Essays on Atypicality: A narrative perspective to illuminate how atypical actors can counter the disciplining effect of categories

Using Big Data and Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools, this dissertation investigates the narrative strategies that atypical actors can leverage to deal with the adverse reactions they often elicit. Extensive research shows that atypical actors, those who fail to abide by established contextual standards and norms, are subject to skepticism and face a higher risk of rejection. Indeed, atypical actors combine features and behaviors in unconventional ways, thereby generating confusion in the audience and instilling doubts about their propositions' legitimacy. However, the same atypicality is often cited as the precursor to socio-cultural innovation and a strategic act to expand the capacity for delivering valued goods and services. Contextualizing the conditions under which atypicality is celebrated or punished has been a significant theoretical challenge for scholars interested in reconciling this tension. Nevertheless, prior work has focused on audience side factors or on actor-side characteristics that are only scantily under an actor's control (e.g., status and reputation). This dissertation demonstrates that atypical actors can use strategically crafted narratives to mitigate against the audience’s negative response. In particular, when atypical actors evoke conventional features in their story, they are more likely to overcome the illegitimacy discount usually applied to them. Moreover, narratives become successful navigational devices for atypicality when atypical actors use a more abstract language. This simplifies classification and provides the audience with more flexibility to interpret and understand them.

The phenomenological experiences of Autobiographical Memory: A cross-sectional and a longitudinal study

Phenomenology is a critical component of autobiographical memory retrieval. Some memories are vivid and rich in sensory details whereas others are faded; some memories are experienced as emotionally intense whereas others are not. Sutin and Robins (2007) identified 10 dimensions in which a memory may vary—i.e., Vividness, Coherence, Accessibility, Sensory Details, Emotional Intensity, Visual Perspective, Time Perspective, Sharing, Distancing, and Valence—and developed a comprehensive psychometrically sound measure of memory phenomenology, the Memory Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ). Phenomenology has been linked to underlining stable dispositions—i.e. personality, as well as to a variety of positive/negative psychological outcomes—well-being and life satisfaction, depression and anxiety, among others. Using the MEQ, a cross-sectional and a longitudinal study were conducted on a large sample of American and Italian adults. In both studies, participants retrieved two ‘key’ personal memories, a Turning Point and a Childhood Memory, and rated the affect and phenomenology of each memory. Participants also completed self-reported measures of personality (i.e. Neuroticism and Conscientiousness), and measures of depression, well-being and life satisfaction. The present research showed that phenomenological ratings tend (a) to cross-sectionally increase across adulthood (Study 1), and (b) to be moderately stable over time, regardless the contents of the memories (Study 2). Interrelations among memory phenomenology, personality and psychological outcome variables were also examined (Study 1 and Study 2). In particular, autobiographical memory phenomenology was proposed as a dynamic expression of personality functioning that partially explains adaptive/maladaptive psychological outcomes. In fact, the findings partially supported the hypothesized mediating effect of phenomenology on the personality association with psychological outcomes. Implications of the findings are discussed proposing future lines of research. In particular, the need for more longitudinal studies is highlighted, along with the combined application of both self-report questionnaires and narrative measures.

Wireless solutions for the industrial internet of things

The fourth industrial revolution is paving the way for Industrial Internet of Things applications where industrial assets (e.g., robotic arms, valves, pistons) are equipped with a large number of wireless devices (i.e., microcontroller boards that embed sensors and actuators) to enable a plethora of new applications, such as analytics, diagnostics, monitoring, as well as supervisory, and safety control use-cases. Nevertheless, current wireless technologies, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and even private 5G networks, cannot fulfill all the requirements set up by the Industry 4.0 paradigm, thus opening up new 6G-oriented research trends, such as the use of THz frequencies. In light of the above, this thesis provides (i) a broad overview of the main use-cases, requirements, and key enabling wireless technologies foreseen by the fourth industrial revolution, and (ii) proposes innovative contributions, both theoretical and empirical, to enhance the performance of current and future wireless technologies at different levels of the protocol stack. In particular, at the physical layer, signal processing techniques are being exploited to analyze two multiplexing schemes, namely Affine Frequency Division Multiplexing and Orthogonal Chirp Division Multiplexing, which seem promising for high-frequency wireless communications. At the medium access layer, three protocols for intra-machine communications are proposed, where one is based on LoRa at 2.4 GHz and the others work in the THz band. Different scheduling algorithms for private industrial 5G networks are compared, and two main proposals are described, i.e., a decentralized scheme that leverages machine learning techniques to better address aperiodic traffic patterns, and a centralized contention-based design that serves a federated learning industrial application. Results are provided in terms of numerical evaluations, simulation results, and real-world experiments. Several improvements over the state-of-the-art were obtained, and the description of up-and-running testbeds demonstrates the feasibility of some of the theoretical concepts when considering a real industry plant.

Investigating the learning potential of the Second Quantum Revolution: development of an approach for secondary school students

In recent years we have witnessed important changes: the Second Quantum Revolution is in the spotlight of many countries, and it is creating a new generation of technologies. To unlock the potential of the Second Quantum Revolution, several countries have launched strategic plans and research programs that finance and set the pace of research and development of these new technologies (like the Quantum Flagship, the National Quantum Initiative Act and so on). The increasing pace of technological changes is also challenging science education and institutional systems, requiring them to help to prepare new generations of experts. This work is placed within physics education research and contributes to the challenge by developing an approach and a course about the Second Quantum Revolution. The aims are to promote quantum literacy and, in particular, to value from a cultural and educational perspective the Second Revolution. The dissertation is articulated in two parts. In the first, we unpack the Second Quantum Revolution from a cultural perspective and shed light on the main revolutionary aspects that are elevated to the rank of principles implemented in the design of a course for secondary school students, prospective and in-service teachers. The design process and the educational reconstruction of the activities are presented as well as the results of a pilot study conducted to investigate the impact of the approach on students' understanding and to gather feedback to refine and improve the instructional materials. The second part consists of the exploration of the Second Quantum Revolution as a context to introduce some basic concepts of quantum physics. We present the results of an implementation with secondary school students to investigate if and to what extent external representations could play any role to promote students’ understanding and acceptance of quantum physics as a personal reliable description of the world.