Analysis of movement in primary maize roots

AbstractStudying plant root kinematics is important for understanding certain aspects of root growth and movement, which are strictly correlated in plants. However, there is little available data on autonomous movements in plant roots, such as nutations, and the data that are available are poorly described. We investigated the autonomous movements during growth in primary maize roots by estimating the main kinematic parameters of nutations (i.e., the period of duration and amplitude) and the growth rate. The estimations of nutation parameters were performed by developing dedicated methods, which are based on the analysis of root tip displacement and tip velocity. The data relative to the tip displacements were obtained using tip tracing software developed by our team specifically for this purpose. The results confirmed that the nutational phenomenon covers the continuous range of periods and amplitudes, with certain dominant period-amplitude types, which we clustered into three groups: i) amplitudes less than 0.1 mm and 4–16 min periods, ii) amplitudes less than 0.1 mm and 20–120 min periods, and iii) amplitudes greater than 0.1 mm and 24–120 min periods

Decisione della direzione di accrescimento delle radici nelle piante basata su informazioni sensoriali: Modellazione e simulazione secondo un approccio di Swarm Intelligence per applicazioni in biorobotica

Le radici delle piante sono altamente sensorizzate e la loro direzione di accrescimento e penetrazione nel terreno dipende dall'input sensoriale. Gli aspetti del comportamento radicale che riguardano la gestione della grande mole di informazioni sensoriali e la strategia che garantisce la massima efficienza per la sopravvivenza della pianta sono oggetto di studio e presentano interessanti problematiche dal punto di vista informatico. Questo lavoro di tesi affronta la modellazione del comportamento delle radici e ne fornisce una formulazione secondo un approccio di Swarm Intelligence. Il modello realizzato è stato testato sperimentalmente su un simulatore appositamente sviluppato

Mass Response of A CMOS-Compatible, Magnetically Actuated MEMS Microbalance

In this work, the mass response of a resonant, CMOS (Complementary MOS) compatible MEMS sensor, oriented at the detection of diagnostic markers, is presented. The sensor is fabricated with a MEMS (Micro-electro-mechanical System) post-processing method on a standard, CMOS-based VLSI technology, retaining maximum compatibility with the CMOS process flow. The mechanical resonator is based on inductive actuation and detection, and the sensing is based on the microbalance principle. A protocol for covalent bonding of organo-functional silanes (to be used as link sites for biomolecular probes) on the resonator surface is presented. The effect on the mechanical frequency response of a test mass attached to the surface is demonstrated by grafting of gold nanoparticles (NPs) to the amino- terminated surface silanes. The measured mass sensitivity compares favorably both with standard Quartz Crystal Microbalances (QCM) and with existing MEMS-based approaches

VALUTAZIONE E COPERTURA DI OPZIONI SU MATERIE PRIME

Tramite un modello di super-replication è possibile costruire un portafoglio composto da titoli liquidi per coprire la basket option sul mix produttivo di argento ed oro. Il prezzo non è molto differente da quello di Black & Scholes, le cui ipotesi però rendono impossibile l’implementazione della copertura