10,611 research outputs found
Design Actions for Shifting Conditions
Considering the growing importance that the urban environments assume within contemporary territorial transformations yet little room is offered within market-driven societies to critically reflect the spatial impact that cities face vis-à-vis the urgencies for environmental rebalancing. It embraces a wide range of phenomena we all live and experience nowadays, not only incidentally but more in a structural
way, forcing us to rethink our present state and explore futures. Transitions embody the fluctuating form of late capitalism with its raisings and disruptions. Regarding the environmental conditions, they are affecting the world regions’ habitability, the phenomenon of progressive urbanization versus agricultural land abandonment (UN 2018). With these premises, transitions seem to be a proper reference for an interdisciplinary and conceptual frame addressing the transformation of urban and metropolitan contexts, which will be the leading players for the coming decades
Relativistic Jets from Collapsars
We have studied the relativistic beamed outflow proposed to occur in the
collapsar model of gamma-ray bursts. A jet forms as a consequence of an assumed
energy deposition of erg/s within a cone
around the rotation axis of the progenitor star. The generated jet flow is
strongly beamed (\la few degrees) and reaches the surface of the stellar
progenitor (r cm) intact. At break-out the maximum Lorentz
factor of the jet flow is about 33. Simulations have been performed with the
GENESIS multi-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic code.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the conference
"Godunov methods: theory and applications", Oxford, October 199
Yet Another Model of Gamma-Ray Bursts
Sari and Piran have demonstrated that the time structure of gamma-ray bursts
must reflect the time structure of their energy release. A model which
satisfies this condition uses the electrodynamic emission of energy by the
magnetized rotating ring of dense matter left by neutron star coalescence; GRB
are essentially fast, high field, differentially rotating pulsars. The energy
densities are large enough that the power appears as an outflowing equilibrium
pair plasma, which produces the burst by baryon entrainment and subsequent
internal shocks. I estimate the magnetic field and characteristic time scale
for its rearrangement, which determines the observed time structure of the
burst. There may be quasi-periodic oscillations at the rotational frequencies,
which are predicted to range up to 5770 Hz (in a local frame). This model is
one of a general class of electrodynamic accretion models which includes the
Blandford and Lovelace model of AGN, and which can also be applied to black
hole X-ray sources of stellar mass. The apparent efficiency of nonthermal
particle acceleration is predicted to be 10--50%, but higher values are
possible if the underlying accretion flow is super-Eddington. Applications to
high energy gamma-ray observations of AGN are briefly discussed.Comment: 21pp, latex, uses aaspp4.st
Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms
The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications
Effects of a behavioural approach on lifestyle habits in a healthy Italian population: a before-after interventional study
Sequential pivotal mechanisms for public project problems
It is well-known that for several natural decision problems no budget
balanced Groves mechanisms exist. This has motivated recent research on
designing variants of feasible Groves mechanisms (termed as `redistribution of
VCG (Vickrey-Clarke-Groves) payments') that generate reduced deficit. With this
in mind, we study sequential mechanisms and consider optimal strategies that
could reduce the deficit resulting under the simultaneous mechanism. We show
that such strategies exist for the sequential pivotal mechanism of the
well-known public project problem. We also exhibit an optimal strategy with the
property that a maximal social welfare is generated when each player follows
it. Finally, we show that these strategies can be achieved by an implementation
in Nash equilibrium.Comment: 19 pages. The version without the appendix will appear in the Proc.
2nd International Symposium on Algorithmic Game Theory, 200
DNA vaccines against ErbB2+ Carcinomas: From mice to humans.
DNA vaccination exploits a relatively simple and flexible technique to generate
an immune response against microbial and tumor-associated antigens (TAAs). Its
effectiveness is enhanced by the application of an electrical shock in the area of plasmid
injection (electroporation). In our studies we exploited a sophisticated electroporation
device approved for clinical use (Cliniporator, IGEA, Carpi, Italy). As the target antigen is
an additional factor that dramatically modulates the efficacy of a vaccine, we selected
ErbB2 receptor as a target since it is an ideal oncoantigen. It is overexpressed on the cell
membrane by several carcinomas for which it plays an essential role in driving their
progression. Most oncoantigens are self-tolerated molecules. To circumvent immune
tolerance we generated two plasmids (RHuT and HuRT) coding for chimeric rat/human
ErbB2 proteins. Their immunogenicity was compared in wild type mice naturally tolerant
for mouse ErbB2, and in transgenic mice that are also tolerant for rat or human ErbB2. In
several of these mice, RHuT and HuRT elicited a stronger anti-tumor response than
plasmids coding for fully human or fully rat ErbB2. The ability of heterologous moiety to
blunt immune tolerance could be exploited to elicit a significant immune response in patients. A clinical trial to delay the recurrence of ErbB2+ carcinomas of the oral cavity,
oropharynx and hypopharynx is awaiting the approval of the Italian authorities
Spinal Anesthesia and Minimal Invasive Laminotomy for Paddle Electrode Placement in Spinal Cord Stimulation: Technical Report and Clinical Results at Long-Term Followup
Object. We arranged a mini-invasive surgical approach for implantation of paddle electrodes for SCS under spinal anesthesia obtaining the best paddle electrode placement and minimizing patients' discomfort. We describe our technique supported by neurophysiological intraoperative monitoring and clinical results. Methods. 16 patients, affected by neuropathic pain underwent the implantation of paddle electrodes for spinal cord stimulation in lateral decubitus under spinal anesthesia. The paddle was introduced after flavectomy and each patient confirmed the correct distribution of paresthesias induced by intraoperative test stimulation. VAS and patients' satisfaction rate were recorded during the followup and compared to preoperative values. Results. No patients reported discomfort during the procedure. In all cases, paresthesias coverage of the total painful region was achieved, allowing the best final electrode positioning. At the last followup (mean 36.7 months), 87.5% of the implanted patients had a good rate of satisfaction with a mean VAS score improvement of 70.5%. Conclusions. Spinal cord stimulation under spinal anesthesia allows an optimal positioning of the paddle electrodes without any discomfort for patients or neurosurgeons. The best intraoperative positioning allows a better postoperative control of pain, avoiding the risk of blind placements of the paddle or further surgery for their replacement
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