131 research outputs found
Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss
No full textDetail, left half from the front; Canova took his inspiration from a legend recounted by Latin author Lucius Apuleius in Metamorphoses. Canova seems to have undertaken extensive research before beginning this complex composition, whose inspiration is a Roman painting found in Herculaneum, a city the sculptor visited during his stay in Naples in 1787. Eros (Cupid in Latin) revives Psyche after she has tasted from a flask brought from Hades. It was designed to be looked at from several angles: this is why it could originally be turned on a mobile base, using the handle on the right. Source: Louvre Museum [website]; http://www.louvre.fr/ (accessed 4/15/2011
La mostra su Canova a Bassano (2003-2004): un riesame
No full textThe exhibition Canova in Bassano (2003): a critical review ·
This paper proposes a critical review of the project for the 2003 Canova
exhibition in Bassano. He aims to historicize the contribution
offered, on that occasion, to the museography of Canova’s work,
with the examination of some iconographic materials and project
documents. Reviewing and re-examining the curatorial project, the
exhibition itinerary, and the exhibit design and lighting design solutions,
the reasons that generated and endorsed the design choices
will be explained. The underlying assumption of this paper, which
the author wants to support, in agreement with the curatorial theories
of some Italian art historians, is that an art exhibition is a field
of experimentation to improve museographic solutions and therefore,
the design solutions that are unacceptable at a certain time, can
open up new perspectives of research
Automotive Engine Modelling for Real-Time Control Using an Object-Oriented Simulation Library
No full textTheoretical simulation models are useful tools in the design of engine management systems, allowing to reduce resources invested in the product development. Their applications range from optimisation of control systems to hardware-in-the-loop testing (HIL) and to model-based control and diagnostic strategies.
Even if several control-oriented models are proposed in the open literature for spark ignited engines only in the last years a similar attention has been devoted to automotive Diesels, which on the other hand are becoming more and more widely used due to their low specific fuel consumption (and to their low CO2 specific emissions).
The paper describes a control-oriented theoretical tool developed in MatLabâ/SimuLinkâ for the simulation of a turbocharged direct injection (DI) Diesel engine, with common rail (CR) injection system and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). Starting from a previous steady-state Mean Value Engine Model (MVEM) proposed by the author, a specific SimuLinkâ library was built up to describe components and subsystems: defined blocks can be easily assembled together in a modular structure to reproduce the whole engine layout. Quasi-steady flow and filling-and-emptying techniques are used, while combustion process is described following a single-zone approach. In the paper the library is presented, together with an application to a typical automotive CR Diesel engine
Al-Maqrizi's treatise on bees
No full textTaqī l-Dīn Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442) is the author of the well known Kitāb al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʿtibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa-l-āthār and of dozens of other works. He also wrote a brief treatise about bees with the significant title Kitāb Naḥl ʿibar al-naḥI (‘the book of the gift of the bees’ moral teachings’), where the double meaning of the term naḥl is emphasized. The lexicographer al-Zajjājī reminds us that bees are called naḥl because God donated (naḥala) honey to man.
