From the Birth of the Soundscape Concept to the Sound Ambient in Disneyland-Paris

Giovanni De Zorzi traces the historical and aesthetical background of ‘soundscape’, from the sound/noise opposition in physics to the reconsideration of ‘noise’ by the avant-gardes of the twentieth century arriving to the conceptions of Murray Schafer and Steven Feld, which gave birth to many nowadays disciplines. After this, Alessio Calandra deals with the possible influence of the soundscape of Disneyland Park, an amusement park in Disneyland Paris: he begins from some ‘physical’ places of the Park, such as Main Street U.S.A., Frontierland, Adventureland, and arrives to the detailed analysis of their specific soundscape related to the sale of Disney-branded gadgets and products within the park

Parallel waveform extraction algorithms for the Cherenkov Telescope Array Real-Time Analysis

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next generation observatory for the study of very high-energy gamma rays from about 20 GeV up to 300 TeV. Thanks to the large effective area and field of view, the CTA observatory will be characterized by an unprecedented sensitivity to transient flaring gamma-ray phenomena compared to both current ground (e.g. MAGIC, VERITAS, H.E.S.S.) and space (e.g. Fermi) gamma-ray telescopes. In order to trigger the astrophysics community for follow-up observations, or being able to quickly respond to external science alerts, a fast analysis pipeline is crucial. This will be accomplished by means of a Real-Time Analysis (RTA) pipeline, a fast and automated science alert trigger system, becoming a key system of the CTA observatory. Among the CTA design key requirements to the RTA system, the most challenging is the generation of alerts within 30 seconds from the last acquired event, while obtaining a flux sensitivity not worse than the one of the final analysis by more than a factor of 3. A dedicated software and hardware architecture for the RTA pipeline must be designed and tested. We present comparison of OpenCL solutions using different kind of devices like CPUs, Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) and Field Programmable Array (FPGA) cards for the Real-Time data reduction of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) triggered data.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at arXiv:1508.0589

Piezoelectric effect and electroactive phase nucleation in self-standing films of unpoled PVDF nanocomposite films

Novel polymer-based piezoelectric nanocomposites with enhanced electromechanical properties open new opportunities for the development of wearable energy harvesters and sensors. This paper investigates how the dissolution of different types of hexahydrate metal salts affects β-phase content and piezoelectric response (d33) at nano-and macroscales of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanocomposite films. The strongest enhancement of the piezoresponse is observed in PVDF nanocomposites processed with Mg(NO3)2·6H2O. The increased piezoresponse is attributed to the synergistic effect of the dipole moment associated with the nucleation of the electroactive phase and with the electrostatic interaction between the CF2group of PVDF and the dissolved salt through hydrogen bonding. The combination of nanofillers like graphene nanoplatelets or zinc oxide nanorods with the hexahydrate salt dissolution in PVDF results in a dramatic reduction of d33, because the nanofiller assumes a competitive role with respect to H-bond formation between PVDF and the dissolved metal salt. The measured peak value of d33reaches the local value of 13.49 pm/V, with an average of 8.88 pm/V over an area of 1 cm2. The proposed selection of metal salt enables low-cost production of piezoelectric PVDF nanocomposite films, without electrical poling or mechanical stretching, offering new opportunities for the development of devices for energy harvesting and wearable sensors

[Aqueducts in the time of cholera]

Not available [In Italian

Electrical, mechanical and electromechanical properties of graphene-thermoset polymer composites produced using acetone-DMF solvents

Recently, graphene-polymer composites gained a central role in advanced stress and strain sensing. A fundamental step in the production of epoxy-composites filled with graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) consists in the exfoliation and dispersion of expanded graphite in a proper solvent, in the mixing of the resulting GNP suspension with the polymer matrix, and in the final removal of the solvent from the composite before curing through evaporation. The effects of traces of residual solvent on polymer curing process are usually overlooked, even if it has been found that even a small amount of residual solvent can affect the mechanical properties of the final composite. In this paper, we show that residual traces of N,N′-Dimethylformamide (DMF) in vinylester epoxy composites can induce relevant variations of the electrical, mechanical and electromechanical properties of the cured GNP-composite. To this purpose, a complete analysis of the morphological and structural characteristics of the composite samples produced using different solvent mixtures (combining acetone and DMF) is performed. Moreover, electrical, mechanical and electromechanical properties of the produced composites are assessed. In particular, the effect on the piezoresistive response of the use of DMF in the solvent mixture is analyzed using an experimental strain dependent percolation law to fit the measured electromechanical data. It is shown that the composites realized using a higher amount of DMF are characterized by a higher electrical conductivity and by a strong reduction of Young’s Modulus

Life Cycle Assessment and economic evaluation of the recovery of materials in an urban waste management system

The main aim of this study was to perform a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as well as an economic evaluation of the recovery of recyclable materials in an urban waste management system. Urban waste is mainly composed of three fractions: 1) putrescible materials, 2) recyclables materials, and 3) residual waste. The putrescible materials have to be collected separately and sent to composting and/or anaerobic digestion plants. The recyclables materials have to be sorted and sent to the proper industrial facilities. Finally, the residual waste could be further selected to be sent to energy recovery plants. If citizens separate erroneously urban waste fractions, they produce both environmental and economic damages. In fact, on the base of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a municipality receives an economic amount for each kilogram of packaging waste collected. In Italy, this activity is managed by CONAI (a private system, created and designed by companies). The “CONAI system” is based on the activities of six consortia each dedicated to promoting and control the most used materials in the packaging production i.e. steel, aluminum, paper, wood, plastics and glass. Packaging waste that goes into the dry residue represents an economic damage (a loss of the “CONAI contribution” and the payment of the disposal fees) as well as an environmental burden. The environmental and economic evaluation was performed for the case study of Nola (39.19 km², 34.349 inhabitants, and 876.47 ab./km²) in the Province on Naples, in the Campania Region of Southern Italy. Nola has a kerbside system which assured a percentage of separate collection of 61% in 2015. The LCA analysis included the treatment and disposal phases as well as the collection and transport phases. The LCA software tool SimaPro and the following three impact assessment methods were used: ReCiPe 2008 (for the medium-term perspective Hierarchist both for midpoint and endpoint levels), Ecological footprint, and IPCC 2013 (100 years). The environmental (Figure 1a) and economic (Figure 1b) analysis were developed for several real and hypothetical scenarios based on increasing percentages of separate collection and different composition analyses of the residual waste (RW). The obtained results confirmed that recovering materials from residual waste is a benefits both in environmental and economic terms. Finally, it is also a social potential benefit because the municipality could invest the economic saving in environmental campaigns entrusted to young people in an area with a high rate of youth unemployment. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Electro-mechanical properties of multilayer graphene-based polymeric composite obtained through a capillary rise method

A new sensor made of a vinyl-ester polymer composite filled with multilayer graphene nanoplatelets (MLG) is produced through an innovative capillary rise method for application in strain sensing and structural health monitoring. The new sensor is characterized by high stability of the piezoresistive response under quasi-static consecutive loading/unloading cycles and monotonic tests. This is due to the peculiarity of the fabrication process that ensures a smooth and clean surface of the sensor, without the presence of filler agglomerates acting as micro- or macro-sized defects in the composite