Application of micro-Raman spectroscopy for conservation projects in art and archaeology with a case study on Cappadocia rock-hewn wall paintings

This paper aims at reporting an overview of the principles and applications of micro-Raman spectroscopy in cultural heritage. Micro-Raman was used for characterizing painting pigments, inorganic binders, degradation materials in artworks with different goals: to know the materials and so the execution technique, to investigate the state of preservation, to establish the authenticity of the artefacts. The micro-Raman analyses were often performed on the occasion of conservative projects and they were able to supply valid and useful information to the conservators during their work. As case study, the project on the investigation of rock-hewn wall paintings in Cappadocia (Turkey) will be shortly presented as exemplificative of application of Raman techniques for the knowledge of the constituent materials, for supporting the conservation work and for detecting degradation products. Analysis were performed in the Interdepartmental instrument Center of Modena and Reggio Emilia University by a bench top system equipped with a microscope allowing for studying in non-destructive way different kinds of samples: powders, cross and thin sections, pre-treated samples

Opposite effect of acute and subchronic treatments with Ferula hermonis on copulatory behavior of male rats

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Maintenance optimization in industry 4.0

This work reviews maintenance optimization from different and complementary points of view. Specifically, we systematically analyze the knowledge, information and data that can be exploited for maintenance optimization within the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Then, the possible objectives of the optimization are critically discussed, together with the maintenance features to be optimized, such as maintenance periods and degradation thresholds. The main challenges and trends of maintenance optimization are, then, highlighted and the need is identified for methods that do not require a-priori selection of a predefined maintenance strategy, are able to deal with large amounts of heterogeneous data collected from different sources, can properly treat all the uncertainties affecting the behavior of the systems and the environment, and can jointly consider multiple optimization objectives, including the emerging ones related to sustainability and resilience

APPLICATION OF HEATING MICROSCOPY ON SINTERING AND MELTING BEHAVIOUR OF NATURAL SANDS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTEREST

In antiquity, beach sand was one of the main raw materials for glass-making and for the production of other vitreous materials, like Egyptian blue and faience. During the 1st century AD, glass and pigments manufacturing industry was active along the Gulf of Naples, Italy, where we sampled four littoral sands. Samples were analyzed with different techniques: chemical analysis was performed by means of X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and mineralogical analyses with X-Ray Powder Diffraction (XRPD) and Raman Spectroscopy. The complete sintering to melting thermal behaviour of the four sands was studied by heating microscopy or hot-stage microscope (HSM) equipped with an high resolution camera capable to collect sample profile during heating. The effect of the grain size on the sintering curves, which were automatically elaborated by specimen profile transformation, was also investigated. Finally, some deductions about the granulometry effect and the presence of alkaline and alkaline-earth oxides on sintering and melting behaviour were drawn. All the four sands were found suitable for highly sintered manufacts rather than glasses, to reach complete amorphous materials the addition of fluxes was necessary

Surface Core Level Shifts of Clean and Oxygen Covered Ru(0001)

We have performed high resolution XPS experiments of the Ru(0001) surface, both clean and covered with well-defined amounts of oxygen up to 1 ML coverage. For the clean surface we detected two distinct components in the Ru 3d_{5/2} core level spectra, for which a definite assignment was made using the high resolution Angle-Scan Photoelectron Diffraction approach. For the p(2x2), p(2x1), (2x2)-3O and (1x1)-O oxygen structures we found Ru 3d_{5/2} core level peaks which are shifted up to 1 eV to higher binding energies. Very good agreement with density functional theory calculations of these Surface Core Level Shifts (SCLS) is reported. The overriding parameter for the resulting Ru SCLSs turns out to be the number of directly coordinated O atoms. Since the calculations permit the separation of initial and final state effects, our results give valuable information for the understanding of bonding and screening at the surface, otherwise not accessible in the measurement of the core level energies alone.Comment: 16 pages including 10 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm

Uncover the Offensive Side of Disparagement Humor: An fMRI Study

Disparagement humor is a kind of humor that denigrates, belittles an individual or a social group. In the aim to unveil the offensive side of these kinds of jokes, we have run an event-related fMRI study asking 30 healthy volunteers to judge the level of fun of a series of verbal stimuli that ended with a sentence that was socially inappropriate but funny (disparagement joke -DJ), socially inappropriate but not funny (SI) or neutral (N). Behavioral results showed disparagement jokes are perceived as funny and at the same time offensive. However, the level of offense in DJ is lower than that registered in SI stimuli. Functional data showed that DJ activated the insula, the SMA, the precuneus, the ACC, the dorsal striatum (the caudate nucleus), and the thalamus. These activations suggest that in DJ a feeling of mirth (and/or a desire to laugh) derived from the joke (e.g., SMA and precuneus) and the perception of the jokes\u2019 social inappropriateness (e.g., ACC and insula) coexist. Furthermore, DJ and SI share a common network related to mentalizing and to the processing of negative feelings, namely the medial prefrontal cortex, the putamen and the right thalamus

Resistance-based probabilistic design by order statistics for an oil and gas deep-water well casing string affected by wear during kick load

Deep-water wells for oil and gas extraction make structural components, such as casing and tubing, work in extremely harsh environmental conditions that accelerate component degradation and increase failure probability. Therefore, it is important to properly design casing strings under these operative circumstances (Baraldi et al., 2012)

HySafe Standard benchmark Problem SBEP-V11: Predictions of hydrogen release and dispersion from a CGH2 bus in an underpass

One of the tasks of the HySafe Network of Excellence was the evaluation of available CFD tools and models for dispersion and combustion in selected hydrogen release scenarios identified as “standard benchmark problems” (SBEPs). This paper presents the results of the HySafe standard benchmark problem SBEP-V11. The situation considered is a high pressure hydrogen jet release from a compressed gaseous hydrogen (CGH2) bus in an underpass. The bus considered is equipped with 8 cylinders of 5 kg hydrogen each at 35 MPa storage pressure. The underpass is assumed to be of the common beam and slab type construction with I-beams spanning across the highway at 3 m centres (normal to the bus), plus cross bracing between the main beams, and light armatures parallel to the bus direction. The main goal of the present work was to evaluate the role of obstructions on the underside of the bridge deck on the dispersion patterns and assess the potential for hydrogen accumulation. Four HySafe partners participated in this benchmark, with 4 different CFD codes, ADREA-HF, CFX, FLACS and FLUENT. Four scenarios were examined in total. In the base case scenario 20 kg of hydrogen was released in the basic geometry. In Sensitivity Test 1 the release position was moved so that the hydrogen jet could hit directly the light armature on the roof of the underpass. In Sensitivity Test 2 the underside of the bridge deck was flat. In Sensitivity Test 3 the release was from one cylinder instead of four (5 kg instead of 20). The paper compares the results predicted by the four different computational approaches and attempts to identify the reasons for observed disagreements. The paper also concludes on the effects of the obstructions on the underside of the bridge deck