Ambient vibrations of age-old masonry towers: results of long-term dynamic monitoring in the historic centre of Lucca

The paper presents the results of an ambient vibration monitoring campaign conducted on so-called Clock Tower (Torre delle Ore), one the best known and most visited monuments in the historic centre of Lucca. The vibrations of the tower were continuously monitored from November 2017 to March 2018 using high-sensitivity instrumentation. In particular, four seismic stations provided by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia and two three-axial accelerometers developed by AGI S.r.l., spin-off of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, were installed on the tower. The measured vibration level was generally very low, since the structure lies in the middle of a limited traffic area. Nevertheless, the availability of two different types of highly sensitive and accurate instruments allowed the authors to follow the dynamic behaviour of the tower during the entire monitoring period and has moreover provided cross-validation of the results

Survey of smart parking systems

The large number of vehicles constantly seeking access to congested areas in cities means that finding a public parking place is often difficult and causes problems for drivers and citizens alike. In this context, strategies that guide vehicles from one point to another, looking for the most optimal path, are needed. Most contributions in the literature are routing strategies that take into account different criteria to select the optimal route required to find a parking space. This paper aims to identify the types of smart parking systems (SPS) that are available today, as well as investigate the kinds of vehicle detection techniques (VDT) they have and the algorithms or other methods they employ, in order to analyze where the development of these systems is at today. To do this, a survey of 274 publications from January 2012 to December 2019 was conducted. The survey considered four principal features: SPS types reported in the literature, the kinds of VDT used in these SPS, the algorithms or methods they implement, and the stage of development at which they are. Based on a search and extraction of results methodology, this work was able to effectively obtain the current state of the research area. In addition, the exhaustive study of the studies analyzed allowed for a discussion to be established concerning the main difficulties, as well as the gaps and open problems detected for the SPS. The results shown in this study may provide a base for future research on the subject.Fil: Diaz Ogás, Mathias Gabriel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Fabregat Gesa, Ramon. Universidad de Girona; EspañaFil: Aciar, Silvana Vanesa. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentin

Measurement of Sea Waves

Sea waves constitute a natural phenomenon with a great impact on human activities, and their monitoring is essential for meteorology, coastal safety, navigation, and renewable energy from the sea. Therefore, the main measurement techniques for their monitoring are here reviewed, including buoys, satellite observation, coastal radars, shipboard observation, and microseism analysis. For each technique, the measurement principle is briefly recalled, the degree of development is outlined, and trends are prospected. The complementarity of such techniques is also highlighted, and the need for further integration in local and global networks is stressed

Measurement of sea waves

Sea waves constitute a natural phenomenon with a great impact on human activities, and their monitoring is essential for meteorology, coastal safety, navigation, and renewable energy from the sea. Therefore, the main measurement techniques for their monitoring are here reviewed, including buoys, satellite observation, coastal radars, shipboard observation, and microseism analysis. For each technique, the measurement principle is briefly recalled, the degree of development is outlined, and trends are prospected. The complementarity of such techniques is also highlighted, and the need for further integration in local and global networks is stressed

A Comprehensive Review on Time Sensitive Networks with a Special Focus on Its Applicability to Industrial Smart and Distributed Measurement Systems

The groundbreaking transformations triggered by the Industry 4.0 paradigm have dramati-cally reshaped the requirements for control and communication systems within the factory systems of the future. The aforementioned technological revolution strongly affects industrial smart and distributed measurement systems as well, pointing to ever more integrated and intelligent equipment devoted to derive accurate measurements. Moreover, as factory automation uses ever wider and complex smart distributed measurement systems, the well-known Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm finds its viability also in the industrial context, namely Industrial IoT (IIoT). In this context, communication networks and protocols play a key role, directly impacting on the measurement accuracy, causality, reliability and safety. The requirements coming both from Industry 4.0 and the IIoT, such as the coexistence of time-sensitive and best effort traffic, the need for enhanced horizontal and vertical integration, and interoperability between Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT), fostered the development of enhanced communication subsystems. Indeed, established tech-nologies, such as Ethernet and Wi-Fi, widespread in the consumer and office fields, are intrinsically non-deterministic and unable to support critical traffic. In the last years, the IEEE 802.1 Working Group defined an extensive set of standards, comprehensively known as Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), aiming at reshaping the Ethernet standard to support for time-, mission-and safety-critical traffic. In this paper, a comprehensive overview of the TSN Working Group standardization activity is provided, while contextualizing TSN within the complex existing industrial technological panorama, particularly focusing on industrial distributed measurement systems. In particular, this paper has to be considered a technical review of the most important features of TSN, while underlining its applicability to the measurement field. Furthermore, the adoption of TSN within the Wi-Fi technology is addressed in the last part of the survey, since wireless communication represents an appealing opportunity in the industrial measurement context. In this respect, a test case is presented, to point out the need for wirelessly connected sensors networks. In particular, by reviewing some literature contributions it has been possible to show how wireless technologies offer the flexibility necessary to support advanced mobile IIoT applications

