Social Interactions in Schooling

We exploit the 1980 earthquake in southern Italy and the subsequent relief from mandatory military service granted to all males in the regions hit by the seism to estimate the strength of endogenous social interactions in schooling achievements. Preliminary results point to a significant and strong effect of interactions not mediated by marketsEndogenous interactions, schooling, peer-effect.

NLMPC for Real Time Path Following and Collision Avoidance

This paper presents a nonlinear control approach to achieve good performances in vehicle path following and collision avoidance when the vehicle is driving under cruise highway conditions. Nonlinear model predictive control (NLMPC) is adopted to achieve online trajectory control based on a simplified vehicle model. GMRES/Continuation algorithm is used to solve the online optimization problem. Simulations show that the proposed controller is capable of tracking the desired path as well as avoiding the obstacles

Viscoelastic Properties of CNT/Epoxy-Amine Resins for Structural Applications

In this paper, the effect of an epoxy reactive diluent on the viscosity of a tetrafunctional epoxy precursor (TGMDA) has been analyzed for unfilled and nanofilled epoxy matrices. Despite very good mechanical performance of this epoxy resin, one of the current limitations of this epoxy precursor is related to the high value of the viscosity. This is a very critical point to manufacture CFRCs. In this paper we show an epoxy formulation able to overcome this drawback. In order to optimize the dispersion of MWCNTs inside the epoxy mixture, we have fluidified the initial epoxy precursors with an epoxy reactive monomer which has proven to be very effective to lower the viscosity of the nanoparticles/resin mixture and therefore in facilitating the nanofiller dispersion step