Search results for "Audit"
showing 10 items of 1421 documents
Road safety audit effectiveness at urban junctions
2002
In accordance with the Road Safety National Plan recently adopted in Italy and the initiatives subsequently undertaken by the National Infrastructure and Transport Department, this paper contains proposals for implementing an urban road safety audit in Italy, Our research will aim at evaluating the possible effects of such a practice. Our more specific aim is to determine the real or potential risk on roads by examining road infrastructure and observing road user behaviour in the absence of accident data. Four urban junctions, situated on one of the main thoroughfares of urban traffic in Palermo, were studied and a comparison was made between the data obtained by observing road user behavio…
La Stima Temporale come Misura della Complessità Percettiva di Combinazioni di Stimoli Visivi-Uditivi
2007
La letteratura sulla percezione del tempo è concorde nell’evidenziare che gli esseri umani sono poco accurati nei giudizi temporali, nel senso che solitamente tendono sovrastimare o a sottostimare le durate. I numerosi studi condotti al riguardo divergono, tuttavia, nei meccanismi cognitivi chiamati in causa per spiegare i suddetti biases temporali. In particolare, i modelli basati sulla memoria prevedono che compiti complessi, a causa del maggiore spazio mnestico richiesto, inducano gli individui a sovrastimarne la durata. Diversamente,i modelli basati sull’attenzione evidenziano come l’elevato carico cognitivo sotteso a compiti complessi si traduca nella tendenza a sottostimarne la durata…
A survey on energy performance of the non-residential public building stock in Southern Italy; toward a decision support tool for refurbishment actio…
2016
The public buildings sector represents one of the most intensive items of EU energy consumption; the application of retrofit solutions in existing buildings is a crucial way to reduce its impact. To facilitate the knowledge of the energy performance of the existing non-residential buildings and the choice of the more adequate actions, Public Administrations (PA) should have the availability of proper tools. Within the Italian project “POI 2007-13”, a database and a decision support tool, for easy use, even to a non-technical user, have been developed. A large set of data, obtained from the energy audits of 151 existing public buildings located in four regions of South of Italy have been ana…
Interaction by ear
2019
Abstract Speech-based interaction is now part of our everyday experiences, in the home and on the move. More subtle is the presence of designed non-speech sounds in human-machine interactions, and far less evident is their importance to create aural affordances and to support human actions. However, new application areas for interactive sound, beyond the domains of speech and music, have been emerging. These range from tele-operation and way-finding, to peripheral process monitoring and augmented environments. Beyond signalling location, presence, and states, future sounding artifacts are expected to be plastic and reconfigurable, and take into account the inherently egocentric nature of so…
A perceptual sound space for auditory displays based on sung-vowel synthesis.
2022
AbstractWhen designing displays for the human senses, perceptual spaces are of great importance to give intuitive access to physical attributes. Similar to how perceptual spaces based on hue, saturation, and lightness were constructed for visual color, research has explored perceptual spaces for sounds of a given timbral family based on timbre, brightness, and pitch. To promote an embodied approach to the design of auditory displays, we introduce the Vowel–Type–Pitch (VTP) space, a cylindrical sound space based on human sung vowels, whose timbres can be synthesized by the composition of acoustic formants and can be categorically labeled. Vowels are arranged along the circular dimension, whi…
A study of temporal estimation from the perspective of the Mental Clock Model.
2009
M. Cardaci's (2000) Mental Clock Model maintains that a task requiring a low mental workload is associated with an acceleration of perceived time, whereas a task requiring a high mental workload is associated with a deceleration. The authors examined the predictions of this model in a musical listening condition in which musical pieces were audible in several structural complexities. To measure the effects of musical complexity on time estimation, the authors used retrospective and prospective time-estimation paradigms. For the retrospective paradigm, the authors invited participants to listen to a musical piece and then estimate its duration. For the prospective paradigm, the authors invit…
Cavernous haemangioma of the external auditory canal: clinical case and review of the literature
2012
Although benign vascular lesions are frequent in the head and the neck region, clinical evidence of cavernous haemangioma of the external auditory canal is extremely rare; when present, the lesion invades the middle ear space. Herein, a rare case of a soft mass filling the external auditory canal, not involving the tympanic membrane, in a symptomatic 59-year-old male is described. Clinical and audiological characteristics, imaging studies and surgical treatment with histological evaluation are reported, which led to a diagnosis of a cavernous haemangioma. This is only the seventh case described in the literature, to date, not involving the tympanic membrane and the middle ear space. In addi…
Mobile phone and auditory system: update
2009
The aim of this study is to asses the non-thermal effects of the electromagnetic fields generated by 915 MHz GSM cellular phones on the human cochlear activity using transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE). The study was carried on 205 young and healthy volunteers (age 18-30 years) with normal hearing which were randomly divided into two samples consisting of 85 (Gcase) and 120 (Gcontrol) respectively. The first one was exposed to genuine 10 minutes of GSM electromagnetic fields while the second, undergone sham exposure, was considered as control group for the statistical investigations. All the participants were blind to the genuine or sham exposure. The TEOAEs were measured in the …
AUDITORY EVOKED POTENTIALS AND VISUAL EVOKED POTENTIALS: A HELPFUL TEST IN THE DIAGNOSIS AND FOLLOW UP OF KAWASAKI DISEASE
2018
Introduction: Kawasaki disease is a systemic vasculitis affecting mainly children; the most serious complications are coronary artery lesions (CAL). Nonetheless, the spectrum of complications involves all the vascular districts, such as the eyes, skin, kidneys, gallbladder, liver, central nervous system. Sensorineural hearing loss is a low diagnosed complication of KD, however, it may be permanent. Objectives: Auditory evoked potentials (ABR) and visual evoked potentials (VEPs) are useful in evaluating children without auditory and/or visual symptoms but with diseases that could sub clinically involve these functions. Methods: We enrolled 52 children (31 M, 21 F; age: 3 months-10 years) wit…
The Court of Auditors in the Kingdom of Sicily
2012
The paper investigates the history of a major Sicilian institution in Accounting: the local Court of Auditors. This began to work in a very early period, the XIII century, under the Swabian dynasty in the most glorious period of the old Kingdom of Sicily, when the modern European state was beginning to take root. The public audit for accounting, after, flew parallel to the events of local parliamentary institutions. The paper then focuses on two main arguments. The former is the history of this court in itself, its rise in power when Sicily evolved in a constitutional monarchy, its life gaced with the baronial biases and arrogance under the weak government of viceroys, and finally its decli…