This book provides the most important steps and concerns in the design of estimation and control algorithms for induction motors. A single notation and modern nonlinear control terminology is used to make the book accessible, although a more theoretical control viewpoint is also given. Focusing on the induction motor with, the concepts of stability and nonlinear control theory given in appendices, this book covers: speed sensorless control; design of adaptive observers and parameter estimators; a discussion of nonlinear adaptive controls containing parameter estimation algorithms; and comparative simulations of different control algorithms. The book sets out basic assumptions, structural properties, modelling, state feedback control and estimation algorithms, then moves to more complex output feedback control algorithms, based on stator current measurements, and modelling for speed sensorless control. The induction motor exhibits many typical and unavoidable nonlinear features.
Nonlinear Control Design presents a self-contained introduction to nonlinear feedback control design for continuous time, finite-dimensional uncertain systems. It deals with nonlinear systems affected by uncertainties such as unknown constant parameters, time-varying disturbances, and uncertain nonlinearities. Both state feedback and output feedback are addressed. Differential geometric techniques are used to identify classes of nonlinear systems considered and to design feedback algorithms. Adaptive versions of these controls are developed in the presence of unknown parameters while robust versions are designed in the presence of time-varying disturbances. These control algorithms are applied to significant physical control problems from electric motor drives, robotics, aerospace, power systems and are illustrated through worked examples. The text is illustrated throughout with over 100 exercises, more than 75 worked examples and 12 physical examples.
This book provides the most important steps and concerns in the design of estimation and control algorithms for induction motors. A single notation and modern nonlinear control terminology is used to make the book accessible, although a more theoretical control viewpoint is also given. Focusing on the induction motor with, the concepts of stability and nonlinear control theory given in appendices, this book covers: speed sensorless control; design of adaptive observers and parameter estimators; a discussion of nonlinear adaptive controls containing parameter estimation algorithms; and comparative simulations of different control algorithms. The book sets out basic assumptions, structural properties, modelling, state feedback control and estimation algorithms, then moves to more complex output feedback control algorithms, based on stator current measurements, and modelling for speed sensorless control. The induction motor exhibits many typical and unavoidable nonlinear features.
This book deals with the social exclusion of Romanies (‘Gypsies’) in Italy. Based on interviews with Romani individuals, institutional and Civil Society Organisations’ (CSOs) representatives, participant observation and a broad range of secondary sources, the volume focuses on the conditions of those living in Rome’s urban slums and on the recent implementation of the so-called ‘Emergenza Nomadi’ (Nomad Emergency). The enactment of this extraordinary measure concealed the existence of a long-established institutional tradition of racism and control directed at Romanies. It was not the result of a sudden, unexpected situation which required an immediate action, as the declaration of an ‘emergency’ might imply, but rather of a precise government strategy. By providing an investigation into the interactions between Romanies, local institutions and CSOs, this book will deliver a new perspective on the Romani issue by arguing that the ‘camp’ is not only a tool for institutional control and segregation, but also for ‘resistance’, as well as a huge business in which everyone plays their part.
Optoelectronic devices impact many areas of society, from simple household appliances and multimedia systems to communications, computing, spatial scanning, optical monitoring, 3D measurements and medical instruments. This is the most complete book about optoelectromechanic systems and semiconductor optoelectronic devices; it provides an accessible, well-organized overview of optoelectronic devices and properties that emphasizes basic principles.
Italian brands are known to create some of the most premium, sought-after products in the world. Learn to compete in the modern marketplace using the proven business principles that Italian brands have been employing for generations. While it is no secret that Italians create superior products that both withstand the threat of ongoing competition and stand the test of time, the specific business principles that have led to such tried and tested successes are shrouded in secrecy, until now. Businessman Riccard Illy details personal experiences using these Italian business standards to run his family’s world-renowned coffee company for generations. Through the age of intense competition from Starbucks and Coffee Bean, the Illy empire has remained at the top of the coffee industry simply by employing key Italian business principles and values. In The Art of Excellent Products, you will: Learn how to approach your research and development process to find ways to add quality to your products and brand. Understand how Italians have created so many brands that have stood the test of time. Learn how to approach the marketplace so that your product stands out as the go-to product. By applying those principles to your business, you will ensure your products meet or exceed the level of quality necessary to be ultra-competitive in today’s market, even in an industry in which new companies aggressively challenge your brand daily.
In Wind and Whirlwind Ágnes Heller and Riccardo Mazzeo analyse utopias and dystopias in the works of philosophers and novelists and highlight the importance to find one's way avoiding the charming destructive traps.
