Luncheon Speaker on Foundations of Supply Chain Management for Space Applications

Luncheon Speaker: Foundations of Supply Chain Management for Space Applications Introductions: George Tyson, General Chairman Foundations of Supply Chain Management for Space Applications Speaker: Michael C. Galluzzi NASA-KS

Occupancy Estimation Using Low-Cost Wi-Fi Sniffers

Real-time measurements on the occupancy status of indoor and outdoor spaces can be exploited in many scenarios (HVAC and lighting system control, building energy optimization, allocation and reservation of spaces, etc.). Traditional systems for occupancy estimation rely on environmental sensors (CO2, temperature, humidity) or video cameras. In this paper, we depart from such traditional approaches and propose a novel occupancy estimation system which is based on the capture of Wi-Fi management packets from users' devices. The system, implemented on a low-cost ESP8266 microcontroller, leverages a supervised learning model to adapt to different spaces and transmits occupancy information through the MQTT protocol to a web-based dashboard. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed solution in four different indoor university spaces.Comment: Submitted to Balkancom 201

Average fractional polarization of extragalactic sources at Planck frequencies

Recent detailed simulations have shown that an insufficiently accurate characterization of the contamination of unresolved polarized extragalactic sources can seriously bias measurements of the primordial cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum if the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r\sim 0.001,$ as predicted by models currently of special interest (e.g., Starobinsky's $R^2$ and Higgs inflation). This has motivated a reanalysis of the median polarization fraction of extragalactic sources (radio-loud AGNs and dusty galaxies) using data from the \textit{Planck} polarization maps. Our approach, exploiting the intensity distribution analysis, mitigates or overcomes the most delicate aspects of earlier analyses based on stacking techniques. By means of simulations, we have shown that the residual noise bias on the median polarization fraction, $\Pi_{\rm median}$, of extragalactic sources is generally \simlt 0.1\%. For radio sources, we have found $\Pi_{\rm median} \simeq 2.83\%$, with no significant dependence on either frequency or flux density, in good agreement with the earlier estimate and with high-sensitivity measurements in the frequency range 5--40\,GHz. No polarization signal is detected in the case of dusty galaxies, implying 90\% confidence upper limits of \Pi_{\rm dusty}\simlt 2.2\% at 353\,GHz and of \simlt 3.9\% at 217\,GHz. The contamination of CMB polarization maps by unresolved point sources is discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 7 tables; revised version. In press on Astronomy and Astrophysic

Andare oltre impressionabilità e ideologia: la ‘svolta narrativa’ e gli strumenti di analisi della biblioteconomia sociale

Con l’espressione narrative turn si fa riferimento al successo dell’approccio narrativo che si è manifestato nel campo delle scienze umane a partire dagli anni Novanta del secolo scorso. Il nostro settore non è estraneo a questo fenomeno, come dimostra una certa narrazione della biblioteca – diffusa negli ultimi anni e che in quest’ultimo periodo si sta consolidando – che si nutre di un patrimonio mitico fatto di messaggi altamente condivisibili, fortemente motivanti, sempre positivi, basati su valori indiscutibili. A partire da questa evidenza, l’articolo presenta una riflessione sulla svolta narrativa della biblioteconomia italiana: 1) dal punto di vista storico, a partire dal concetto di ‘library faith’, espressione utilizzata in America fin dagli anni Quaranta del Novecento per indicare l’‘ideologia’ che sostiene l’importanza della biblioteca pubblica per la società; 2) dal punto di vista metodologico, introducendo le sue due declinazioni, una che impiega lo storytelling come strumento di advocacy; l’altra che utilizza la narrazione come strumento di indagine. Nell’ultima parte dell'articolo viene introdotta l’analisi automatica dei testi (AAT) come metodo che può essere proficuamente utilizzato anche nel nostro settore al fine di incrementare la comprensione del fenomeno biblioteca e, dunque, produrre narrazioni coerenti e non slegate dai dati di realtà. Sei esperti sono stati chiamati a confrontarsi sulle specificità di questo metodo, le cui caratteristiche vengono presentate nell’ambito di una più ampia riflessione sugli strumenti interpretativi della biblioteconomia sociale.‘Narrative turn’ is the phrase used to refer to the success that narrative approach has been having in humanities since the Nineties. Our field is not foreign to this phenomenon: during these last years a narrative approach to the library is emerging, based upon myths built around shared, motivating and positive messages and undisputable values. Starting from this evidence, the article deals with the narrative turn in Italian librarianship: 1) from the historical point of view: since the Forties of the twentieth century, in the United States, the ideology supporting the public libraries’ central role of in society was studied under the name of ‘library faith’; 2) from the methodological point of view in all its different aspects: the one using storytelling as a means of advocacy; the other using stories as a knowledge production tool. The last part of the essay introduces the automatic text analysis as a method our field could use to better understand ‘library phenomenon’ and build up stories that are more coherent and tied to facts and data. Six experts have been involved in a debate about the specificity of this method, described as part of a wider discussion about social librarianship’s analytical tools

PhonItalia: a phonological lexicon for Italian.

