My boy builds coffins. Future memories of your loved ones

The research is focus on the concept of storytelling associated with product design, trying to investigate new ways of designing and a possible future scenario related to the concept of death. MY BOY BUILDS COFFINS is a gravestone made using a combination of cremation’s ashes and resin. It is composed by a series of holes in which the user can stitch a text, in order to remember the loved one. The stitching need of a particular yarn produced in Switzerland using some parts of human body. Project also provides another version which uses LED lights instead of the yarn. The LEDs - thanks to an inductive coupling - will light when It will be posed in the hole. The gravestone can be placed where you want, as if it would create a little altar staff at home. In this way, there is a real connection between the user and the dearly departed

Combining Parametric and Non-parametric Algorithms for a Partially Unsupervised Classification of Multitemporal Remote-Sensing Images

In this paper, we propose a classification system based on a multiple-classifier architecture, which is aimed at updating land-cover maps by using multisensor and/or multisource remote-sensing images. The proposed system is composed of an ensemble of classifiers that, once trained in a supervised way on a specific image of a given area, can be retrained in an unsupervised way to classify a new image of the considered site. In this context, two techniques are presented for the unsupervised updating of the parameters of a maximum-likelihood (ML) classifier and a radial basis function (RBF) neural-network classifier, on the basis of the distribution of the new image to be classified. Experimental results carried out on a multitemporal and multisource remote-sensing data set confirm the effectiveness of the proposed system

The kinetics of folding of the NSH2 domain from p85

SH2 domains are protein domains that mediate protein-protein interaction through the recognition and binding of specific sequences containing phosphorylated tyrosines. The p85 protein is the regulatory subunit of the heterodimeric enzyme PI3K, an important enzyme involved in several molecular pathways. In this work we characterize the folding kinetics of the NSH2 domain of p85. Our data clearly reveal peculiar folding kinetics, characterized by an apparent mismatch between the observed folding and unfolding kinetics. Taking advantage of double mixing stopped flow experiments and site directed mutagenesis we demonstrate that such behavior is due to the cis/trans isomerization of the peptide bond between D73 and P74, being in a cis conformation in the native protein. Our data are discussed in comparison with previous works on the folding of other SH2 domains

Weak nodes detection in urban transport systems: Planning for resilience in Singapore

The availability of massive data-sets describing human mobility offers the possibility to design simulation tools to monitor and improve the resilience of transport systems in response to traumatic events such as natural and man-made disasters (e.g. floods terroristic attacks, etc...). In this perspective, we propose ACHILLES, an application to model people's movements in a given transport system mode through a multiplex network representation based on mobility data. ACHILLES is a web-based application which provides an easy-to-use interface to explore the mobility fluxes and the connectivity of every urban zone in a city, as well as to visualize changes in the transport system resulting from the addition or removal of transport modes, urban zones, and single stops. Notably, our application allows the user to assess the overall resilience of the transport network by identifying its weakest node, i.e. Urban Achilles Heel, with reference to the ancient Greek mythology. To demonstrate the impact of ACHILLES for humanitarian aid we consider its application to a real-world scenario by exploring human mobility in Singapore in response to flood prevention.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, IEEE Data Science and Advanced Analytic

A general model for the estimation of societal costs of lost production and informal care in Italy

We developed a general model for estimating and comparing disease- and treatment-specific lost paid/unpaid production (due to premature death and reduced ability) and informal care received (due to reduced ability) in Italy, starting from survival, demographic and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) data. Assuming the disease is not selecting a systematically different population in terms of mean wage than the general public, age- and gender-specific yearly production values are estimated combining data from the last Italian Time-Use-Survey on time dedicated to paid and unpaid (household, caring and volunteering) activities, with a) the last Italian Wage-Structure-Survey, for paid activities (Human Capital approach), and b) market prices for an equivalent service, for unpaid production (Proxy Good approach). To avoid double counting, age- and gender-specific maximum care needs are approximated with time dedicated to eating and personal care,reported in TUS. Present monetary values of future productivity and informal care are estimated applying a 3.5% annual discount rate. Lost life years due to a particular condition/treatment are estimated by comparison of its survival curve with the corresponding age- and gender-normalized survival curve of the general Italian population. The degrees of reduced productivity and need for informal care for remaining life years are estimated by comparison of condition-/treatment-specificreported HRQoL data with demographically matched Italian norms. Our results will be useful for cost-effectiveness and budget impact analyses conducted from the perspective of the Italian society and we encourage the inclusion of these costs in economic evaluations to allow decision makers to be fully informed about the costs and consequences of their decisions on healthcare interventions

