Imagining the past of an Italian garden. A historical-virtual reconstruction of Villa lo Zerbino.

Villa lo Zerbino, built at the end of the 16th century, is an example of an Alessian villa in a suburban area of Genoa. During the centuries, the expanding city reached the villa, later incorporating it completely. As the surrounding urban landscape evolved, the garden was also modified, following the English landscape trends of the era. The main objective of the project discussed in this paper is the creation of a model for the virtual reconstruction of the historic garden of Villa lo Zerbino and its evolution over time. We describe the process that starts from a specific knowledge (based on documents, drawings and maps) and leads to a 3D model focusing on the vegetation elements. A second objective faces the difficulties of the visualization of the uncertainties related to the 16th century virtual garden. When using sources of different qualities and ages, the viewer might not distinguish the difference between the elements that were reconstructed based on documental information and those that result from mere imagination. To give a transparent image of the credibility of the elements, their level of uncertainty has been evaluated and visualized in the virtual representation. The virtual reconstruction methodology has been applied to three areas of the garden. The digital product gives a general image of the 19th century villa. The second part of the paper focuses on the visualization of a 16th century area and the evaluation of its level of uncertainty. This paper contributes to academic research on virtual reconstruction and proposes 3D modeling as a basis for the restoration project, as well as a means to reveal architectural patrimony to the public. Also, providing a 3D representation of the changes of villa over centuries, it aims to stimulate further contributions on the co-evolution of historic heritage and urban landscape

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND PROCESS INNOVATION TO SUPPORT THE RESTORATION OF CLASSIC CARS

The paper describes an on-going project of applied research aimed at reinterpreting in a modern way the restoration of classic cars with the support of front-end technologies, identifying new processes and methodologies at the service of artisan know-how. The restoration of classic cars relies indeed on mature technologies that require high skills improved through years of experience and involve long lead times. The research activity is being carried out with a long experienced laboratory, Laboratorio Lopane, and its main aim is to evaluate the employment of digital technologies across all the steps of the restoration and to improve the company know-how. Low cost and user friendly technologies have been employed and tested for real projects within the company and with its employees in order to improve their knowledge about the topic and evaluate the results. To date, diverse technologies ranging from high quality laser scanners to the Microsoft Kinect, have been employed to acquire the shape of the cars to be restored, the resulting meshes and points clouds reversed to mathematical surfaces with commercial and open-source software and the final models prototyped to obtain different maquettes

Play Design! Designing games to teach design

The paper describes, analyses and discusses the project Play Design!, an applied research project aimed at promoting the culture of design among high school students through the use of mobile gaming, providing an informal and enjoying way of learning, valorizing and contextualizing Italian and Milanese design across the city. Two mobile location-based games are here discussed: the first — D.Hunt. Design Hunt — is a mobile treasure hunt that allows users to discover some of the most relevant places and icons of Milanese design following the trail of the Zizì monkey; the second game — D.Learn. Design Learn — is a role-play mobile game that involves four teams of three participants each, pretending to be design studios struggling to achieve the renowned Italian prize for Design, the Compasso d’Oro

GLEBANITE® FOR MODELS AND MOULDS IN SHIPYARDS APPLICATIONS RATHER RESORTING TO MONOMATERIC SOLUTIONS

Despite the recovery of the boating industry today, the crisis in the field sector has brought with it a great amount of boats and related obsolete production equipment (Marsh, 2013). The Glebanite® project aims to create a possibility for all these products considered waste, giving a clear answer to the problem of their disposal, with particular attention to fiber-reinforced composite materials. The project prsented aims to trigger a Circular Economy process for the generation of a new recycled and re-processable materials and for a new economy to support recreational boating. The project has as its starting point the engineering and systemization of the Glebanite material (secondary raw material derived from GRPs waste) for an innovative production strategy of nautical shipbuilding equipment through the use of CNC machine. The project thus straddles the main areas of Eco-Industry, Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainable Mobility

Label-free multimodal nonlinear optical microscopy reveals features of bone composition in pathophysiological conditions

Bone tissue features a complex microarchitecture and biomolecular composition, which determine biomechanical properties. In addition to state-of-the-art technologies, innovative optical approaches allowing the characterization of the bone in native, label-free conditions can provide new, multi-level insight into this inherently challenging tissue. Here, we exploited multimodal nonlinear optical (NLO) microscopy, including co-registered stimulated Raman scattering, two-photon excited fluorescence, and second-harmonic generation, to image entire vertebrae of murine spine sections. The quantitative nature of these nonlinear interactions allowed us to extract accurate biochemical, morphological, and topological information on the bone tissue and to highlight differences between normal and pathologic samples. Indeed, in a murine model showing bone loss, we observed increased collagen and lipid content as compared to the wild type, along with a decreased craniocaudal alignment of bone collagen fibres. We propose that NLO microscopy can be implemented in standard histopathological analysis of bone in preclinical studies, with the ambitious future perspective to introduce this technique in the clinical practice for the analysis of larger tissue sections

Resiliência: análise das publicações no período de 2000 a 2006

A resiliência é um fenômeno importante do desenvolvimento humano; no entanto, seu conceito encontra-se em fase de discussão, pois esse campo de pesquisa é recente na área das ciências humanas. O presente estudo teve como objetivo realizar um levantamento bibliográfico de pesquisas relacionadas à resiliência no período de 2000 a 2006. O método adotado compreendeu a análise documental, através do levantamento de pesquisas em bases de dados, com a utilização de palavras-chave. A análise dos dados consistiu na elaboração de categorias de análise tomando como base os resultados encontrados em pesquisas sobre resiliência. Os dados apontaram que há ênfase nas pesquisas básicas, prevalência de população de adultos nos estudos analisados e utilização da entrevista como principal instrumento. Os resultados também indicam que o conceito de resiliência está em construção; além disso, a resiliência tem relação direta com os fatores de risco e de proteção e, por último, que é necessário o desenvolvimento de programas de prevenção e intervenção