Medicina e Chirurgia da guerra, Punizioni e Tortura all’epoca delle Compagnie di Ventura

Questo articolo illustra i principali aspetti medici e chirurgici connessi all’epoca delle Compagnie di Ventura. Analizzando le principali cause di decesso dei Condottieri e dei Capitani nel periodo 1300-1580, vengono descritte la cura delle ferite e lo sviluppo delle tecniche applicate nella chirurgia da guerra, le epidemie più frequenti che colpirono l’Italia in tale epoca, le pene e la tortura in vigore nella Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia

A New Learning Factory Experience Exploiting LEGO For Teaching Manufacturing Systems Integration

Involving and stimulating students through intensive work in computer laboratories and simulation projects might be a challenging task, often due to the lack of the real manufacturing system that must be modeled and improved. Indeed, studying a manufacturing system that cannot be observed represents a real obstacle for student effective learning. In this paper, we describe the "LEGO FACTORY" initiative, an extra-curricular experience within the Master Degree Study Program in Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. The initiative is open to students from any study course of the university. The goal is to exploit learning-by-playing principles to offer scholars the possibility to understand the most common issues in the design and management of manufacturing systems, with a focus on system integration. A miniaturized production system made with LEGO® MINDSTORMS® is provided to students who are asked to accomplish a project aiming at the improvement of the system performances. The participants work in teams and must introduce design modifications and develop technical solutions to address the requirements. The experience is described with the hope that the approach can be replicated in other environments

Automated Generation of Digital Models for Production Lines through State Reconstruction

Thanks to the rapid advances in information technologies, digital twins have been widely adopted in the manufacturing industry to support production planning and control. At the core of a digital twin is a digital model that mirrors the physical system in a virtual space. It is inefficient to develop digital twins by modeling the considered systems manually. Although significant research effort has been made to automate the generation of digital models, most approaches so far impose strong assumptions on the available data or cannot precisely capture the behavior of the physical system. Noticing the current gap, we propose in this paper a novel approach for automatically generating a graph representation of a production line from an event log through state reconstruction. The feasibility of the proposed approach has been demonstrated on three simulated instances

A Cardinality-constrained Approach for Robust Machine Loading Problems

The Machine Loading Problem (MLP) refers to the allocation of operative tasks and tools to machines for the production of parts. Since the uncertainty of processing times might affect the quality of the solution, this paper proposes a robust formulation of an MLP, based on the cardinality-constrained approach, to evaluate the optimal solution in the presence of a given number of fluctuations of the actual processing time with respect to the nominal one. The applicability of the model in the practice has been tested on a case study

Avaliação de diferentes cultivares de amora-preta e comportamento da cultivar BRS Tupy sob diferentes números de hastes no oeste catarinense

