A decision support system for fostering smart energy efficient districts

The role of ICT is becoming prominent in tackling some of the urban societal challenges such as energy wastage and increasing carbon emissions. In this context, the concept of DAREED aims to deliver an integrated decision support system (DSS) to drive energy efficiency and low carbon activities at both a building and district level. The main aim of this paper is to present the technical concept of the Best Practices recommendation component of the DAREED system. This component seeks to compare and identify existing best practices to recommend practical actions to various stakeholders (e.g. building managers, citizens) in order to improve energy performance considering the global needs of a building. This paper also discusses the context of the three field trial sites (based in UK, Spain and Italy) in which the DAREED platform along with the best practices tool is to be tested and validated.This work evolved in the context of the project DAREED (Decision support Advisor for innovative business models and useR engagement for smart Energy Efficient Districts), www.dareed.eu, a project cofunded by the EC within FP7, Grant agreement no: 609082

Principali patogeni e difesa

Olive as other woody perennial crops can be affected by several systemic pathogens, including bacteria, fungi and several vector-borne viruses. The most important olive diseases, caused by different pathogens, are described in this text. Pathogen biology, diagnostic technique and control strategies are reported for each disease. The main and widespread bacterial disease, caused by Pseudomonas savastanoi pv. savastanoi, is the olive knot. As concerns the most important and widespread fungal diseases, in this text are described the olive leaf spot, Verticillum wilt, cercosporiosis, anthracnose, fruit rot, parasitic brusca, root rot, sooty mold and wood rot. Infections caused by viruses are generally symptomless and do not result in diseased plants. Although, viruses do not cause detrimental disease on olive varieties, the infected olive trees represent a reservoir of virus inoculum for other crops, where these viruses are known to cause severe disease. Detection of these viruses represent an important critical step in the sanitary improvement of this crop. Recently, molecularbased assays have been effectively implemented to detect at least 8 of the 15 viruses known to infect this crop. Sanitation program using in vitro culture of shoot tip and thermotherapy have been recently described to recover virus-free plantlets.Realizzato nell'ambito del progetto "Ricerca ed Innovazione per l'Olivicoltura Meridionale", finanziato dal MiPAAFMiPAAF - Ministero delle politiche agricole alimentari e forestal

Potato virus X in Tunesian grapevines

Two biologically distinct strains of potato potexvirus X (PVX) were recovered by sap inoculation from vines of cvs Carignan and Grenache in two different Tunisian localities. In a Grenache vineyard, PVX was detected by ELISA in about 4 % of the vines. Morphological, physico-chemical, serological and ultrastructural properties of both PVX strains from grapevine were the same as those of ordinary isolates of the type species, as shown by the results of comparative investigations. PVX seemed little pathogenic to grapevines, and was re-inoculated to grape rootlings with difficulty

Performance of Broiler Chicken on Diet Supplemented with Black Pepper (Piper Nigrum) Powder on Haematological and Biochemical Parameters

The present research work was conducted with the aim to find the different levels of black pepper powder supplementation on the performance in terms of growth, feed intake, carcass characteristics, blood parameters, overall performance and cost of rearing of broiler chicken. For this, a total of 120- day old, broiler chicks of hybrid Cobb-400 strain, were equally distributed into four treatments (T1, T2, T3 and T4) with five replications per treatment following Randomized Block Design. The birds were reared for 42 days. The birds in control group (T1) were provided with standard diets of broiler starter and broiler finisher. However, the diets of other groups were supplemented with black pepper powder @7.5, 10.0 and 12.5 g/kg feed for T2, T3 and T4 groups, respectively. Feed intake was recorded daily and weekly body weight was recorded replication wise. Gain in weight and feed conversion efficiency was calculated accordingly. The inputs of all items were precisely recorded for calculation of economics of rearing. On the 42nd day, from each treatment three birds were selected for collection of blood analysis viz. Hb, WBC, RBC, HDL, LDL and Cholesterol. No mortality was observed for all the treatments. The results showed no significant difference in body weight, body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion efficiency, overall performance index and net profit per bird. In terms of blood constituents viz, RBC, WBC, Cholesterol were better in T1 group

New insight into the identity of italian grapevine varieties: The case study of calabrian germplasm

Calabria is a region located in Southern Italy and it is characterized by a long tradition of viticulture practices and favorable pedoclimatic conditions for grapevine cultivation. Nevertheless, less than 2% of cultivated land is dedicated to grapevine growing in Calabria. The characterization of local grapevine accessions is crucial to valorize the local and peculiar Italian products and boost the Calabrian winemaking sector. With this purpose, we performed a deep characterization of two widespread Calabrian grapevine varieties—Magliocco Dolce and Brettio Nero, of which very little is known. In particular, a genetic and morphological analysis, a berry physico-chemical and polyphenolic compositions assessment, and oenological evaluation of monovarietal wines were carried out. Our results allowed us to demonstrate that Magliocco Dolce and Brettio Nero are unique and distinct varieties with peculiar morphological and chemical characteristics and show the suitability of these two varieties in high-quality wine production. Moreover, the obtained molecular profiles will be useful for authentication and traceability purposes

