Systems engineering and digital twin: a vision for the future of cruise ships design, production and operations

Cruise ships are among the most complex and demanding products of the shipbuilding industry. The very special \u201cpayload\u201d and exclusive operational profile, i.e. passengers looking for leisure and entertainment, imply outstanding performances in terms of safety standards and customer satisfaction. Attention to environment is relevant as well, since these ships are used to operate in spectacular marine ecosystems. The need of European shipyards to continuously progress to preserve the market leadership requires a virtuous evolution of the ship design process projected on a life cycle perspective. In this regard Systems Engineering appears to be a robust and reliable paradigm, able to provide the necessary comprehensive view of the cruise ship system as a whole together with a systematic methodological framework that, among the other advantages, enables the active and constructive participation of all the involved stakeholders in the decision-making process. In particular, Systems Engineering strongly relies on the so-called model-based engineering to share, integrate, combine and improve the level of details relevant to the system under development. In this paper the digital twin model will be discussed as a natural evolution of above-mentioned model-based engineering and its utilization in the shipbuilding field will be described as a very promising application especially in the field of cruise ships

Braccio di Ferro: A new haptic workstation for neuromotor rehabilitation

This technical note describes a new robotic workstation for neurological rehabilitation, shortly named Braccio di Ferro. It has been designed by having in mind the range of forces and the frequency bandwidth that characterize the interaction between a patient and a physical therapist, as well as a number of requirements that we think are essential for allowing a natural haptic interaction: back-driveability, very low friction and inertia, mechanical robustness, the possibility to operate in different planes, and an open software environment, which allows the operator to add new functionalities and design personalized rehabilitation protocols. Braccio di Ferro is an open system and, in the spirit of open source design, is intended to foster the dissemination of robot therapy. Moreover, its combination of features is not present in commercially available systems

Thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs-100) calibration for dose verification in photon and proton radiation therapy

Thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) are practical, accurate, and precise tools for point dosimetry in medical physics applications. TLDs are nowadays extensively used to measure dose in conformal radiation therapy in order to guarantee the safety of the treatment. Several national and international organizations recommend checking the effective dose delivered to an individual patient by means of in vivo dosimetry. Modern radiotherapy techniques employing both photon and ion beams exhibit excellent target conformation throught high steep-dose gradients between tumour and adjacent organs and tissues. In this context, catching potential dose errors and uncertainties in treatment delivering is the first step to ensure the optimization of the treatment plan. This study shows the results of the characterization of TLDs-100 at two Italian facilities devoted to advanced radiation treatments with photon and proton therapy. The individual sensitivity factor was determined, and the calibration curves were carried out in the dose range 0–20 Gy. By the analysis of the dose response curves, the linear region was identified under the dose level of 10 Gy. Characterization of the TLDs-100 has enabled their use for in vivo dosimetry especially in the dose range corresponding to the linear region of the dose response curves

Progettazione e realizzazione di un sistema di manipolazione per lo sminamento basato sulla innovativa modalità di controllo ed attuazione denominata "a doppio soffietto guidato"

none6V. Arricchiello; A. Basso; F. Martini; M. Tausel; A. Vignati; R. SalaV., Arricchiello; Basso, ALESSANDRO LORENZO; F., Martini; M., Tausel; A., Vignati; Sala, Rem

The clinical characterization and prognostic significance of episodes of transient myocardial ischemia in patients with a recent myocardial infarct [Caratterizzazione clinica e significato prognostico degli episodi di ischemia miocardica transitoria in pazienti con recente infarto del miocardio.]

The incidence and prognostic significance of silent myocardial ischemia were assessed in 175 patients who survived a first acute myocardial infarction (AMI). This was done by means of a 24-hour continuous ECG monitoring which was performed before discharge. Twenty-six out of 175 patients (14.8%) showed one episode or more of S-T segment depression; 19 of these reported no pain at all while the other 7 reported both painful and painless episodes. A total of 65 ischemic episodes were registered; of these 53 (81.5%) were painless and 12 (18.5%) were painful. No difference in the duration of ischemic episodes or in heart rate at the onset of S-T segment depression was detected for painless or painful episodes. The S-T segment depression episodes showed a peak in the morning but were higher in the afternoon and this circadian pattern was statistically significant both with regard to duration (p less than 0.05) and to the number of episodes (p less than 0.05). Cardiac death occurred in 5 of the 26 patients (19.2%) with S-T segment depression during continuous ECG monitoring, and in 5 of the 149 (3.4%) without S-T segment depression (p less than 0.01). In patients with ischemia duration greater than 60 min/24 hours, the mortality rate was higher (p less than 0.05). No cardiac events (unstable angina, non-fatal re-infarction, balloon angioplasty and/or coronary by-pass) occurred in 117 out of 149 patients (78.5%) without ST-segment depression, while these events were observed in 13 out of the 26 patients (50%) with ischemic episodes during Holter monitoring (p less than 0.01). Sensitivity and specificity of S-T segment depression was respectively 29.3 and 89.5% for cardiac death and cardiac events considered together.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS