The CIB-lensing bispectrum: impact on primordial non-Gaussianity and detectability for the Planck mission

We characterize the cosmic infrared background (CIB)-lensing bispectrum which is one of the contributions to the three-point functions of cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps in harmonic space. We show that the CIB-lensing bispectrum has a considerable strength and that it can be detected with high significance in the Planck high-frequency maps. We also present forecasts of the contamination on different shapes of the primordial non-Gaussianity fnl parameter produced by the CIB-lensing bispectrum and by the extragalactic point sources bispectrum in the Planck high-resolution CMB anisotropy maps. The local, equilateral and orthogonal shapes are considered for ‘raw' single-frequency (i.e. without applying any component separation technique) and foreground-reduced Planck temperature maps. The CIB-lensing correlation seems to mainly affect orthogonal shapes of the bispectrum - with $\Delta f_{\rm nl}^{\rm (ort)} =-21$ and −88 for the 143 and 217 GHz bands, respectively - while point sources mostly impact equilateral shapes, with $\Delta f_{\rm nl}^{\rm (eq)} =160, 54$ and 60 at 100, 143 and 217 GHz. However, the results indicate that these contaminants do not induce any relevant bias on Planck fnl estimates when foreground-reduced maps are considered: using SEVEM for the component separation, we obtain $\Delta f_{\rm nl}^{\rm (ort)} =10.5$ due to the CIB-lensing and $\Delta f_{\rm nl}^{\rm (eq)}=30.4$ due to point sources, corresponding to 0.3σ and 0.45σ in terms of the Planck 2013 fnl uncertainty. The component separation technique is, in fact, able to partially clean the extragalactic source contamination and the bias is reduced for all the shapes. We have further developed single- and multiple-frequency estimators based on the Komatsu, Spergel & Wandelt formalism that can be implemented to efficiently detect this signa

Down-Hole Heat Exchangers: Modelling of a Low-Enthalpy Geothermal System for District Heating

In order to face the growing energy demands, renewable energy sources can provide an alternative to fossil fuels. Thus, low-enthalpy geothermal plants may play a fundamental role in those areas—such as the Province of Viterbo—where shallow groundwater basins occur and conventional geothermal plants cannot be developed. This may lead to being fuelled by locally available sources. The aim of the present paper is to exploit the heat coming from a low-enthalpy geothermal system. The experimental plant consists in a down-hole heat exchanger for civil purposes and can supply thermal needs by district heating. An implementation in MATLAB environment is provided in order to develop a mathematical model. As a consequence, the amount of withdrawable heat can be successfully calculated

Simulação hidrológica de rios com grandes planícies de inundação.

Conhecer o comportamento hidrológico de um rio permite investigar diversas questões ecológicas relacionadas. Além de descrever o comportamento hidrológico, é importante poder prevê-lo frente a cenários futuros, e modelos matemáticos têm sido largamente utilizados com essa finalidade. A simulação do escoamento em rios tem sido realizada principalmente com modelos unidimensionais acoplados ou não com células de armazenamento de água na planície. Para o caso de rios com grandes planícies de inundação, o extravasamento de água do canal para a planície e a propagação da inundação na planície governam a passagem da onda de cheia. Caso o interesse do estudo seja representar esses processos, métodos tradicionais não são adequados e uma abordagem recente tem sido proposta baseada no acoplamento de um modelo unidimensional para simular o escoamento na calha principal e um modelo tipo raster para simular o escoamento bidimensional na planície. Este artigo discute as dificuldades e desafios para a modelagem de rios com grandes planícies de inundação e as vantagens e limitações das diferentes abordagens empregadas. É apresentado um sistema de simulação desenvolvido com esse propósito, com resultados da aplicação ao Pantanal como exemplo

Chaplygin gas with non-adiabatic pressure perturbations

Perturbations in a Chaplygin gas, characterized by an equation of state $p = -A/\rho$, may acquire non-adiabatic contributions if spatial variations of the parameter $A$ are admitted. This feature is shown to be related to a specific internal structure of the Chaplygin gas. We investigate how perturbations of this type modify the adiabatic sound speed and influence the time dependence of the gravitational potential which gives rise to the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect in the anisotropy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background.Comment: 16 pages, comments and references added, accepted for publication in Class.Quantum Gra

Forecasts on the contamination induced by unresolved point sources in primordial non-Gaussianity beyond Planck