Blackberries belong to the genus Rubus and are classified in the group of small fruits. It is a rustic crop of temperate climates with neutracentric properties, which presents good yields in short periods of time, being a great alternative for family farming. In Western Santa Catarina, there are no studies on the behavior of blackberry, hence, the goal of this work was to define the cultivars that could be used in the region, as well as the number of primocanes in the cultivar BRS Tupy. The orchard where the experiment was carried out is located in the experimental area of the Federal University of Fronteira Sul, campus Chapecó, it was implemented in 2014, and the evaluations were carried out in the first productive year. Two experiments were performed having the same variables analyzed in both of them. In the first experiment different cultivars (cv.) were evaluated: Cherokee, Guarani, BRS Tupy and BRS Xavante, with five replicates. In the second experiment, the best number of primocanes for the BRS Tupy cultivar was evaluated, with the treatments: drastic winter pruning, 2, 3 and 4 primocanes. The variables analyzed were: Phenological characteristics: the beginning, the end and the length of flowering and harvest. Vegetative characteristics: leaf area, green mass and leaf dry mass. Productive characteristics: mean fruit size, fruit number, average fruit mass and productivity. Chemical characteristics of fruits: soluble solids, anthocyanins, flavonoids and phenolic compounds. Data were submitted to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and, when significant, were compared by the Tukey HSD test at a confidence level of 5%. The cultivar BRS Tupy presented itself superior for the productive characteristics, but for the chemical characteristics, as the content of anthocyanins and flavonoids the cultivar BRS Xavante stood out, in addition to having leaves with greater average mass and greater average leaf area. The soluble solids content was not influenced by the different cultivars. Drastic winter pruning provided a shorter period of flowering and fruiting, lower productivity and fruit quality, making the use of this technique unfeasible. Plants with the highest number of primocanes (4) stood out in productive terms. The number of primocanes influenced soluble solids values, with the lowest values found in plants with drastic pruning. The management used did not influence the levels of anthocyanins and phenolic compounds in fruits. For farmers who want fruits with greater levels of bioactive compounds, the use of cultivar BRS Xavante is recommended, however for those who aim at the productive aspects it is indicated the use of cultivar BRS Tupy with 4 primocanes per plant.A amoreira-preta pertence ao Gênero Rubus e está classificada no grupo das pequenas frutas. É uma cultura rústica, de clima temperado, com propriedades nutracêuticas, boa produção em pouco espaço de tempo e de cultivo, uma ótima alternativa para a agricultura familiar. No Oeste do estado de Santa Catarina, não tem estudos sobre o comportamento da amoreirapreta, sendo o objetivo do trabalho, definir as cultivares que podem ser utilizadas em cultivos na região, bem como a quantidade de hastes ideal, em plantas da cultivar BRS Tupy. O pomar onde foi realizado o experimento está localizado na área experimental da Universidade Federal da Fronteira Sul, campus Chapecó e foi implantado no ano de 2014, sendo que as avaliações foram realizadas no primeiro ano produtivo. Foram realizados dois experimentos, sendo as variáveis analisadas iguais para ambos. No experimento 1 avaliou-se diferentes cultivares (cv.), sendo elas: Cherokee, Guarani, BRS Tupy e BRS Xavante, com cinco repetições. No experimento 2 avaliou-se o melhor número de hastes para a cultivar BRS Tupy, sendo os tratamentos: poda drástica de inverno, 2, 3 e 4 hastes primárias. Foram avaliados características fenológicas, as quais: início, término e duração de floração e de colheita, características vegetativas: área média da folha, massa verde e massa seca de folhas, características produtivas: tamanho médio da fruta, número de frutas, massa média de fruta e produtividade, características químicas das frutas: sólidos solúveis, antocianinas, flavonoides e compostos fenólicos. Os dados foram submetidos a análise de variância (Anova) e, quando significativos, foram comparados pelo teste de Tukey a 5% de significância. A cultivar BRSTupy se apresentou superior em termos de características produtivas, porém em características químicas como antocianinas e flavonoides a cv. BRS Xavante se destacou, além de folhas com maior massa média e área média de folha. O teor de sólidos solúveis não foi influenciado pelas diferentes cultivares. A poda drástica de inverno proporcionou um menor período de floração e frutificação, menor produtividade e qualidade das frutas, sendo inviável o uso dessa prática. Plantas com a maior quantidade de hastes primárias (4), destacaram-se em termos produtivos. Valores de sólidos solúveis foi influenciado pelo número de hastes, sendo os menores valores encontrados em plantas com poda drástica. Os teores de antocianinas e compostos fenólicos nas frutas não foram influenciados pelo manejo utilizado. Para produtores que desejam frutas com maiores teores de compostos bioativos é recomendado o uso da cv. BRS Xavante, porém para aqueles que visam aspectos produtivos é indicado o uso da cv BRS Tupy com 4 hastes primárias por planta

Process Mining for Dynamic Modeling of Smart Manufacturing Systems: Data Requirements