In the early 1980s, the late luminary Tito Arecchi was the first to highlight the existence of chaos in a laser model. Since then, along with several colleagues, he developed many important lines of research in this field, such as generalized multistability, laser with injected signal, laser with delayed feedback and the worldwide accepted classification of lasers of A, B and C, depending on their typical relaxation rates. Later, chaos control and synchronization were investigated in lasers and other systems, providing innovative schemes. Very recently, in his last contribution to laser physics, the model of the laser with feedback demonstrating its universal features was revisited.This book aims to present the research activity of Prof. Arecchi and his colleagues in the domain of nonlinear dynamics of lasers, since his seminal works of 1982 till the latest. Also included is our last contribution on jerk dynamics of laser's minimal universal model and a brief history of the discovery of laser where the reader will discover or rediscover many anecdotes about it.
Since the Paleolithic age to the present, molluscs - which include squids, octopuses and a variety of shellfish - have featured in different facets of our history. Yet much of this detail is either unknown or underappreciated. From the shapes and patterns in their shells, to their culinary, medicinal and scientific value and from their depictions in literature and religions, mulluscs in general, and shellfish in particular, have fascinated mankind for millennia. Man and Shells is a treatise on molluscs in our natural history. Readers will traverse through the journey by demonstrating how these organisms have accompanied humans in arts and culture, in ancient religions, the myths that surround them, their role in commerce as in dyeing and as currency as well as in aquaculture and fishing, and much more. Man and Shells helps us to appreciate these creatures that continue to have an important yet little known place in the cultural evolution of man through the ages.
This book investigates parliaments’ role in curbing corruption. In addition to discussing the definition, causes, and costs of corruption and the role that parliaments have in reducing corruption, the authors consider contemporary issues that parliamentarians – and others – need to be aware of. These include the importance of broad-based coalitions to fight corruption and networking at the country, regional and global level, the importance – and difficulties – of establishing parliamentary codes of ethics/conduct, legislative oversight tools and mechanisms, and regional/international conventions against corruption. Attention will also be given to parliaments and anti-money laundering. Corruption and Legislatures presents a non-technical review of contemporary issues and recent developments in curbing corruption, and concludes with practical advice as to what can be done to ensure more effective parliamentary involvement in curbing corruption.
Is Artificial Intelligence qualitatively different from other means of economizing the use of labor? Are we on the edge of a jobless society? If yes, are we ready for it? These are a few of the questions discussed in this collection of academic works. This book traces a brief history of the concept of technological unemployment; proposes a short-term scenario analysis concerning the relations between automation, education, and unemployment; analyzes the most recent literature on social robotics; examines the possible futures generated by the development of intelligent machines; shows the relation between automation and unemployment in an Italian case study; considers the impact if machines become effective pursuers of knowledge or even conscious; and addresses the role of serendipity in the development of science and technology.
Empirical Wonder" focuses on the emergence of the fantastic in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British culture. To do so, it preliminarily formulates an inclusive theory of the fantastic centering on nineteenth- and twentieth-century genres. The origins of such genres, this study argues, reside in the epistemological shift that attended the rise of empiricism, and their formal and historical identity becomes fully visible against the backdrop of pre-modern culture. While in pre-modern world-views no clear-cut distinction between the natural and the super- or the non-natural existed, the new epistemology entailed the emergence of boundaries between the empirical and the non-empirical, which determined, on the level of literary production, the opposition between the realistic and the non-realistic. Along with these boundaries, however, emerged the need to overcome them. In the seventeenth century, the religious supernatural and the existence of monsters were increasingly being questioned by modern science, and a variety of attempts were made to enact a mediation between what was perceived as unmistakably real and the problematic phenomena that were threatened by the empirical outlook: apparition narratives were used, for instance, to persuade skeptics of the presence of otherworldly beings, and travelogues often presented monsters as if they were empirical entities. Most of these attempts became soon incompatible with scientific culture, more and more normative, so the task of mediation was assumed by literature. Apparition narratives, originally conceived as factual texts, were progressively aestheticized; analogously, imaginary voyages grew different from fictionalized travelogues -- the success of Gulliver's Travels resetting the genre's main conventions and establishing a distinctly fictional model. Both apparition narratives and imaginary voyages emerged as self-consciously literary, that is, aesthetic, genres, bridging the gap between the empirical and the non-empirical. The origins of the fantastic ended when its mediatory task gave way to other concerns. Although on a residual level the mediation between the empirical and the non-empirical persisted, the fantastic's main preoccupations changed: in imaginary voyages its distinctive devices were used to dramatize or validate colonial practices, and Gothic fiction disconnected itself from the moral framework typical of apparition narratives.