The work is structured into eleven chapters of various lengths, that give a clear idea of the content: 1. The bee and its names; 2. The kinds, colours, sizes, and peculiarities of bees; 3. Wax, the building of combs, the hives; 4. Honey, its lexicon, its colours, and its varieties; 5. Information from Aristotle and other scholars, honey’s nature and origin; 6. Qurʾān, sūra of the Bee (16:68-69), other Qurʾānic references and various exegetic comments; honey as a ‘healing for men’; 7-8. The Prophet’s traditions; 9. various opinions about what bees eat; the zakāt on the honey; 10. Anecdotes about wax; 11. Poems about wax
GNSS-free Online Calibration of Inertial Measurement Units in Road Vehicles
No full textThis paper presents a realtime recursive algorithm that can estimate, starting from an unknown pose, the mounting angles (roll, pitch and yaw) of an inertial sensor unit using accelerations and angular velocities. We analyze the use case of telematic boxes (E-Box) that are mounted on ground vehicles for safety reason (like E-call or automatic crash detection) or driving style monitoring. In order to work properly and record meaningful data, the box reference frame needs to be correctly aligned with the vehicle one. The proposed algorithm aligns the two reference frame online while the car is running throughout a series of filters and data point selection logics. Results show that the algorithm is robust with respect to any box mounting position or vehicle, with, on average, a convergence time of less than 20 minutes to the correct angles
Contribution of Italian Nursing Professors to International Literature: a 2000 – 2016 review
No full textABSTRACT Aims. To assess Italian nursing academics’ scientific activity by exploring their publications in international journals. Background. The scientific production of a discipline’s academics is a requisite for the university accreditation process and for employment in academic positions, and it can be used as an indicator of the maturity and importance of a given discipline in a country. Italian nursing academics’ scientific production has not been analyzed recently. Design. Quantitative descriptive study on an observation period of 16 years, from 2000 to 2016. Methods. All Italian full-time academics in the sector of General, Clinical and Pediatric Nursing Sciences were identified, based on selection criteria. All their publications in indexed international journals were systematically collected between November 2016 and February 2017. Results. Twenty-five Italian nursing academics were identified, and 450 of their publications met all our inclusion criteria, for a mean 18 publication per author (range 0-88). There was a steady growth in the number of publications over time. Sixty-five per cent of articles were published in nursing journals. Eighty-six per cent of the publications were on nursing topics, the most popular being clinical issues (53.8%). Eighty per cent of the publications were “applied research articles” and most of them adopted a quantitative approach with a descriptive study design. Hospitals and clinics were the most common settings studied, while patients and caregivers were the participants most often involved. Foreign co-authors contributed to 30% of the articles. Conclusion. Italian nursing academics contribute adequately to scientific production in the nursing sector
Banking and Financial Reform at the Crossroads of the Neoliberal Contagion
No full textTimothy Canova, Banking and Financial Reform at the Crossroads of the Neoliberal Contagion, 14 American University International Law Review 1571 (1999). At the time of publication, this article provided the most in-depth critique of capital account liberalization in any U.S. law journal. The article stemmed from a paper presented by the author to the Seventh Annual Conference of the United States-Mexico Law Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 3, 1998, during the climax of one of the most volatile periods in the global financial markets. The Russian ruble was in free fall, and so was Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund that was threatening to bring down its own large creditors. The crisis was averted only by an emergency multi-billion dollar bailout brokered at the offices of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. This article situates that financial volatility within the context of the 1990\u27s global currency contagion that had spread from Mexico and Latin America to East Asia. Canova identified a recurring pattern associated with the liberalization of portfolio capital. The initial dependence on short-term foreign investment requires a restrictive monetary policy and higher interest rates to maintain the inflow. The inflow, however, contributes to overvalued exchange rates that in turn contribute to unsustainable trade and current account deficits. What follows is an inevitable panic sell-off and flight to foreign-denominated assets. The sudden outflow of capital then leads to fiscal austerity and other disciplines imposed as conditions for International Monetary Fund (IMF) assistance. After describing the dynamics of contagion, Canova inventories the range of legal instruments and institutions prematurely pushing capital account liberalization on developing countries. From the IMF Articles of Agreement to IMF loan conditions, from Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) to provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canova demonstrates that the program of capital account liberalization is part of a Wall Street agenda. The symbiotic relationship between regulators and private financial actors raises fundamental constitutional questions about accountability in a representative democracy. The article concludes by proposing several reforms of the international monetary system, including various restrictions on short-term capital flows, the recycling of surpluses through foreign aid flows, and the issuance of global currency in the form of Special Drawing Rights. The analysis synthesizes various methodological approaches, including comparative, historical and institutional approaches: prudential restrictions on portfolio inflows (such as the Chilean ¿encage¿); a global turnover tax on currency transactions (such as the Tobin Tax proposal, named after former Nobel economist, the late James Tobin); reform of the burdens of adjustment (modeled on the Marshall Plan); and use of the dormant Scarce Currency clause in the IMF Articles of Agreement. The article deals with obscure and often technical matters in an easy-to-read conversational style that is accessible to non-experts