Design of An Active Workpiece Holder

AbstractMilling is one of the most used machining processes thanks to its high flexibility and high achievable quality. The performance of milling machines is constantly increasing, improving the convenience and increasing the competitiveness of this operation. However, the trend of performance improvement has found a technological limit: self-excited vibrations due to the dynamics of the system machine-workpiece-tooling (i.e. chatter). Chatter is the most dangerous dynamic phenomena that could happen during milling; due to its regenerative nature, it could lead the machine and the tooling system to a heavy fault or to the disruption of the workpiece. This paper develops an active workpiece holder that avoids chatter vibrations by a smart actuation of the workpiece. The design of the workpiece holder is a difficult task due to strict product requirements and the need to create a decoupled structure. The decoupling of the structure is a fundamental requirement of the product because this affects the controllability of the system. Axiomatic Design Theory is used to support the definition of the product requirements and the product architecture. After the definition of the optimal structure of the workpiece, the design features are integrated in order to obtain a functional decoupled structure

Conceptual Labs for operative Exploration

In the perspective of the Model of Educational Reconstruction, designing new educational path require to gain new information on how students face the specific subject explored. At the PERG of Udine the main steps of the new educational paths were explored with pupils engaged in Conceptual Laboratory of Operative Exploration (CLOE) in informal learning contexts, where using different monitoring tools student spontaneous ideas as well their learning paths were explored and stimulated. In CLOE pupils discuss everyday life scenarios, recover their everyday and sensorial knowledge, as well as involve them in the challenges of explorations according to an IBL strategies. The CLOE lab are research based proposals of learning where explore how pupils build formal thinking, reflect on phenomena and construct models, reinterpret common everyday knowledge. The research focus is on the reasoning sequence, the ways in which knowledge is structured, the development of interpretative representations. The design characteristic of the CLOE labs are presented exemplifying it in the case of the CLOE on energ

La formaci\uf3n docente: un reto para la investigaci\uf3n

En este trabajo se repasa la labor desarrollada por los autores a lo largo de su experiencia profesional como docentes y formadores de docentes en las \ue1reas cient\uedficas. En particular, se discute con detalle la formaci\uf3n del profesorado en el sistema educativo italiano. This paper reviews the work developed by the authors in the course of their professional experience as teachers and teacher trainers in the scientific areas. In particular, it discusses in detail the training of teachers in the Italian educational system

High school students analyzing the phenomenology of superconductivity and constructing model of the Meissner effect

Superconductivity offers many opportunities to explore a relevant phenomenology interesting for students because perceived as a challenge stimulating the construction of models, activating a critical re-analysis of magnetic and electrical properties of materials, bridging science and technology. In the European projects MOSEM1-2, an educational path was developed on superconductivity for high school based on explorative experiments and on-line measurements concerning the Meissner and the pinning effects. Feasibility tests were performed in several Italian high schools with more than 500 students. A research experimentation carried out with 40 selected students, aged 17-19, was focused on the models they develop analyzing the Meissner effect using the field lines representation. Data were collected by the worksheets used by students and by the audio-tape dialogues in the group activities. A qualitative analysis of the students\u2019 answers, sentences, explicit reasoning and drawings was performed. The students learning paths show a progressive construction of models based on the ideal diamagnetic properties of superconductors, in which the concept of field has an important role