWPAN is usually coupled with the IEEE 802.15.4 low-bitrate and low-energy MAC protocol that relies on the time-slotted channel hopping (TSCH) technique. In TSCH networks, a coordinator node synchronizes all end-devices and specifies whether (and when) they can transmit or not in order to improve their energy efficiency. In this scenario, the scheduling strategy adopted by the coordinator plays a crucial role that impacts dramatically on the network performance. In this paper, we present a novel scheduling strategy for time-slot allocation in IIoT communications which aims at the improvement of the overall network fairness. The proposed strategy mimics the well-known shell game turning the totally unfair mechanics of this game into a fair scheduling strategy. We compare our proposal with three allocation strategies, and we evaluate the fairness of each scheduler showing that our allocator outperforms the others
A Novel IoT-Based Architecture for Self-Adaptive Aerodynamic Flow Control System for Motorcycle
No full textIn this paper, we introduce an autonomous system for aerodynamic flow control for motorcycle based on the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. The architecture we propose adapts dynamically the flows at the traveling conditions, in order to obtain an improvement of performance and vehicle stability. In our architecture, we deploy a group of sensors on the top surface of the wings to sense the air pressure. We design a centralized on-board unit that computes a new wing angle of attack according to the data received from the sensors. The on-board unit includes a local information database which represents its knowledge: it stores both the data gathered by the sensors and the fluid dynamics model used to compute and adjust the angle of attack. The on-board database is periodically updated transmitting all the measurements gathered from the sensors to a High-Performance Cloud Data Center (DC) which executes a parallel version of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CDF) algorithms, computes the updated model, and transmits the processed information back to the on-board unit. We perform preliminary tests in the wind tunnel, and we show how the cooperation between IoT devices and DC can reduce the on-board unit computational effort
Unveiling the emotional edge: how fans’ emotional attachment influences the relationships between fanship, fandom, subjective well-being, and attitudinal loyalty
No full textEmotions are hallmarks of more internalised and meaningful sport fan identities. Building on this premise, we use the social identity approach to explore how fans’ emotional attachment affects the relationships between fanship (i.e. personal identification with a team), fandom (i.e. social identification with fellow fans), subjec- tive well-being (SWB), and attitudinal loyalty. We used structural equation modelling to analyse data from fans (N = 571) of two Italian Serie A association football teams. Results highlighted a positive association between fandom and SWB. SWB positively mediated the relationship between fandom and attitudinal loyalty. Moreover, emotional attachment negatively moderated the rela- tionships between fanship and SWB, and between fandom and attitudinal loyalty. These results indicated that high identifiers feel- ing strong emotional attachment to the team displayed lower SWB and attitudinal loyalty toward the team. Practitioners and organisa- tions may benefit from implementing initiatives and programs addressing the side effects of fans’ emotions
From Sensors to the Cloud: A Real-Time Use-case on Vertical Integration
No full textWe present a vertical integration of a real-time Industrial Internet of Things environment with Cloud computing functionalities. We designed our testbed to implement self-adaptive wings for motorbikes using pressure values sensed in specific locations of the motorbike as input data collected exploiting open-hardware devices called OpenMotes which communicate through a low-power, delay-constrained wireless network based on the 6LoWPAN protocol stack. Our real-time on-board unit elaborates the data, and it computes the new angle of attack of two wings. The total response time of the system is in the order of 100 ms and meets the real-time requirements that constrains our scenario. Finally, we integrate our system with Cloud functionalities that we use for storing the acquired data on a time-series database
Investigating ecosustainable market strategies in the sporting industry: the Italian case of ‘Zone Experience’
No full textOpen CLORO: An open testbed for cloud robotics
