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A new testing device for the role of the trunk in force production and in balance control in disabled sitting athletes
No full textBridging the gap across scales: Coupling CFD and MD/GCMC in polyurethane foam simulation
No full textThis work presents a multi-scale approach to reacting and expanding polyurethane (PU) foams modeling and simulation. The modeling strategy relies on two pillars: an atomistic model (molecular dynamics (MD)/Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC)) that provides liquid mixture density and reactant solubility and a continuum model (CFD) in which the expansion characteristics of the foam is modeled exploiting the results of the atomistic simulations. The resulting coupled model is validated for two different PU systems applied in four batches with chemical and physical blowing agents. The results demonstrate the efficacy and reliability of the developed model in the simulation of different PU foam properties such as apparent density and temperature evolutions
Surface EMG patterns for quantification of thigh muscle co-contraction in school-age children: Normative data during walking
No full textAbstractMuscle co-contractions are particularly relevant in analyzing children pathologies. To interpret surface electromyography (sEMG) in pathological conditions, reliable normative data in non-pathological children are required for direct comparison. Aim of the study was the quantification of co-contraction activity between quadriceps femoris (QF) and hamstring muscles during walking in healthy children. To this aim, Statistical gait analysis was performed on sEMG signals from rectus femoris (RF), vastus medialis (VM), and lateral hamstrings (LH), in 16401 strides walked by 100 healthy school-age children. Co-contractions were assessed as overlapping period between activation intervals of considered muscles. Results showed full superimpositions of LH with both RF and VL activity from terminal swing, 80-100% of gait cycle, to successive loading response (0-15% of gait cycle), in around 90% of strides, as reported in adults. This indicates that children regularly use a cocontraction activity between QF and hamstring muscles in weight acceptance during walking, supporting the hypothesis of a regulatory role of co-contraction in providing knee joint stability. Concomitant activity of QF and hamstring muscles was detected also during push-off phase (30-50% of gait cycle), showing a large variability intra and inter subjects and a lower occurrence frequency (around 25% of strides). This could be intended for controlling rapid knee flexion and/or stabilizing pelvis during body progression. Present findings represent the first attempt to provide normative sEMG dataset on variability of QF and hamstring muscles co-contractions during child walking, useful for discriminating physiological and pathological behavior and for designing future studies on maturation of gait
Inclusion complexes dispersed in polystyrene-based labels for fruit ripening on demand
No full textIn this work, the inclusion complexes of α-cyclodextrin and ethylene were prepared by molecular encapsulation and then dispersed into a polystyrene film by solvent casting to produce active polymeric labels. These labels were produced to control ripening of fruit directly in the food container as an alternative to the injection of ethylene into thermo-regulated chambers. The samples were characterised, and the ethylene release was found to be dependent on temperature and relative humidity in the atmosphere. Finally, experimental data were used to simulate a realistic scenario of fruit ripening into a food container, showing the possibility to trigger ripening with the active label within 2 days. Polystyrene/inclusion complex labels showed in situ release of ethylene, potentially able to trigger ripening of fruit in a food container within desired time, reducing costs in the supply chain and postharvest losses
Novara, il Castello Visconteo - Sforzesco e l'intervento di Paolo Zermani
No full textIl castello Visconteo-Sforzesco di Novara oltre il restauro. L'intervento di restauro e rifunzionalizzazione curato da Paolo Zermani restituisce alla collettività un bene la cui visibilità è rinnovata anche attraverso una singolare lettura del palinsesto storico
Reliability and Accuracy of Seismic Tests in Geotechnical Site Characterization
No full textGeophysical surveys, and specifically seismic tests, provide powerful tools for geotechnical site investigation. Indeed, they cover the whole range of soils and rocks, independently of particle size, and provide data in the natural state for the characterization at different scales. Assessment of the reliability of the most popular techniques is therefore of primary importance for static and seismic applications. This chapter reports some data from recent experiments devoted to reliability assessment at some reference sites, where intra-method and inter-method variability has been studied. The propagation of the measured uncertainties in soil porosity assessment and seismic ground response analyses is also considered to provide an insight on the consequences in the practice of geotechnical engineering
A literature review of powder-based electron beam melting focusing on numerical simulations
No full textThe Electron Beam Melting (EBM) process is an additive manufacturing process in which an electron beam melts metallic powders to obtain the geometry of a specific part. The use of an electron beam in the AM field is relatively recent. Numerous applications have already been made in the aerospace and medical fields, in which the EBM process is used to produce complex parts, made of an excellent quality material, for which other technologies would be expensive or difficult to apply. Because of the growing interest of industry in this technology, the research community has been dedicating a great deal of effort to making the EBM process more reliable. The modelling of the EBM process is considered of utmost importance as it could help to reduce the process optimisation time, compared with the trial and error approach, which is currently the most widely used method. From this point of view, the aim of this paper has been to provide a literature review of numerical simulation models of the EBM process. The various studies on numerical modelling are presented in detail. These studies are mainly classified according to the level of approximation introduced into the modelling methodology. The simulations have first been categorised according to the powder modelling approach that has been adopted (i.e. mesoscopic or FE approach). The studies have then been categorised, as far as FE-based simulations are concerned, as either uncoupled or coupled modelling approaches. All the current approaches have been compared, and how the researchers have modelled the EBM process has been highlighted, considering the assumptions that have been made, the modelling of the material properties, the material state change, and the heat source. Moreover, the adopted validation approaches and the results have been described in order to point out any important achievements. Deviations between numerical and experimental results have been discussed as well as the current level of development of the simulation of the EBM process
Easing IoT Development for Novice Programmers Through Code Recipes
Get PDFThe co-existence of various kinds of devices, protocols, architectures, and programming languages make Internet of Things (IoT) systems complex to develop, even for experienced programmers. Perforce, Software Engineering challenges are even more difficult to address by novice programmers. Previous research focused on identifying the most challenging issues that novice programmers experience when developing IoT systems. The results suggested that the integration of heterogeneous software components resulted one of the most painful issues, mainly due to the lack of documentation understandable by inexperienced developers, from both conceptual and technical perspectives. In fact, novice programmers devote a significant effort looking for documentation and code samples willing to understand them conceptually, or in the worst case, at least to make them work. Driven by the research question: "How do the lessons learned by IoT novice programmers can be captured, so they become an asset for other novice developers?", in this paper, we introduce Code Recipes. They consist of summarized and well-defined documentation modules, independent from programming languages or run-time environments, by which non-expert programmers can smoothly become familiar with source code, written by other developers that faced similar issues. Through a use case, we show how Code Recipes are a feasible mechanism to support novice IoT programmers in building their IoT system