The VST telescope control software in the ESO VLT environment

The VST (VLT Survey Telescope) is a 2.6 m Alt-Az telescope to be installed at Mount Paranal in Chile, in the European Southern Observatory (ESO) site. The VST is a wide-field imaging facility planned to supply databases for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) science and carry out stand-alone observations in the UV to I spectral range. This paper will focus mainly on control software aspects, describing the VST software architecture in the context of the whole ESO VLT control concept. The general architecture and the main components of the control software will be described.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, ICALEPCS 2001 Conference, PSN#THAP05

TherMos3, a tool for 3D electrothermal simulation of Smart Power Mosfets

In this paper we report on a novel simulation tool designed for the 3D coupled electro-thermal simulation of Smart Power Mosfets, that is a tool capable of taking into account not only the electrical (and thermal) behaviour of the power device but also the different driving strategies as they are imposed by a control logic circuit which usually resides on the same chip. The simulator is fully developed under Matlab and solves, self consistently, the 3D heat equation with proper boundary conditions and heat sources. An adaptive meshing algorithm based on temperature gradients and an optimized time stepping strategy have also been developed to reduce computational load and speed up simulation time without loosing accuracy. To validate this approach, simulator results are finally compared to experimental data obtained on a commercial Smart Power device used in automotive applications.Comment: Submitted on behalf of TIMA Editions (http://irevues.inist.fr/tima-editions

Medium Alt-Az Telescope Control System Standardization. A case Study: The TT1 Control System

The TT1 (Toppo Telescope #1) is a 1.54 m Alt-Az telescope designed and built by the Technology Working Group (TWG) of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte (OAC), Naples Italy. The standardization process is of course one of the fundamental requirements for telescope control system design and development, well considered in the TT1 design. In this paper the approach used to identify a control system applicable to medium-size Alt-Az telescope is presented

La procedura di ritiro e di distribuzione alimenti del Banco Alimentare

L'articolo analizza una nuova fonte di approvvigionamento per la raccolta e la distribuzione di derrate alimentari eccedenti, appartenenti al genere fresco, a favore di 15 enti no profit. Si definisce una nuova procedura per il ritiro e la logistica di distribuzione in Piemont

Integrating Optical Wireless Communication Into an Optical Bifocal Metrology for Aerospace

Recently an innovative bifocal optical metrology method was proposed for space applications (e.g., rendez-vous and docking), based on unmodulated white LEDs. Here we design, realize, and test a solution that upgrades the metrology to include a digital communication feature, with no modification of the optical elements of the original system: indeed, the scheme exploits the same optical sources that are needed for metrology, which are now also working as optical antennas as their intensity is now modulated. At the receiver side, the conventional camera is now sided by a common photodiode. The system provides unidirectional data communication at 10 kbit/s speed. It is designed to support manoeuvres up to 400 m distance. The lab tests confirm the effectiveness of the proposed solutions, showing correct data transfer without any noticeable degradation of the metrology system

Impact of polymorphic transposable elements on transcription in lymphoblastoid cell lines from public data

Background: Transposable elements (TEs) are DNA sequences able to mobilize themselves and to increase their copy-number in the host genome. In the past, they have been considered mainly selfish DNA without evident functions. Nevertheless, currently they are believed to have been extensively involved in the evolution of primate genomes, especially from a regulatory perspective. Due to their recent activity they are also one of the primary sources of structural variants (SVs) in the human genome. By taking advantage of sequencing technologies and bioinformatics tools, recent surveys uncovered specific TE structural variants (TEVs) that gave rise to polymorphisms in human populations. When combined with RNA-seq data this information provides the opportunity to study the potential impact of TEs on gene expression in human. Results: In this work, we assessed the effects of the presence of specific TEs in cis on the expression of flanking genes by producing associations between polymorphic TEs and flanking gene expression levels in human lymphoblastoid cell lines. By using public data from the 1000 Genome Project and the Geuvadis consortium, we exploited an expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) approach integrated with additional bioinformatics data mining analyses. We uncovered human loci enriched for common, less common and rare TEVs and identified 323 significant TEV-cis-eQTL associations. SINE-R/VNTR/Alus (SVAs) resulted the TE class with the strongest effects on gene expression. We also unveiled differential functional enrichments on genes associated to TEVs, genes associated to TEV-cis-eQTLs and genes associated to the genomic regions mostly enriched in TEV-cis-eQTLs highlighting, at multiple levels, the impact of TEVs on the host genome. Finally, we also identified polymorphic TEs putatively embedded in transcriptional units, proposing a novel mechanism in which TEVs may mediate individual-specific traits. Conclusion: We contributed to unveiling the effect of polymorphic TEs on transcription in lymphoblastoid cell lines

Real-Time Forecasting of Air Pollution Episodes in the Venetian Region. Part I: The Advection-Diffusion Model. Part II: The Kalman Predictor

The object of this overall research, which has an expected duration of two years is to set up a scheme for predicting ground-level pollutant concentrations for real-time control purposes (i.e. the action to be taken at the emission sources in the presence of forthcoming high pollutant events). The forecasting scheme is described, together with its application to sulphur dioxide pollution in the Venetian lagoon area. The scheme is based on a complex mathematical model to be run on a computer and receiving at the beginning of each interval of time all the information (about the meteorological and emission situation) required for the prediction. The type of control action which should be taken on the basis of such a forecast is the object of this part of the research

Software reverse engineering and development: the VST TCS case

The 2.6 m VST telescope is going to be installed at Cerro Paranal (Chile) as a powerful instrument for optical surveys. It is a joint project between the INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte (OAC) and ESO. This paper deals with Telescope Control Software (TCS) technical aspects and software engineering design and development strategies