In Situ Calibration of Heterogeneous Acquisition Systems: The Monitoring System of a Photovoltaic Plant

This paper deals with the metrological management of an acquisition system that has been developed for monitoring an experimental photovoltaic (PV) plant. The acquisition system has been conceived for comparing the performance of different PV technologies and for verifying the nominal specifications of the PV modules. For these reasons, the traceability of the monitoring system has to be ensured, and therefore, it must be periodically calibrated. A remotely exercised procedure is proposed for the calibration of the acquisition system, which is based on a calibrator specifically designed for this application. This calibrator has the capability to act as a reference for heterogeneous quantities, including electrical quantities, temperature, and solar irradiance. The architecture of this calibrator is described, and experimental results for the preliminary characterization of the prototype are described

Building Smarter Infrastructure:: Resource Productivity in a Residential Development for Steinhatchee, Florida

Environmental reforms in America have developed a significant repertoire of conservation practices directly proportional to the boom in suburban development since World War II. The chief obstacle to past comprehensive reforms in land development has been the fragmented approach of individual conservation practices, as their particular science and application were developed independently of one another. The following is a case study in design for The Conservancy, a "green development” for a 56-unit rural residential community on the Gulf of Mexico. The goal of design and research is to recombine environmental technologies in planning, infrastructure, landscape architecture, and architecture towards more integrated community development. Design methodologies are implemented to address three conservation criteria common to all green economy business models. First is advanced resource productivity to ease the energy economy's reliance on nonrenewable resources. Infrastructural logics, otherwise isolated in conventional development, are bundled into a mosaic with new operational overlaps. Second is the creation of closed-loop energy systems that promote the recycling of energy and materials to eliminate waste. Building and site utility systems are modeled after "feedback” in biological systems. Third is the responsible stewardship of existing resources that harness the ecology to create sustainable land use configurations. Landscape and architecture are integrated into a unified planning module as biological systems serve urbanizing functions. Since the lack of integrative thinking has been the obstacle to sustainable land development, recombinant design modalities, such as those used in The Conservancy, rather than technological innovation, will play the more critical role in developing sustainable environments

Vacillations Between Discrete and Ecological Thinking: The University of Arkansas Community Design Center

How odd is it to devote an anthology of essays to humanitarian design? Isn’t it an oxymoron given the design professions’ tacit mission to provide human habitat? After all, professions are cultures of work distinguished by their internalization of the public good in the delivery of services and products

Developing a unified feature-based model for L2 lexical and syntactic processing

Research on lexical processing shows that lexical representations of L2 speakers are less developed, so frequency and vocabulary size affect the way they use lexical information. Specifically, reduced access to lexical features hinders the processing system of L2 speakers from working efficiently, having an impact on their ability to build syntactic structures in a native-like manner. The present research project aims to construct and test a unified model that explains how lexical and sentence processing interact. First, it develops and validates a productive vocabulary task for L2 Italian to measure vocabulary size. The task, called I-Lex, is based on the existing LEX30 for English, and uses frequency to determine lexical knowledge. Then, adopting the formalism of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, a framework that associates all the information relevant to the grammar with the lexicon, the research project develops a model that explains the effects of lexical access on syntactic processing. The model is tested in two empirical studies on L2 speakers of Italian. The first study, using an Oral Elicited Imitation task, and the I-Lex productive vocabulary task investigates the effects of frequency and vocabulary size on cleft sentences. The second study, using the same productive vocabulary task and a Self-paced Reading task, investigates frequency and vocabulary effects on relative clauses. The results reveal that frequency and vocabulary size interact with the ability of L2 speakers to process both cleft and relative clauses, providing evidence that accessing lexical features is a crucial stage for processing syntactic structures. Based on the results, a feature-based lexical network model is constructed. The model describes how lexical access and the activation of structural links between words can be described using the same set of lexical features. In the last chapter, the model is applied to the results of the two studies

The magnetic field topology associated to two M flares

On 27 October, 2003, two GOES M-class flares occurred in the lapse of three hours in active region NOAA 10486. The two flares were confined and their associated brightenings appeared at the same location, displaying a very similar shape both at the chromospheric and coronal levels. We focus on the analysis of magnetic field (SOHO/MDI), chromospheric (HASTA, Kanzelhoehe Solar Observatory, TRACE) and coronal (TRACE) observations. By combining our data analysis with a model of the coronal magnetic field, we compute the magnetic field topology associated to the two M flares. We find that both events can be explained in terms of a localized magnetic reconnection process occurring at a coronal magnetic null point. This null point is also present at the same location one day later, on 28 October, 2003. Magnetic energy release at this null point was proposed as the origin of a localized event that occurred independently with a large X17 flare on 28 October, 2003, at 11:01 UT. The three events, those on 27 October and the one on 28 October, are homologous. Our results show that coronal null points can be stable topological structures where energy release via magnetic reconnection can happen, as proposed by classical magnetic reconnection models.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Las tensiones de la integración: el MERCOSUR, Bolivia y la cuestión energética

