Decision support tools for urban contingency policy: a scenario approach to risk management of the Vesuvio area in Naples, Italy

Contingency management, in particular the management of unanticipated events outside the control of an ordinary planning system, has in the last 50years become an important andfrequently debated issue in the scientific literature on complex systems management underrisk conditions. The urban system can be regarded as such an open complex system whereexternal events, not always foreseeable with a closed system's model, may strongly impact on the internal dynamics of an urban area.Conventionally, planning the future presupposes collecting information and analyzing itrationally in order to control for unexpected contingency events. But it is an importantquestion in the field of urban planning, how proper strategies can be developed to deal withexternal uncertainty and shocks that transcend the imagination of policy-makers. How should decision-makers respond to such unforeseen jumps in asystem?The aim of this paper is to present and apply a new scientific decision support method based on the future studies literature, with the aim to helpdecision-makers in the strategicmanagement of uncertainty and risk in order "to anticipate the extraordinary events correctlyin order to act more effectively" (Godet, 1987). In particular, we will deploy here the scenariomethodology in combination with multicriteria analysis and fuzzy set theory, as a usefu

Detection of Ligand-induced Conformational Changes in the Activation Loop of Aurora-A Kinase by PELDOR Spectroscopy.

The structure of protein kinases has been extensively studied by protein crystallography. Conformational movement of the kinase activation loop is thought to be crucial for regulation of activity; however, in many cases the position of the activation loop in solution is unknown. Protein kinases are an important class of therapeutic target and kinase inhibitors are classified by their effect on the activation loop. Here, we report the use of pulsed electron double resonance (PELDOR) and site-directed spin labeling to monitor conformational changes through the insertion of MTSL [S-(1-oxyl-2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-2,5-dihydro-1 H-pyrrol-3-yl)methyl methanesulfonothioate] on the dynamic activation loop and a stable site on the outer surface of the enzyme. The action of different ligands such as microtubule-associated protein (TPX2) and inhibitors could be discriminated as well as their ability to lock the activation loop in a fixed conformation. This study provides evidence for structural adaptations that could be used for drug design and a methodological approach that has potential to characterize inhibitors in development

Exploring the interplay between urban governance and smart services codesign

The large spreading of e-democracy and e-participatory tools and environments showed, and is still showing, that technologies offer new direction for dealing with the challenge of scaling the deliberative democracy perspective up to the urban governance scale. The recent growth of Urban Living Labs and Human Smart City initiatives is disclosing a promising bridge between the micro-scale of decision and the mechanisms of urban governance. In coherence with these perspectives, the article reports on the interplay between urban governance and the co-design of smart services in urban transformation as it has been observed and analysed in the two European research projects Periphèria and MyNeinghbourhood. The article also discusses the value of service codesign as a strategic practice to experiment new participatory governance in smart cities

Active vibration control of a mounting bracket for automotive gearboxes

The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of active vibration control in automotive gearboxes mounting brackets to reduce tonal disturbances. A combination of piezoelectric accelerometers and an internally preloaded piezo stack actuator is used to counteract their unbalanced caused vibrations. Initially, a numerical modal analysis was carried out to identify the normal modes in the frequency range of interest. The piezo stack was simulated by a ROD element and its effect numerically characterized. The upper and lower faces of the stack were mechanically coupled with the bracket structure, whereas the active control strategy involved the relative displacement of two opposite points of the bracket. To this aim, dedicated interfaces were designed to integrate the stack into the mounting bracket. In order to control the vibrations in correspondence of the second bending mode (1599.4Hz), the primary disturbance, simulated by a shaker, was modelled in the frequency domain using a white noise signal. A narrow window of 20Hz was initially selected as the control system domain. Then, this frequency range has been made gradually wider around the resonance peak, in order to optimize the control effect, and then extended up to 80 Hz when undesired effects occurred. Primary and secondary control plants were firstly numerically fitted from the measured responses and excitations using system identification techniques, and then used for the active controller design and simulations

