Quasiparticles dynamics in high-temperature superconductors far from equilibrium: an indication of pairing amplitude without phase coherence

We perform time resolved photoelectron spectroscopy measurements of optimally doped \tn{Bi}_2\tn{Sr}_2\tn{CaCu}_2\tn{O}_{8+\delta} (Bi-2212) and \tn{Bi}_2\tn{Sr}_{2-x}\tn{La}_{x}\tn{Cu}\tn{O}_{6+\delta} (Bi-2201). The electrons dynamics show that inelastic scattering by nodal quasiparticles decreases when the temperature is lowered below the critical value of the superconducting phase transition. This drop of electronic dissipation is astonishingly robust and survives to photoexcitation densities much larger than the value sustained by long-range superconductivity. The unconventional behaviour of quasiparticle scattering is ascribed to superconducting correlations extending on a length scale comparable to the inelastic path. Our measurements indicate that strongly driven superconductors enter in a regime without phase coherence but finite pairing amplitude. The latter vanishes near to the critical temperature and has no evident link with the pseudogap observed by Angle Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy (ARPES).Comment: 7 pages, 5 Figure

Preliminary survey of historic buildings with wearable mobile mapping systems and uav photogrammetry

In cultural heritage, three-dimensional documentation of historic buildings is fundamental for conservation and valorisation projects. In recent years, the consolidated tools and methods: Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and close-range photogrammetry, have been joined by portable Mobile Mapping Systems (MMSs), which can offer significant advantages in terms of speed of survey operations at the price of reduced accuracy. The reduction of survey times and, therefore, costs makes the application of MMS techniques ideal for the preliminary stages of analysis of historical artifacts, when a rapid survey is indispensable for estimating the costs of conservation interventions. In this paper, we present a methodology for the expeditious survey of historic buildings and the surrounding urban fabric that is based on the use of an MMS and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The MMS is the Gexcel Heron MS Twin color. It was used to survey two architecture of interest and the urban context surrounding them from the ground level. The UAV is the DJI Mini 2, used to integrate the terrestrial survey by acquiring the buildings' roofs. The case study presented in the paper is the survey of San Clemente and San Zeno al Foro churches, two historic churches in the city centre of Brescia (Italy). The result are a complete point cloud of the two buildings and a metric virtual tour of all spaces. These results were made available to the architects through the Cintoo web platform to plan future activities

TARGETLESS REGISTRATION METHODS BETWEEN UAV LIDAR AND WEARABLE MMS POINT CLOUDS

Fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and wearable or portable Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS) are two widely used platforms for point cloud acquisition with Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) sensors. The two platforms acquire from distant viewpoints and produce complementary point clouds, one describing predominantly horizontal surfaces and the other primarily vertical. Thus, the registration of the two data is not straightforward. This paper presents a test of targetless registration between a UAV LiDAR point cloud and terrestrial MMS surveys. The case study is a vegetated hilly landscape characterized by the presence of a structure of interest; the UAV acquisition allows the entire area to be acquired from above, while the terrestrial MMS acquisitions will enable the construction of interest to be detailed. The paper describes the survey phase with both techniques. It focuses on processing and registration strategies to fuse the two data together. Our approach is based on the ICP (Iterative Closest Point) method by exploiting the data processing algorithms available in the Heron Desktop post-processing software for handling data acquired with the Heron Backpack MMS instrument. Two co-registration methods are compared. Both ways use the UAV point cloud as a reference and derive the registration of the terrestrial MMS data by finding ICP matches between the ground acquisition and the reference cloud exploiting only a few areas of overlap. The two methods are detailed in the paper, and both allow us to complete the co-registration task

A New Taxonomy of Smart City Projects

City logistics proposes an integrated vision of freight transportation systems within urban area and it aims at the optimization of them as a whole in terms of efficiency, security, safety, viability and environmental sustainability. Recently, this perspective has been extended by the Smart City concept in order to include other aspects of city management: building, energy, environment, government, living, mobility, education, health and so on. At the best of our knowledge, a classification of Smart City Projects has not been created yet. This paper introduces such a classification, highlighting success factors and analyzing new trends in Smart City

