On the Expressiveness of Markovian Process Calculi with Durational and Durationless Actions

Several Markovian process calculi have been proposed in the literature, which differ from each other for various aspects. With regard to the action representation, we distinguish between integrated-time Markovian process calculi, in which every action has an exponentially distributed duration associated with it, and orthogonal-time Markovian process calculi, in which action execution is separated from time passing. Similar to deterministically timed process calculi, we show that these two options are not irreconcilable by exhibiting three mappings from an integrated-time Markovian process calculus to an orthogonal-time Markovian process calculus that preserve the behavioral equivalence of process terms under different interpretations of action execution: eagerness, laziness, and maximal progress. The mappings are limited to classes of process terms of the integrated-time Markovian process calculus with restrictions on parallel composition and do not involve the full capability of the orthogonal-time Markovian process calculus of expressing nondeterministic choices, thus elucidating the only two important differences between the two calculi: their synchronization disciplines and their ways of solving choices

A radial basis function neural network based approach for the electrical characteristics estimation of a photovoltaic module

The design process of photovoltaic (PV) modules can be greatly enhanced by using advanced and accurate models in order to predict accurately their electrical output behavior. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the application of an advanced neural network based model of a module to improve the accuracy of the predicted output I--V and P--V curves and to keep in account the change of all the parameters at different operating conditions. Radial basis function neural networks (RBFNN) are here utilized to predict the output characteristic of a commercial PV module, by reading only the data of solar irradiation and temperature. A lot of available experimental data were used for the training of the RBFNN, and a backpropagation algorithm was employed. Simulation and experimental validation is reported

La Giornata Mondiale del Rene 2019 presso l'Istituto Nazionale Salute Migrazioni e Povertà (INMP):

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Alitalia airline: A business case of bad corporate governance

Corporate governance, allocating rights and responsibilities inside the firm, provides worthwhile guidelines that lead management to valuable processes and activities, which are the core of business success for the interests of all stakeholders. This paper provides evidence of an interesting business case in which many corporate governance rules were disregarded. In Alitalia airline company, the management, ignoring corporate governance aspects, strongly disrupted economic value. The study is based on the analysis of managerial profiles of Presidents and CEOs of Alitalia, evidencing their relationship with corporate governance issues. Moreover, we deeply investigated the story of Alitalia and the governments' political influence on the airline company. We found the absence of a proper mix of authority and responsibility, conflicts of interests and agency costs, poor monitoring activities, lack of managerial skills and scarce managerial effort, jointly with ineffective incentive mechanisms. The consequence was that past bad governance has compromised the ability of the company to create new value. We conclude that when governance principles are disregarded for a long time, even a high performing and cash-rich company can lose its competitive advantage, damaging its chances of a turnaround

Numerical simulation of a wawe generator: a case of study

The aim of present work is the numerical simulation of a linear generator, capable of directly converting the kinetic energy, available by the wave, into electrical energy, through the device linear motion (up and down). In this paper, we intend to propose a numerical simulation approach to immersed devices by applying the Immersed Boundary Method. The Theory of linear wave is used to study and reproduce sea conditions and the computational domain is created based on observations available for the site in which it is envisaged the positioning of the devic

Wheat Grain Composition, Dough Rheology and Bread Quality as Affected by Nitrogen and Sulfur Fertilization and Seeding Density

Flour from old varieties are usually considered very weak flours, and thus difficult to use in breadmaking especially when processed as Italian \u201cTipo 2\u201d flour. Hence, the aim of our study was to understand if agronomic treatments can be used to improve flour processability and the quality of three old wheat varieties. An experimental strip-plot scheme was used: three old wheat varieties (Andriolo, Sieve, Verna), two seeding densities, three levels of nitrogen fertilization (N35, N80, and N135), and two levels of foliar sulfur fertilization. Analyzed parameters related to kernel composition, dough rheology and bread quality. Sulfur and nitrogen treatments significantly affected protein composition and dough alveograph strength, which increased by about 34% with nitrogen fertilization, and by about 14% with the sulfur treatment. However, only nitrogen fertilization affected bread characteristics. Crumb density significantly decreased from N35 to N135, while springiness and cohesiveness increased. On the other hand, sulfur did not improve breads. This highlight the importance of performing breadmaking tests in addition to the rheological determinations. The poor technological performance of old wheat flours can be improved with agronomical treatments designed to obtain higher-quality bread

Robustness of asymmetry and coherence of quantum states

Quantum states may exhibit asymmetry with respect to the action of a given group. Such an asymmetry of states can be considered as a resource in applications such as quantum metrology, and it is a concept that encompasses quantum coherence as a special case. We introduce explicitly and study the robustness of asymmetry, a quantifier of asymmetry of states that we prove to have many attractive properties, including efficient numerical computability via semidefinite programming, and an operational interpretation in a channel discrimination context. We also introduce the notion of asymmetry witnesses, whose measurement in a laboratory detects the presence of asymmetry. We prove that properly constrained asymmetry witnesses provide lower bounds to the robustness of asymmetry, which is shown to be a directly measurable quantity itself. We then focus our attention on coherence witnesses and the robustness of coherence, for which we prove a number of additional results; these include an analysis of its specific relevance in phase discrimination and quantum metrology, an analytical calculation of its value for a relevant class of quantum states, and tight bounds that relate it to another previously defined coherence monotone

Wiring the oncogenic circuitry: Pin1 unleashes mutant p53

4nonenoneNapoli M; Girardini JE; Piazza S; Del Sal GNapoli, Marco; Girardini, Je; Piazza, S; DEL SAL, Giannin