Modern manufacturing systems can benefit from the use of digital tools to support both short- and long-term decisions. Meanwhile, such systems reached a high level of complexity and are frequently subject to modifications that can quickly make the digital tools obsolete. In this context, the ability to dynamically generate models of production systems is essential to guarantee their exploitation on the shop-floors as decision-support systems. The literature offers approaches for generating digital models based on real-time data streams. These models can represent a system more precisely at any point in time, as they are continuously updated based on the data. However, most approaches consider only isolated aspects of systems (e.g., reliability models) and focus on a specific modeling purpose (e.g., material flow identification). The research challenge is therefore to develop a novel framework that systematically enables the combination of models extracted through different process mining algorithms. To tackle this challenge, it is critical to define the requirements that enable the emergence of automated modeling and simulation tasks. In this paper, we therefore derive and define data requirements for the models that need to be extracted. We include aspects such as the structure of the manufacturing system and the behavior of its machines. The paper aims at guiding practitioners in designing coherent data structures to enable the coupling of model generation techniques within the digital support system of manufacturing companies

LInenee guida Spread 2016

lettura di approfondiment

MULTIFUNCTIONAL NANOSTRUCTURED MATERIALS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTROCHEMICAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The environmental protection / remediation and the rational use of energy resources are fundamental topics for the balanced development of civil and industrial activities. In this context, the electrochemical technologies can offer many solutions: from accumulation / generation of energy to the design / implementation of processes with low environmental impact and reduced energy consumption. Core of a large part of the modern electrochemical systems are nanostructured multifunctional materials; In this context the PhD Thesis is focused on to the development of these materials: their electrocatalytic and functional properties can be modulated through an appropriate design, synthesis and application to the wide areas of green chemistry and energy conversion The Thesis work was articulated into two main parts, dedicated to silver-based and iridium-based materials, respectively. Silver-based nanostructured materials have been developed for environmental applications. The challenge represented by the degradation of organic halides (in the various soil, liquid and gaseous environments) have been highlighted and discussed and the electrocatalytic properties of silver as a cathode material for the dehalogenation of several classes of organic halides has been studied. In this work the research interests focus on the preparation methodologies of the Ag-electrode material, both to improve the catalyst performance and reduce the silver content. There is evidence that nano-structured particles exhibit better behaviour than massive silver while allowing a substantial reduction of Ag loading. As for the experimental conditions, the characterization of all prepared materials has been conducted both in aqueous and in organic media. The tests in aqueous media was conducted using a Cavity MicroElectrode (C-ME): this particular electrode is an innovative tool for the study of finely dispersed materials to be adopted in several electrochemical systems. The C-ME allows to (i) minimize the ohmic drop effect thanks to the micrometric size and therefore to the low associated current intensities; (ii) rule out both the contribution of a gluing agent on the electrochemical response and (iii) any contribution from the current collector, i.e. the micro-disk at the base of the cavity, since its surface area is negligible in comparison with the one of the hosted material. For the tests performed in aqueous media, tri-chloromethane was chosen as model substrate used. Analogously, benzylchloride (BzCl) was chosen for the tests in organic media, and specifically in acetonitrile (ACN). The particular attention for BzCl reduction is due to the recent new proposal for the reaction pathway that implies the interaction between the catalytic surface and the organic moieties of the substrate and the reaction intermediates is crucial and explains the extraordinary activity of Ag. Different strategies were adopted for the Ag-nanoparticle syntheses: (i) a polymer-mediated polyol process, that allows for the preparation of silver nanostructures with a number of different well-controlled morphologies (e.g., cubes, rods, wires, and spheres); (ii) the electrochemical synthesis, a facile route that leads to particles of controlled size by the easy adjusting of the current density; (iii) wet synthesis, a chemical reduction from aqueous solutions, this is an effective method for obtaining nano-sized powders and colloidal dispersion of silver. It is common knowledge that the chemical reduction method involves reduction of metal salt in the presence of a suitable protecting agent (organic stabilizer), which is necessary for controlling the growth of metal colloid. The fully characterised Ag-NP\u2019s were supported on carbon matrices and used for the electrochemical dehalogenation of chlorinated organic