Giacomo Buonanno

This paper explores the implementation of Game-Based Learning (GBL) in higher education, with a particular focus on the dual role of students as developers and players of educational games. In particular, the study investigates the extent to which GBL leverages intrinsic motivation, fosters engagement, consolidates prior knowledge, and cultivates essential 21st-century skills in undergraduate students that designed, developed, and played interactive digital gamebooks on STEM disciplines. A mixed method based on surveys and focus groups was leveraged to assess the diverse learning outcomes and the educational impact of the project. Findings highlightsthat theGBL approach significantly increased student engagement, fostered deeper learning in IT-related skills, and provided valuable experiences in competences such as project management and teamwork. However, the integration of advanced academic content in Mathematics and Statistics was perceived as less effective, posing challenges to knowledge acquisition and consolidation. This study shows that while GBL is highly effective in promoting motivation and skill development, further refinement is needed to align content complexity with learning objectives.

This paper presents an agent-based model (ABM) of a sustainability game in which each agent is powered by a Large Language Model (LLM). The simulation model explores how LLM-based agents manage the tension between short-term competitive advantage and long-term ecological sustainability. By embedding agents in a resource-constrained environment—featuring renewable and non-renewable assets, military conflict, and shared environmental limits—the paper investigates whether and under what conditions LLMs can adopt sustainable behaviors. Several experimental scenarios are evaluated with different strategies endowed to agents, also varying the number of agents, the connectivity of the relationship network and forecast length. Results show that LLM agents can more likely achieve sustainable collective outcomes when unguided or when provided with explicitly sustainable strategies. Also, explicit strategies significantly influence system dynamics—occasionally leading to ecological collapse or aggressive domination. Findings suggest that even shallow behavioral priors can steer LLM-based agents toward or away from sustainability, and that tests of this kind may serve as valuable tools for assessing alignment and coordination in multi-agent LLM systems. Moreover, the results provide insight to confirm that LLM-enhanced ABMs could be used in sustainability issues.

Visual objects made of multiple views, e.g., dashboards and small multiples, are taking the scene in information communication and visual patterns design, but still vague are the studies that try to abstract away from characterizing them at the level of their single charts, and rather focus on their structural characteristics and the resulting interactions with their multi-view ensemble seen as a whole. In this paper, we are proposing this unified view through a multi-dimensional wheel, on the strand of Cairo’s wheel made for infographics, devised for the identification, the analysis, and the evaluation of design patterns for multiple views.

Castiglione D'Adda is one of the municipalities more precociously and severely affected by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic in Lombardy. With our study we aimed to understand the diffusion of the infection by mass serological screening. We searched for SARS-CoV-2 IgGs in the entire population on a voluntary basis using lateral flow immunochromatographic tests (RICT) on capillary blood (rapid tests). We then performed chemioluminescent serological assays (CLIA) and naso-pharyngeal swabs (NPS) in a randomized representative sample and in each subject with a positive rapid test. Factors associated with RICT IgG positivity were assessed by uni- and multivariate logistic regression models. Out of the 4143 participants, 918 (22·2%) showed RICT IgG positivity. In multivariable analysis, IgG positivity increases with age, with a significant non-linear effect (p = 0·0404). We found 22 positive NPSs out of the 1330 performed. Albeit relevant, the IgG prevalence is lower than expected and suggests that a large part of the population remains susceptible to the infection. The observed differences in prevalence might reflect a different infection susceptibility by age group. A limited persistence of active infections could be found after several weeks after the epidemic peak in the area.

Nel contesto delle scienze sociali, e delle scienze organizzative in particolare, il ruolo della valutazione è riconosciuto come centrale, ma spesso è difficile definire quale rapporto intercorre tra l'operazione della valutazione e il concetto di misurazione. Rimane quindi il problema di identificare quali sono le condizioni che consentono di caratterizzare appropriatamente una valutazione come una misurazione. Questo tema è particolarmente sentito nel settore pubblico la cui complessità derivante dal tipo di processi di produzione dei servizi svolti, dall'assenza di mercato e dal forte influenzamento di valutazioni politiche rende particolarmente complessa l'attività di misurazione oggettiva dei risultati. Tant'è che nel settore pubblico è esperienza diffusa non solo l'enorme difficoltà di avere un sistema di misurazione delle performance considerato soddisfacente, ma anche il fatto che si tenda a tenere separate l'attività di misurazione dei risultati da quella di loro valutazione ai fini dell'apprezzamento della performance sia organizzativa che individuale. La norma stessa (art. 7, d.lgs. 150/2009) sancisce la separazione dei due termini (misurazione e valutazione) laddove la prima afferisce alla performance organizzativa, cioè i risultati riferiti alle strutture organizzative, mentre la seconda (valutazione) attiene alla performance individuale intesa come contributo dato da un singolo operatore al raggiungimento degli obbiettivi. Tutto questo armamentario normativo e logico in un contesto produttivo particolarmente complesso ha creato una cultura organizzativa che tende a non dare un efficace riconoscimento al tema della misurazione, spesso considerata troppo complessa da adottare. Sulla misurazione di conseguenza gli enti pubblici investono poco limitandosi spesso a rilevare semplicemente le attività svolte, preferendo l'adozione di valutazioni soggettive basate su stime e giudizi eventualmente condivisi tra gli interessati, ma purtroppo spesso incomprensibili dagli stakeholder. In questo lavoro si propone un'analisi di questo problema e si discute circa la sua applicabilità al caso della valutazione/misurazione delle competenze.

