A new methodology for the determination of the workspace of six-DOF redundant parallel structures actuated by nine wires

The WiRo-6.3 is a six-degrees of freedom (six-DOF) robotic parallel structure actuated by nine wires, whose characteristics have been thoroughly analyzed in previous papers in reference. It is thought to be a master device for teleoperation; thus, it is moved by an operator through a handle and can convey a force reflection on the operator's hand. A completely new method for studying the workspace of this device, and of virtually any nine-wire parallel structure actuated by wire is presented and discussed, and its results are given in a graphical for

Emovo Corpus: an Italian Emotional Speech Database

This article describes the first emotional corpus, named EMOVO, applicable to Italian language,. It is a database built from the voices of up to 6 actors who played 14 sentences simulating 6 emotional states (disgust, fear, anger, joy, surprise, sadness) plus the neutral state. These emotions are the well-known Big Six found in most of the literature related to emotional speech. The recordings were made with professional equipment in the Fondazione Ugo Bordoni laboratories. The paper also describes a subjective validation test of the corpus, based on emotion-discrimination of two sentences carried out by two different groups of 24 listeners. The test was successful because it yielded an overall recognition accuracy of 80%. It is observed that emotions less easy to recognize are joy and disgust, whereas the most easy to detect are anger, sadness and the neutral state

H - and E -Plane Loaded Slow Wave Structure for W -Band TWT

Sheet beam vacuum electron tubes are an attractive solution for high-power sources or amplifiers at millimeter-waves. In this article, a novel W -band slow wave structure (SWS) for traveling wave tube (TWT) amplifiers supporting a sheet beam is proposed. The SWS is based on a rectangular waveguide with H - and E -plane loaded (HEL) metal corrugations. A test structure of the proposed HEL SWS with purposely designed input and output couplers was built in the frequency range of 91–98 GHz ( W -band). The measured scattering-parameters agree well with the simulations showing S11<−15 dB over 10-GHz bandwidth. A TWT was designed and simulated with the HEL SWS. It shows very good gain-bandwidth performance. The SWS is easy to manufacture by low-cost computer numerical controlled (CNC)-milling. The results demonstrated that the HEL SWS is a very good solution to build high-power, wideband millimeter-wave TWTs for a wide range of applications that need high power in a broad frequency range

GENOTIPIC CHARACTERIZATION OF SALMONELLA INFANTIS STRAINS ISOLATED IN MARCHE REGION

In this study thirty-eight strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis isolated in Marche Region from human cases, food, animal and environmental samples were analyzed by Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE). All strains were typed by the DNA macro-restriction patterns obtained following PFGE of XbaI digests, while antimicrobial susceptibility testing of isolates was performed by the standardized disk diffusion method. The analysis of PFGE patterns by Bionumerics software demonstrated a strong similarity of S. infantis XbaI profiles, while the antimicrobial susceptibly testing showed less homogeneity

Thermographic Imaging in Cultural Heritage: A Short Review

Over the recent period, there has been an increasing interest in the use of pulsed infrared thermography (PT) for the non-destructive evaluation of Cultural Heritage (CH). Unlike other techniques that are commonly employed in the same field, PT enables the depth-resolved detection of different kinds of subsurface features, thus providing helpful information for both scholars and restorers. Due to this reason, several research activities are currently underway to further improve the PT effectiveness. In this manuscript, the specific use of PT for the analysis of three different types of CH, namely documentary materials, panel paintings–marquetery, and mosaics, will be reviewed. In the latter case, i.e., mosaics, passive thermography combined with ground penetrating radar (GPR) and digital microscopy (DM) have also been deepened, considering their suitability in the open field. Such items have been selected because they are characterized by quite distinct physical and structural properties and, therefore, different PT (and, in some cases, verification) approaches have been employed for their investigations

Chemical bonding in cuprous complexes with simple nitriles: Octet rule and resonance concepts: Versus quantitative charge-redistribution analysis

Chemical bonding in a set of six cuprous complexes with simple nitriles (CN-, HNC, HCN, CH3NC, and CH3CN) is investigated by means of a recently devised analysis scheme framed in density-functional theory and quantitatively singling out concurrent charge flows such as \u3c3 donation and \u3c0 backdonation. The results of our analysis are comparatively assessed against qualitative models for charge redistribution based on the popular concepts of octet rule and resonance structures, and the relative importance of different charge-flow channels relating to \u3c3 donation, \u3c0 back-donation, polarization, and hyperconjugation is discussed on a quantitative basis

The OPERA magnetic spectrometer

The OPERA neutrino oscillation experiment foresees the construction of two magnetized iron spectrometers located after the lead-nuclear emulsion targets. The magnet is made up of two vertical walls of rectangular cross section connected by return yokes. The particle trajectories are measured by high precision drift tubes located before and after the arms of the magnet. Moreover, the magnet steel is instrumented with Resistive Plate Chambers that ease pattern recognition and allow a calorimetric measurement of the hadronic showers. In this paper we review the construction of the spectrometers. In particular, we describe the results obtained from the magnet and RPC prototypes and the installation of the final apparatus at the Gran Sasso laboratories. We discuss the mechanical and magnetic properties of the steel and the techniques employed to calibrate the field in the bulk of the magnet. Moreover, results of the tests and issues concerning the mass production of the Resistive Plate Chambers are reported. Finally, the expected physics performance of the detector is described; estimates rely on numerical simulations and the outcome of the tests described above.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, presented at the 2003 IEEE-NSS conference, Portland, OR, USA, October 20-24, 200

Idiopathic facial palsy: umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Idiopathic facial palsy is the most common disease of the VII cranial nerve. There are many treatments to facilitate recovery from this condition: pharmacological, surgical, rehabilitative, but the effectiveness of some of these treatments, especially the latter, is still under discussion. The purpose of this umbrella review of systematic reviews is to analyse the literature in order to investigate the different rehabilitation interventions in patients suffering from idiopathic facial palsy. A scientific literature search was carried out from January 2009 until August 2019, using Mesh the terms "facial palsy", "Bell's Palsy", "idiopathic facial nerve palsy", combined with "rehabilitation" and "therapy". Initially all the systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the last 10 years concerning rehabilitation treatments for the recovery of injured functions in facial palsy were included. Given the heterogeneity of the studies in the literature, which do not differentiate the different causes of facial palsy, all the causes of idiopathic facial palsy were included in the review. The research resulted in 94 published systematic reviews but only 6 were considered in respect to the inclusion criteria. All studies agree on the lack of high-quality scientific work to be able to say that Bell's physiotherapy treatments for facial palsy are effective, in particular with regard to recovery times during the rehabilitation process. Future studies are needed, in order to highlight the therapeutic implications of the different rehabilitation methods, with standardized protocols, in patients suffering from facial palsy of different aetiology