Second Order Nonlinear Optical Properties of 4-Styrylpyridines Axially Coordinated to A4 ZnII Porphyrins: A Comparative Experimental and Theoretical Investigation

In this research, two 4-styrylpyridines carrying an acceptor \u2013NO2 (L1) or a donor \u2013NMe2 group (L2) were axially coordinated to A4 ZnII porphyrins displaying in 5,10,15,20 meso position aryl moieties with remarkable electron withdrawing properties (pentafluorophenyl (TFP)), and with moderate to strong electron donor properties (phenyl (TPP) < 3,5-di-tert-butylphenyl (TBP) < bis(4-tert-butylphenyl)aniline) (TNP)). The second order nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of the resulting complexes were measured in CHCl3 solution by the Electric-Field-Induced Second Harmonic generation technique, and the quadratic hyperpolarizabilities \u3b2\u3bb were compared to the Density Functional Theory (DFT)-calculated scalar quantities \u3b2||. Our combined experimental and theoretical approach shows that different interactions are involved in the NLO response of L1- and L2-substituted A4 ZnII porphyrins, suggesting a role of backdonation-type mechanisms in the determination of the negative sign of Electric-Field-Induced Second Harmonic generation (EFISH) \u3b2\u3bb, and a not negligible third order contribution for L1-carrying complexes

Automatic Information Extraction from Investment Product Documents

In this paper we report on the activities carried out within a collaboration between Consob and Sapienza University. The developed project focus on Information Extraction from documents describing financial investment products. We discuss how we automate this task, via both rule-based and machine learningbased methods, and describe the performances of our approach

Improving domiciliary robotic services by integrating the ASTRO Robot in an AmI Infrastructure

This work describes the ECHORD Experiment ASTROMOBILE, a project aimed to design, develop and test a system for favourable independent living, improved quality of life and efficiency of care for senior citizens in domestic environments. The system, composed of a mobile robotic platform (called ASTRO) and an Ambient Intelligent Infrastructure that actively cooperated between them and with the end-user, was designed and implemented with a user-centred design approach, involving different stakeholders. The system was designed to deliver services to users, like drug delivery, stand support, reminding, info-entertainment. The design took advantages of the integration of robotic platforms with smart environments, to provide to users higher quality and localization based services. Senior end-users were involved in the experimentation of the system in the DomoCasa Living Lab and feedbacks were gathered for the technology assessment. Particularly, this paper demonstrates the general feasibility of the ASTROMOBILE system and thanks to users feedbacks its acceptability and usability

Silicon nanoparticles as active materials for LED: laser synthesis and functionalization for tuning luminescence

Silicon nanocrystals (SiNPs) are an extensively studied light-emitting material due to their inherent biocompatibility and easy integration with silicon-based technology. Although low luminescence quantum yields of as-prepared SiNPs, the exploitation of the surface chemistry of SiNPs plays a key role in tuning their luminescence. In this work, the development of SiNPs as active materials for innovative LEDs was investigated. SiNPs were synthesized by using laser pyrolysis, a very flexible tool for lab-scale production in developmental quantities. The synthesized SiNPs have dimensions from 5 to 15 nm and high purity grade but show weak luminescence. For this reason, chemical treatments were performed on SiNPs: surface modifications lead to an improvement of their luminescence properties. Chemical and optical characterization were performed by conventional and advanced techniques, such as FTIR, BET, UV-VIS absorption and emission, XPS, TEM and confocal Raman. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study of laser synthesis of SiNPs was conducted with the aim to identify the potential environmental impacts coming from this production method

Designing cascades of electron transfer processes in multicomponent graphene conjugates

A novel family of nanocarbon-based materials was designed, synthesized, and probed within the context of charge-transfer cascades. We integrated electron-donating ferrocenes with light-harvesting/electron-donating (metallo)porphyrins and electron-accepting graphene nanoplates (GNP) into multicomponent conjugates. To control the rate of charge flow between the individual building blocks, we bridged them via oligo-p-phenyleneethynylenes of variable lengths by β-linkages and the Prato-Maggini reaction. With steady-state absorption, fluorescence, Raman, and XPS measurements we realized the basic physico-chemical characterization of the photo- and redox-active components and the multicomponent conjugates. Going beyond this, we performed transient absorption measurements and corroborated by single wavelength and target analyses that the selective (metallo)porphyrin photoexcitation triggers a cascade of charge transfer events, that is, charge separation, charge shift, and charge recombination, to enable the directed charge flow. The net result is a few nanosecond-lived charge-separated state featuring a GNP-delocalized electron and a one-electron oxidized ferrocenium

Bˉ→Xsγ\bar{B}\to X_s \gamma in the Two Higgs Doublet Model up to Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order in QCD

We compute three-loop matching corrections to the Wilson coefficients $C_7$ and $C_8$ in the Two Higgs Doublet Model by applying expansions for small, intermediate and large charged Higgs boson masses. The results are used to evaluate the branching ratio of $\bar{B}\to X_s \gamma$ to next-to-next-to leading order accuracy, and to determine an updated lower limit on the charged Higgs boson mass. We find \mhplus \ge 380 GeV at 95% confidence level when the recently completed BABAR data analysis is taken into account. Our results for the charged Higgs contribution to the branching ratio exhibit considerably weaker sensitivity to the matching scale $\mu_0$, as compared to previous calculations.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures; v2: minor modifications, matches published version in JHE

Development of a Socially Believable Multi-Robot Solution from Town to Home

Technological advances in the robotic and ICT fields represent an effective solution to address specific societal problems to support ageing and independent life. One of the key factors for these technologies is that they have to be socially acceptable and believable to the end-users. This paper aimed to present some technological aspects that have been faced to develop the Robot-Era system, a multi-robotic system that is able to act in a socially believable way in the environments daily inhabited by humans, such as urban areas, buildings and homes. In particular, this paper focuses on two services—shopping delivery and garbage collection—showing preliminary results on experiments conducted with 35 elderly people. The analysis adopts an end-user-oriented perspective, considering some of the main attributes of acceptability: usability, attitude, anxiety, trust and quality of life

A Planner for Ambient Assisted Living: From High-Level Reasoning to Low-Level Robot Execution and Back

Robot ecologies are a growing paradigm in which one or several robotic systems are integrated into a smart environment. Robotic ecologies hold great promises for elderly assistance. Planning the activities of these systems, however, is not trivial, and requires consideration of issues like temporal and information dependencies among different parts of the ecology, exogenous actions, and multiple, dynamic goals. We describe a planner able to cope with the above challenges. We show in particular how this planner has been incorporated in closed-loop into a full robotic system that performs daily tasks in support of elderly people. The full robot ecology is deployed in a test apartment inside a real residential building, and it is currently undergoing an extensive user evaluation

Averages of b-hadron Properties at the End of 2005

This article reports world averages for measurements on b-hadron properties obtained by the Heavy Flavor Averaging Group (HFAG) using the available results as of at the end of 2005. In the averaging, the input parameters used in the various analyses are adjusted (rescaled) to common values, and all known correlations are taken into account. The averages include lifetimes, neutral meson mixing parameters, parameters of semileptonic decays, branching fractions of B meson decays to final states with open charm, charmonium and no charm, and measurements related to CP asymmetries