669 research outputs found
COSMA. Multi-participant NL interaction for appointment scheduling
No full textWe discuss the use of NL systems in the domain of appointment scheduling. Appointment scheduling is a problem faced daily by many people and organizations, and typically solved using communication in natural language. In general, cooperative interaction between several participants is required whose calendar data are distributed rather than centralized. In this distributed multi-agent environment, the use of NL systems makes it possible for machines and humans to cooperate in solving scheduling problems. We describe the COSMA (Coperative Schedule Management Agent) system, a secretarial assistant for appointment scheduling. A central part of COSMA is the reusable NL core system DISCO, which serves, in this application, as an NL interface between an appointment planning system and the human user. COSMA is fully implemented in Common Lisp and runs on Unix Workstations. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses properties of the domain of appointment scheduling and some related work. Section 3 presents the COSMA system and discusses its advantages and drawbacks. Section 4 presents a modified approach to COSMA. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 1812(94-34) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie (BMFT), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman
Il coinvolgimento degli stakeholder nelle banche europee: un'indagine empirica
No full textNell’ambito delle politiche di Corporate Social Responsibility, il coinvolgimento degli stakeholder,
noto in letteratura come Stakeholder Engagement, è considerato un pilastro fondamentale.
Tale approccio pro-attivo alla Csr contribuisce, in particolare, all’accrescimento della reputazione
e alla mitigazione dei rischi aziendali. A dispetto della sua rilevanza, lo Se nelle banche rappresenta
un campo di ricerca poco esplorato. Il lavoro suggerisce un modello di valutazione della
qualità del processo di Stakeholder Engagement basato sulla content analysis applicata alla Se
disclosure presente negli annual report di un campione di 104 banche europee. Il modello produce
un Se score che sintetizza gli aspetti ritenuti più importanti alla luce degli standard di riferimento
internazionali e della letteratura sul tema. Il calcolo dello Se score per ciascuna banca
permette di compiere riflessioni sullo stato del processo di Se, individuare vulnerabilità e trarre
indicazioni utili per il management
Le pergamene degli Archivi di Bergamo. Carte medievali bergamasche II/2. Edizione di 150 documenti.
No full textRoma, paesaggi contemporanei. Atti del convegno di studi dell''Ateneo S.U.A.A. Sapienza Università di Roma (28-30 maggio 2008)
No full textAnti-Semitism and Progressive Era Social Science: The Case of John R. Commons
No full textThis Paper explores John Commons's views toward Jews in order to assess whether his published writings contain assertions that today would be stigmatised as anti-Semitic. The evidence we provide shows that Commons's racial characterisation of Jews was framed within a broad and indiscriminate xenophobic framework. Within other leading Progressive Era sociel scientists, in fact, Commons shared the idea that new immigration from eastern and southern Europe would increase competition in the labour market, drive the wage down, and lead Anglo-Saxon men and women to have fewer children, since they would not want to compete with those who survive on less. Within this general xenophobic context, Commons developed assertions regarding immigrant Jews that show traces of explicit anti-Semitic accusations
Mechanics of active mechano-chemical responsive polymers
No full textThe need for smart materials in advanced applications, has promoted significantly
the research in the field of responsive (or active) materials. They are capable of some physical
response to external stimuli, such as temperature, pH, light, mechanical stress, etc. so they can
adapt themselves to the surrounding environment. In the present paper, we propose a
mechanical model to describe the response of polymers containing mechanically responsive
molecules (mechanophores), having the ability to assume two distinct geometrically stable
configurations under mechanical actions or due to a change of the environment’s pH. When
linked to the polymer’s chains, under a proper mechanical stress, they switch from one state to
the other, triggering a macroscopic deformation of the material. Such an internal deformation,
driven by the mechanophores’ activation, can be exploited to get a desired functionality of the
polymer. Our model starts from the mechanical behavior at the microscopic level, and through
the mechanics of a single chain and chain statistics, it is scaled-up to the (mesoscopic)
continuum level. An energy-based approach is adopted: the free energy W is obtained by
adding up the contribution of the network deformation (), of the mixing term related to the
solvent uptake () and of the switching of the hosted responsive molecules ().