In this paper we present forecasts of the contamination on different shapes of the primordial non-Gaussianity fnl parameter \u2013 detectable on future Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) high\u2013resolution anisotropy maps \u2013 produced by unresolved ex- tragalactic point sources at frequencies of cosmological interest (45\u2013375 GHz). We consider two scenarios: an ideal (noiseless) mission and a possible future space-borne satellite, with instrumental characteristics similar to the ones proposed for the Cos- mic Origins Explorer (COrE). The local, equilateral, orthogonal and flat shapes are considered in both temperature (intensity) and polarized emission data. The angular power spectrum and bispectrum of extragalactic point sources are estimated by state- of-the-art models of source number counts. The impact of all the most relevant (far\u2013IR and radio selected) source populations on these shapes at COrE frequencies is studied. The results of this analysis show that unresolved extragalactic point sources should not induce a very relevant non-Gaussian signal in the frequency range 100\u2013200GHz, thus not preventing a correct estimate of the CMB primordial fnl parameter. Polariza- tion information allows one to significantly reduce the error\u2013bars in the fnl parameter and the bias induced by unresolved sources and, hence, to widen the range of frequen- cies for fnl studies. On the contrary, at \u3bd 225GHz, important non-Gaussian deviations in CMB anisotropy maps are expected due to unresolved extragalactic sources

Dextran-curcumin nanoparticles as a methotrexate delivery vehicle: A step forward in breast cancer combination therapy

With the aim to effectively deliver methotrexate (MTX) to breast cancer cells, we designed a nanocarrier system (DC) derived from the self-assembly of a dextran-curcumin conjugate prepared via enzyme chemistry with immobilized laccase acting as a solid biocatalyst. Nanoparticles consisted of homogeneously dispersed nanospheres with a mean diameter of 290 nm, as characterized by combined transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering investigations. DC was able to control the MTX release overtime (t1/2 value of 310 min), with cell internalization studies proving its presence inside MCF-7 cytoplasm. Finally, improved MTX efficacy was obtained in viability assays, and attributed to the synergy of curcumin moieties and loaded MTX as underlined by a combination index (CI) < 1

The BaR-SPOrt Experiment

BaR-SPOrt (Balloon-borne Radiometers for Sky Polarisation Observations) is an experiment to measure the linearly polarized emission of sky patches at 32 and 90 GHz with sub-degree angular resolution. It is equipped with high sensitivity correlation polarimeters for simultaneous detection of both the U and Q stokes parameters of the incident radiation. On-axis telescope is used to observe angular scales where the expected polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMBP) peaks. This project shares most of the know-how and sophisticated technology developed for the SPOrt experiment onboard the International Space Station. The payload is designed to flight onboard long duration stratospheric balloons both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres where low foreground emission sky patches are accessible. Due to the weakness of the expected CMBP signal (in the range of microK), much care has been spent to optimize the instrument design with respect to the systematics generation, observing time efficiency and long term stability. In this contribution we present the instrument design, and first tests on some components of the 32 GHz radiometer.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation (Polaimetry in Astronomy) Hawaii August 2002 SPIE Meetin

SYNTHETIC DATA GENERATION AND TESTING FOR THE SEMANTIC SEGMENTATION OF HERITAGE BUILDINGS

Over the past decade, the use of machine learning and deep learning algorithms to support 3D semantic segmentation of point clouds has significantly increased, and their impressive results has led to the application of such algorithms for the semantic modeling of heritage buildings. Nevertheless, such applications still face several significant challenges, caused in particular by the high number of training data required during training, by the lack of specific data in the heritage building scenarios, and by the time-consuming operations to data collection and annotation. This paper aims to address these challenges by proposing a workflow for synthetic image data generation in heritage building scenarios. Specifically, the procedure allows for the generation of multiple rendered images from various viewpoints based on a 3D model of a building. Additionally, it enables the generation of per-pixel segmentation maps associated with these images. In the first part, the procedure is tested by generating a synthetic simulation of a real-world scenario using the case study of Spedale del Ceppo. In the second part, several experiments are conducted to assess the impact of synthetic data during training. Specifically, three neural network architectures are trained using the generated synthetic images, and their performance in predicting the corresponding real scenarios is evaluated

AERIAL PLATFORMS (UAV) SURVEYS IN THE VIS AND TIR RANGE. APPLICATIONS ON ARCHAEOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE

The paper presents multi-sensor applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) on three different cases of study, belonging to the wide category of Cultural Heritage (CH). The contribution aims to examine the efficacy of different methodological approach of surveys made in VIS and TIR range with aerial platforms. The use of UAV on two archaeological areas, Çatalhöyük site (Konya, Turkey) and the Medicean Villa of Pratolino (Florence, