Static Response and Buckling Loads of Multilayered Composite Beams Using the Refined Zigzag Theory and Higher-Order Haar Wavelet Method

The paper presents a review of Haar wavelet methods and an application of the higher-order Haar wavelet method to study the behavior of multilayered composite beams under static and buckling loads. The Refined Zigzag Theory (RZT) is used to formulate the corresponding governing differential equations (equilibrium/stability equations and boundary conditions). To solve these equations numerically, the recently developed Higher-Order Haar Wavelet Method (HOHWM) is used. The results found are compared with those obtained by the widely used Haar Wavelet Method (HWM) and the Generalized Differential Quadrature Method (GDQM). The relative numerical performances of these numerical methods are assessed and validated by comparing them with exact analytical solutions. Furthermore, a detailed convergence study is conducted to analyze the convergence characteristics (absolute errors and the order of convergence) of the method presented. It is concluded that the HOHWM, when applied to RZT beam equilibrium equations in static and linear buckling problems, is capable of predicting, with a good accuracy, the unknown kinematic variables and their derivatives. The HOHWM is also found to be computationally competitive with the other numerical methods considered

Monitoring and conservation of archaeological wooden elements from ship wrecks using 3D digital imaging

In marine archaeology, many artifacts made of metallic or organic material are found in different state of conservation depending of the environment in which they are discovered. Once brought to the surface for study or display purposes, the artifacts need to be treated properly otherwise they deteriorate in a short lapse of time. The fragility of organic artifacts and the volumetric variation caused by the marine life on or surrounding them and water lead to the need for measuring the physical dimensions soon after an artifact is extracted from the sea. In an ideal context, it would be appropriate to preserve and restore the archaeological elements rapidly and with the latest methods but due to the large number of artifacts, the cost of complete restoration activities becomes prohibitive for the funding available in public institutions. For this reason, many public laboratories are resorting to digital technologies for documentation, restoration, display and conservation. In this paper, we illustrate the experience of the University of Salento in this area of archaeology using 3D imaging technology. The interest sprang from the need to develop a protocol for documentation and digital restoration of archaeological finds discovered along the coast of Torre S. Sabina (BR) Italy

Challenging specialized transformers on zero-shot classification

This paper investigates the feasibility of employing basic prompting systems for domain-specific language models. The study focuses on bureaucratic language and uses the recently introduced BureauBERTo model for experimentation. The experiments reveal that while further pre-trained models exhibit reduced robustness concerning general knowledge, they display greater adaptability in modeling domain-specific tasks, even under a zero-shot paradigm. This demonstrates the potential of leveraging simple prompting systems in specialized contexts, providing valuable insights both for research and industry

Underground Muon Physics with the MACRO experiment

Underground muon events detected by the MACRO experiment at Gran Sasso have been studied for different purposes. The studies include the vertical muon intensity measurement, multiplicity distribution, lateral and angular muon distribution and searches for substructures inside muon bundles. These analyses have contributed to bring new insights in cosmic ray physics, in particular in the framework of primary cosmic ray composition studies. Moreover, this activity allows the testing and tuning of Monte Carlo simulations, in particular for aspects associated with models of hadronic interactions and muon propagation through the rock.Comment: 6 pages, 4 EPS figures included with epsfig, uses espcrc2.sty Talk given at the Sixth Topical Seminar on Neutrino and Astroparticle Physics, San Miniato, Italy, 17-21 May 199

Evaluating Pre-Trained Transformers on Italian Administrative Texts

In recent years, Transformer-based models have been widely used in NLP for various downstream tasks and in different domains. However, a language model explicitly built for the Italian administrative language is still lacking. Therefore, in this paper, we decided to compare the performance of five different Transformer models, pre-trained on general purpose texts, on two main tasks in the Italian administrative domain: Name Entity Recognition and multi-label document classification on Public Administration (PA) documents. We evaluate the performance of each model on both tasks to identify the best model in this particular domain. We also discuss the effect of model size and pre-training data on the performances on domain data. Our evaluation identifies UmBERTo as the best-performing model, with an accuracy of 0.71, an F1 score of 0.89 for multi-label document classification, and an F1 score of 0.87 for NER-PA

Knockdown of menin affects pre-mRNA processing and promoter fidelity at the interferon-gamma inducible IRF1 gene

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The tumor suppressor menin (<it>MEN1</it>) is mutated in the inherited disease multiple endocrine neoplasia type I, and has several documented cellular roles, including the activation and repression of transcription effected by several transcription factors. As an activator, MEN1 is a component of the Set1-like mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) MLL1/MLL2 methyltransferase complex that methylates histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4). MEN1 is localized to the signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1)-dependent gene, interferon regulatory factor 1 (<it>IRF1)</it>, and is further recruited when <it>IRF1 </it>transcription is triggered by interferon-γ signaling.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>RNAi-mediated knockdown of MEN1 alters the H3K4 dimethylation and H3 acetylation profiles, and the localization of histone deacetylase 3, at <it>IRF1</it>. While MEN1 knockdown does not impact the rate of transcription, <it>IRF1 </it>heteronuclear transcripts become enriched in MEN1-depleted cells. The processed mRNA and translated protein product are concomitantly reduced, and the antiviral state is attenuated. Additionally, the transcription start site at the <it>IRF1 </it>promoter is disrupted in the MEN1-depleted cells. The H3K4 demethylase, lysine specific demethylase 1, is also associated with <it>IRF1</it>, and its inhibition alters H3K4 methylation and disrupts the transcription start site as well.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Taken together, the data indicate that MEN1 contributes to STAT1-activated gene expression in a novel manner that includes defining the transcription start site and RNA processing.</p

Chitosan-alginate microparticles of Andrographis paniculata and Annona muricata extracts for Controlled Release

This study investigates the properties of microparticles prepared from Andrographis paniculata (AP) and Annona muricata (AM) aqueous extracts for controlled release. Extracts obtained by maceration of the dried powdered plant leaves were microencapsulated by counterion coacervation method. Microcapsules were characterized using Fourier-transform infrared-spectroscopy (FTIR), x-ray difractometry (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).In vitro release studies were carried out at pH 1.2 for 2 h and 6.8 for a further 10 h. Release was monitored at274 and 230 nm for AM and AP, respectively. Encapsulation efficacy was less than 52% for AP and 70% for AM. In vitro drug release at pH 1.2 showed less than 40% release from the microcapsules after 2h while over 90% of extract was released after 6h at pH 6.8. Conventional capsules released the content within 1 h in simulated gastric fluid. FTIR, XRD and DSC results indicate the stable character of the extract within the microcapsules. Microencapsulation with chitosan- alginate controlled the release of Andrographis paniculata (AP) and Annona muricata (AM) aqueous extracts