In this article, we present the first open-access lexical database that provides phonological representations for 120,000 Italian word forms. Each of these also includes syllable boundaries and stress markings and a comprehensive range of lexical statistics. Using data derived from this lexicon, we have also generated a set of derived databases and provided estimates of positional frequency use for Italian phonemes, syllables, syllable onsets and codas, and character and phoneme bigrams. These databases are freely available from phonitalia.org. This article describes the methods, content, and summarizing statistics for these databases. In a first application of this database, we also demonstrate how the distribution of phonological substitution errors made by Italian aphasic patients is related to phoneme frequency

Phonological–lexical activation:a lexical component or anoutput buffer? Evidence from aphasic errors

Single word production requires that phoneme activation is maintained while articulatory conversion is taking place. Word serial recall, connected speech and non-word production (repetition and spelling) are all assumed to involve a phonological output buffer. A crucial question is whether the same memory resources are also involved in single word production. We investigate this question by assessing length and positional effects in the single word repetition and reading of six aphasic patients. We expect a damaged buffer to result in error rates per phoneme which increase with word length and in position effects. Although our patients had trouble with phoneme activation (they made mainly errors of phoneme selection), they did not show the effects expected from a buffer impairment. These results show that phoneme activation cannot be automatically equated with a buffer. We hypothesize that the phonemes of existing words are kept active though permanent links to the word node. Thus, the sustained activation needed for their articulation will come from the lexicon and will have different characteristics from the activation needed for the short-term retention of an unbound set of units. We conclude that there is no need and no evidence for a phonological buffer in single word production

Identification of the main ubiquitination site in human erythroid α-spectrin

AbstractErythroid spectrin is the main component of the red cell membrane skeleton, which is very important in determining the shape, resistance to mechanical stresses and deformability of red cells. Previously we demonstrated that human erythroid α-spectrin is ubiquitinated in vitro and in vivo, and using recombinant peptides we identified on repeat 17 the main ubiquitination site of α-spectrin. In order to identify the lysine(s) involved in the ubiquitination process, in the present study we mutated the lysines by site-directed mutagenesis. We found that ubiquitination was dramatically inhibited in peptides carrying the mutation of lysine 27 on repeat 17 (mutants K25,27R and K27R). We also demonstrated that the correct folding of this protein is fundamental for its recognition by the ubiquitin conjugating system. Furthermore, the region flanking lysine 27 showed a 75% similarity with the leucine zipper pattern present in many regulatory proteins. Thus, a new potential ubiquitin recognition motif was identified in α-spectrin and may be present in several other proteins

Cost of coexisting with a relict large carnivore population: Impact of apennine brown bears, 2005–2015

Human-carnivore conflicts are a major conservation issue. As bears are expanding their range in Europe’s human-modified landscapes, it is increasingly important to understand, prevent, and address human-bear conflicts and evaluate mitigation strategies in areas of historical coexis-tence. Based on verified claims, we assessed costs, patterns, and drivers of bear damages in the relict Apennine brown bear population in the Abruzzo Lazio and Molise National Park (PNALM), central Italy. During 2005–2015, 203 ± 71 (SD) damage events were verified annually, equivalent to 75,987 ± 30,038 €/year paid for compensation. Most damages occurred in summer and fall, with livestock depredation, especially sheep and cattle calves, prevailing over other types of damages, with apiaries ranking second in costs of compensation. Transhumant livestock owners were less impacted than residential ones, and farms that adopted prevention measures loaned from the PNALM were less susceptible to bear damages. Livestock farms chronically damaged by bears represented 8 ± 3% of those annually impacted, corresponding to 24 ± 6% of compensation costs. Further improvements in the conflict mitigation policy adopted by the PNALM include integrated prevention, conditional compensation, and participatory processes. We discuss the implications of our study for Human-bear coexistence in broader contexts

A NASA Supply Chain Beyond Low Earth Orbit: Explore Moon to Mars

Presentation will highlight the Space Shuttle Program Lessons Learned with a simulation of the complexity, volatility and multi-functional relationships of the supplier base followed by a review of a key element in the NASA KSC Supply Chain/Logistics Strategic Roadmap to include supply chain resiliency modeling as impacted by 3D Printing technology maturation and campaign-level network flow modeling for logistics nodal positioning of critical product needed to support space operations and In-Space Manufacturing beyond Low Earth Orbit