Assessment and mitigation strategies to counteract overheating in urban historical areas in Rome

As urban overheating is increasing, there is a strong public interest towards mitigation strategies to enhance comfortable urban spaces, for their role in supporting urban metabolism and social life. The study presents an assessment of the existing thermal comfort and usage of San Silvestro Square in Rome during the summer, and performs the simulation of cooling strategies scenarios, to understand their mitigation potential for renovation projects. The first stage concerns a field analysis of the thermal and radiative environment on the 1st and 2nd of August 2014, including meteorological measurements and unobtrusive observations, to understand how people experience and respond to extreme microclimate conditions. In the second stage, the research proposes scenario simulations on the same day to examine the influence of cool colored materials, trees and vegetative surfaces on thermal comfort. The thermal comfort assessment was based on Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET), whereas microclimatic simulations were conducted with CFD calculations (ENVImet v.4.3.1). The first stage shows a strong relationship between lower PET values and attendance rate, depending on daily shading patterns. The second stage shows a relevant improvement of thermal comfort, with PET values of 12 °C comparing to the no-intervention scenario, associated with a combination of cool materials and trees

Time scale separation in the low temperature East model: Rigorous results

We consider the non-equilibrium dynamics of the East model, a linear chain of 0-1 spins evolving under a simple Glauber dynamics in the presence of a kinetic constraint which forbids flips of those spins whose left neighbour is 1. We focus on the glassy effects caused by the kinetic constraint as $q\downarrow 0$, where $q$ is the equilibrium density of the 0's. Specifically we analyse time scale separation and dynamic heterogeneity, i.e. non-trivial spatio-temporal fluctuations of the local relaxation to equilibrium, one of the central aspects of glassy dynamics. For any mesoscopic length scale $L=O(q^{-\gamma})$, $\gamma<1$, we show that the characteristic time scale associated to two length scales $d/q^\gamma$ and $d'/q^\gamma$ are indeed separated by a factor $q^{-a}$, $a=a(\gamma)>0$, provided that $d'/d$ is large enough independently of $q$. In particular, the evolution of mesoscopic domains, i.e. maximal blocks of the form $111..10$, occurs on a time scale which depends sharply on the size of the domain, a clear signature of dynamic heterogeneity. Finally we show that no form of time scale separation can occur for $\gamma=1$, i.e. at the equilibrium scale $L=1/q$, contrary to what was previously assumed in the physical literature based on numerical simulations.Comment: 6 pages, 0 figures; clarified q dependence of bounds, results unchange

Reconstruction of the Dark Energy equation of state from latest data: the impact of theoretical priors

We reconstruct the Equation of State of Dark Energy (EoS) from current data using a non-parametric approach where, rather than assuming a specific time evolution of this function, we bin it in time. We treat the transition between the bins with two different methods, i.e. a smoothed step function and a Gaussian Process reconstruction, investigating whether or not the two approaches lead to compatible results. Additionally, we include in the reconstruction procedure a correlation between the values of the EoS at different times in the form of a theoretical prior that takes into account a set of viability and stability requirements that one can impose on models alternative to $\Lambda$CDM. In such case, we necessarily specialize to broad, but specific classes of alternative models, i.e. Quintessence and Horndeski gravity. We use data coming from CMB, Supernovae and BAO surveys. We find an overall agreement between the different reconstruction methods used; with both approaches, we find a time dependence of the mean of the reconstruction, with different trends depending on the class of model studied. The constant EoS predicted by the $\Lambda$CDM model falls anyway within the $1\sigma$ bounds of our analysis.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Prepared for submission to JCA

Time scale separation and dynamic heterogeneity in the low temperature East model

We consider the non-equilibrium dynamics of the East model, a linear chain of 0-1 spins evolving under a simple Glauber dynamics in the presence of a kinetic constraint which forbids flips of those spins whose left neighbor is 1. We focus on the glassy effects caused by the kinetic constraint as $q\downarrow 0$, where $q$ is the equilibrium density of the 0's. In the physical literature this limit is equivalent to the zero temperature limit. We first prove that, for any given $L=O(1/q)$, the divergence as $q\downarrow 0$ of three basic characteristic time scales of the East process of length $L$ is the same. Then we examine the problem of dynamic heterogeneity, i.e. non-trivial spatio-temporal fluctuations of the local relaxation to equilibrium, one of the central aspects of glassy dynamics. For any mesoscopic length scale $L=O(q^{-\gamma})$, $\gamma<1$, we show that the characteristic time scale of two East processes of length $L$ and $\lambda L$ respectively are indeed separated by a factor $q^{-a}$, $a=a(\gamma)>0$, provided that $\lambda \geq 2$ is large enough (independent of $q$, $\lambda=2$ for $\gamma<1/2$). In particular, the evolution of mesoscopic domains, i.e. maximal blocks of the form $111..10$, occurs on a time scale which depends sharply on the size of the domain, a clear signature of dynamic heterogeneity. A key result for this part is a very precise computation of the relaxation time of the chain as a function of $(q,L)$, well beyond the current knowledge, which uses induction on length scales on one hand and a novel algorithmic lower bound on the other. Finally we show that no form of time scale separation occurs for $\gamma=1$, i.e. at the equilibrium scale $L=1/q$, contrary to what was assumed in the physical literature based on numerical simulations.Comment: 40 pages, 4 figures; minor typographical corrections and improvement

