1,720,966 research outputs found
Mapping maintenance regulations: a methodological framework to improve territorial resilience
No full textNowadays, in the entire world, we can clearly see the effects of climate changes. Indeed, during the last twenty years, climate-related and geophysical disasters killed around 1.3 million people and left a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless, displaced or in need of emergency assistance. From this framework, it is clear that we need policies to improve the resilience of our cities.
Those ones are only some components of a more complex system that includes also natural elements, i.e. the territory. Therefore, in order to improve the resilience of the cities we must work on it at first, looking for those practices able to maintain it in an efficiency state and consequently ready to react upon the occurrence of natural events.
It is for this reason that in the research here summarized we decided to focus on the existing regulations wondering in which ways they could be useful to achieve our purpose.
Knowing that between 1998 and 2017 floods were about 43.4% of all the disasters, we decided to focus on the hydraulic risk with explicit reference to the Italian case. Through a methodological analysis of the national, regional and municipal regulations, it was possible to structure a detailed state of art in terms of tasks and responsibilities, clarifying, in particular, the hierarchy of public or private bodies. The outline drawn up highlights links, overlapping regulations and open areas, which are considered relevant to be regulated and improved. In the end, a useful tool for the coordination of the institutions in the operations of ordinary and extraordinary maintenance is proposed
Collecting built environment information using UAVs: Time and applicability in building inspection activities
Full text linkThe Italian way of thinking about maintenance is too often one-sided. Indeed, it is considered not so much as a useful practice to prevent the occurrence of a fault (ex ante), but as an intervention to solve it (ex post). Analyzing the legislation relating to the construction sector, it can be seen that it does not clearly define the responsibilities, timescales and methods in which maintenance interventions must be planned and carried out. For this reason, this practice is still very weak compared, for example, to the industrial sector, where it is an established practice. Currently, the complexity of reading the maintenance plans drawn up by designers and the considerable costs associated with maintenance operations discourage owners and managers from even carrying out preliminary inspection operations. This research aims to stimulate these stakeholders to carry out inspection operations regularly, highlighting their costs and benefits. In particular, working on a case study in Piedmont, the costs of visual inspections carried out in the traditional way are compared with those that would be incurred if unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were used. Finally, the collateral benefits of inspections carried out with UAVs are highlighted
Static vs dynamic hygrothermal simulation for cellulose-based insulation in existing walls: A case study comparison
Full text linkWhen dealing with energy-saving topics, it is increasingly common to focus on the efficiency of existing systems, rather than adopting new ones. In the specific case of the building envelope this practice is supported by the difficulty in completely replacing opaque components of the envelope, such as external walls or roofs. This work involves the renovation of a cavity wall, with the aim of improving its energy performance. A traditional cavity wall has been modified by blowing a bio-based insulating material obtained from cellulose flakes inside the air cavity gap. Although an operation of this type leads to a significant increase in thermal performance of the wall, it is not equally obvious that it is effective in terms of humidity and vapor condensation. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the effect of the blowing process on the hygrometric performance of the opaque component to ensure correct compliance with the performance parameters established by Italian legislation in terms of vapor transmission and condensation phenomena. In order to study the hygrometric behaviour, a numerical model of the construction was developed and simulated. The simulation involved two different regulatory approaches, which were compared: a first calculation was carried out in steady-state conditions, according to the UNI EN ISO 13788 standard (ISO, 2012). Afterwards, a dynamic simulation following the UNI EN 15026 standard was performed (CEN, 2007). The results obtained by both the methods were analysed and compared. The results demonstrate that by adopting the calculation procedure in steady-state conditions, the phenomenon of interstitial condensation occurs. A different result is obtained by applying the calculation method in dynamic regime, according to which the vapor would not condense inside the structure
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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