Intergenerational transmission of dietary habits among Italian children and adolescents.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between parental dietary habits and child and adolescent diet quality in Italy by adopting a parent-child perspective. We apply quantile regression modelling to an original database developed within the DEDIPAC knowledge hub, integrating multiple sources of information on the aspects of Italian households' daily lives, food consumption frequency, and calorie intake. Given the relevance of maternal care in shaping children's eating patterns, we focus on mothers' lifestyles and time-use. Results show that the intergenerational transmission of diet quality is a gendered process, especially involving mothers and their daughters. Our findings also highlight the pivotal role schools play in the fight against child malnutrition and indicate that, contrary to what is found in the international research literature, maternal employment is not correlated with a deterioration in their children's diet quality.

Ergonomics and design for all.

The paper deals with research areas and actions thanks to which the theoretical and methodological content of the "Ergonomics in Design" project can give a concrete contribution to the "Design for All" project, in particular with regards to the assessment and design of environments, the design of everyday products.

Experimenting new design languages in contemporary home design.

The changes in society at the beginning of this millennium are giving rise to deep transformations in the behavioural trends and tastes of home users, as well as in their lifestyles and consumption patterns. This opens up a wide range of opportunities for innovation within the context of contemporary home design. Due to the emergence of new user profiles, new needs and models are coming to the attention of designers and manufacturing companies. Just think about the new needs resulting from the changing composition of households, new forms of cohabitation and the contemporary multi-ethnic society.

The Intermodal Bike: multi-modal integration of cycling mobility through product and process innovations in bicycle design.

The paper presents the early results of the UE-FP7 project "The Intermodal Bike". The research aim is to provide a super-compactable, super-lightweight folding bicycle as a realistic solution to graft the cycling mode onto the root of the public or private transportation systems. The folding bikes now on the international market reach weighs between 12-15 kg, with a variable footprint but occupying -when compacted- an average volume of about 100 liters. To encourage the use of this vehicle and to extend it to a larger number of users with different characteristics, the research project has set its goal in increasing as possible compactness and light weight, creating a bicycle with a volume when compacted of 20 liters (reduction factor =5), with a shape of 48 × 36 × 12 cm and a weight of 5 kg. max., ensuring stability and improving vehicle usability and efficiency, during the ride and in the phase of bike folding. To achieve this goal ergonomic and usability tests have been carried out. The tests allowed to find a posture that would ensure efficiency and comfort in the ride to as many users as possible. Parallel tests were made on the vehicle usability in the urban transport system and intermodal. The need for light weight has required special studies on the optimization of the vehicle's architecture and research on super-lightweight materials.

Ergonomics and sustainability in the design of everyday use products.

The relationship between Ergonomics and Design is a key element in the sustainability project, as well as in many other areas of experimental design. In the Design for Sustainability field, Ergonomics is a strategic factor for design culture innovation, providing designers with the necessary knowledge and skills regarding human characteristics and capabilities, as well as user needs and desires during use and interaction with products in work activities and everyday life. Ergonomics is also a strategic innovative factor in design development and manufacturing processes. In fact, ergonomics provides a methodological approach in user-product interaction evaluation processes through the use of participatory design and survey methods, user trials, direct observation, savings and resource conservation, etc.On the other hand, design offers solutions able to interpret user needs and expectations, at the same time suggesting new behaviors and lifestyles.In Design for Sustainability, the ergonomic and user-centered approach contributes greatly to lifestyles and innovative use of products--making it possible to understand and interpret real people needs and expectations in their everyday actions and behavior.New consumption patterns, new awareness of lifestyles, energy source consumption, purchasing methods and consumption style etc. can be supported by design innovation, responding to expressed and unexpressed user needs. With this in mind, the ergonomic approach represents the starting point for design choices and at the same time, a tool for assessing their appropriateness and effectiveness.