Biofuels from microalgae. Technological aspects and economic analysis. Biocarburanti da microalghe. Panoramica della tecnologia ed analisi economica

open95

Complete integrability of information processing by biochemical reactions

Statistical mechanics provides an effective framework to investigate information processing in biochemical reactions. Within such framework far-reaching analogies are established among (anti-) cooperative collective behaviors in chemical kinetics, (anti-)ferromagnetic spin models in statistical mechanics and operational amplifiers/flip-flops in cybernetics. The underlying modeling -- based on spin systems -- has been proved to be accurate for a wide class of systems matching classical (e.g. Michaelis--Menten, Hill, Adair) scenarios in the infinite-size approximation. However, the current research in biochemical information processing has been focusing on systems involving a relatively small number of units, where this approximation is no longer valid. Here we show that the whole statistical mechanical description of reaction kinetics can be re-formulated via a mechanical analogy -- based on completely integrable hydrodynamic-type systems of PDEs -- which provides explicit finite-size solutions, matching recently investigated phenomena (e.g. noise-induced cooperativity, stochastic bi-stability, quorum sensing). The resulting picture, successfully tested against a broad spectrum of data, constitutes a neat rationale for a numerically effective and theoretically consistent description of collective behaviors in biochemical reactions.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication in Scientific Report

On quantum and relativistic mechanical analogues in mean field spin models

Conceptual analogies among statistical mechanics and classical (or quantum) mechanics often appeared in the literature. For classical two-body mean field models, an analogy develops into a proper identification between the free energy of Curie-Weiss type magnetic models and the Hamilton-Jacobi action for a one dimensional mechanical system. Similarly, the partition function plays the role of the wave function in quantum mechanics and satisfies the heat equation that plays, in this context, the role of the Schrodinger equation in quantum mechanics. We show that this identification can be remarkably extended to include a wide family of magnetic models classified by normal forms of suitable real algebraic dispersion curves. In all these cases, the model turns out to be completely solvable as the free energy as well as the order parameter are obtained as solutions of an integrable nonlinear PDE of Hamilton-Jacobi type. We observe that the mechanical analog of these models can be viewed as the relativistic analog of the Curie-Weiss model and this helps to clarify the connection between generalised self-averaging and in statistical thermodynamics and the semi-classical dynamics of viscous conservation laws.Comment: Dedicated to Sandro Graffi in honor of his seventieth birthda

Indirect Evaporative Cooling Combined with Dehumidification in a MVHR System for Radiant Cooling

Abstract This work investigates a possible application of an integrated heat recovery system with an indirect evaporative cooling section (IEC) into the air extraction and a dehumidification device into air delivery. System operation is then simulated in different climatic conditions and the energy consumptions are compared with the energy required by the same system without the IEC section

Discriminative Marginalized Probabilistic Neural Method for Multi-Document Summarization of Medical Literature

Although current state-of-the-art Transformer-based solutions succeeded in a wide range for single-document NLP tasks, they still struggle to address multi-input tasks such as multi-document summarization. Many solutions truncate the inputs, thus ignoring potential summary-relevant contents, which is unacceptable in the medical domain where each information can be vital. Others leverage linear model approximations to apply multi-input concatenation, worsening the results because all information is considered, even if it is conflicting or noisy with respect to a shared background. Despite the importance and social impact of medicine, there are no ad-hoc solutions for multi-document summarization. For this reason, we propose a novel discriminative marginalized probabilistic method (DAMEN) trained to discriminate critical information from a cluster of topic-related medical documents and generate a multi-document summary via token probability marginalization. Results prove we outperform the previous state-of-the-art on a biomedical dataset for multi-document summarization of systematic literature reviews. Moreover, we perform extensive ablation studies to motivate the design choices and prove the importance of each module of our method

Text-to-Text Extraction and Verbalization of Biomedical Event Graphs

Biomedical events represent complex, graphical, and semantically rich interactions expressed in the scientific literature. Almost all contributions in the event realm orbit around semantic parsing, usually employing discriminative architectures and cumbersome multi-step pipelines limited to a small number of target interaction types. We present the first lightweight framework to solve both event extraction and event verbalization with a unified text-to-text approach, allowing us to fuse all the resources so far designed for different tasks. To this end, we present a new event graph linearization technique and release highly comprehensive event-text paired datasets, covering more than 150 event types from multiple biology subareas (English language). By streamlining parsing and generation to translations, we propose baseline transformer model results according to multiple biomedical text mining benchmarks and NLG metrics. Our extractive models achieve greater state-of-the-art performance than single-task competitors and show promising capabilities for the controlled generation of coherent natural language utterances from structured data

