130,789 research outputs found
Investigating the Piaggio Avanti design using CEASIOM
No full textIn early steps of aircraft design the unification of configuration definition is important to avoid user–input errors. Also coupling with each other can strengthen different tools with different specifications simultaneously provided that the geometry definition is transferred with minimum data loss. This is vitally useful especially when geometry data is transferred in order to perform high–fidelity analysis. This paper reports the analysis for the pitch control of a three–lifting–surface aircraft Piaggio Avanti using CEASIOM, a tool–chain software for aircraft preliminary design, with the baseline configuration coming from the conceptual design code AAA, linked by a common name–space CPACS for the means of data collaboratio
Un capolavoro all’asta: la colonia montana “Rinaldo Piaggio” a Santo Stefano d’Aveto
No full textThis paper aims to update the discussion about the former Rinaldo Piaggio holiday camp for children in Santo Stefano d’Aveto, considering the recent events that have affected this masterpiece of modern architecture. The “Piaggio e Compagni” company built a holiday camp for the workers’ children in Santo Stefano d’Aveto in 1939. The Genoese architect, Luigi Carlo Daneri, designed a large building 100-meters long with a bow-sha- ped plan and dominated by a large facade overlooking the landscape of the Ligurian Apennines and entirely made of iron windows. The Piaggio holiday camp operated until the mid-eighties, following the same parable as many similar establishments: the management cost has slowly increased while the average period of stay for guests has decreased. Consequently, that model of hospitality and corporate welfare has progressively become unsustainable.Later, the new ownership modified the building to adapt to new functions, dividing the large collective dormitories to obtain small apartments and rooms suitable for hosting single guests, couples, or small groups. However, these works were interrupted, and the former holiday camp is nowadays abandoned and subjected to a judicial sale procedure.
The paper briefly traces the project’s story and the building’s construction. It focuses on the most recent events, reporting the point of view of the stakeholders involved: the municipality, the Superintendency, and the professionals previously engaged in this process. Finally, the authors discuss the possibility of overcoming the current impasse and halting the deterioration of the building while preserving both the most recent mo- difications and its modernist qualities. In particular, the large facade is still mainly intact and deserves to be adequately preserved, just as the Italian Ministry of Culture prescribes
Is medical device regulatory compliance growing as fast as extended reality to avoid misunderstandings in the future?
No full textPurpose: European Extended Reality (XR) industry is expected to significantly increase by 2025 with an extreme impact on the Healthcare scenario. Considering that the transition period for the Medical Device Regulation 2017/745 (MDR 2017/745) will end in May 2024, purpose of this study is to assess whether the Medical Device Regulatory Compliance is ready to cope with the inclusion of XR and its possible social and economic impact in the world of medical device software (MDSW). Methods: XR publications patterns were evaluated since MDR 2017/745 release on different databases. European normative about MDSW are consulted, followed by the European Database of Medical Devices (EUDAMED). Results: The number of publications on XR have increased since 2017 and healthcare is the third highest-impacted subject area. Specific classes for software have been introduces in the European Nomenclature of Medical Devices (EMDN) and some XR applications have already been registered in EUDAMED classified as MDSW. Conclusions: XR will become intrinsic in everyday medical protocol and guidelines. The establishment of the IEEE Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Working Group and the statement of VR for remoting surgery as a MDSW in MDCG 2019-11 are demonstration of the necessity of MD regulatory compliance in being able to keep up with the upcoming XR technologies. The Authors agree that the competent authorities should consider intervening in the European Regulative Compliance to cope with the revolution of Phygital in Healthcare and to regulate procedures involving the use of XR in medicine preventing future misunderstanding and criticalities especially for high risk situations
Précaution ou Prévention ? Des Responsibilités De La Politique Et De La Societé Pendant La Gestion De La Pandémie De COVID-19 Au Bénin
No full textL’une des stratégies clés retenues pour la lutte contre la COVID-19au Bénin a consisté en la vaccination progressive des populations.Mais la campagne de vaccination déployée n’a pas emportél’adhésion des populations cibles au point de faire émerger laproblématique de l’acceptabilité vaccinale. Cet article a pourobjectif d’appréhender les controverses suscitées à cet effet,partant de l’analyse des données d’entretiens collectées auprèsde ces dernières. Il s’ensuit que les stratégies politiques mises enplace manquent d’efficacité parce qu’elles sont peu adaptées àl’historicité des contextes d’implémentation et demeurent dureste empreintes d’une approchetop-down. Cela a entretenu desimputations populaires variées et nourri un continuum desuspicions vis-à-vis du process vaccinal au point de faireapparaître les enjeux de prévention et de précaution commel’objet de cristallisation de la marque distinctive entregouvernants et populations
A 3D-printed condom intrauterine balloon tamponade: Design, prototyping, and technical validation