Collaborative Networks, Decision Systems, Web Applications and Services for Supporting Engineering and Production Management

This book focused on fundamental and applied research on collaborative and intelligent networks and decision systems and services for supporting engineering and production management, along with other kinds of problems and services. The development and application of innovative collaborative approaches and systems are of primer importance currently, in Industry 4.0. Special attention is given to flexible and cyber-physical systems, and advanced design, manufacturing and management, based on artificial intelligence approaches and practices, among others, including social systems and services

Data Processing and Modeling on Volcanic and Seismic Areas

This special volume aims to collecg new ideas and contributions at the frontier between the fields of data handling, processing and modeling for volcanic and seismic systems. Technological evolution, as well as the increasing availability of new sensors and platforms, and freely available data, pose a new challenge to the scientific community in the development new tools and methods that can integrate and process different information. The recent growth in multi-sensor monitoring networks and satellites, along with the exponential increase in the spatiotemporal data, has revealed an increasingly compelling need to develop data processing, analysis and modeling tools. Data processing, analysis and modeling techniques may allow significant information to be identified and integrated into volcanic/seismological monitoring systems. The newly developed technology is expected to improve operational hazard detection, alerting, and management abilities

Pesticide Applications in Agricultural Systems

The effective and efficient application of PPP in agriculture is a very complex task, involving a lot of aspects ranging from active substance properties to climatic conditions, from target structure to equipment features, from operator awareness to the reference legislative framework. Some of these aspects have been treated in the six papers collected in this Special Issue on “Pesticide Applications in Agricultural Systems”

Challenges and New Trends in Power Electronic Devices Reliability

The rapid increase in new power electronic devices and converters for electric transportation and smart grid technologies requires a deepanalysis of their component performances, considering all of the different environmental scenarios, overload conditions, and high stressoperations. Therefore, evaluation of the reliability and availability of these devices becomes fundamental both from technical and economicalpoints of view. The rapid evolution of technologies and the high reliability level offered by these components have shown that estimating reliability through the traditional approaches is difficult, as historical failure data and/or past observed scenarios demonstrate. With the aim topropose new approaches for the evaluation of reliability, in this book, eleven innovative contributions are collected, all focusedon the reliability assessment of power electronic devices and related components

Volcanic Processes Monitoring and Hazard Assessment Using Integration of Remote Sensing and Ground-Based Techniques

The monitoring of active volcanoes is a complex task based on multidisciplinary and integrated analyses that use ground, drones and satellite monitoring devices. Over time, and with the development of new technologies and increasing frequency of acquisition, the use of remote sensing to accomplish this important task has grown enormously. This is especially so with the use of drones and satellites for classifying eruptive events and detecting the opening of new vents, the spreading of lava flows on the surface or ash plumes in the atmosphere, the fallout of tephra on the ground, the intrusion of new magma within the volcano edifice, and the deformation preceding impending eruptions, and many other factors. The main challenge in using remote sensing techniques is to develop automated and reliable systems that may assist the decision maker in volcano monitoring, hazard assessment and risk reduction. The integration with ground-based techniques represents a valuable additional aspect that makes the proposed methods more robust and reinforces the results obtained. This collection of papers is focused on several active volcanoes, such as Stromboli, Etna, and Volcano in Italy; the Long Valley caldera and Kilauea volcano in the USA; and Cotopaxi in Ecuador