Testing approach to new fibre-reinforced UHTC materials in the C3HARME project

In space applications, very high temperatures are often a driving environmental condition for certain technologies. This is especially true for the engines of rockets and for re-entry systems where thermal protection is vital. With current state-of-the-art systems of both types, there are in some cases materials used which are simply consumed because temperatures are so high, there is no choice of a material able to withstand the conditions. In order to overcome these restraints, Ultra-high-temperature ceramics (UHTC) provide an option in terms of the pure temperature capability of the material. However, bulk UHTC materials so far suffered from the problem of rather low mechanical properties and especially size limitations due to thermal shock sensitivity. If this situation could be improved by introducing a fibre reinforcement and combining the advantages of UHTC with the robustness of Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC), the resulting UHTCMC materials could open up a whole new world of possibilities for new designs and flight regimes of the systems mentioned. The C3HARME project aims at exactly that. The goal is to develop new fibre-reinforced UHTC types and to significantly improve the maturity of them to a level of TRL 5-6. In order to do so, the thermo-mechanical characterization of samples and components is of great importance. A multitude of different tests are done to get the full data set of all the relevant properties from room temperature up to very high temperatures as they are encountered in the application scenario. The talk will give an overview about the characterization strategy and the individual tests and facilities applied with some of the results already obtained

Aerothermodynamic Analysis of a Reentry Brazilian Satellite

This work deals with a computational investigation on the small ballistic reentry Brazilian vehicle SARA (acronyms for SAt\'elite de Reentrada Atmosf\'erica). Hypersonic flows over the vehicle SARA at zero-degree angle of attack in a chemical equilibrium and thermal non-equilibrium are modeled by the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, which has become the main technique for studying complex multidimensional rarefied flows, and that properly accounts for the non-equilibrium aspects of the flows. The emphasis of this paper is to examine the behavior of the primary properties during the high altitude portion of SARA reentry. In this way, velocity, density, pressure and temperature field are investigated for altitudes of 100, 95, 90, 85 and 80 km. In addition, comparisons based on geometry are made between axisymmetric and planar two-dimensional configurations. Some significant differences between these configurations were noted on the flowfield structure in the reentry trajectory. The analysis showed that the flow disturbances have different influence on velocity, density, pressure and temperature along the stagnation streamline ahead of the capsule nose. It was found that the stagnation region is a thermally stressed zone. It was also found that the stagnation region is a zone of strong compression, high wall pressure. Wall pressure distributions are compared with those of available experimental data and good agreement is found along the spherical nose for the altitude range investigated.Comment: The paper will be published in Vol. 42 of the Brazilian Journal of Physic

Isolation and pathogenicity of Xylella fastidiosa associated to the olive quick decline syndrome in southern Italy

In autumn 2013, the presence of Xylella fastidiosa, a xylem-limited Gram-negative bacterium, was detected in olive stands of an area of the Ionian coast of the Salento peninsula (Apulia, southern Italy), that were severely affected by a disease denoted olive quick decline syndrome (OQDS). Studies were carried out for determining the involvement of this bacterium in the genesis of OQDS and of the leaf scorching shown by a number of naturally infected plants other than olive. Isolation in axenic culture was attempted and assays were carried out for determining its pathogenicity to olive, oleander and myrtle-leaf milkwort. The bacterium was readily detected by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) in all diseased olive trees sampled in different and geographically separated infection foci, and culturing of 51 isolates, each from a distinct OQDS focus, was accomplished. Needle-inoculation experiments under different environmental conditions proved that the Salentinian isolate De Donno belonging to the subspecies pauca is able to multiply and systemically invade artificially inoculated hosts, reproducing symptoms observed in the field. Bacterial colonization occurred in prick-inoculated olives of all tested cultivars. However, the severity of and timing of symptoms appearance differed with the cultivar, confirming their differential reaction

Active safety systems for powered two-wheelers: A systematic review

Objective: Active safety systems, of which antilock braking is a prominent example, are going to play an important role to improve powered two-wheeler (PTW) safety. This paper presents a systematic review of the scientific literature on active safety for PTWs. The aim was to list all systems under development, identify knowledge gaps and recognize promising research areas that require further efforts. Methods: A broad search using "safety" as the main keyword was performed on Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar, followed by manual screening to identify eligible papers that underwent a full-text review. Finally, the selected papers were grouped by general technology type and analyzed via structured form to identify the following: specific active safety system, study type, outcome type, population/sample where applicable, and overall findings. Results: Of the 8,000 papers identified with the initial search, 85 were selected for full-text review and 62 were finally included in the study, of which 34 were journal papers. The general technology types identified included antilock braking system, autonomous emergency braking, collision avoidance, intersection support, intelligent transportation systems, curve warning, human machine interface systems, stability control, traction control, and vision assistance. Approximately one third of the studies considered the design and early stage testing of safety systems (n. 22); almost one fourth (n.15) included evaluations of system effectiveness. Conclusions: Our systematic review shows that a multiplicity of active safety systems for PTWs were examined in the scientific literature, but the levels of development are diverse. A few systems are currently available in the series production, whereas other systems are still at the level of early-stage prototypes. Safety benefit assessments were conducted for single systems, however, organized comparisons between systems that may inform the prioritization of future research are lacking. Another area of future analysis is on the combined effects of different safety systems, that may be capitalized for better performance and to maximize the safety impact of new technologies

Towards a FOSS Automatic Classification of Defects for Bridges Structural Health Monitoring

Bridges are among the most important structures of any road network. During their service life, they are subject to deterioration which may reduce their safety and functionality. The detection of bridge damage is necessary for proper maintenance activities. To date, assessing the health status of the bridge and all its elements is carried out by identifying a series of data obtained from visual inspections, which allows the mapping of the deterioration situation of the work and its conservation status. There are, however, situations where visual inspection may be difficult or impossible, especially in critical areas of bridges, such as the ceiling and corners. In this contribution, the authors acquire images using a prototype drone with a low-cost camera mounted upward over the body of the drone. The proposed solution was tested on a bridge in the city of Turin (Italy). The captured data was processed via photogrammetric process using the open-source Micmac solution. Subsequently, a procedure was developed with FOSS tools for the segmentation of the orthophoto of the intrados of the bridge and the automatic classification of some defects found on the analyzed structure. The paper describes the adopted approach showing the effectiveness of the proposed methodology