Mixing time and local exponential ergodicity of the East-like process in Zd\mathbf Z^d

The East process, a well known reversible linear chain of spins, represents the prototype of a general class of interacting particle systems with constraints modeling the dynamics of real glasses. In this paper we consider a generalization of the East process living in the d-dimensional lattice and we establish new progresses on the out- of-equilibrium behavior. In particular we prove a form of (local) exponential ergodicity when the initial distribution is far from the stationary one and we prove that the mixing time in a finite box grows linearly in the side of the box

The East model: recent results and new progresses

The East model is a particular one dimensional interacting particle system in which certain transitions are forbidden according to some constraints depending on the configuration of the system. As such it has received particular attention in the physics literature as a special case of a more general class of systems referred to as kinetically constrained models, which play a key role in explaining some features of the dynamics of glasses. In this paper we give an extensive overview of recent rigorous results concerning the equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics of the East model together with some new improvements

Framework tool to guide a company when having a supplier in the game

Most enterprises face difficulties in completing Information Technology projects as initially planned when outsourcing involvement is needed. Each enterprise has its own project management methodology. The unawareness of different processes and activities causes issues during projects as deliver delays. To improve projects smoothness within PepsiCo, the focused company in this thesis, an integrative framework was developed and applied in Information Technologies projects that deal with outsourcing companies within PepsiCo. The result was a framework that helps projects involving third parties with a smoother execution. Framework advantages include project progress facilitation and visual lifecycle comparison representation

Liberdade religiosa: o julgamento do caso S.A.S x França pela Corte Europeia de Direitos Humanos

TCC(graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro de Ciências Jurídicas. Direito.A temática do direito à liberdade de religião de minorias religiosas no cenário europeu se desenvolve a partir do caso S.A.S x França, originado por um recurso interposto por uma jovem francesa contra o Governo francês em razão de usar o véu integral. Sendo assim, coube à Corte Europeia de Direitos Humanos, de acordo com a Convenção Europeia de Direitos Humanos, realizar o julgamento deste caso no tocante à validade da Lei francesa n. 2010-1192, responsável pela interdição da dissimulação da face nos espaços públicos, resultando na proibição do uso do véu. A controvérsia gerada em torno deste artefato se estende há anos na República francesa, gerando debates na mídia, desconforto na população mulçumana francesa e divergências entre os partidos políticos, além de pôr em questionamento conceitos como a tríade de valores republicanos, a laïcité, a ordem pública, e o princípio do “viver juntos”, consagrados pela sociedade francesa como essenciais ao seu bem-estar. Na análise do presente caso, a Suprema Corte manteve a validade da lei francesa, alegando não haver violação dos art.8º, art. 9ºe art.14º da Convenção, além de permitir que o Estado francês tome as decisões que achar cabíveis sobre medidas restritivas da liberdade de religião dessas mulçumanas. A Corte Europeia falhou ao proferir esta sentença, na medida em que autorizou que um ato desproporcional e ilegítimo fizesse parte da legislação francesa

Prospects of testing late-time cosmology with weak lensing of gravitational waves and galaxy surveys

We investigate the synergy of upcoming galaxy surveys and gravitational wave (GW) experiments in constraining late-time cosmology, examining the cross-correlations between the weak lensing of gravitational waves (GW-WL) and the galaxy fields. Without focusing on any specific GW detector configuration, we benchmark the requirements for the high-precision measurement of cosmological parameters by considering several scenarios, varying the number of detected GW events and the uncertainty on the inference of the source luminosity distance and redshift. We focus on $\Lambda$CDM and scalar-tensor cosmologies, using the Effective Field Theory formalism as a unifying language. We find that, in some of the explored setups, GW-WL contributes to the galaxy signal by doubling the accuracy on non-$\Lambda$CDM parameters, allowing in the most favourable scenarios to reach even percent and sub-percent level bounds. Though the most extreme cases presented here are likely beyond the observational capabilities of currently planned individual GW detectors, we show nonetheless that - provided that enough statistics of events can be accumulated - GW-WL offers the potential to become a cosmological probe complementary to LSS surveys, particularly for those parameters that cannot be constrained by other GW probes such as standard sirens.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figure