Advanced manufacturing technologies such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) are rapidly revolutionizing business processes within European and Italian SMEs. A clear example is represented by the success of 3D printers that are achieving a huge impact on the market from both the companies and the customers’ point of view. This paper aims at investigating how manufacturing and logistic processes have changed drastically in the last years according to the introduction of the above-mentioned advanced manufacturing technologies. Recent academic literature is focusing on the integration of any advanced technology with other infrastructures and technologies already implemented in a company. By considering 3D printing adoption, both in the product design and in the production management processes, it turns out to be necessary a proper integration with other technologies such as the software used to design a product (CAD) and the manufacturing control cameras adopted to control the production process. At the same time, a proper strategic alignment has to be assured between the implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies and the company innovation strategy. Consistency and coherence among all the strategic decisions must be guaranteed in order to create and increase the company business value. Furthermore, the acquisition of new assets, either tangible (e.g. 3D printers) or intangible (e.g. know how), has to be properly integrated with other tangible and intangible resources in order to combine them in the best way, so that the goal of gaining a sustainable competitive advantage would be reached.

Although the Business Model (BM) concept provides a convenient unit of analysis in the business practices, BM research in the Information Systems (IS) field emphasizes blurriness and divergences in its structure. With this paper we provide a clarification of the BM concept and update Al-debei and Avison analysis on the BM literature. Using a structured methodology, we review the titles and the abstracts of 108 articles from IS literature and examine a significant subset of 49 articles. Our work contributes first, to formalize the concept of BM as instanced in IS domain and organizes BM studies around two different frameworks. Second, it highlights the BM research streams and their current states of the art. Last, it discusses the current limitations of the BM studies and offers the basis for future research.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) pervasiveness is changing the visitors’ expectation in the fruition of cultural heritage assets (e.g. artefacts, buildings, monuments). While owners of such assets have to face new challenges in the protection, conservation, management and active promotion of places they are responsible for, pervasive ICT systems (e.g. mobile devices and the Internet-of-Things) show significant opportunities as facilitators of innovative ways to engage visitors and measure their experience during the visit. New ICT based tools enable new data-driven business models that effectively aid the sustainable revitalization and valorization of Cultural Heritage. This paper aims at investigating how cultural heritage owners could digitalize the visiting process, measure the engagement of visitors with digital tools and turn data collected during the visits into value for their business model. In particular, results achieved by the AMAmI (Ancient and Modern, Ambient Intelligence) Project will be presented: a multi-site real world experimentation of the adoption of digital tools (proximity technologies, mobile, sensors, user-location-based content delivery platforms and big data analytics systems) to deliver an Ambient Intelligence enabled user experience and thus strengthen the management policies of cultural heritage assets. Two case studies with different management model and physical environment will be discussed and compared: MAGA Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art sited in Gallarate and Masnago Castle Museum of Modern Art sited in Varese.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) pervasiveness is changing the visitors’ expectation in the fruition of cultural heritage assets(e.g. artefacts, buildings, monuments). While owners of such assets have to face new challenges in the protection, conservation, management and active promotion of places they are responsible for, pervasive ICT systems (e.g. mobile devices and the Internet-of-Things) show significant opportunities as facilitators of innovative ways to engage visitors and measure their experience during the visit. New ICT based tools enable new data-driven business models that effectively aid the sustainable revitalization and valorization of Cultural Heritage. This paper aims at investigating how cultural heritage owners could digitalize the visiting process, measure the engagement of visitors with digital tools and turn data collected during the visits into value for their business model. In particular, results achieved by the AMAmI (Ancient and Modern, Ambient Intelligence) Project will be presented: a multisite real world experimentation of the adoption of digital tools (proximity technologies, mobile, sensors, user-location-based content delivery platforms and big data analytics systems) to deliver an Ambient Intelligence enabled user experience and thus strengthen the management policies of cultural heritage assets. Two case studies with different management model and physical environment will be discussed and compared: MAGA Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art sited in Gallarate and Masnago Castle Museum of Modern Art sited in Varese.