Fil: Luoni, Osvaldo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Estudios Latinoamericanos para el Desarrollo y la Integració

Museum Leadership in Practice: A New Zealand Case Study

Museum leadership is an under investigated area of museum studies. This dissertation contributes to museum leadership research by applying leadership theory to a case study of the career of Jim Geddes, a museum director who works in the town of Gore in Southland, New Zealand. In 2008 Geddes won Museums Aotearoa's inaugural Individual Achievement Award for putting Gore on the national cultural map by establishing the Eastern Southland Gallery, the Hokonui Heritage Centre, the Croydon Aviation Museum and for expanding Gore's Historical Museum. How did Geddes achieve this successful cultural entrepreneurship in such an unlikely small rural town? The central research question asks how leadership has manifested itself in Gore's museums during Geddes' tenure from 1983 to the present. The theoretical framework draws on leadership theory, particularly the work of Suchy and others, who theorise leadership as a social practice rather than a set of management techniques. Several qualitative research methods are employed including interviews with Geddes and key museum stakeholders coupled with a review of how the media have presented Geddes' work. This research data is then compared against leadership theory, noting the convergences and divergences. The dissertation is the first in-depth New Zealand study to test the application of contemporary leadership theory to one museum leader's practice. The findings reveal that, while Geddes is not a conscious leader, his practice has a striking similarity to the engaging transformational leadership model in terms of stakeholder engagement and the inter-personal and emotional elements of leadership. This research provides a deeper understanding of the career of a successful local museum director, suggesting that a sense of place can function as a mechanism for museum leaders to profitably engage with stakeholders. It also presents the argument that successful leadership is a practice, a mode of operating and interacting with others that if consistently applied can spark a series of positive events for museums and their leaders. After considering the implications of this case study for museum practice, training and professional development, the dissertation concludes with five recommendations to improve museum leadership development in New Zealand

Radiation Shielding during Deep-Space Missions: Dose Measurements, Monte Carlo Simulations, and Nuclear Cross-Sections

Deep-space radiation is among the biggest hindrances to human space exploration. Therefore, radiation protection in space is a very active field of research. Passive shielding is currently the most promising radiation protection strategy and it consists of adding shielding material to the walls of the spacecraft and the planetary bases. This thesis work presents results obtained in accelerator-based experimental campaigns with some of the most relevant ion beams for radiation protection in space and several structural, in situ, standard, and innovative shielding materials. Lithium-based hydrides stabilised with paraffin were proved to combine the promising dose attenuation properties of the pure hydrides and the mechanical and chemical stability of the paraffin, resulting in good candidate shielding materials for space missions. The experimental data were compared with the simulation results of the most commonly used Monte Carlo codes in this field of research, namely FLUKA, PHITS, and Geant4. The simulations showed significant and systematic differences among the codes mainly due to the different implemented nuclear cross-section models. Therefore, the last part of the work focuses on the presentation of the two nuclear cross-section databases (total reaction cross-sections and fragment production cross-sections) that were generated within this thesis work. The collected nuclear reaction cross-section data were compared to the parametrisations used in the Monte Carlo codes to understand which of them are more reliable. It was concluded that no parametrisation can well reproduce all the experimental data for every system and energy region. Therefore, an optimisation of the Tripathi parametrisation for reaction cross-sections was proposed. Additionally, an important gap in the experimental data was pointed out for high energies. The databases were uploaded online and made open access to provide the research communities interested in such data, with the possibility to access them and plot them alongside the parametrisations