Existence of Nash Equilibrium in Mixed Strategies for Games where Payoffs need not be Continious in Pure Strategies
No full textRoma 1810. Giuseppe Binda in visita allo studio di Antonio Canova
No full textGrazie al Diario dei ricordi e ad altri documenti, l’autore ricostruisce una pagina inedita della vita del nobiluomo lucchese Giuseppe Binda, che agli inizi dell’Ottocento si mosse tra Lucca, Pisa, Livorno, Napoli e Roma simpatizzando con le istanze pre-risorgimentali. Grazie all’amicizia con i marchesi Maccarani, nell’Urbe nel 1810 fu assiduo frequentatore dello studio di Antonio Canova e i racconti delle visite all’atelier offrono nuovi spunti di lettura sul fare artistico del grande scultore, intento a realizzare la Statua equestre di Napoleone, Napoleone come Marte pacificatore e la Venere Italica. In quegli anni Binda conobbe le personalità più in vista della società, come il bibliotecario di casa Borghese Evasio Gozzani, l’abate Giovanbattista Sartori, fratello di Canova, il letterato Leopoldo Cicognara, Juan Andrés Morell, all’epoca prefetto della Biblioteca Reale di Napoli, fino alla ballerina improvvisatrice Teresa Bandettini nota come Amarilli Etrusca, tracciandone nelle sue memorie brevi quanto iconici ritrattiThanks to the Diary of Memories and other documents, the author reconstructs an unpublished page in the life
of the Lucchese nobleman Giuseppe Binda, who, at the beginning of the 19th century, moved between Lucca,
Pisa, Livorno, Naples and Rome, sympathizing with the pre-Risorgimento ideas. Through his friendship with the
Marquises Maccarani, in 1810 he was a regular visitor to Antonio Canova’s studio in Rome, and the accounts of his
visits to the atelier offer new insights into the sculptor’s creative process, as he was intent on creating the Equestrian
Statue of Napoleon, Napoleon as Mars the Peacekeeper and Venus Italica. In those years Binda became acquainted
with the most prominent personalities in the social sphere, such as the Borghese librarian Evasio Gozzani, the
abbot Giovanbattista Sartori, Canova’s brother, the scholar Leopoldo Cicognara, Juan Andrés Morell, at that time
prefect of the Royal Library of Naples, and the dancer and improviser Teresa Bandettini, known as Amarilli Etrusca.
Binda in his memoirs draws brief but iconic portraits of all these people
Monologue or Dialogue in Management Decisions: A Comparison of Mandatory Bargaining Duties in the United States and Sweden
No full textManagement and labor are adversaries in both U.S. and Swedish industrial relations. The Swedish model, however, is marked by a continual dialogue between the adversaries with the objective of achieving mutual understanding on a wide range of issues. This dialogue has been fostered by Swedish labor law reforms, particularly the Swedish Act on Co-Determination, along with a comprehensive labor market policy to promote employment. The result of such reasoned dialogue is greater labor support for industrial restructurings and management support for the technological modernization of industry. The American system could better be characterized as a monologue. In the U.S. the legitimacy of union representation is systematically undermined by employer hostility, there are far fewer mandatory subjects of bargaining between labor and management, and there is no active labor market policy to comprehensively promote worker retraining and employment. American labor is in a more vulnerable position in terms of job insecurity in a time of rapid technological change. In this article, the author has translated and analyzed more than sixty cases of the Swedish Labour Court, including the leading cases arising from the Swedish Act on Co-Determination, and contrasted these holdings with the development of a restrictive subjects of bargaining doctrine under U.S. labor law. This article focuses on the legal bargaining duties of both Swedish and American employers. According to the author, the Swedish Act on Co-Determination has found significant acceptance among many employers and is a positive step towards increasing worker influence in management decisions. In contrast, American labor lacks a voice in the decision-making process due to the very restrictive legal development of bargaining duties. U.S. employers are not legally obligated to bargain over many of the most important decisions affecting American workers. As a result, labor and management consistently fail to reach consensus on the rationalization and technological development of industry. The author concludes that dialogue is superior to monologue. A system based on reasoned dialogue is a more advanced technology, while a monologue is sure to result in alienation, fear and narrow protectionism. According to University of Stockholm law professor Ronnie Eklund, Canova\u27s comparative study is an important contribution in the literature of comparative labor law, highlighting both significant similarities and differences in Swedish and American labor law and policy
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