Higher Institute on Territorial Systems for Innovation
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Map-based multicriteria analysis to support stakeholder-oriented urban energy scenarios
No full textThe choice among urban energy planning scenarios is extensively based on multi-actors and multi-criteria aspects. Hence, the stakeholders-oriented approach plays a key role in implementing the effective strategies for regional adaptation. An on-going national project, named "Zero Energy Buildings in Smart Urban Districts", emphasizes the use of a Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System (MC-SDSS) to provide communicative support among workshop's participants. This allows making an explicit trade-off between stakeholders' preferences. The demonstration is the city of Settimo Torinese, in the metropolitan area of Turin, Italy). This study aims at presenting the on-going research activities with a specific focus on the definition of different energy scenarios for Settimo Torinese, based on stakeholders' preferences. A first focus group was organized to select the criteria and to assign the stakeholders' preferences using the "playing card" method of Simos 1990. Accordingly, three decision scenarios have been developed. Each scenario represents a set of retrofitting measures basing on different hierarchy of preferences of the stakeholders as environment-oriented scenario; economic-oriented scenario; mixed-rationalization scenario. In this regard, the MC-SDSS was tested during a second workshop as part of the urban energy planning process to choose the best energy scenario through a Multicriteria method, the Analytic Hierarchic Process
Synthesis and characterization of β-cyclodextrin nanosponges for N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide complexation and their application on polyester fabrics
No full textβ-Cyclodextrin polymer, namely nanosponges (NSs), were synthesized using two cross-linkers: 1,1′-carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) and pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA). The synthesized NSs were complexed with N,Ndiethyl- meta-toluamide (DEET) and, after complex characterization, the NSs cross-linked with CDI were found more effective than those cross-linked with PMDA in terms of encapsulation efficiency and loading capacity. The CDI-NSs were dispersed in a polyacrylic resin, which was thermally polymerized on a polyester fabric surface. The fabric functionalization was evaluated through quantification of DEET extracted from the polyester fabrics, before and after three washing cycles. The results showed that encapsulation into NSs prolongs the persistence of DEET on polyester fabrics
Predicting Your Next Stop-over from Location-based Social Network Data with Recurrent Neural Networks
No full textIn the past years, Location-based Social Network (LBSN) data have strongly fostered a data-driven approach to the recommendation of Points of Interest (POIs) in the tourism domain. However, an important aspect that is often not taken into account by current approaches is the temporal correlations among POI categories in tourist paths. In this work, we collect data from Foursquare, we extract timed paths of POI categories from sequences of temporally neighboring check-ins and we use a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) to learn to generate new paths by training it to predict observed paths. As a further step, we cluster the data considering users' demographics and learn separate models for each category of users. The evaluation shows the e�ectiveness of the proposed approach in predicting paths in terms of model perplexity on the test se
Phase transitions in bismuth-modified silver niobate ceramics for high power energy storage
No full textA Velletri, tra simbolismo e burocrazia
No full textIl progetto di concorso per la nuova parrocchia Regina Pacis, aggiudicato nel 2014 allo studio Cossu Toni, è ancora al pal
Control of force impulse in human-machine impact
No full textThe clinical study of postural control requires a disturbance to be imposed to the subject under evaluation. Among various kinds of disturbance, a mechanical stimulation, consisting in an impulsive force impressed to a certain point of the body, can be used. This paper describes the study of a device conceived to generate such a disturbance. The device is based on a commercial pneumatic actuator, equipped with appropriate force and motion feedback sensors, and properly controlled. The major item is to take into account the interaction between the device and the human, in order to individuate the optimal control technique to generate the desired force pattern. A mathematical model of the device and the human-machine interaction is presented and a sliding mode control technique is proposed. Finally, the results of simulations are reported and discussed
Criticalities on highway maintenance yards: some suggestions to improve the effectiveness of OS&H supervision/inspection activities
No full textResearch work results on Occupational Safety and Health -OS&H- aspects of highway maintenance yards in normal operative conditions and special situations - typically potential interferences from heavy traffic - stressed the diversification of yards typologies and criticalities. The European Directive 92/57/EEC on the implementation of minimum Safety and Health requirements at temporary or mobile construction sites concentrates on the improvement of Risk Assessment and Management from the very first steps of the design, and introduces coordinators charged of a safe project preparation and of the execution phase supervising. In particular, in the case of highway maintenance yards, the Coordinator for safety and health matters at the project execution stage should manage both routine situations, and situations requiring high expertise and capacity of judgment. In such complex scenarios, Safety inspection activities become a demanding task also in terms of time and resources for both the Company and the National Inspectorate supervisors. The paper discusses an original approach for the optimization of supervision / inspection activities, based on the appropriate use of Fellow Supervisors to support the Coordinator in the routine activities, with the added benefit of an increased presence of "safety people" at the yard. The setup of an appropriate data gathering, recording and mining system, organized in interlinked cards in logical sequence, contributes to the efficiency and thoroughness of the work of the both the Coordinator and the Fellow Supervisors. The results of ex post tests on a real case -input data provided by the Prosecutor Office which proposed the study- can be considered significant
