Artificial moral agents: moral mentors or sensible tools?     

Fabio Fossa 《Ethics and Information Technology》2018,20(2):115-126

The aim of this paper is to offer an analysis of the notion of artificial moral agent (AMA) and of its impact on human beings’ self-understanding as moral agents. Firstly, I introduce the topic by presenting what I call the Continuity Approach. Its main claim holds that AMAs and human moral agents exhibit no significant qualitative difference and, therefore, should be considered homogeneous entities. Secondly, I focus on the consequences this approach leads to. In order to do this I take into consideration the work of Bostrom and Dietrich, who have radically assumed this viewpoint and thoroughly explored its implications. Thirdly, I present an alternative approach to AMAs—the Discontinuity Approach—which underscores an essential difference between human moral agents and AMAs by tackling the matter from another angle. In this section I concentrate on the work of Johnson and Bryson and I highlight the link between their claims and Heidegger’s and Jonas’s suggestions concerning the relationship between human beings and technological products. In conclusion I argue that, although the Continuity Approach turns out to be a necessary postulate to the machine ethics project, the Discontinuity Approach highlights a relevant distinction between AMAs and human moral agents. On this account, the Discontinuity Approach generates a clearer understanding of what AMAs are, of how we should face the moral issues they pose, and, finally, of the difference that separates machine ethics from moral philosophy.  相似文献   

Kicking Performance in Young U9 to U20 Soccer Players: Assessment of Velocity and Accuracy Simultaneously     

Luiz H. P. Vieira  Sérgio A. Cunha  Renato Moraes  Fabio A. Barbieri  Rodrigo Aquino  Lucas de P. Oliveira 《Research quarterly for exercise and sport》2018,89(2):210-220

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the kicking performance of young soccer players in the U9 to U20 age groups. Method: Three hundred and sixty-six Brazilian players were evaluated on an official pitch using three-dimensional kinematics to measure (300 Hz) ball velocity (V_ball), foot velocity (V_foot), V_ball/V_foot ratio, last stride length, and distance between the support foot and the ball. Simultaneously, a two-dimensional procedure was also conducted to compute (60 Hz) the mean radial error, bivariate variable error, and accuracy. Possible age-related differences were assessed through one-way analysis of variance and magnitude-based inferences. Results: Ball velocity increased by 103% (p < .001, η² = .39) from the U11 age group (48.54 ± 8.31 km/hr) to the U20 age group (98.74 ± 16.35 km/hr). Foot velocity presented a 59% increase (p < .001, η² = .32) from the U11 age group (49.08 ± 5.16 km/hr) to U20 (78.24 ± 9.49 km/hr). This finding was due to improvement in the quality of foot–ball impact (V_ball/V_foot ratio) from U11 (0.99 ± 0.13 a.u.) to U20 (1.26 ± 0.11 a.u.; p < .001, η² = .25). Parameters such as mean radial error and accuracy appeared to be impaired during the growth spurt (U13–U15). Last stride length was correlated, low to moderately high, with V_ball in all age groups (r = .36–.79). Conclusions: In summary, we concluded that simple biomechanical parameters of kicking performance presented distinct development. These results suggest that different training strategies specific for each age group could be applied. We provide predictive equations to aid coaches in the long-term monitoring process to develop the kick in soccer or search for talented young players.  相似文献   

Preventive thermographic diagnosis of historical buildings for consolidation     

Domenica Paoletti  Dario Ambrosini  Stefano Sfarra  Fabio Bisegna 《Journal of Cultural Heritage》2013,14(2):116-121

Conserving architectural heritage usually requires a multidisciplinary approach involving a variety of professionals and organizations. Since the evaluation of the state of conservation of historical buildings using destructive techniques should be avoided to prevent the integrity of the cultural heritage, the development of non-destructive and non-contact techniques is very important. InfraRed (IR) thermography is a non-destructive powerful tool for fast and accurate building diagnostics. In the investigation of historical structures, where a restoration or conservation treatment can cause irreversible damage to the structure, it is considered to be of most importance. A campaign of thermographic surveys were conducted on a large part of the historical cultural heritage of L’Aquila and its surroundings. In this paper we present the results of the study for the Church of Santa Maria ad Cryptas (XIII century), one of the most ancient buildings in the surroundings of L’Aquila and one of the best examples of Gothic art in Abruzzo, with the aim to evaluate the correspondence between the damage induced by the earthquake and the previous thermographic results, in order to validate the effectiveness of thermography and its role in preventive diagnosis.  相似文献   

Stochastic identification and digital control of a heat exchanger: a simulation test case     

Sergio Bittanti  Fabio Romeo  Riccardo Scattolini 《Journal of The Franklin Institute》1984,318(1):29-56

In this paper, an extended simulation study is presented by which the power of modern digital identification and control methodology is tested against the nontrivial dynamics of a relatively simple yet nonelementary plant. Many critical issues which may significantly affect the success of the entire design process can be discussed along the lines of this study. The plant considered here is a liquid-saturated steam heat exchanger, where the liquid flow-rate is manipulated to regulate the outlet liquid temperature. All the numerical experiments have been conducted by digital simulation of a fairly standard nonlinear distributed parameter model.  相似文献   

Patterns of diffusion of electronics technologies: An international comparison with special reference to the Italian case     

Fabio Arcangeli 《Research Policy》1991,20(6)