No full textPost-partum haemorrhage is among the main causes of (preventable) mortality for women in low-resource settings (LRSs), where, in 2017, the mortality ratio was 462 out of every 100 000 live births, over 10 times higher than for high-resource settings. There are different treatments available for post-partum haemorrhage. The intrauterine balloon tamponade is a medical device that proved to be a simple and cost-effective approach. Currently, there are several balloon tamponades available, with different design and working principles. However, all these devices were designed for high-resource settings, presenting several aspects that could be inappropriate for many lower-income countries. This paper presents the results of a preclinical study aiming at informing the design, prototyping and validation of a 3D-printed intrauterine balloon tamponade concept, contributing towards the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good health and Well-being. Frugal engineering concepts and contextualised design techniques were applied throughout, to define the design requirements and specifications. The performance of the final prototype was validated against the requirements of the UK National Health System (NHS) technical guidelines and relevant literature, measuring the water leak and pressure drop over time, both open air and in a approximate uterus model. The resulting prototype is made up of six components, some of which are easy to retrieve, namely a water bottle, a silicone tube and an ordinary condom, while others can be manufactured locally using 3D printers, namely a modified bottle cap, a flow stopper and a valve for holding the condom in place. Validation testing bore promising results with no water or pressure leak open air, and minimal leaks in the approximate uterus model. This demonstrates that the 3D printed condom-based intrauterine balloon tamponade is performing well against the requirements and, when compared to the state of the art, it could be a more appropriate and more resilient solution to low-resource settings, as it bypasses the challenges in the supply of consumables and presents a greener option based on circular economy
Assessment of the manoeuvrability characteristics of a twin shaft naval vessel using an open-source cfd code
No full textThe purpose of this study is to assess the quality of the manoeuvre prediction of a twin-shaft naval vessel by means of a time-domain simulator based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) hydrodynamic coefficients. The simulator uses a modular approach in which the hull, rudders, appendices and propellers are based on different mathematical models. The hydrodynamic coefficients of the hull in the bare and appended configurations are computed using virtual captive tests performed with an open-source CFD code: OpenFoam. This paper demonstrates that the application of the CFD hydrodynamic coefficients led to a good estimate of the macroscopic characteristics of the main IMO manoeuvres with respect to the experimental measures. The adopted test case is the DTMB 5415M frigate both with and without appendages. This test case has been investigated in several research studies and international benchmark workshops, such as SIMMAN 2008, SIMMAN 2014 and many CFD workgroups
A smartphone-based tool for screening diabetic neuropathies: A mHealth and 3D printing approach
No full textDiabetic neuropathy, a nerve damage associated with diabetes mellitus, can lead to severe disabilities, morbidity, and mortality, if not diagnosed in a timely manner. Diabetic neuropathies represent a huge economic burden and are a growing problem in sub-Saharan Africa, where they affect up to 61% of the diabetic population. Therefore, the United Nations (UN) has included the reduction of the diabetes-related mortality, as a priority in the Sustainable Development Agenda. A review of the current existing solutions for diabetic patients highlighted the fact that many are focused on lifestyle management and glycemia monitoring, while less are available for diabetic neuropathies screening, in particular in the digital health field. Beyond cutting-edge screening methods, which are time-consuming and equipment-heavy, traditional ones are effective, but they require specialised knowledge, which often lacks in low-resource settings. These settings, specifically those in low-income countries, are challenged by the lack of expertise, funds, spare parts, and consumables and harsh environmental conditions, which hinder the safe use of medical devices. This paper proposes a smart-tool for the screening of diabetic neuropathies based on the effective combination of three already established methods, through 3D-printed accessories and a smartphone app, aiming at contributing towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3, as well as the fourth industrial revolution in healthcare. Moreover, an on-field evaluation for this smart-tool is ongoing. So far, we recruited 11 normosubjects as a pilot study. The results demonstrate that it could be a viable solution to improve the standard of care of diabetic patients, specifically in the field of diabetic neuropathy screening, globally, as well as locally in low-resource settings
Coordination among heterogeneous robotic soccer players
No full textCoordination among multiple robots has been extensively studied, since a number of practical tasks can be performed in a more effective way by employing a fleet of coordinated robotic bases. In particular, distributed coordination among robotic agents has been considered recently within the framework offered by the robotic soccer competitions. In this paper we describe the methods and the results achieved in coordinating the players of the ART team participating in the RoboCup F-2000 league. The team is formed by several heterogeneous robots having different mechanics, different sensors, different control software, and, in general, different abilities for playing soccer. The coordination framework we have developed has been successfully applied during the 1999 official competitions allowing both for a significant improvement of the overall team performance and for a complete interchangeability of all the robots
Distributed Coordination in Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems
No full textCoordination in multi-robot systems is a very active research field in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, since through coordination one can achieve a more effective execution of the robots' tasks. In this paper we present an approach to distributed coordination of a multi-robot system that is based on dynamic role assignment. The approach relies on the broadcast communication of utility functions that define the capability for every robot to perform a task and on the execution of a coordination protocol for dynamic role assignment. The presented method is robust to communication failures and suitable for application in dynamic environments. In addition to experimental results showing the effectiveness of our approach, the method has been successfully implemented within the team of heterogeneous robots Azzurra Robot Team in a very dynamic hostile environment provided by the RoboCup robotic soccer competitions
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
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