Numerical simulations demonstrate that the material response under chemical or mechanical
stimuli, shows a permanent deformation due to the activation of the switchable molecules,
enabling the design of smart self-adaptive polymers
Mechanics and physics of the light-driven response of hydrogels
No full textHydrogels are versatile and environmentally sensitive materials having appealing and tunable physical-chemical-mechanical properties, similar to those encountered in natural living tissues, which enable their use in a wide range of applications, especially in the biomedical field.
In the present study, we investigate the temperature-driven responsiveness of one class of elastomeric gels, namely poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (pNIPAm), that allows for temperature-controlled swelling. In particular, we consider the mechanical behavior of temperature-sensitive hydrogels in which the temperature variation is the result of light-thermal conversion enabled by nanoparticles embedded in the material. Relying on a theoretical multi-physics-based model describing light diffusion, heat generation and transfer, fluid absorption, and mechanics, the morphing response of hydrogel elements is investigated. The complex interplay between fluid uptake (swelling) and mechanical deformation taking place at different temperatures is investigated. In particular, the light-driven swelling response of hydrogel under a time-dependent light stimulus is studied. It is shown that the self-cooling of the material influences the material responsiveness. Accordingly, we demonstrate the interplay between the generated and the dispersed heat, which is a key aspect for an efficient design of tunable devices and materials
Cosma, Octavian Lazár: The Romanian Music Chronicle vol. I (1973) - vol. IX (1991) [Rezension]
No full textThe nine volumes of the "Romanian Music Chronicle", printed by the Music Publishing Hause, Bucharest, in 20 years (1973-1991) are the fruit of an extremely elaborated investigation, that broke all the walls that tried to hide this real patrimony of spirituality. The author, Octavian Lazar Cosma, shouldered the responsibility of a difficult cultural mission to establish the main points of the Romanian music evolution during these two millennia
From compliance to Commitment: Understanding the Evolution of SDG Reporting in the financial sector
No full textThe introduction of Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has traced a path for private and public entities interested in pursuing sustainable development. This handbook identifies the recent challenges in accounting research and the SDGs by exploring the evolutionary pathways and future direction of sustainability reporting. It explores the role of businesses as contributors to Agenda 2030 by assuming a multidisciplinary approach and provides a measure of organisations' contributions to the SDGs through the understanding of business strategies and policies on Agenda 2030 integration. The book represents a substantial and multi-faceted contribution to the debate on SDGs accounting by assembling international scholars and practitioners to effectively explore the practice and theory revolving around the current state of the art and highlight future research pathways.
By providing a comprehensive evaluation of accounting for the Sustainable Development Goals, this volume will appeal to a wide variety of readers, from students, scholars, researchers, practitioners and policymakers interested in increasing their awareness of Agenda 2030 and offers a significant contribution to the evolution of accounting practices
La chiesa dei Santi Cosma e Damiano in Napoli: ricerche e studi per il restauro
No full textLa storia plurisecolare della chiesa dei Santi Cosma e Damiano, costruita trasformando le strutture di una più antica Loggia cinquecentesca, si è interrotta nel 1980 a seguito dei dissesti statici provocati dal terremoto. Nonostante siano stati realizzati due discutibili consolidamenti, a partire dalla fine degli anni Ottanta essa è stata spogliata del suo arredo sacro, vandalizzata ed abbandonata. I tre saggi nel volume sono dedicati agli studi propedeutici alle scelte operative di restauro ed alla definizione di nuove funzioni. La sottoscritta affronta l’approccio metodologico e gli aspetti legati alla fase conoscitiva finalizzata al restauro architettonico, sottolineando l’importanza di una corretta e coordinata serie di analisi e di rilievi per l’individuazione delle criticità fisiche e dei valori da tutelare
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