No full textThe introduction of the Cloud paradigm has rapidly changed IT-infrastructures in modern organizations. The application of Cloud systems to manage a growing number of IoT devices such as sensors is continually unfolding and revealing new opportunities. A notable field of research is related to the development of models, applications and real testbed on robots that can be managed and coordinated remotely at a higher layer involving network communications. In this paper, we present Open CLORO: an open testbed for Cloud robotics. We propose Open CLORO, which serves as a benchmark for real experiments for various network applications in which the Robots are equipped with programmable devices that also provide network connectivity and grant access from remote. We provide a detailed overview of the proposed architecture that can be effective for developing and testing not only robots-related experiments but also a wide number of network applications such as distributed coordination, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and Cloud-based management services
Leading by example: how National Sports Federations implement environmentally sustainable change through human resource management
No full textLeisure organisations have ecological footprints and are subject to external pressures of diverse nature to address their change processes towards environmental sustainability. In these paths, knowledge concerning the role of human resource in leisure organisations remains unresearched. Adopting institutional theory and change management literature, this study aims at understanding whether and how organisations address environmental change through human resource management, while uncovering the drivers and challenges of these attempts. Data generated through interviews with executives of national sport federations reveal that top-management ecological conscience, the recognition of leading groups or roles, training and socio-environmental pressures are recognised as drivers of environmental change implementation. On the contrary, a substantial lack of logistic autonomy, finances and scope-oriented recruitment appear to obstruct positive change. Importantly, this study highlights that in the presence of normative and coercive vacuity within the broader system of the organisations national federations adopt a proactive bottom-up approach with respect to environmental changes. Indeed, although embryonal, limited, self-managed and uncoordinated by a supervisor authority, environmental processes of national sport federations via human resource management are in motion, pointing towards a rather optimistic future for the progress of leisure organisations
Exploring fans’ social identities, emotional attachment and subjective identity: A social identity approach to Italian football consumer-brand identity
No full textFrame of the research. Emotions are crucial elements in sports spectatorship and understanding in-depth how they
characterized stakeholders’ experiences is crucial for better addressing marketing and communication strategies.
Purpose of the paper. Adopting the social identity approach, this study explores the intense role of emotional
attachment in football fans concerning the identification with the team (i.e. fanship) and with the fellow fans (i.e. fandom);
fans’ subjective well-being perceptions is also investigated here.
Methodology. 22 semi-structured interviews were individually conducted with fans of two Italian Serie A teams. Both
convenience and snowball sampling were performed to recruit diverse participants. A manual coding was conducted via
NVivo 14 software.
Results. No major discrepancies between fans of the two teams were observed in terms of fanship, except for a sense
of higher identification with the city for fans of the team sharing the name with the hometown. Although one team
expressed more considerations relatively to other fellow fans, these considerations were frequently oriented to detaching
from specific political sub-groups. Fans of both teams underline both the positive and negative emotions attached to the
beloved teams; obsessive and irrational attitudes are highlighted and refer to the feeling of feeling protected and safe
with respect to the problems of daily life (i.e., sheltered) and the need to vent.
Managerial implications. Understanding how fans personally communicate their distinct identifications either with
the team or with the surrounding fan community as well as the peculiarities of their emotional attachment to the team
might be highly beneficial for marketers and managers working in the football industry.
Originality of the paper. This study investigates both fanship and fandom and explores the role of emotions in team
identification through in-depth qualitative research methods. Furthermore, it fills the gaps concerning team identification
research in the Italian football-centric sports system
Sustainability in Italian Sport Federations. Managing strategic human resources in achieving the sustainable competitive advantage
No full textThis research focuses on exploring the role of human resources in order to develop a sustainable approach in organizations to address the challenges of the environmental sustainability. In particular, the research analyses the role of the human resources management in sports organizations - and more specifically sport federations – in order to achieve the sustainable competitive advantage.
