Si Nanocrystals Embedded in a Silicon Oxynitride Matrix

We investigated the morphological and structural change in silicon nanostructures embedded in the silicon oxynitride matrix. The study has been carried out on thin films thermally annealed at high temperature, after deposition at 400°C by Electron Cyclotron Resonance Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (ECR‐ PECVD), under different deposition parameters. Our study evidenced the existence of a well defined threshold for the silicon content in the film (around 47%), to get Si nano‐crystallization in the silicon oxynitride matrix. Both Si nano‐crystals and Si nano‐columns have been observed by TEM analysis in two samples having a similar Si content but deposited under different condition

Si Nanocrystals Embedded in a Silicon Oxynitride Matrix

We investigated the morphological and structural change in silicon nanostructures embedded in the silicon oxynitride matrix. The study has been carried out on thin films thermally annealed at high temperature, after deposition at 400°C by Electron Cyclotron Resonance Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (ECR‐ PECVD), under different deposition parameters. Our study evidenced the existence of a well defined threshold for the silicon content in the film (around 47%), to get Si nano‐crystallization in the silicon oxynitride matrix. Both Si nano‐crystals and Si nano‐columns have been observed by TEM analysis in two samples having a similar Si content but deposited under different condition

Methodology for clinical research

A clinical research requires a systematic approach with diligent planning, execution and sampling in order to obtain reliable and validated results, as well as an understanding of each research methodology is essential for researchers. Indeed, selecting an inappropriate study type, an error that cannot be corrected after the beginning of a study, results in flawed methodology. The results of clinical research studies enhance the repertoire of knowledge regarding a disease pathogenicity, an existing or newly discovered medication, surgical or diagnostic procedure or medical device. Medical research can be divided into primary and secondary research, where primary research involves conducting studies and collecting raw data, which is then analysed and evaluated in secondary research. The successful deployment of clinical research methodology depends upon several factors. These include the type of study, the objectives, the population, study design, methodology/techniques and the sampling and statistical procedures used. Among the different types of clinical studies, we can recognize descriptive or analytical studies, which can be further categorized in observational and experimental. Finally, also pre-clinical studies are of outmost importance, representing the steppingstone of clinical trials. It is therefore important to understand the types of method for clinical research. Thus, this review focused on various aspects of the methodology and describes the crucial steps of the conceptual and executive stages

Ethical considerations regarding animal experimentation

Animal experimentation is widely used around the world for the identification of the root causes of various diseases in humans and animals and for exploring treatment options. Among the several animal species, rats, mice and purpose-bred birds comprise almost 90% of the animals that are used for research purpose. However, growing awareness of the sentience of animals and their experience of pain and suffering has led to strong opposition to animal research among many scientists and the general public. In addition, the usefulness of extrapolating animal data to humans has been questioned. This has led to Ethical Committees’ adoption of the ‘four Rs’ principles (Reduction, Refinement, Replacement and Responsibility) as a guide when making decisions regarding animal experimentation. Some of the essential considerations for humane animal experimentation are presented in this review along with the requirement for investigator training. Due to the ethical issues surrounding the use of animals in experimentation, their use is declining in those research areas where alternative in vitro or in silico methods are available. However, so far it has not been possible to dispense with experimental animals completely and further research is needed to provide a road map to robust alternatives before their use can be fully discontinued

Reciprocal space temperature-dependent phonons method from ab-initio dynamics

We present a robust reciprocal-space implementation of the temperature-dependent effective potential method. Our implementation can scale easily to large cell and long sampling time. It is interoperable with standard ab-initio molecular dynamics and with Langevin dynamics. We prove that both sampling methods can be efficient and accurate if a thermostat is used to control temperature and dynamics parameters are used to optimize the sampling efficiency. By way of example, we apply it to study anharmonic phonon renormalization in weakly and strongly anharmonic materials, reproducing the temperature effect on phonon frequencies, crossing of phase transition, and stabilization of high-temperature phases

Lettere dalla Curia. Diplomazia e politica nei carteggi e nei libri di lettere del Rinascimento, a c. di Lorenzo Geri e Marcello Simonetta

Il volume prende in esame la produzione epistolare di umanisti, uomini di lettere e diplomatici attivi nella Curia papale tra la metà del xiv secolo e la metà del xvi secolo. Nonostante la ricchezza dei documenti disponibili, tale corpus epistolare, connesso con la Curia ma distinto dalla produzione di carattere strettamente ufficiale, non è mai stato oggetto di uno studio complessivo. I saggi, affidati a specialisti di diversa formazione, offrono tessere preziose per la ricostruzione di un quadro di insieme. Gli autori presi in esame comprendono Petrarca e Leonardo Bruni, ai quali si devono due tra i più importanti libri di lettere del primo Umanesimo; personalità di spicco nella storia ecclesiastica e, al contempo, letteraria come Enea Silvio Piccolomini e Bernardo Bibbiena; Pietro Bembo, il cui epistolario, latino e volgare, rappresenta un vero e proprio snodo nella storia dell’epistolografia del Cinquecento; due figure relativamente poco note ma di notevole interesse come il poligrafo Dionigi Atanagi, antologista d’eccezione della produzione epistolare curiale in volgare, e Giovan Battista Sanga, segretario di Giovan Matteo Giberti e di Clemente vii

Sole su Unicam - Progetto di riqualificazione energetica della scuola di matematica dell'Università di Camerino

L'articolo recensisce il progetto di riqualificazione energetica dell'edificio Scuola di Matematica dell'Università di Camerino, nell'ambito degli interventi realizzati dalla stessa università per migliorare l'offerta di servizi e strutture dell'ateneo

Measurement of users\u2019 well-being through domotic sensors and machine learning algorithms

This paper proposes a specific domotic sensor network to measure the well-being of elderly people in private home environments through Machine Learning (ML) algorithms trained with daily surveys. The tests have been conducted in 5 apartments lived by 8 older people where the non-obtrusive sensor network is installed. Two ML algorithms are compared, Random Forest (RF) and Regression Tree (RT), such that to verify whether the users\u2019 well-being is encoded in behavioural patterns obtained from the domotic data. These data are used to measure users\u2019 well-being and compared with three reference indices obtained through a daily survey: a physical (Phy), a mental (Mind) and a general health index (Avg). The extracted indices from the daily survey are used to train ML algorithms in the estimation of user\u2019s well-being for users that live alone (single-resident) or with others (multi-resident). Single-house and multi-house procedures are tested, both to extract a user-specific behaviour, and assess whether the model is able to generalise across different users and environments. Results show that the RF algorithm provides better performance than the RT algorithm in predicting the level of well-being with a Mean Absolute Error in the multi-house procedure of 32%, 13% and 17% for the Avg, Mind and Phy indices, respectively

MODULO AUTOPORTANTE PER LA FACCIATA DI UN EDIFICIO

Progetto di modulo autoportante destinato ad accogliere elementi fotovoltaici itegrati alla facciata verticale. La composizione dei moduli consente di ottenere una superficie verticale captante ed esteticamente gradevole. La forma del modulo consente inoltre di ottenere la migliore inclinazione del modulo fotovoltaico