This book investigates Parliaments’ capacity to oversee government activities, policies and expenditures. Utilising a comparative approach, the book presents a new examination of oversight tools and discusses the conditions under which such tools are employed effectively. The result of a 9-year collaboration between the authors, this book draws from the findings of survey data collected by the World Bank Institute and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, analysing information from 120 parliaments. The book represents a rigorous attempt to test whether international organizations are correct in claiming that the quality of democracy and good governance can be improved by strengthening the oversight capacity of legislatures. It discusses the tools available to parliaments worldwide, and taking a comparative approach considers which tools are more or less common, how oversight capacity can be estimated, how oversight capacity is related to other institutional and constitutional factors, and above all what ensures that oversight tools are used effectively. This analysis reveals that while the quality of democracy and good governance benefit from effective oversight, oversight effectiveness cannot be reduced to oversight capacity. The book urges policy makers and reformers to change their approach from strengthening capacity to securing that the capacity is put to good use. Parliamentary Oversight Tools will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners of legislative politics and governance.
Where was Alba Longa? Over the centuries, this question has stimulated the most varied conjectures, by scholars, poets, historians, philologists and, of course, archaeologists. Fantasy has often merged with reality, myth with history. All of these hypotheses present some credible data, but mixed with more improbable aspects drawn from either ancient writers or uncorroborated documents. This, in turn, has led to incompatibilities between the hypotheses and the reality of archaeological excavations. The scholar Riccardo Bellucci, after years of systematic research, now proposes a coherent and consistent solution to the location of the Mater Urbis, in a previously unsuspected area. The motivation, intuition and documentation that has led Bellucci to decide on his theory, will fascinate everyone; and stimulate debate on the truth of his conclusions. The book then goes beyond the story of Alba Longa itself to provide further fascinating detail related to the area.
In Debating Medieval Natural Law: A Survey, Riccardo Saccenti examines and evaluates the major lines of interpretation of the medieval concepts of natural rights and natural law within the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and explains how the major historiographical interpretations of ius naturale and lex naturalis have changed. His bibliographical survey analyzes not only the chronological evolution of various interpretations of natural law but also how they differ, in an effort to shed light on the historical debate and on the medieval roots of modern human rights theories. Saccenti critically examines the historical analyses of the major historians of medieval political and legal thought while addressing how to further research on the subject. His perspective interlaces different disciplinary points of view: history of philosophy, as well as history of canon and civil law and history of theology. By focusing on a variety of disciplines, Saccenti creates an opportunity to evaluate each interpretation of medieval lex naturalis in terms of the area it enlightens and within specific cultural contexts. His survey is a basis for future studies concerning this topic and will be of interest to scholars of the history of law and, more generally, of the history of ideas in the twentieth century.
Urban development and housing projects in Berlin and Naples in the post-war era – A comparison: Theoretical models, implemented projects, social and political impacts today
Urban development and housing projects in Berlin and Naples in the post-war era – A comparison: Theoretical models, implemented projects, social and political impacts today
In the post-war period, Berlin and Naples experienced a phase of profound changes, essentially influenced by external factors: the less rigid urban structure which had been ruined by World War II, resulting in severe changes in the social and economic structure, an uncritical reception and implementation of largely theoretical models of functionalism in urban planning, and in the design of the new public building interventions. On the one hand, between the 1940s and the 1980s, Berlin experienced a considerable loss in population, a political isolation and an urban splitting, as the urban planning institutions, deeply influenced by relevant politics, slowly and thoroughly changed the cityscape. On the other hand, Naples suffered from a new phase of immigration as well as from the parallel densification of the old suburbs and the physical expansion of the city limits without consistent and socially appropriate urban planning measures. This phase of change, so full of contrasts, coincided with the establishment of new democratic systems in the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy, and with the fundamental goal of socially adequate