AIRBench: A DEA-based model for the benchmarking of airports revenues

The socio-economic development of countries is a key factor for the growth of people mobility, bringing an increase of inter and extra continental air passengers flows. On the other side, the leading model business of low cost companies is decreasing the revenues of airports coming from the avio operations. The two effects are increasing the awareness of airports management, historically focused on the avio operations, towards the mix of avio and commercial revenues. AIRBench is a DEA-based benchmark model developed by the ORO Group of Poltecnico di Torino and BDS, a consulting company specialized in the sector of airports management. Differently from other works in the literature, AIRBench uses data that can be obtained by publicly available documents and databases (consolidated balance sheets, web sites, and ENAC data) in order to link both avio and commercial revenues to the airports performances. The DEA-based method is applied to a panel of 21 airports (both Italian and European airports) in order to build a comparison of airports performances and to obtain a panel of reference management practices to evaluate additional airports. Moreover, given the airports considered efficient by the DEA models, a detailed analysis of causes, opportunities and threads for non-efficient airports is presented

SURVEY OF HISTORICAL GARDENS: MULTI-CAMERA PHOTOGRAMMETRY VS MOBILE LASER SCANNING

This paper presents an investigation into the characterization of historical gardens by comparing two 3D survey methodologies. In this context, approaches employing terrestrial laser scanning are considered the most accurate, while Mobile Mapping Systems (MMSs) are considered promising due to their extreme productivity. Less common is the use of close-range photogrammetry. This paper compares two approaches based on the use of a wearable MMS and the use of an in-house built photogrammetric multi-camera prototype. The comparison aims to assess the applicability of the two techniques in this field, evaluating their advantages and disadvantages in surveying a historical garden and extracting information for tree inventory, such as the DBH (Diameter at Breast Height) and canopy footprint. We compared the practicality of surveying and processing operations; and the quality and characteristics of the point clouds obtained. Both systems produced a dense representation of the terrain. The multi-camera survey resulted to be more defined due to the lower noise of the point cloud but incomplete in the definition of tree canopies. DBH of tree trunks can be extracted with both systems, except for thinner and finer diameter trunks detected by the MMS approach but not always by the multi-camera. The MMS approach proved more effective thanks to a shorter survey time required to cover an equal area and the fact that the MMS survey alone is sufficient for the geometric description of trees. In contrast, the multi-camera approach cannot avoid integration with an aerial survey for canopy reconstruction

Clodronate combined with a surfactant (Tween 20) does not improve osseointegration: a rabbit immunohistomorphometric study.

Biphosphonates are compounds that inhibit bone reabsorption mediated by osteoclasts or the progression of periodontal disease independent on the host response to pathogenic bacteria that colonize the tooth surface. The use of biphosphonates in oral implantology is still in the experimental stage. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a non-aminobiphosphonate combined with a surfactant to increase the ability of the drug to link to the implant and bone surfaces in the development of osseointegration in rabbits. Smooth titanium implants were devised to be used on rabbit femurs. A topical administration of clodronate combined with the surfactant (Tween 20) at different concentrations was made on the implant surface and in the implant site to increase the bone and implant adhesiveness. Placebo was given to the control group. New Zealand rabbits were used and sacrificed by CO2 after 8 weeks from the implantations. A histologic and histo-morphometric analysis was carried out. Results did not show significant difference between the tests and the placebo groups. Our data are different from other similar studies obtaining statistically significant differences. These differences could depend on the efficacy of the drug used and on the procedure of application of the drug on the implant. This study demonstrates poor efficacy of clodronate applied topically to the implant and implant site during surgery to increase the percentage of osseointegration in the implant. Further studies using different fixation techniques of the drug may be necessary to confirm the present data