Feasibility study for a tonal vibration control system of a mounting bracket for automotive gearboxes

A conceptual design of an active device able to attenuate the tonal vibrations of a mounting bracket for automotive gearboxes is addressed in this paper. A preloaded piezo stack actuator is used to counteract the unbalanced vibrations of the component by monitoring its operational deformations. Firstly, a numerical modal analysis is carried out to characterize the normal modes in the frequency range of interest. The piezo stack is simulated by a rod element and its effect is numerically characterized. The upper and lower faces of the stack are mechanically coupled with the bracket structure, whereas the active control deals with the relative displacement of two points of the bracket. The primary disturbance was simulated by a shaker to control the vibrations in correspondence of the second bending mode (around 1.6 kHz). A 20 Hz narrow band was additionally selected as the control window. Then, this frequency range was enlarged around the resonance peak in order to optimize the control effect, till 80 Hz to investigate the resulting effects. Finally, focus is given to the structural damping by assessing its impact on the control forces and phases to cancel the deformation along the contact direction. The description of the experimental results concludes this work by generally confirming the numerical expectations

Rank Order for a Rehabilitation Program Using Multiple Criteria

In this study we investigate an urban planning problem where an area is to be rehabilitated. The area is divided into several sub-areas any of which could be the starting point for the rehabilitation process. The ultimate goal is to find a rank order for the alternative sub-areas, which simultaneously solves the problem of where to start the rehabilitation. If all information are given on the ordinal scale, we could use e.g. the classical minimum violation principle to solve this problem. In this paper, we have generalized this approach to cover the cardinal scale and pairwise information

La dimensione territoriale nell\u2019approccio dei living labs. Verso i territorial living labs per il sostegno alle citt\ue0 e alle regioni\u2018smart\u2019

Le politiche comunitarie di sostegno alla pianificazione spaziale centrate sul policentrismo hanno cercato di innestare dinamiche di cambiamento della situazione di stallo economico e sociale delle regioni periferiche a nord e a sud dell\u2019area centrale del continente europeo. Il policentrismo allude alla possibilit\ue0 di generazione di nuove centralit\ue0 in aree deboli come contrasto al declino tendenziale e per rafforzare la coesione territoriale che si affianca alla coesione sociale ed economica nelle principali politiche della UE. Una prosecuzione di queste politiche avviate con l\u2019Esdp e sviluppate in termini di analisi con Espon, \ue8 data dai programmi comunitari sulle ICT che coinvolgono direttamente anche le imprese private specializzate del settore. Il tema quindi \ue8 la creazione di nuove centralit\ue0 in regioni dove i fenomeni urbani non riescono o non possono strutturalmente far parte dei sistemi metropolitani mondiali di accumulazione di capitali prevalentemente finanziari che, a loro volta, sono travolti da una crisi che sembra assumere i caratterini di un declino sistemico e strutturale. Le ICT costituiscono un ambito riflessivo e di elaborazione di politiche che possono cambiare le citt\ue0, non solo di quelle che fanno parte delle aree forti e centrali del continente europeo, ma anche nelle aree deboli dove il concetto di \u2018sviluppo\u2019 sembra essere superato in favore di volont\ue0 diverse e pi\uf9 centrate a fornire risposte autocentrate alla domanda sociale. E\u2019 su quest\u2019ultima che pu\uf2 attestarsi e concentrarsi l\u2019offerta di tecnologia ed \ue8 sulla innovazione sociale che l\u2019avanzamento tecnologico e la creazione di nuovi mercati potrebbero avere una spinta decisiva a livello locale e sovra locale. Il contributo presenta una sintesi dei risultati dell\u2019avvio del progetto Peripheria che riguarda il supporto ad alcune Smart City e Living Labs per sperimentare modi innovativi condivisi in reti di produzione territoriale