housing in both the West and the East. The research involved a series of historical analyses of the relationship between urban development and social housing for critical reflection and to allow an informed evaluation of the contemporary condition. In particular, it investigated housing settlements realised in Berlin and Naples in the first four decades of the post-war period, which corresponds to the period in which public housing was central in both political and urban planning terms. The book focuses on places of living, the city and the house. Consequently, it investigates the scale of the project and that of the intervention, the relationship between innovation and the cultural reception of urban phenomena and, again, between the stage of the project and the realisation and upkeep of the interventions, between democratic expectations and the adequacy of the administration system. These steps have a direct effect on the social identity that inspires, structures and transforms the planned and then built city, that continuous dialogue between form and content (the past) that occurs, in general, through progressive and mutual adaptations. In the selection of the case studies, we have favoured interventions on the “periphery,” which are those in which theoretical and aesthetic trends have best manifested themselves and in which planning and design cultures could develop most widely. However, the periphery does not necessarily coincide with the geographical edges of the cities: both in Berlin and in Naples, historical events, or the particular topography have naturally shifted the “peripheral” location along a radius that only ideally starts from the city centre and often extends to its inner fringes. Rather, from a sociological point of view, the same interventions generally generate the peripheral condition, that is, marginalisation or social division. This, as we shall see, can be traced both on the large scale of the city and inside the neighbourhood. The materials are arranged in the following way: the text is introduced by a graphic and synthetic presentation of the historical context in Berlin and Naples and the documentation of the twelve case studies. In the second chapter, Comparison, which was mostly developed as the first by the young scholars involved in the project, three theoretical issues highlighted during the seminars are better presented: The ability of the project to involve the social level; the experimentalism of the interventions, in particular in construction technology, social approach and democratic participation; the relationship between public and private in the phases of implementation and the upkeep of the programmes. The third chapter, In-Depth Analysis, includes the contributions of the scientists involved to give a better articulated historical and critical analysis of many of selected case studies and of the wider urban and social context. The closing editorial paper offers a brief overview focusing on a selection of the theoretical nodes that emerged from the comparison of the materials from a contemporary perspective. The publication is the outcome of the homonymous research programme fully funded by DAAD German Academic Exchange Service and runned in 2019 in cooperation between the Technische Universität of Berlin, Department of Architecture (Habitat Unit) with the Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli," Dipartimento di Architettura e Disegno Industriale in Aversa (Italy). In der Nachkriegszeit erlebten Berlin und Neapel eine Phase tiefgehender Veränderungen, die im Wesentlichen von externen Faktoren beeinflusst wurde: der aufgelockerten, infolge des Zweiten Weltkriegs ruinierten Stadtform, der starken Veränderung der sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Struktur, der unkritischen Rezeption und Implementierung von stark theoretisch geprägten Modellen des Funktionalismus in der Stadtplanung sowie in der Gestaltung der neuen öffentlichen Bauinterventionen. Auf der einen Seite erlebt Berlin zwischen den 40er und den 80er Jahren einen starken Bevölkerungsverlust, eine politische Isolierung und eine urbane Aufspaltung, indem eine stark politisch beeinflusste Stadtplanung das Stadtbild tief verändert. Auf der anderen Seite leidet Neapel unter einer neuen Einwanderungsphase sowie der parallelen Verdichtung der alten Vorstädte und der physischen Erweiterung der Stadtgrenze, ohne dass konsequente und sozial gemäße stadtplanerische Maßnahmen vorgenommen wurden. Diese kontrastreiche Umbruchsphase stimmt überein mit der Etablierung der neuen demokratischen Regierungssysteme in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wie auch in Italien und damit mit dem für beide - und im Westen wie im Osten - grundlegenden Ziel des sozial gerechten Wohnens. Das Forschungsvorhaben beinhaltete eine Reihe von historischen Analysen der Beziehung zwischen Stadtentwicklung und sozialem Wohnungsbau zum Zweck der kritischen Reflexion und um eine fundierte Bewertung der jeweiligen zeitgenössischen Bedingungen zu ermöglichen. Insbesondere wurden Wohnsiedlungen untersucht, die in Berlin wie in Neapel in den ersten vier Jahrzehnten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg errichtet wurden, d.h. in eben dem Zeitraum, in dem öffentlicher Wohnungsbau sowohl unter politischen wie auch unter stadtplanerischen