Structure borne noise due to marine diesel engines: experimental study and numerical simulation for the prediction of the dynamic behaviour of resilient mounts

2013/2014Gli alti livelli di comfort che sono richiesti oggigiorno a bordo di navi da crociera e mega-yachts, portano i progettisti a concentrare la loro attenzione sul problema del rumore strutturale. I motori diesel quattro tempi che sono installati a bordo nave come motori principali o diesel generatori, sono tra le principali sorgenti di rumore strutturale. Per questa ragione, al fine di ridurre l’energia vibrazionale generata da queste sorgenti e trasmessa, tramite le strutture nave, ai locali alloggio, i motori diesel sono sospesi mediante elementi resilienti. Tali elementi resilienti disaccoppiano la sorgente di rumore e vibrazioni (motore diesel) dal mezzo di propagazione (le strutture nave) e isolano dunque la sorgente dalle strutture riceventi. I livelli di rumore strutturale misurati alle fondazioni del motore diesel dipendono dai livelli di velocità misurati sulla sorgente (cioè ai piedi del motore diesel), dai livelli di impedenza meccanica degli elementi resilienti e dai livelli di mobilità meccanica delle fondazioni del motore diesel. Il single-point approach è un approccio semplificato per la previsione dei livelli di rumore strutturale che trascura l’interazione tra elementi resilienti. Secondo tale teoria, al fine di ridurre il rumore strutturale trasmesso attraverso gli elementi resilienti alle strutture nave, si deve ridurre l’impedenza meccanica degli elementi resilienti così come la mobilità meccanica delle fondazioni del motore diesel. In altre parole, si devono aumentare la rigidezza dinamica degli elementi resilienti così come l’impedenza meccanica delle fondazioni del motore diesel. Ad oggi, l’impedenza meccanica degli elementi resilienti può essere ricavata solo mediante prove sperimentali in laboratorio, mentre la mobilità meccanica del motore diesel è solitamente misurata quando la nave è in costruzione. Dunque non vi è la possibilità di predire, in fase progettuale, il rumore strutturale dovuto ai motori diesel. In questa tesi, viene presentata una procedura per la simulazione del rumore strutturale dovuto a motori diesel marini. La procedura si basa su test sperimentali e simulazioni numeriche. Nella prima parte della tesi sono richiamate le basi teoriche necessarie per l’esecuzione delle procedure numeriche e delle prove sperimentali. Sono dunque presentati i risultati delle analisi numeriche per simulare la mobilità delle fondazioni dei motori diesel marini. I risultati delle analisi FEM sono stati validati mediante confronto dei risultati delle analisi numeriche con i dati ottenuti da una campagna di misure eseguite a bordo nave. Successivamente sono presentati i risultati di una serie di prove eseguite per collaudare una nuova macchina sperimentale per misurare l’impedenza meccanica degli elementi resilienti. Lo scopo del collaudo era definire una procedura per l’utilizzo della macchina e per l’esecuzione di prove sperimentali in accordo alla ISO 10846, che è considerata normativa di riferimento per questo tipo di prove. Si è dunque proceduto con l’esecuzione di prove sperimentali eseguite su un elemento resiliente per motori diesel marini. Le prove sono state eseguite a differenti carichi statici. I risultati di queste prove sperimentali sono stati utilizzati per settare un modello numerico che simuli il comportamento non-lineare del componente in gomma del resiliente. I risultati ottenuti sia dalle prove sperimentali sia dalle simulazioni numeriche sono stati utilizzati per predire il rumore strutturale generato dai motori diesel, in accordo al single-point approach. I risultati ottenuti dall’applicazione del metodo sono stati confrontati con misure eseguite a bordo e sono stati discussi per evidenziare vantaggi e svantaggi dell’applicazione del metodo. Le procedure numeriche per la simulazione del comportamento dinamico del resiliente e della fondazione costituiscono un primo passo per l’ottimizzazione del sistema di isolazione del motore diesel marino.The high level of comfort that is required today on board cruise vessels and mega-yachts, leads the designers to focus their attention on structure-borne noise issues. Four-stroke diesel engines that are installed on board as main diesel engines for the propulsion system and as gen-sets, are usually the main sources of structure-borne noise. For this reason, the diesel engines are usually resiliently mounted in order to reduce the vibration energy generated by these sources and transmitted through the ship structures to the accommodation areas. These mounts decouple the noise and vibration source (diesel engine) from the means of wave propagation (ship structures) and so, they isolate the source from the receiving structures. The structure-borne noise levels measured at the diesel engine foundation depend on the velocity levels measured at the source (diesel engine feet), on the mechanical impedance levels of the resilient mounts and on the mechanical mobility levels of the diesel engine foundation. The simplified theory of the single-point approach neglects the interaction among the resilient mounts. According to this theory, to decrease the structure-borne noise transmitted through the resilient mounts towards the ship structures, the mechanical impedance of the resilient mounts as well as the mechanical mobility of the diesel engine foundation are to be lowered. In other words the dynamic stiffness of the resilient mounts has to be decreased and the mechanical impedance of the diesel engine foundation has to be increased. To date, the mechanical impedance of real resilient mounts can only be obtained by laboratory tests and the mechanical mobility of the diesel engine foundation is usually measured when the ship is under construction, so it is not available for predictive analyses. In the thesis, a procedure for simulating the structure-borne noise generated by marine diesel engine is discussed. The procedure is based on both experimental tests and numerical simulations. In the first part of the thesis, some notes on the theoretical background are presented. Then, the results of FE analyses for simulating the mechanical mobility of a diesel engine foundation are shown. The FE models have been validated by the results of a measurement campaign carried out on board a ship. Then, the results of a series of tests performed to tune a new test rig, designed and built up at the University of Trieste for measuring the mechanical impedance of resilient mounts, are discussed. The campaign for tuning the test rig has been carried out in order to set an experimental procedure that allows achieving results in compliance with the ISO 10846 Standard, which is a sound reference for this kind of tests. As a case study, a large resilient mount for marine diesel engines has been tested to achieve its mechanical impedance curve at different static pre-loads. The outcomes of the experimental tests have been used for tuning the best numerical model of the resilient mount that properly takes into account the nonlinear behaviour of the rubber core. The data of the experimental tests carried out on board ships as well as in laboratory and the outcomes of numerical simulations have been used to predict the structure-borne noise according to the single-point approach. The outcomes achieved by the application of the method have been compared with on board measurements and pros and cons of the method are widely discussed. Moreover, the numerical procedures for the simulation of the dynamic behaviour of the resilient mount and the diesel engine foundation, pave the way for the optimization of the decoupling system of marine diesel engines.XXVII Ciclo198

