A Novel Real-Time Edge-Cloud Big Data Management and Analytics Framework for Smart Cities

Exposing city information to dynamic, distributed, powerful, scalable, and user-friendly big data systems is expected to enable the implementation of a wide range of new opportunities; however, the size, heterogeneity and geographical dispersion of data often makes it difficult to combine, analyze and consume them in a single system. In the context of the H2020 CLASS project, we describe an innovative framework aiming to facilitate the design of advanced big-data analytics workflows. The proposal covers the whole compute continuum, from edge to cloud, and relies on a well-organized distributed infrastructure exploiting: a) edge solutions with advanced computer vision technologies enabling the real-time generation of “rich” data from a vast array of sensor types; b) cloud data management techniques offering efficient storage, real-time querying and updating of the high-frequency incoming data at different granularity levels. We specifically focus on obstacle detection and tracking for edge processing, and consider a traffic density monitoring application, with hierarchical data aggregation features for cloud processing; the discussed techniques will constitute the groundwork enabling many further services. The tests are performed on the real use-case of the Modena Automotive Smart Area (MASA)

Ventajas Económicas y Energéticas en Accionamientos con Motores de Alta Eficiencia

La crisis energética que atraviesa actualmente el planeta ha exigido la revisión de las normativas aplicadas a los diferentes consumidores de energía, entre ellos, las máquinas eléctricas. Los niveles mínimos de eficiencia para máquinas eléctricas estipulados por las normativas han sido incrementados y se han definido distintas categorías con el fin de identificar a los motores en base al nivel de pérdidas. Independientemente de los beneficios de índole ecológica que imponen las normas recientes, el empleo de las nuevas generaciones de motores de inducción de alta eficiencia resulta atractivo desde un punto de vista económico. El menor consumo de energía de los motores y el incremento de su vida útil permiten recuperar rápidamente el costo adicional que presentan las nuevas unidades y alcanzar ganancias posteriores. En este trabajo se repasan las normativas vigentes en distintos países del mundo y se presentan cálculos de tiempos de recuperación de la inversión económica adicional en base al costo de la energía vigente en Argentina.Fil: Verucchi, Carlos. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería Olavarria. Departamento de Electromecánica. Grupo Intelymec; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Tandil; ArgentinaFil: Ruschetti, Cristian Roberto. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería Olavarria. Departamento de Electromecánica. Grupo Intelymec; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Tandil; ArgentinaFil: Kazlauskas, Gustavo E.. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería Olavarria. Departamento de Electromecánica. Grupo Intelymec; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Tandil; Argentin

Photophysics of pentacene-doped picene thin films

Here were report a study of picene nano-cristalline thin films doped with pentacene molecules. The thin films were grown by supersonic molecular beam deposition with a doping concentration that ranges between less than one molecules of pentacene every 104 picene molecules up to about one molecule of pentacene every 102 of picene. Morphology and opto-electronic properties of the films were studied as a function of the concentration of dopants. The optical response of the picene films, characterized by absorption, steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements, changes dramatically after the doping with pentacene. An efficient energy transfer from the picene host matrix to the pentacene guest molecules was observed giving rise to an intense photoluminescence coming out from pentacene. This efficient mechanism opens the possibility to exploit applications where the excitonic states of the guest component, pentacene, are of major interest such as MASER. The observed mechanism could also serve as prototypical system for the study of the photophysics of host guest systems based on different phenacenes and acenes.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Kidney failure during HIV disease treated with tenofovir, multiple concurrent diseases and drug therapies

A significant case report of a HIV infected patient in his fifties who experienced an excellent virological and immunological response to antiretroviral therapy (which has been modified just to prevent or avoid some adverse events), but developed a severe, sudden acute kidney failure while under a polypharmacy due to some underlying and overwhelming disorders (i.e. arterial hypertension, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, a recent acute heart infarction with remarkable remnants, and finally an anecdotal muscle-joint pain with self-prescription of non-steroideal anti-inflammatory drugs), represents the key point for a debate around the increasing frequency of "polypharmacy" in the field of HIV infection, even when HIV resistance to antiretroviral is not a concern. The continuing increase of mean age of HIV-infected population, plus the existing, sometimes unmodifiable risk factors for cardiovascular, dysmetabolic, and renal disorders, plus the adjunct of anecdotal illnesses prompting the resort to different drugs and medications, either prescribed for HIV infection itself, or taken for concurrent or subsequent diseases, or self-prescribed occasionally due to an intercurrent, trivial disorders per se, may prompt a complicated scenario culminating with a life-threatening acute renal failure of tubular origin. Our report gives us the opportunity to revise and discuss the expected interactions between antiretroviral therapy and the even growing exposure to multiple different drug and drug classes, which may be responsible for relevant drug interactions and direct or adjunctive end-organ impairment, up to life-threatening conditions, which may be avoided or prevented by considering carefully all comorbidites and co-treatments potentially administered to HIV infected patients, thirty years after the discovery of AIDS

Kidney failure during HIV disease treated with tenofovir, multiple concurrent diseases and drug therapies