Aspekten zentral war. Das Buch konzentriert sich auf Lebensräume, die Stadt und das Haus. Folglich untersucht es das Ausmaß des Projekts wie das der Intervention, die Beziehung zwischen Innovation und kultureller Rezeption städtischer Phänomene wie auch zwischen dem jeweiligen Stadium des Projekts und der Umsetzung und Aufrechterhaltung der Interventionen und schließlich zwischen den demokratischen Erwartungen und der Leistungsfähigkeit des Verwaltungssystems. Diese Schritte haben direkte Auswirkungen auf die soziale Identität, welche die zunächst geplante und dann gebaute Stadt inspiriert, strukturiert und transformiert, d.h. diesen ständigen Dialog zwischen Form und Inhalt (die Vergangenheit), der im Allgemeinen durch fortschreitende und gegenseitige Anpassungen abläuft. Bei der Auswahl der Fallstudien haben wir Interventionen in der "Perpherie" bevorzugt, da sie es sind, in denen sich theoretische und ästhetische Trends am deutlichsten abzeichnen und in denen sich Kulturen der Planung und des Designs am weitesten entwickeln könnten. Die Peripherie fällt jedoch nicht unbedingt zusammen mit den geografischen Rändern der Städte: sowohl in Berlin wie in Neapel haben historische Ereignisse oder auch die jeweilige Topografie naturgemäß die "periphere" Lage entlang einem Radius verschoben, der nur im Idealfall vom Stadtzentrum ausgeht und sich oft bis an seine Ränder erstreckt. Von einer soziologischen Perspektive aus ist es eher so, dass im Allgemeinen die gleichen Interventionen zu einer peripheren Situation führen. d.h. zu Marginalisierung oder sozialer Aufspaltung. Wie wir sehen werden, gilt dies sowohl im größeren Rahmen für die Stadt wie auch innerhalb eines Stadtviertels. Die Materialien sind folgendermaßen angeordnet: Der Text wird eingeführt durch eine grafische und zusammenfassende Präsentation der historischen Zusammenhänge in Berlin und Neapel und eine Dokumentation zu den zwölf Fallstudien. Im zweiten Kapitel – "Vergleich/Comparison" – , das ursprünglich als erstes Kapitel von den jüngeren Forschern, die am Projekt teilnahmen, entwickelt wurde, werden drei Fragen, die während der Seminare im Mittelpunkt standen, genauer vorgestellt: die Eignung des Projekts dafür, die soziale Ebene mit einzubeziehen; der experimentelle Charakter der Interventionen, insbesondere in der Bautechnologie, im sozialen Ansatz und in der demokratischen Teilhabe; die Beziehung zwischen öffentlichem und privatem Engagement in der Phase der Umsetzung wie der Aufrechterhaltung der Programme. Das dritte Kapitel – "Eingehende Analyse/In-Depth-Analyses" – besteht aus den Beiträgen der beteiligten Wissenschaftler, um so eine klarere historische und kritische Analyse von etlichen der ausgewählten Fallstudien und der weiterreichenden städtischen und sozialen Zusammenhänge zu gewährleisten. Der abschließende Kommentarteil bietet einen kurzen Überblick, der den Schwerpunkt auf eine Auswahl von theoretischen Verknüpfungen legt, die sich aus dem Vergleich der Materialien aus zeitgenössischen Perspektive ergeben. Die Veröffentlichung ist das Ergebnis des gleichnamigen Forschungsprogramms, das vollständig vom DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) finanziert wurde und 2019 in einer Zusammenarbeit der Architektur-Fakultät (Habitat Unit) der Technischen Universität Berlin mit dem Dipartmento di Architettura e Disegno Industriale der Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" in Aversa (Italien) durchgeführt wurde. Nel secondo dopoguerra Berlino e Napoli vivono una fase di profondo cambiamento che è condizionato in maniera preponderante da fattori esterni: la parziale disgregazione della forma urbana causata dei bombardamenti bellici, il cambiamento della struttura socio-economica, il recepimento delle teorie funzionaliste nella pianificazione urbana e nella progettazione dei nuovi interventi di edilizia residenziale pubblica. Per un verso, tra gli anni quaranta e gli anni ottanta, Berlino rileva una pesante contrazione demografica, l'isolamento politico, la separazione interna del Muro, gli effetti di una pianificazione urbana fortemente influenzata dal sdoppiato piano politico che deriva dalla fondazione nel 1949 dei due stati tedeschi, la GDR e la DDR. Per altro verso, Napoli osserva una nuova fase di immigrazione che si aggiunge alla naturale crescita demografica del primo dopoguerra, lo sviluppo urbano dei sobborghi e dei principali centri dell’entroterra costiero, l'espansione fisica ma non amministrativa dei confini della città, l’inadeguatezza ed il costante ritardo del piano amministrativo-urbanistico nella gestione dei fenomeni sociali ed urbani. Si tratta in pratica di una fase carica di contrasti che coincide con l'instaurazione delle nuove repubbliche liberali in Germania ed Italia, e con la definitiva affermazione della questione abitativa e della residenza popolare che assurge, in ambito socialista, al rango di elemento funzionale alla stessa costruzione statale. Lo studio indaga la relazione tra sviluppo urbano ed edilizia residenziale pubblica e si propone come strumento per la riflessione critica e per la valutazione informata della condizione contemporanea. Le indagini e le valutazioni storiche che esso raccoglie si concentrano sugli interventi realizzati a Berlino e a Napoli nei primi quarant’anni del dopoguerra, ovvero nel periodo in cui la