Single tensionless transition in the Laplacian roughening model

4 pages, 4 figures.-- PACS nrs.: 64.60.Cn, 68.35.Ct, 68.35.Rh.-- ArXiv pre-print available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0601514Final publisher version available Open Access at: http://gisc.uc3m.es/~cuerno/publ_list.htmlWe report large scale Monte Carlo simulations of the equilibrium discrete Laplacian roughening (dLr) model, originally introduced as the simplest one accommodating the hexatic phase in two-dimensional melting. The dLr model is also relevant to surface roughening in molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Our data suggest a single phase transition, possibly of the Kosterlitz-Thouless type, between a flat low-temperature phase and a rough, tensionless, high-temperature phase. Thus, earlier conclusions on the order of the phase transition and on the existence of a hexatic phase are seen as due to finite size effects, the phase diagram of the dLr model being similar to that of a continuum analog previously formulated in the context of surface growth by MBE.Partial financial support from CAM and MEC (Spain) through Grants Nos. BFM2003-08532-C03-02 and FIS2004-01399 (J.J. R.-L.), BFM2003-07749-C05-01 (R.C.), and BFM2002-04474-C02 and FIS2004-01001 (E.M.) is acknowledged. E.M. also acknowledges a Ramón y Cajal contract by MEC. We thank BIFI for granting us access to their computing facilities.Publicad