compounds. In fact, the supporting matrix can play an important role in terms of stability, durability and accessibility of the electrocatalytic sites of the composite powder. The straightforward choice for supporting metal nanoparticles was represented by carbon-based materials. Interestingly, the carbon surface does not always behave as an inert electrode, but can play a role in the kinetics of the electroreduction reaction. For all these reasons, part of scientific activity was focused on the study of the most used support, that is Vulcan\uae XC72-R (Cabot). In particular, silver nanoparticles are supported on both as received (R-C) and HNO3-pretreated (P-C) Vulcan\uae. This oxidative pretreatment was made to increase the surface oxo-groups and both the electrochemical behaviour of the mere carbon and the possible synergistic effects on composite materials were analysed. The study of Iridium-based materials is devoted to the exploitation of iridium oxide as component of single and/or mixed metal oxide multifunctional nanostructured materials. Iridium oxide is well-known for its large number of applications including sensors, electrical neural stimulation, electrochromic systems, energy conversion and storage devices, and organic pollutants degradation[ ]. A particular interest is devoted toward IrO2 for its high activity as catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER, i.e. water oxidation) in acidic media. OER is the anode reaction usually coupled with most electrochemical processes in aqueous media, notwithstanding the rather high overvoltages required for OER to occur. Several oxides have been proposed as electrocatalysts for OER in acid media: IrO2, RuO2, PtO2, MnO2. Among them, RuO2 is the most active one, followed by IrO2, which, in turn, is the most stable. Consequently, IrO2 represents one of the most promising materials in the preparation and development of new catalysts for energy conversion devices. In particular in this Thesis the role of iridium oxide for the water oxidation will be discussed and analysed, using a new in situ X-ray absorption technique for fast and easy preliminary characterization of electrode materials while varying at will the electrode potential by voltammetric analysis. The preparation, characterization and electrocatalytic properties of different classes of disperse phase materials for environmental and energy-oriented applications of the future emerging technologies, are described and discussed. The key materials were developed together with key investigation tools and techniques like the Cavity-MicroElectrode hosting device and the FEXRAV combined electrochemical and XAS analysis. In particular, the electrocatalytic activity of silver-based composite materials is well proved by the electrochemical characterization. Experimental data highlight the better performance of the silver nanoparticles in comparison with a commercial silver catalyst. Among the tested nanoparticles, those prepared by electrosynthesis show the best activity probably due to synergistic effects of hydrophilic surface close to small electrocatalytic particle size. Carbon support HNO3 pretreatment ensures not only a better affinity between Ag and the carbon matrix, allowing an effective Ag clamping with homogeneous dispersion, but also the presence of oxo-groups, which impart hydrophilicity to the carbon surface. In addition the cavity microelectrode was further developed and exploited as a tool for qualitative and quantitative screening of materials. In particular, the use of C-MEs as hosting tools for Ag powders to be investigated as catalysts for the electroreduction of trichloromethane evidenced how the filled micrometric cavities may behave either as microdisks of the filling material or as 3-D electrodes whose response quantitatively depends on the amount of inserted powder. The reductive dehalogenation of organic chlorides in acetonitrile+water media on silver electrodes was also investigated: the presence of a proton donor like water favors the benzyl chloride reduction in CH3CN, as evidenced by the progressive positive shift of the reduction peak potential. The water content also influences the reaction mechanism, as evidenced by the change of peak shape and of the corresponding \u3b1 values. As useful side effect, the background current increases because of the onset of the hydrogen evolution reaction. In all cases, Ep, \u3b1 and j (at 122.5V) tend to stabilise for xH2O 65 0.06. Preliminary results of an innovative technique are also presented: the scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) using the micropipette delivery-substrate collection (MD-SC) was studied. In this case the technique involved the use of glass micropipettes instead on metal tips for achieving a controlled delivery of CHCl3 in the solution, since CHCl3 is not an easy reagent for electrochemical generation. In this way, it is possible having a fast screening on the activity of different silver nanoparticles for the CHCl3 reduction. Moreover the new FEXRAV technique, designed, implemented and applied by this group, allows to rapidly study any species that can be immobilized onto a conductive substrate, in terms of its oxidation state transitions (or any other property that causes a change in the X-Ray absorption coefficient) in dependence on the applied potential and extract important information on the reaction mechanisms. This is important especially if the voltammetric signal is not suitable for a \u201cclassic\u201d treatment in a complex system like OER in acid media