questione abitativa diviene urgente e centrale per vari ordini di motivi sia in termini politici che urbanistici. Lo sguardo si concentra sui luoghi dell'abitare, la città e la casa; indaga e confronta la scala teorica e quella reale, il rapporto tra innovazione e recezione culturale; confronta i piani del progetto, della costruzione e della successiva manutenzione degli interventi residenziali, tra le aspettative democratiche e l'adeguatezza del sistema amministrativo nel gestirli. Si tratta di passaggi che hanno un effetto diretto sull'identità sociale che, di risposta, ispira e struttura la nuova città attraverso un dialogo tra forma e contenuto (il passato) che procede per progressivi e reciproci adattamenti. Nella selezione dei casi studio sono stati privilegiati interventi di "periferia", ovvero quelli in cui le culture della pianificazione e del progetto, e le tendenze teoriche ed estetiche si sono potute manifestare nella maniera più completa. Come si vedrà, tuttavia, la periferia non coincide necessariamente con i margini geografici delle città: sia a Berlino che a Napoli gli eventi storici o la particolare topografia hanno dislocato la condizione "periferica" lungo un raggio che solo idealmente conduce dal centro della città. Da un punto di vista sociologico, e per la coincidenza di diversi fattori, inoltre, gli stessi interventi residenziali generano al loro interno la condizione periferica che si manifesta generalmente in degrado degli spazi comuni, mancanza di prossimità, emarginazione sociale. I materiali del testo sono organizzati in tre parti: nel primo capitolo Documentation si introduce al contesto storico, amministrativo ed urbanistico e si presentano schematicamente e secondo un criterio uniforme i dodici casi studio selezionati; nel secondo capitolo Comparison, che, come il primo, è stato redatto dai giovani ricercatori coinvolti nel progetto di ricerca, vengono meglio presentate tre questioni teoriche emerse nel corso dei laboratori: la capacità del progetto di coinvolgere il piano sociale; lo sperimentalismo degli interventi, in particolare per tecnologia costruttiva, approccio sociale e partecipazione democratica; il rapporto tra il piano amministrativo-pubblico ed il piano civico-privato nelle fasi di realizzazione e mantenimento dei programmi residenziali. Il terzo capitolo, In-Depth-Analysis, raccoglie i contributi degli studiosi coinvolti per fornire un'analisi storica e critica articolata dei casi di studio selezionati e del più ampio contesto urbano e sociale. Infine, le conclusioni raccolgono e presentano i principali nodi teorici emersi nel corso della ricerca in una prospettiva aperta alla condizione contemporanea. La pubblicazione restituisce e meglio sviluppa sul piano documentale e critico i materiali raccolti nel corso dei due laboratori tenuti nel 2019 presso la Technische Universität di Berlino, Dipartimento di Urbanistica e Sviluppo urbano sostenibile “Habitat Unit,” e l’Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli," Dipartimento di Architettura e Disegno Industriale di Aversa, nell’ambito dell’omonimo progetto di ricerca finanziato dal DAAD (Servizio Tedesco per lo Scambio Accademico).
Da quando il World Wide Web – la Rete delle Reti – è entrato prepotentemente a far parte delle nostre vite, la nostra società sta sperimentando un cambiamento profondo. Ma come è cominciato tutto questo? Quando, come e perché il Web ha cessato di essere una semplice fonte di informazioni, per diventare uno strumento di interazione tra persone? E come si evolverà il Web nel futuro? Partendo dalle origini di Internet e del Web, il testo esamina in profondità le caratteristiche del Web 2.0, il Web Sociale; affronta poi il tema del Web del futuro prossimo, il Web 3.0 (Web Semantico), senza tralasciare l’evoluzione futura più remota, ossia il Web 4.0 (Web Ubiquo). Spiega come tutto ebbe inizio con la digitalizzazione, il presupposto fondamentale per fenomeni di grande attualità come la convergenza digitale e quella multimediale, la crossmedialità, la rimediazione digitale. Dal punto di vista più strettamente comunicazionale, il lavoro – nell’attribuire al Web una natura mediale – affronta il tema del passaggio dalla comunicazione tradizionale alla web communication, in tutte le sue declinazioni e modalità: la comunicazione screen to face asincrona e quella sincrona. Anche gli aspetti più concreti non vengono trascurati: un intero capitolo spiega come comunicare nel Web e fornisce utili indicazioni pratiche per fare web communication in modo efficace. La seconda parte del libro è dedicata a un’approfondita analisi delle tre aree mediali del Web di oggi: l’area della conoscenza e condivisione (dai motori di ricerca alle enciclopedie online, sino alla nuova didattica rappresentata dall’e-learning), l’area del business (e-commerce come strategia di e-business, marketing virale e web advertising come strumenti di web marketing) e l’area delle relazioni sociali (social media e blog, colonne portanti del Web 2.0). Il libro comprende oltre 30 focus, approfondimenti relativi a casi concreti – tutti legati al Web – di storie di successo o particolarmente significative. Prefazione di Marino Livolsi, sociologo e Presidente del Corso di Laurea in Scienze della Comunicazione, Facoltà di Psicologia, Università Vita – Salute San Raffaele, Milano.
