Measurement invariance of the driving inattention scale (ARDES) across 7 countries

The Attention-Related Driving Errors Scale (ARDES) is a self-report measure of individual differences in driving inattention. ARDES was originally developed in Spanish (Argentina), and later adapted to other countries and languages. Evidence supporting the reliability and validity of ARDES scores has been obtained in various different...

Integrating resilience in the multi-hazard sustainable design of buildings

Recent natural disasters and climate change-induced extremes emphasize the urgent need to enhance the overall resilience of society by addressing the various hazards that buildings may face. Current design approaches recognize the need for integrated risk assessments, but studies primarily focus on existing buildings and single hazards,...

Influence of the anchorage shear hysteresis on the seismic response of nonstructural components in RC buildings

This article presents a numerical study on the influence of the anchorage shear hysteresis on the seismic response of nonstructural components (NSC) connected to multi-storey reinforced concrete (RC) buildings, and of the anchorage itself. To cover a variety of different types of shear hysteresis shapes, this contribution considered the...

Seismic assessment and finite element modeling of traditional vs innovative point fixed glass facade systems (PFGFS)

In the last decades, recent earthquakes have further highlighted the high vulnerability of non-structural components. Post-earthquake damage due to building envelope, equipment and building contents can lead to substantial economic losses in terms of repair costs and daily activity interruption (downtime). Moreover, non-structural damage can...

Raising the bar in seismic design: cost–benefit analysis of alternative design methodologies and earthquake-resistant technologies

The severe socio-economic impact of recent earthquakes has represented a tough reality check, further confirming the mismatch between society expectations and reality of seismic performance of modern buildings. Life-safety code-compliant design criteria are not enough when dealing with new structures. To raise the bar in terms of structural...

Scalable Safe Policy Improvement via Monte Carlo Tree Search

Algorithms for safely improving policies are important to deploy reinforcement learning approaches in real-world scenarios. In this work, we propose an algorithm, called MCTS-SPIBB, that computes safe policy improvement online using a Monte Carlo Tree Search based strategy. We theoretically prove that the policy generated by MCTS-SPIBB...

Impact of earthquakes vs. heat waves on the socioeconomic losses of buildings

Recent earthquakes have confirmed the vulnerability of our built environment, resulting in significant socio-economic losses, market disruptions, and environmental damage. Additionally, climate change is causing more frequent and severe weather-related events such as heat waves, which are impacting the construction sector...

Framing the multifaceted nature of design thinking in addressing different innovation purposes

Scholars and practitioners acknowledge the role of design, and specifically design thinking, as a driver of innovation and change. Design thinking is gaining attention in the business community beyond the traditional product innovation realm and is increasingly promoted as an engine for the creation of novel user experiences, new businesses,...

A Framework and Tool for Knowledge-Based Seismic Risk Assessment of School Buildings: SLaMA-School

When dealing with seismic risk assessment at a large scale, the collection of relevant building data is still deemed a challenging task, often leading to limited building knowledge and, consequently, high uncertainties. Therefore, innovative yet standardized frameworks and adaptive tools are needed to support the seismic risk assessment of...

The Distributed Dual Ascent Algorithm is Robust to Asynchrony

The distributed dual ascent is an established algorithm to solve strongly convex multi-agent optimization problems with separable cost functions, in the presence of coupling constraints. In this letter, we study its asynchronous counterpart. Specifically, we assume that each agent only relies on the outdated information received from some...

Fast generalized Nash equilibrium seeking under partial-decision information

We address the generalized Nash equilibrium seeking problem in a partial-decision information scenario, where each agent can only exchange information with some neighbors, although its cost function possibly depends on the strategies of all agents. The few existing methods build on projected pseudo-gradient dynamics, and require either double...

A probabilistic-based framework for the integrated assessment of seismic and energy economic losses of buildings

Structural safety and environmental sustainability are major factors in investment decisions for building systems, but are rarely considered simultaneously. Recent research efforts have redressed this by developing assessment methodologies and technical solutions for integrated energy efficiency and seismic performance. These studies are...

Understanding Human Manipulation with the Environment: A Novel Taxonomy for Video Labelling

In recent years, the spread of data-driven approaches for robotic grasp synthesis has come with the increasing need for reliable datasets, which can be built e.g. through video labelling. To this goal, it is important to define suitable rules to characterize the main human grasp types, for easily identifying them in video streams. In this...

Fully distributed Nash equilibrium seeking over time-varying communication networks with linear convergence rate

We design a distributed algorithm for learning Nash equilibria over time-varying communication networks in a partial-decision information scenario, where each agent can access its own cost function and local feasible set, but can only observe the actions of some neighbors. Our algorithm is based on projected pseudo-gradient dynamics, augmented...

Continuous-time fully distributed generalized Nash equilibrium seeking for multi-integrator agents

We consider strongly monotone games with convex separable coupling constraints, played by dynamical agents, in a partial-decision information scenario. We start by designing continuous-time fully distributed feedback controllers, based on consensus and primal–dual gradient dynamics, to seek a generalized Nash equilibrium in networks of single...

Large-scale stochastic flood hazard analysis applied to the Po River

Reliable hazard analysis is crucial in the flood risk management of river basins. For the floodplains of large, developed rivers, flood hazard analysis often needs to account for the complex hydrology of multiple tributaries and the potential failure of dikes. Estimating this hazard using deterministic methods ignores two major aspects of...

Control Architecture for Human-Like Motion With Applications to Articulated Soft Robots

Human beings can achieve a high level of motor performance that is still unmatched in robotic systems. These capabilities can be ascribed to two main enabling factors: (i) the physical proprieties of human musculoskeletal system, and (ii) the effectiveness of the control operated by the central nervous system. Regarding point (i), the...