A significant case report of a HIV infected patient in his fifties who experienced an excellent virological and immunological response to antiretroviral therapy (which has been modified just to prevent or avoid some adverse events), but developed a severe, sudden acute kidney failure while under a polypharmacy due to some underlying and overwhelming disorders (i.e. arterial hypertension, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, a recent acute heart infarction with remarkable remnants, and finally an anecdotal muscle-joint pain with self-prescription of non-steroideal anti-inflammatory drugs), represents the key point for a debate around the increasing frequency of “polypharmacy” in the field of HIV infection, even when HIV resistance to antiretroviral is not a concern. The continuing increase of mean age of HIV-infected population, plus the existing, sometimes unmodifiable risk factors for cardiovascular, dysmetabolic, and renal disorders, plus the adjunct of anecdotal illnesses prompting the resort to different drugs and medications, either prescribed for HIV infection itself, or taken for concurrent or subsequent diseases, or self-prescribed occasionally due to an intercurrent, trivial disorders per se, may prompt a complicated scenario culminating with a life-threatening acute renal failure of tubular origin. Our report gives us the opportunity to revise and discuss the expected interactions between antiretroviral therapy and the even growing exposure to multiple different drug and drug classes, which may be responsible for relevant drug interactions and direct or adjunctive end-organ impairment, up to life-threatening conditions, which may be avoided or prevented by considering carefully all comorbidites and co-treatments potentially administered to HIV infected patients, thirty years after the discovery of AIDS

Hybrid nanostructures synthesized by supersonic molecular and cluster beams: The perspective of sensing devices exploiting their novel functional properties

A variety of approaches are aimed at developing functional nanocomposite hybrids with the basic idea of engineering the interfaces and interactions of the organic and inorganic counterparts at the nanoscale. The great versatility of such materials opens a wide range of applications including optoelectronics, gas sensing, biofunctionality, etc. We introduce a novel approach to the synthesis and growth of nanostructured organic-inorganic hybrids based on the co-deposition from Supersonic Molecular Beams seeded by molecules and clusters (SuMBE). We independently showed that SuMBE gives unprecedented control on reactivity and structure of: a) organic π-conjugated molecules (Pentacene, Porphyrines and to control the growth of hybrid organic-inorganic thin films; b) the synthesis of nanocrystalline films of oxides TiO2 (without any thermal process), c)the ability to activate chemical processes cinematically by tuning the kinetic energy of the precursors in the beam. The newly developed system allows the simultaneous deposition of metal oxides and organic molecules. In this new concept and experimental set up three supersonic beams can be used at the same time, together with a conventional Knudsen cell. The surface and interface electronic properties (UPS, XPS) show the successful ability to synthesize stable hybrid nanostructures such as nanocrystalline TiO2 decorated with organic pi-conjugated molecules (phtalocianines) and organolantanide structures formed by organic macrocycle (porphyrin) and erbium. The nanohybrids are formed by reactions activated by both the kinetic energy of the molecules and the strong reactivity of the inorganic clusters. Their novel functional properties have been demonstrated by gas sensing devices showing an enhanced specific response to, i.e. NOx, of 104 times due to the electron transfer occurring between the inorganic nanostructure and the molecule. The perspective is a new class of nano-hybrids with controlled novel functional properties for applications in sensing and opto-electronic devices

Speed estimation during the starting transient of induction motors

Typically, the rotor speed of electric motors was measured directly by the use of electromechanical sensors. Even though these devices are very precise, they are also fragile and expensive to install. Currently, some alternatives are based on speed estimations from the measurement of stator currents. Some of these, very accurate, are used in variable speed drives. In industrial power applications, many large induction motors (IMs) are directly driven with special starters. For these cases, new speed estimation strategies must be developed. This article presents a self-sensing method for speed estimation during the starting transient of both wound rotor and squirrel cage IMs. The speed estimation is based on the simultaneous tracking of multiple harmonic components of the rotor on the spectrogram of the stator currents in sequence networks. The proposal is validated with experimental results obtained in the laboratory with a squirrel cage IM. It is concluded that the estimation is not sensitive to measurement noise and tracking errors caused by other harmonic components that do not depend on the rotor position.Fil: Meira, Matias. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería Olavarría. Departamento de Electromecánica. Grupo INTELYMEC; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Bossio, Guillermo Rubén. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones en Tecnologías Energéticas y Materiales Avanzados. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones en Tecnologías Energéticas y Materiales Avanzados; ArgentinaFil: Verucchi, Carlos J.. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería Olavarría. Departamento de Electromecánica. Grupo INTELYMEC; ArgentinaFil: Ruschetti, Cristian Roberto. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería Olavarría. Departamento de Electromecánica. Grupo INTELYMEC; ArgentinaFil: Bossio, Jose Maria. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones en Tecnologías Energéticas y Materiales Avanzados. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones en Tecnologías Energéticas y Materiales Avanzados; Argentin

Doubling the Mechanical Properties of Spider Silk by C60 Supersonic Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Spider silk is one of the most fascinating natural materials, owing to its outstanding mechanical properties. In fact, it is able to combine usually self-excluding properties, like strength and toughness that synthetic fibers fail to replicate. Here, we report a method to further enhance the already excellent mechanical properties of spider's silk, producing nanocomposite fibers where the matrix of spider silk is reinforced with C60 molecules. These are deposited by Supersonic Molecular Beam Epitaxy (SuMBE) and are able to efficiently interact with silk, as evidenced by XPS analysis. As a consequence, upon proper adjustment of the fullerene kinetic energy, the treated fibers show improved strength, Young's modulus and toughness