The Renaissance movement known as humanism eventually spread from Italy through all of western Europe, transforming early modern culture in ways that are still being felt and debated. Central to these debates—and to this book—is the question of whether (and how) the humanist movement contributed to the secularization of Western cultural traditions at the end of the Middle Ages. A preeminent scholar of Italian humanism, Riccardo Fubini approaches this question in a new way—by redefining the problem of secularization more carefully to show how humanists can at once be secularizers and religious thinkers. The result is a provocative vision of the humanist movement. Humanism and Secularization offers a nuanced account of humanists contesting medieval ideas about authority not in order to reject Christianity or even orthodoxy, but to claim for themselves the right to define what it meant to be a Christian. Fubini analyzes key texts by major humanists—isuch as Petrarch, Poggio, and Valla—from the first century of the movement. As he subtly works out these authors’ views on religion and the Church from both biographical and textual information, Fubini reveals in detail the new historical consciousness that animated the humanists in their reading of classical and patristic texts. His book as a whole shows convincingly just how radical the humanism of the first half of the fifteenth century was and how sharply it challenged well-entrenched ideas and institutions. Appearing here in English for the first time, his work provides a model set of readings of humanist texts and a critical perspective on Italian humanism that will alter and enrich discussion and understanding of the nature of the humanist movement.
This book offers a detailed history of plastic surgery procedures and their development from the ancient world, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, up to World War II. The origin of plastic surgery is essentially the story of wound management – the frequent struggle that primitive man engaged in to heal his injuries. The narrative chronicles the rise and fall – and rise again – of the discipline through the centuries. It illustrates the birth of modern reconstructive and aesthetic techniques and emphasizes the ingenuity that plastic surgeons demonstrated to improve wound defects and refine facial disfigurements of various origins, congenital or acquired. In addition, the work underscores the enormous impact that the study of human anatomy had on the evolution of surgery. Chapters discuss the birth and spread of aesthetic surgery, seldom referenced in modern scientific writing. Richly illustrated with hundreds of images drawn from the personal collection of the primary author, the book is an outstanding contribution to the annals of surgery. Not only does it honor the publications and artworks that have recorded these unique achievements, it also recognizes the great innovators of the past whose reconstructive and aesthetic work forms the basis of today’s surgical successes. Plastic Surgery – An Illustrated History is a must-have resource for plastic, maxillofacial and aesthetic surgeons. Any student of surgery, medical history, or medical illustration will be interested in this work.
This book is a comprehensive study on analog historical simulation games, exploring both their theoretical concepts and practical solutions. It considers the various ways used by simulation games to depict the different dynamics of historical events and analyzes how commercial analog miniature and board wargames can become valuable tools for historical research and provide a more modern and captivating interpretation of past events. The nature of “simulation” is discussed, exposing its differences with other forms of ludic activity, both analog and digital, as well as intellectual speculation. Many of the most common game mechanics are analyzed in depth and in their practical use, to answer whether “reconstructive” simulations dedicated to historical episodes can provide valuable, reliable and useful insights for researchers. It critically examines the challenges presented to game designers that look to produce an accurate (even if not necessarily complex) simulation of historical events. The book will be of great interest to those curious about the potential applications of such a powerful research and experimental tool for historical, sociologic and anthropologic research, as well as wargaming and board gaming enthusiasts looking to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of historical simulations.
This book investigates the concept of freedom as it has been defined by Søren Kierkegaard and some of existentialism’s major figures, including Jean-Paul Sartre. In an attempt to delineate an ontology of the human condition, special emphasis is placed on the ideas of choice, responsibility, and transcendence. The second part of the book focuses on existential freedom in what has been its most radical formulation by Sartre. A translation of Il sentimento paralizzante del possibile. La vertigine della libertà in Kierkegaard e Sartre (2022), this book brings cutting-edge contemporary Italian philosophy to English readers.