Surface factor assessment in HCF for steels by means of empirical and non destructive techniques
No full textThe fatigue limit value in steels is strongly influenced by many factors, among them the surface finish. In particular, the fatigue limit decreases with increasing the surface roughness, referring to standard grinded specimen.Technical literature provides an empirical correction factor, named surface factor, to be used if surface roughness is different from standard specimen conditions. This factor is traditionally lower than 1 and it reduces the fatigue limit value corresponding to the material in standard conditions. This coefficient may be obtained from literature graphs and it can be identified by means of two parameters: materials ultimate tensile strength and surface finish Ra.Aim of the present paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of fast procedures to assess the surface factor. The reference is the Murakami model, which estimates the fatigue limit by means of roughness parameters other than Ra.In the present paper the fatigue limit estimations related to specimens with sanded Rahave been obtained by utilizing empirical destructive and nondestructive methods and then have been compared each other.Experimental testing was carried out on a structural steel specimens by means of axial alternate fatigue testing with two different surface roughness.The results obtained referring to Murakami model have been compared with those obtained by means of both thermographic and Staircase method.The Murakami model results to be easy to use and non destructive.The corresponding fatigue limit estimations match with the thermographic ones above all when surface roughness is elevated
Electromechanical Actuators Affected by Multiple Failures: Prognostic Method based on Wavelet Analysis Techniques
No full textIncipient failures of electromechanical actuators (EMA) of primary flight command, especially if related to progressive evolutions, can be identified with the employment of several different approaches. A strong interest is expected by the development of prognostic algorithms capable of identifying precursors of EMA progressive failures: indeed, if the degradation pattern is properly identified, it is possible to trig an early alert, leading to proper maintenance and servomechanism replacement. Given that these algorithms are strictly technology-oriented, they may show great effectiveness for some specific applications, while they could fail for other applications and technologies: therefore, it is necessary to conceive the prognostic method as a function of the considered failures. This work proposes a new prognostic strategy, based on artificial neural networks, able to perform the fault detection and identification of two EMA motor faults (i.e. coil short circuit and rotor static eccentricity). In order to identify a suitable data set able to guarantee an affordable ANN classification, the said failures precursors are properly pre-processed by means of Discrete Wavelet Transform extracting several features: in fact, these wavelets result very effective to detect fault condition, both in time domain and frequency domain, by means of the change in amplitude and shape of its coefficients. A simulation test bench has been developed for the purpose, demonstrating that the method is robust and is able to early identify incoming failures, reducing the possibility of false alarms or non-predicted problems
Exploring innovative radiation shielding approaches in space: A material and design study for a wearable radiation protection spacesuit
No full textWe present a design study for a wearable radiation-shielding spacesuit, designed to protect astronauts' most radiosensitive organs. The suit could be used in an emergency, to perform necessary interventions outside a radiation shelter in the space habitat in case of a Solar Proton Event (SPE). A wearable shielding system of the kind we propose has the potential to prevent the onset of acute radiation effects in this scenario. In this work, selection of materials for the spacesuit elements is performed based on the results of dedicated GRAS/Geant4 1-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations, and after a trade-off analysis between shielding performance and availability of resources in the space habitat. Water is the first choice material, but also organic compounds compatible with a human space habitat are considered (such as fatty acids, gels and liquid organic wastes). Different designs and material combinations are proposed for the spacesuits. To quantify shielding performance we use GRAS/Geant4 simulations of an anthropomorphic phantom in an average SPE environment, with and without the spacesuit, and we compare results for the dose to Blood Forming Organs (BFO) in Gy-Eq, i.e. physical absorbed dose multiplied by the proton Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE) for non-cancer effects. In case of SPE occurrence for Intra-Vehicular Activities (IVA) outside a radiation shelter, dose reductions to BFO in the range of 44-57% are demonstrated to be achievable with the spacesuit designs made only of water elements, or of multi-layer protection elements (with a thin layer of a high density material covering the water filled volume). Suit elements have a thickness in the range 2-6 cm and the total mass for the garment sums up to 35-43 kg depending on model and material combination. Dose reduction is converted into time gain, i.e. the increase of time interval between the occurrence of a SPE and the moment the dose limit to the BFO for acute effects is reached. Wearing a radiation shielding spacesuit of the kind we propose, the astronaut could have up to more than the double the time (e.g. almost 6 instead of 2.5 h) to perform necessary interventions outside a radiation shelter during a SPE, his/her exposure remaining within dose limits. An indicative mass saving thanks to the shielding provided by the suits is also derived, calculating the amount of mass needed in addition to the 1.5 cm thick Al module considered for the IVA scenario to provide the same additional shielding given by the spacesuit. For an average 50% dose reduction to BFO this is equal to about 2.5 tons of Al. Overall, our results offer a proof-of-principle validation of a complementary personal shielding strategy in emergency situations in case of a SPE event. Such results pave the way for the design and realization of a prototype of a water-filled garment to be tested on board the International Space Station for wearability. A successful outcome will possibly lead to the further refining of the design of radiation protection spacesuits and their possible adoption in future long-duration manned missions in deep space