User requirements in the design of European affordable housing

The paper highlights how the knowledge of users is complex and still defective in the area of European affordable housing. Although demand is far more changeable than supply, more market research has been carried out on existing housing stock than on behavioral/cultural models. Furthermore, there is a lack of design research capable of generating innovative design inputs. The significance of this article lies in proposing a systematization of the detection of user requirements. In the field of affordable housing, there is still a widespread traditional top-down approach which assigns designers with an external intuitive analysis of user requirements. This paper suggests that the European local systems should equip themselves firstly with housing market research concentrated on behavioral/cultural models and secondly with design research conducted by research-oriented professionals. The paper focuses on some research methods which could be used by design researchers during their inquiry into user requirements. The results of such research would be the starting points for individual design practices which would be based upon solider and more detailed research foundations

The AGN fuelling/feedback cycle in LERGs: the molecular gas component and its interplay with radio jets

This Thesis has been carried out as part of an international collaboration overall aiming at a multi-component (stars, warm/cold gas, dust, radio jets) investigation of the AGN fuelling/feedback loop in the cores of a volume-limited (z<0.03) sample of eleven low excitation radio galaxies (LERGs). In this general context, this PhD Thesis mainly aimed at i) shedding light on the properties, kinematics and origin of the cold gas using ALMA CO(2-1) observations of nine sample members; ii) investigating the radio jets/cold ISM interplay on (sub-)kpc scales, coupling ALMA CO(2-1) and 230~GHz continuum observations with newly-acquired radio JVLA data at 10 GHz of five sample sources. Our work shows that rotating (sub-)kpc CO discs are very common in LERGs (six out of nine sources detected in CO). The 3D modelling of these discs demonstrates that the bulk of the gas is in ordered rotation (at least at the resolution of our ALMA observations). This may explain the relatively low accretion rate of LERGs. Nevertheless, low-level perturbations and/or non-circular motions are ubiquitous, indicating that the gas is not fully relaxed into the host galaxy potential. Whenever possible, we demonstrated that the observed CO discs are co-spatial with dust discs/lanes. In a couple of cases multi-wavelength constraints point towards an external origin of the gas. These evidence are difficult to reconcile with the chaotic cold accretion scenario, with implications for the powering mechanism of LERGs. The relative jet/CO disc inclination angles are found to span a wide range (27°-64°), with a marginal preference for angles around 45°. This is consistent with previous statistical 3D studies of the relative jet/dust disc orientation in radio galaxies. Hints of the presence of a jet/disc interaction are also observed in one case and tentatively found in the kinematics of other two sources

Scattering of Gravitational Waves by the Weak Gravitational Fields of Lens Objects

We consider the scattering of the gravitational waves by the weak gravitational fields of lens objects. We obtain the scattered gravitational waveform by treating the gravitational potential of the lens to first order, i.e. using the Born approximation. We find that the effect of scattering on the waveform is roughly given by the Schwarzschild radius of the lens divided by the wavelength of gravitational wave for a compact lens object. If the lenses are smoothly distributed, the effect of scattering is of the order of the convergence field $\kappa$ along the line of sight to the source. In the short wavelength limit, the amplitude is magnified by $1+\kappa$, which is consistent with the result in weak gravitational lensing.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, A&A Letters, in press, minor changes, references adde

‘Nebbiolo di Gubbio’ and its fellows: a time box of Piedmontese grape varieties in the region of Umbria (central Italy)

In the Gubbio area (Umbria region, central Italy) the cultivation of 'Nebbiolo' has been attested since the end of the 19th century and attributed to the import of cuttings from Piedmont (northwestern Italy). Morphological tests carried out in three old vineyards in Gubbio confirmed that this ‘Nebbiolo’ is in fact ‘Dolcetto’, another important cultivar from Piedmont. Plants of other Piedmontese and Umbrian varieties, often rare or at risk of extinction, were identified in the inspected old vineyards, giving evidence of the poly-varietal composition of the ancient plantings. Seven genotypes not yet inventoried or described were also discovered