LINGUISTICA ACQUISIZIONALE E SILLABO: ALCUNE RIFLESSIONI PRELIMINARI

Gli studi di linguistica acquisizionale (SLA, Second Language Acquisition) negli ultimi anni hanno delineato quanto sia complesso imparare un’altra lingua. Sono state esplorate sempre più in profondità le differenze tra i processi di acquisizione e apprendimento ed è emersa una conoscenza sempre più dettagliata dei meccanismi di acquisizione. Anche se  i risultati hanno origine in studi sperimentali che spesso sono condotti al di fuori dei normali contesti didattici, offrono, tuttavia, spunti teorici che possono essere utilizzati per organizzare con maggior coerenza il sillabo. Nella prima parte dell’articolo vengono esaminate alcune caratteristiche di un sillabo linguistico; vengono poi prese in considerazione le caratteristiche dei processi di acquisizione sulla base degli studi più recenti e confrontate con i dati sull’acquisizione della lingua italiana. Nella parte centrale vengono esaminati i modelli di interfaccia tra conoscenze esplicite e implicite a partire dagli studi di N.C. Ellis e Michael Ulman e alcuni tratti del modello di Input Processing elaborato da Van Patten per mostrare quale ruolo possano avere nell’elaborazione dei contenuti del sillabo. Nell’ultima parte viene affrontato un caso pratico di studio sui pronomi clitici.Acquisitional  linguistics and syllabus: some preliminary reflectionsStudies on acquisitional linguistics (SLA Second Language Acquisition) in recent years have outlined the complexity of learning another language. The differences between acquisition and learning processes have been explored more thoroughly and greater knowledge regarding capture mechanisms has emerged. Although the results from experimental studies are often conducted outside normal teaching contexts, they offer theoretical insights that can be used to organize the syllabus more coherently. In the first part of the article, some of the characteristics of a language syllabus are examined. The traits of acquisition on the basis of the most recent studies are taken into consideration and compared with data on the acquisition of the Italian language. There is a discussion regarding explicit and implicit knowledge interface models, starting from the studies by N.C. Ellis and Michael Ulman and some sections of the Input Processing model developed by Van Patten, in order to show what role they may have in the development of the content of the syllabus. In the last part, a practical case study on clitic pronouns is presented

BEHAVIORAL, MOLECULAR AND EPIGENETIC CONSEQUENCES OF EARLY LIFE STRESS EXPOSURE AND THEIR IMPACT ON ADULT PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

There is now consistent evidence that psychiatric diseases may often represent the consequence of exposure to adverse events early in life, which may disrupt the correct program of brain maturation thus leading to long-lasting changes in brain function. Accordingly, exposure to stress during gestation in rats has a strong impact on brain development and can cause long-term abnormalities in adult behavior (Fumagalli et al., 2007; Seckl, 1998). In this context, the study of environmental manipulations in animal models offers the possibility to investigate the mechanisms that may be responsible for functional deterioration, with the advantage of keeping the influence of various factors such as the timing and intensity of the adverse condition, the growth environment and the genetic background under control. Given all these premises, in this study we first set up and employed a paradigm of prenatal stress in rodents in order to reproduce early life adversities that may encompass pregnancy and early postnatal life. Indeed, gestational stress has long-lasting effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and on the behavior of the dams, suggesting that alterations in maternal behavior following exposure to prenatal stress could also contribute to the long-term effects (Maccari et al., 2003; Maccari and Morley-Fletcher, 2007) of this environmental stressor. In particular, the paradigm we employed consisted in restraining the dams during the last week of gestation for 45 minutes three times a day under bright light, from gestation day 14 until delivery. We next sacrificed the pups, both males and females, at different postnatal time points, in order to create a time profile of the modifications under investigation. First, we tested the cognitive functionality of adult animals with the object recognition test, since cognitive disabilities are one of the common symptoms that characterize different psychiatric conditions (Disner et al., 2011; Lapiz-Bluhm et al., 2008; Lesh et al., 2011; Lewis et al., 2012). Next, we performed a detailed analysis of two candidate systems whose deterioration could contribute to the development of the diseased phenotype, namely the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and the neurotrophin brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), through basal and functional analyses at gene and protein levels. These two systems have emerged as the most vulnerable elements of exposure to stress during development and can be considered markers of the dysfunctions associated with psychiatric disorders. The HPA axis is involved in the response to stressful events (Maccari et al., 2003), whereas neuronal plasticity represents an array of mechanisms involved in the adaptive capacity to environmental changes (Calabrese et al., 2009; Duman and Monteggia, 2006). We performed the analyses at various stages of development, trying to establish how early the molecular alterations become manifest and their persistence in time. Notably this bears the possibility to evaluate the potential of early pharmacological interventions that may prove effective in preventing the molecular and functional alterations set in motion by prenatal stress exposure, leading to long-term beneficial effects on the brain function. Several animal models and human studies suggest that the effect of exposure to stress early in life on lifelong phenotypes is mediated by epigenetic regulation of gene expression involving changes in DNA methylation (McGowan and Szyf, 2010; Weaver, 2007). A further aspect of this experimental work was thus to determine the methylome profile of the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex of adult rats exposed to prenatal stress. In order to do this, we combined methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) followed by the hybridization on a custom designed high-density oligonucleotide arrays, in order to identify, with an unbiased approach, the genes that are persistently affected by gestational exposure to stress at expression level through changes in the methylation of their promoters. Last, we aimed at identifying novel candidate markers in a translational approach, by comparing the methylome results obtained in the rat model with a non-human primate model based on different rearing condition, and with a human model of maternal adversities. The identification of genes that show a similar response to early adversities in the brain and in peripheral tissues, in three different species and across the lifespan, is critical for the development of novel diagnostic tools and for therapeutic interventions