In addressing this aim, the research adopted the Natural Resource-Based View perspective (hereafter, NRBV) (Hart, 1995; Hart and Dowell, 2011) that draws attention to environmental practices regarding sustainable competitive advantage. According to the NRBV, sustainable competitive advantage is achieved when a firm’s resources are associated to specific strategic capabilities, such as pollution prevention, product stewardship and sustainable development (Hart, 1995). To develop these strategic capabilities, employees should get strategically involved – at different levels -, and organizations should highlight how environmental issues are taken as a strategic value. Consequently, human resources policies and practices should be considered critical to organizations in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, because organizations would be able to incorporate sustainable habits into their routine and processes through HR policies and practices (Dubois and Dubois, 2012). Environmental strategies are strictly connected with each other and they are sequential processes: 1) pollution prevention represents the first step, subsequently 2) product stewardship can be developed, and, last, 3) sustainable development can occur (Hart, 1995; Hart and Dowell, 2011). The sport sector is not free from environmental concerns and sport organizations (in particular the National Sports Federations) are called to play an important role in using resources and adopting a sustainable approach for the sake of the environment. The increased societal focus on issues of sustainability and the drive by many organizations to implement environmental issues has stimulated scholars also within the field of sport management. However, there is less focus on the issues of environmental strategies and the sustainable competitive advantage in National Sports Federations (hereafter, NSFs). Given this premises the study analyzed sport federations in relation to their important role within the Italian sport system. Due to the heterogeneous frameworks of NSFs, our study divided the 44 Italian Sports Federations into three clusters in relation to the size related to the number of individual members that each federation counted (CONI, 2017). A purposive sampling was carried out: the Italian Motorcycling Federation (IMF), the Italian Golf Federation (IGF), the Italian Cycling Federation (ICF), Italian Winter Sports Federation (IWSF). Semi-structured interviews were carried out. The interviewees represented the NSFs’ senior executives responsible for creating and implementing their organization’s environmental strategies and NSFs’ HR managers.
Results demonstrated how the federations analyzed in this study, have adopted different sustainable strategic approaches in managing human resources. The pollution prevention and product stewardship are considered important strategic capabilities. For instance, two NSFs created a specific team or internal unit, dedicated to environmental sustainability. A “sustainability team” represents a primary driver for strategic changes to an organization’s environmental practices. The cross functional sustainability team is often comprised of internal organizational members from across the organization. They are charged with developing and conducting a variety of operational changes, organizational policies, and daily/strategic practices. “Their position allows them to act as the leaders of strategic environmental changes” (Pfhali, 2010, p. 44). In addition, the sustainability team stimulates a multi- stakeholder approach to the federation’s partners (and consequently it pursues sustainable and lasting growth). In this vein, the Italian Golf Federation has set up a scientific technical committee made up of professional experts belonging to internal (and external resources) which support sports associations in their environmental activities. At the same time the Italian Motorcycling Federation established the “Environment Committee” in order to develop specific programs and strategies on environmental sustainability in 2017. Its activity is aimed at increasing the environmental sustainability level in motorcycle sports associations during the races, regarding different areas: soil protection, chemical contaminations of soil, cleaning of motorcycling equipment, atmospheric emissions, energy consumption, the use of fuel, protection of natural habitats. It was an important organizational change within the federation, testifying to increased sensitivity on the part of management with respect to environmental sustainability issues as well as awareness that only with an ad hoc team the environmental pressure of motorcycling activity could be better managed. The effective action of the strategic dimension in some federation has been completed with the establishment of a specific figure aimed at supervising the sustainable compliance. This person has specific skills, training and experience as well as a specific personal interest in the management of environmental issues. In order to improve their strategic asset, the federations focused on the staff knowledge and education by organizing educational and training programs addressed to internal (staff federation) and external resources (staff sports associations and others). This is important because the competence acquired through the involvement of employees to prevent pollution is a resource that cannot be acquired or imitated by competitors. In sum, results demonstrated that the main NSFs’ reasons for implementing environmental strategies and policies are linked to awareness of the importance of developing sustainable programs for increasing the value of the environmental dimension of their action. For instance, the adoption of specific green technologies in the sports facilities related to the federations, has being demonstrating useful for several years in order to contribute to a low carbon economy through the installation of on-site renewable energy (this means substantial cost savings as well as important reductions in GHG emissions). But the acquisition of green technologies by themselves is not enough to guarantee a sustainable competitive advantage (Hart, 1995) and for this reason, NSFs implemented strategic and effective solutions managing human resources, by planning and implementing practices and policies that increase the federation’s scope of skills and capabilities aligned with strategic goals. Sustainability presents a significant and growing challenge to the sport industry, especially outdoor sports (Orr & Inoue, 2019) and sports federations could offer a significant contribution in enhancing environmental concern within the community
Managing Climate Crisis in the Sport Sector: New Challenges and Opportunities for Sports Organisations
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