Organic olive oil from Italy

This presentation covers the production of conventional and organic olive oil and its trade from Italy to USA; it explains which type of controls are applied to conventional oils, as well as to GI oils and to organic ones

Spazia-HPP: Hybrid plug-in for small vehicle

This paper presents a novel concept, the Hybrid Power Pack (HPP), which consists of a hybridization kit for transforming small city cars, powered by an original diesel engine, into a parallel hybrid vehicle. The study was jointly conducted by the University of Rome “Sapienza” and the Enea Casaccia research center. The idea is to design a hybrid powertrain that can be installed in a typical microcar, which means that all systems and components will be influenced by the limited space available in the motor compartment of the vehicle. In this paper the details of the mechanical and electrical realization of the powertrain will be discussed and the simulation of a small city car equipped with HPP will be presented and the results discussed and analyzed. The hybrid system also includes the battery pack which is composed of twenty-four Li-ion cells made by EIG, connected in series. The storage system is controlled as regards the voltage and temperature by a Battery Management System (BMS). All the above components are connected and managed by a control unit. The HPP presented in this paper obtains a reduction in fuel consumption higher than 20%. The solution presented with the HPP with its management strategy and the addition of the “plug-in function” makes the hybrid vehicle suitable in terms of performance and consumption in every driving conditions. The ideal strategy behind the “plug-in function” could represent a guideline for further achievements and experimentations, because it offers a simple hardware layout and a real reduction in fuel consumption

Typical Entanglement

Let a pure state \psi be chosen randomly in an NM-dimensional Hilbert space, and consider the reduced density matrix \rho of an N-dimensional subsystem. The bipartite entanglement properties of \psi are encoded in the spectrum of \rho. By means of a saddle point method and using a "Coulomb gas" model for the eigenvalues, we obtain the typical spectrum of reduced density matrices. We consider the cases of an unbiased ensemble of pure states and of a fixed value of the purity. We finally obtain the eigenvalue distribution by using a statistical mechanics approach based on the introduction of a partition function.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Dark energy and CMB bispectrum

We consider the CMB bispectrum signal induced by structure formation through the correlation between the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe and the weak lensing effect. We investigate how the bispectrum knowledge can improve our knowledge of the most important cosmological parameters, focusing on the dark energy ones. Preliminary results suggest a consistent improvement on the estimation of dark energy abundance and on dynamical properties of the equation of state.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. To appear in "Impact of Gravitational Lensing on Cosmology", IAU Symposium 225, Mellier & Meylan ed

Brownian motors

In systems possessing a spatial or dynamical symmetry breaking thermal Brownian motion combined with unbiased, non-equilibrium noise gives rise to a channelling of chance that can be used to exercise control over systems at the micro- and even on the nano-scale. This theme is known as ``Brownian motor'' concept. The constructive role of (the generally overdamped) Brownian motion is exemplified for a noise-induced transport of particles within various set-ups. We first present the working principles and characteristics with a proof-of-principle device, a diffusive temperature Brownian motor. Next, we consider very recent applications based on the phenomenon of signal mixing. The latter is particularly simple to implement experimentally in order to optimize and selectively control a rich variety of directed transport behaviors. The subtleties and also the potential for Brownian motors operating in the quantum regime are outlined and some state-of-the-art applications, together with future roadways, are presented.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures (slightly changed version

Bayesian logistic regression for presence-only data

Presence-only data are referred to situations in which a censoring mechanism acts on a binary response which can be partially observed only with respect to one outcome, usually denoting the \textit{presence} of an attribute of interest. A typical example is the recording of species presence in ecological surveys. In this work a Bayesian approach to the analysis of presence-only data based on a two levels scheme is presented. A probability law and a case-control design are combined to handle the double source of uncertainty: one due to censoring and the other one due to sampling. In the paper, through the use of a stratified sampling design with non-overlapping strata, a new formulation of the logistic model for presence-only data is proposed. In particular, the logistic regression with linear predictor is considered. Estimation is carried out with a new Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm with data augmentation, which does not require the a priori knowledge of the population prevalence. The performance of the new algorithm is validated by means of extensive simulation experiments using three scenarios and comparison with optimal benchmarks. An application to data existing in literature is reported in order to discuss the model behaviour in real world situations together with the results of an original study on termites occurrences data

People Make the Difference: An Explorative Study on the Relationship between Organizational Practices, Employees’ Resources, and Organizational Behavior Enhancing the Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development

The most recent developments in the field of sustainability science and the emergence of a psychologyofsustainabilityandsustainabledevelopmenthavecontributedtocollectevidencesabout the fact that modern organizations need healthy and motivated employees to survive and to prosper within this fast-moving scenario. In this vein, a confirmation to these evidences came from the abundant research on HEalthy and Resilient Organizations (HERO), showing that when organizations make systematic, planned, and proactive efforts to improve employees’ subjective resources then organizational processes and outcomes benefit in turn. Moving forward from these premises, the presentstudyaimedtoexploretheseassumptionswithinthecontextofsmallandmediumenterprises (SMEs), investigating the relationships among the organizational practices, employees’ subjective resources, and organizational behaviors. Two hundred and thirty-six participants working in SMEs located in the south of Italy took part. They were invited to fill in a questionnaire investigating their perception of organizational resources and practices (autonomy, leadership, communication, organizational mindfulness, and commitment to resilience), of their individual resources (work engagement and psychological capital), and finally, of some organizational outcomes (extra-role behavior). Results showed that psychological capital was a significant mediator of the relationship betweenemployees’perceptionoftheorganizationalresourcesandpracticesandextra-rolebehaviors. Concrete implications of these conclusions in terms of human resource management (HRM) are discussed together with limitations of the study and future developments

Uma contribuição ao debate sobre a nova política industrial brasileira

A versão final deste artigo foi beneficiada pelos comentários de Pierre Salama, Luis Carlos Delorme Prado, Fabio Giambiagi, Honório Kume, Sônia Lebre Café, Sander Magalhães Lacerda, Eriksom Teixeira Lima e Sheila Najberg. Os erros remanescentes são de responsabilidade exclusiva do autor.Inclui bibliografia: p. 64-68 e notas