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Conferees representing 49 2-year colleges and the National Faculty Association of Junior and Community Colleges were asked to discuss the following topics: (1) recruitment, orientation, and preparation of 2-year college teachers; (2) evaluation of teaching; (3) new teaching methods and strategies, and (4) faculty involvement in academic governance. The latter two topics were left undeveloped, but two orientation models and one evaluation model were presented. Only the evaluation model is attached to the report. The conferees resolved that the two undeveloped topics of this conference be the basic concern of the 1969 conference, and recommended the following to AAJC: (1) establish a "clearinghouse" for private 2-year colleges at the national level, e.g., a column in the Junior College Journal; (2) establish an office with 2-year college faculty concerns as principal interest; (3) increase circulation of the Junior College Journal and coverage of the needs of 2-year college faculty. (MC)

Objective: Heart failure is a chronic, progressive clinical syndrome with an unpredictable trajectory and difficult prognosis. In 2012, the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia was appointed pilot leader of a European-funded project for ICT-supported integrated care addressed to European frail citizens, to test the viability and evaluate the impact of health and social care integrated services through an extensive deployment program involving 23 European regions. Methods: Cohort, prospective, randomized study with 1:1 intervention vs. usual care ratio (200 total users) Medical sensor devices and environmental sensors all contribute to keeping end-users safely at home. Integrated, real-time access to the platform allows for integration of clinical and social data. Help-desk and Contact Centre staff, provide 24/7 monitoring of alarms, as well as support to adherence and social inclusion. Results: The European project is planned to end as of December 31st, 2015. While final results are pending, focus groups, case studies and qualitative interviews show that Smart Care integrated platform is being perceived as possibly facilitating person-centred supportive care by streamlining services, allowing for updated information sharing, and providing empowerment to patients, families and professionals alike. Comments and conclusion: Integrated ICT-supported care may successfully complement chronic care pathways for complex cardiac patients. However, in-depth quanti/qualitative data analysis will have to be carried out to understand whether the benefits in terms of work overload and economic costs are such as to allow for costly technical and organizational choices. Supportive pathways need to build on actual integrated team work experience and leadership. GPs’ roles, responsibilities and economic incentives need to be clearly defined in order to make integration viable and sustainable in the long run. Nurses may play an important role in the coordination and monitoring of services but workloads and responsibilities require clear definition and assessment. Training and education need to be carefully planned and steadily monitored to maintain retention and support stakeholders’ empowerment. Integrated ICT-supported care should always be utilized within a beehive-integrated person-centred model to enhance the quality of IT-supported health and social care interventions which cannot and should not replace personal and social interactions.

Road roughness represents a key parameter in pavement management systems as it affects driver’s riding comfort, pavement performance and Vehicle Operating Costs. Ride quality is related to in-vehicle vibration that, in turn, is dependent on the level of road roughness, on the speed chosen by the driver and on the inertial and mechanical characteristics of the vehicles. Several studies have highlighted that, under certain conditions, driver may be induced to vary his speed in order to reach an acceptable in-vehicle vibration level according to his subjective exposure threshold. In this paper, a further contribution on this issue is presented. A dynamic driving simulator (DDS) employing a real car fixed on a 6 degrees of freedom motion platform is currently operating at the TEST Laboratory in Naples. The DDS system is able to reproduce most of the accelerations the occupants feel, in particular those arising from turning and braking maneuvers and from dynamic interaction with pavement surface singular irregularities. A team of researchers from University of Naples “Federico II”, Second University of Naples, University of Cassino (and the Oktal Company) have improved the system allowing the implementation of a module simulating vehicle vibrations induced by distributed irregularities. In this paper, the development of the vibration simulation module and the results from preliminary experimental calibration procedures are briefly reported. The initial outcomes of the performed tests seem to fairly agree with similar published results derived from technical literature

Il dimensionamento degli smorzatori a massa accordata per le strutture soggette all'azione del vento viene di solito effettuato in base alle informazioni disponibili in fase di progetto, e considerando un'azione esterna alquanto semplificata. Ciò può essere fonte di notevoli errori nell'ottimizzazione delle proprietà meccaniche dei dispositivi, tanto per l'incertezza che vi è sui parametri strutturali quanto per le semplificazioni introdotte nel modello di calcolo. Di seguito viene proposto, ed in un lavoro parallelo applicato, un criterio di ottimizzazione delle proprietà degli smorzatori a massa accordata che utilizza le informazioni ricavabili mediante l'acquisizione della risposta strutturale. Il criterio può essere utilizzato per aggiornare le proprietà meccaniche correnti dello smorzatore al fine di migliorarne le prestazioni, Tuned Mass Dampers for wind excited structures are usually designed based on the information available in the design stage, and with a very simple pattern of excitation. This can bring to considerable errors in the optimisation of the TMD's properties due to both the uncertainties on the system parameters and the roughness of the model. In the following a criterion for the optimisation of the mechanical properties of TMDs based on the information drawn through the acquisition of the structural response will be presented and in a companion paper applied. The criterion can be used to improve the performance of the TMD by modifying its properties.