The paper analyzes the patterns of diffusion of information- and microelectronics-based production technologies in Western Europe, USA and Japan. The evidence suggests asymmetries in both levels and rates of changes in their adoptions between the three areas and within Europe itself, with little support to any hypothesis of long-term convergence among these regional and national patterns.Some suggestions on why diffusion rates differ are then examined together with the likely consequences on the patterns of competitiveness.  相似文献   

The Relative Age Effect Among Female Brazilian Youth Volleyball Players     

Fabio H.A. Okazaki  Birgit Keller  Fabio E. Fontana  Jere D. Gallagher 《Research quarterly for exercise and sport》2013,84(1):135-139

  相似文献   

Twitter Use During TV: A Full-Season Analysis of #serviziopubblico Hashtag     

Luca Rossi  Fabio Giglietto 《广播与电子媒介杂志》2016,60(2):331-346

Several recent reports pointed out how the practice of using a “second screen” while following a television program is becoming an increasingly widespread phenomenon. When the secondary device is used to read or to comment about a watched program, most of the discussion takes place on popular social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Previous research has shown that the analysis of these contents could lead to a better understanding of the behavior of networked publics and of the structure of the show itself. Nevertheless most of the existing research is focused on the content only and focused on a single episode analysis or on big media events. Leveraging this background, this article presents instead a study focused on the relationships between content and users across an entire airing season of a TV program. Through a quantitative network analysis of the tweets produced during 25 episodes of the Italian political talks show Servizio Pubblico, we identified a small loyal group of viewers. Despite the differences in quantity of content produced, the loyal viewers do not show any sign of forming a community-like structure. We also performed a qualitative analysis of the tweets produced during one specific episode and discussed the elements of the TV show that generated the higher level of engagement on Twitter.  相似文献   

Effects of beliefs about meaning construction and task instructions on interpretation of narrative text     

Lucia Mason  Fabio Scirica  Laura Salvi 《Contemporary educational psychology》2006,31(4):411-437

Two dimensions of students’ beliefs about meaning construction in reading processes, transmission and transaction beliefs, were studied. According to transmission beliefs, the reader’s task is to understand the author’s intended meaning, while transaction beliefs assign to the reader the role of active meaning constructor. Students’ beliefs were ascertained by means of a questionnaire (Schraw, 2000), and the effects of these beliefs on narrative text comprehension and interpretation were examined. The first study, involving 52 students in grade 11, showed that transaction beliefs positively affected text interpretation in the form of personal and thematic responses. Study 2, involving 202 students in grades 7 and 11, revealed the influence of transaction beliefs on text comprehension, thematic, and personal interpretative responses, and overall meaning construction. It also showed the positive effects of giving specific rather than generic instructions for the interpretative task. Moreover, grade level significantly affected text comprehension and interpretation. Finally, differences in student performances were also related to the type of high school they were enrolled in.  相似文献   

An electromyographic comparison of a modified version of the plank with a long lever and posterior tilt versus the traditional plank exercise     

Brad J. Schoenfeld  Bret Contreras  Gul Tiryaki-Sonmez  Jeffrey M. Willardson  Fabio Fontana 《Sports biomechanics / International Society of Biomechanics in Sports》2014,13(3):296-306

The purpose of the study was to compare core muscle activation of the tradition prone plank with a modified version performed with a long-lever and posterior-tilt using surface electromyography. To further determine if a specific component of this modified plank was more effective than the other in enhancing muscle activity, the plank with a long lever and the plank with a posterior pelvic tilt were studied individually. Nineteen participants performed all four variations of the plank for 30 seconds in a randomized order with 5-minute rest between exercise bouts. Compared to the traditional prone plank, the long-lever posterior-tilt plank displayed a significantly increased activation of the upper rectus abdominis (p < 0.001), lower abdominal stabilizers (p < 0.001), and external oblique (p < 0.001). The long-lever plank showed significantly greater activity compared to the traditional plank in the upper rectus abdominis (p = 0.015) and lower abdominal stabilizers (p < 0.001), while the posterior tilt plank elicited greater activity in the external oblique (p = 0.028). In conclusion, the long-lever posterior-tilt plank significantly increases muscle activation compared to the traditional prone plank. The long-lever component tends to contribute more to these differences than the posterior-tilt component.  相似文献   

Analysis of the distance covered by Brazilian professional futsal players during official matches     

Murilo José De Oliveira Bueno  Fabio Giuliano Caetano  Tiago Julio Costa Pereira  Nicolau Melo De Souza  Gustavo Damasceno Moreira  FáBIO Yuzo Nakamura 《Sports biomechanics / International Society of Biomechanics in Sports》2014,13(3):230-240

The purpose of this study was to measure and characterise the distances covered by Brazilian professional futsal players. The trajectories of 93 players during five matches were obtained using an automatic tracking method. The distances covered were analysed for different game conditions: over the entire game and during the times when the ball was out of play and in play separately. When the entire game was considered, the results showed that there was a reduction in the total distance covered per minute from the first [median ± IQR (interquartile range): 97.9 ± 16.2 m/min] to the second half (median = 90.3 m/min; IQR = 12.0), and when only the in-play time was considered (first half: 136.6 ± 17.2 m/min; second half: 129.2 ± 16.7 m/min). The percentage of distance covered in the standing and walking velocity range was higher in the second half than in the first when considering the entire game (30.8% and 28.0%, respectively) and during the in-play time (19.3% and 16.2%, respectively). In conclusion, this study verified that futsal players reduced the physical performance during the second half.  相似文献