A Comprehensive Physically Based Approach to Modeling in Bioengineering and Life Sciences provides a systematic methodology to the formulation of problems in biomedical engineering and the life sciences through the adoption of mathematical models based on physical principles, such as the conservation of mass, electric charge, momentum, and energy. It then teaches how to translate the mathematical formulation into a numerical algorithm that is implementable on a computer. The book employs computational models as synthesized tools for the investigation, quantification, verification, and comparison of different conjectures or scenarios of the behavior of a given compartment of the human body under physiological and pathological conditions. Presents theoretical (modeling), biological (experimental), and computational (simulation) perspectives Features examples, exercises, and MATLAB codes for further reader involvement Covers basic and advanced functional and computational techniques throughout the book
Digital New Deal analyses the origins of law and its relationship to language and economics and identifies 12 symptoms that point to an authoritarian involution of our democracies. It refuses to indulge in pro-forma techno-optimism. Neither does it pessimistically predict inescapable doom. A bright future is still possible, if we correctly understand the digital equivalents of categories such as identity, persona, home, document, signature, freedom and the close relationship between our fundamental rights and their digital equivalents. Riccardo Genghini’s research on a natural law for a digital society has been influenced in particular by Galgano, Popper, Sebeok, Rawls, Ong, Irti, Searle and Ferraris. As professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milano, his lessons (2007- 2017) on commercial law focussed on comparing the law merchant of the Middle Ages with the commercial practices of IT companies as Microsoft, eBay, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft. First with CEN, now with ETSI, he steers the European standardisation on PKI and trust services since 1999.
Neural Approximations for Optimal Control and Decision provides a comprehensive methodology for the approximate solution of functional optimization problems using neural networks and other nonlinear approximators where the use of traditional optimal control tools is prohibited by complicating factors like non-Gaussian noise, strong nonlinearities, large dimension of state and control vectors, etc. Features of the text include: • a general functional optimization framework; • thorough illustration of recent theoretical insights into the approximate solutions of complex functional optimization problems; • comparison of classical and neural-network based methods of approximate solution; • bounds to the errors of approximate solutions; • solution algorithms for optimal control and decision in deterministic or stochastic environments with perfect or imperfect state measurements over a finite or infinite time horizon and with one decision maker or several; • applications of current interest: routing in communications networks, traffic control, water resource management, etc.; and • numerous, numerically detailed examples. The authors’ diverse backgrounds in systems and control theory, approximation theory, machine learning, and operations research lend the book a range of expertise and subject matter appealing to academics and graduate students in any of those disciplines together with computer science and other areas of engineering.
The Italian colour bible: a gorgeously illustrated exploration of colour and the modern gaze, from an award-winning designer 'Fresh and exciting, like an unopened packet of coloured pencils. Countless thought-provoking facts to ponder over, beautifully written' Coralie Bickford-Smith, author of The Fox and the Star Why are pencils yellow and white goods white? Why is black the colour of mourning? What connects Queen Victoria's mauve gown and Michelle Obama's yellow dress? In Chromorama, acclaimed graphic designer Riccardo Falcinelli delves deep into the history of colour to show how it has shaped the modern gaze. With over four hundred illustrations throughout and with examples ranging widely across art and culture - from the novels of Gustave Flaubert to The Simpsons, from Byzantine jewellery to misshapen fruit, from Mondrian to Hitchcock's thrillers - Falcinelli traces the evolution of our long relationship with colour, and how first the industrial revolution, and then the dawn of the internet age, changed it forever. Beautifully designed, deeply researched, and written with warmth and wit, Chromoroma is an engrossing account of shade and light, of tone and hue, of dyes, pigments, and pixels. It is the story of why we now see the world the way we do.
This textbook provides a thorough and systematic overview of human rights law, including the most relevant practice and case law, but also dealing with theoretical issues. It pursues an original approach, seeking to reconcile its didactic purpose with a scientific one, positing that there must be a necessary synergy between these two purposes. Furthermore, the author is convinced that international human rights law should not be studied (as is done in virtually every textbook) as a special legal regime, separate and autonomous from the overall system of international law; but as a regime that is fully integrated into the international legal order. The book’s dominant theme is the interrelationship of international human rights law and general international law. Following this approach, the author has chosen to devote comparatively little content to institutional issues (Part IV) and to instead more intensively explore the structural impact of human rights law on the entire international order (Part I); on the sources (Part II) and obligations (Part III) of general international law; and what constitutes “fundamental” human rights (Part V), without neglecting other rights (Part VI).
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