328 research outputs found
FlorUniTo@TRAC-2: Retrofitting Word Embeddings on an Abusive Lexicon for Aggressive Language Detection
Evaluation of Training Program for Caregivers to Aging Adults
Extension professionals have a wealth of research-based information and expertise in nutrition, activities of daily living, and resource management. This knowledge is the basis for a new Extension program to train in-home caregivers. The purpose of the study described here was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Caregiver Training Program, designed and delivered by Cooperative Extension academic advisors to enhance the skills and knowledge of the in-home supportive service caregivers. Participants report positive changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes, interest, and self-confidence. Extension is uniquely qualified and positioned to provide training for caregivers to aging adults
District Information Modeling and Energy Management
In recent years the European Commission enhanced strategies to promote ICTs for energy efficiency in buildings and cities. Within the Smart City context, energy-related information coming from different data-sources, either hardware or software needs to be integrated into a common smart digital archive for the city. We propose DIMMER, a distributed software infrastructure for district information modelling and energy management. It correlates energy-related information from different data-sources with user behaviour patterns and feedbacks. Hence, different actors playing in this scenario can access relevant information for providing new services and developing more efficient policies to enhance energy optimization in cities. This will provide support for strategic planning of the city and will foster the competition in the marketplace
DIMCloud: a distributed framework for district energy simulation and management
To optimize energy consumption, it is needed to monitor real-time data and simulate all energy flows. In a city district context, energy consumption data usually come from many sources and encoded in different formats. However, few models have been proposed to trace the energy behavior of city districts and handle related data. In this article, we introduce DIMCloud, a model for heterogeneous data management and integration at district level, in a pervasive computing context. Our model, by means of an ontology, is able to register the relationships between different data sources of the district and to disclose the sources locations using a publish-subscribe design pattern. Furthermore, data sources are published as Web Services, abstracting the underlying hardware from the user’s point-of-view
Building energy modelling and monitoring by integration of IoT devices and Building Information Models
In recent years, the research about energy waste and CO2 emission reduction has gained a strong momentum, also pushed by European and national funding initiatives. The main purpose of this large effort is to reduce the effects of greenhouse emission, climate change to head for a sustainable society. In this scenario, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a key role. From one side, advances in physical and environmental information sensing, communication and processing, enabled the monitoring of energy behaviour of buildings in real-time. The access to this information has been made easy and ubiquitous thank to Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and protocols. From the other side, the creation of digital repositories of buildings and districts (i.e. Building Information Models - BIM) enabled the development of complex and rich energy models that can be used for simulation and prediction purposes. As such, an opportunity is emerging of mixing these two information categories to either create better models and to detect unwanted or inefficient energy behaviours.
In this paper, we present a software architecture for management and simulation of energy behaviours in buildings that integrates heterogeneous data such as BIM, IoT, GIS (Geographical Information System) and meteorological services. This integration allows: i) (near-) real-time visualisation of energy consumption information in the building context and ii) building performance evaluation through energy modelling and simulation exploiting data from the field and real weather conditions. Finally, we discuss the experimental results obtained in a real-world case-study
A spatial model of autocatalytic reactions
Biological cells with all of their surface structure and complex interior
stripped away are essentially vesicles - membranes composed of lipid bilayers
which form closed sacs. Vesicles are thought to be relevant as models of
primitive protocells, and they could have provided the ideal environment for
pre-biotic reactions to occur. In this paper, we investigate the stochastic
dynamics of a set of autocatalytic reactions, within a spatially bounded
domain, so as to mimic a primordial cell. The discreteness of the constituents
of the autocatalytic reactions gives rise to large sustained oscillations, even
when the number of constituents is quite large. These oscillations are
spatio-temporal in nature, unlike those found in previous studies, which
consisted only of temporal oscillations. We speculate that these oscillations
may have a role in seeding membrane instabilities which lead to vesicle
division. In this way synchronization could be achieved between protocell
growth and the reproduction rate of the constituents (the protogenetic
material) in simple protocells.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Concomitant Small Cell Neuroendocrine Carcinoma of Gallbladder and Breast Cancer
The neuroendocrine carcinoma is defined as a high-grade malignant neuroendocrine neoplasm arising from enterochromaffin
cells, usually disposed in the mucosa of gastric and respiratory tracts. The localization in the gallbladder is rare. Knowledge of
these gallbladder tumors is limited and based on isolated case reports. We describe a case of an incidental finding of small cell
neuroendocrine carcinoma of the gallbladder, observed after cholecystectomy for cholelithiasis, in a 55-year-old female, who
already underwent quadrantectomy and sentinel lymph-node biopsy for breast cancer. The patient underwent radiotherapy for
breast cancer and six cycles of chemotherapy with cisplatin and etoposide. Eighteen months after surgery, the patient was free from
disease. Small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the gallbladder has poor prognosis. Because of the rarity of the reported cases,
specific prognostic factors have not been identified. The coexistence of small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the gallbladder
with another malignancy has been reported only once.The contemporary presence of the two neoplasms could reflect that bioactive
agents secreted by carcinoid can promote phenotypic changes in susceptible cells and induce neoplastic transformation
Indoor Air-Temperature Forecast for Energy-Efficient Management in Smart Buildings
In the last few years, the reduction of energy consumption and pollution became mandatory. It became also a common goal of many countries. Only in Europe, the building sector is responsible for the total 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 pollution. Therefore, new control policies based on the forecast of buildings energy behaviors can be developed to reduce energy waste (i.e. policies for Demand Response and Demand Side Management).
This paper discusses an innovative methodology for smart building indoor air-temperature forecasting. This methodology is based on a Non-linear Autoregressive neural network. This neural network has been trained and validated with a dataset consisting of six years indoor air-temperature values of a building demonstrator. In detail, we have studied three characterizing rooms and the whole building. Experimental results of energy prediction are presented and discussed
Analytical study of non Gaussian fluctuations in a stochastic scheme of autocatalytic reactions
A stochastic model of autocatalytic chemical reactions is studied both
numerically and analytically. The van Kampen perturbative scheme is
implemented, beyond the second order approximation, so to capture the non
Gaussianity traits as displayed by the simulations. The method is targeted to
the characterization of the third moments of the distribution of fluctuations,
originating from a system of four populations in mutual interaction. The theory
predictions agree well with the simulations, pointing to the validity of the
van Kampen expansion beyond the conventional Gaussian solution.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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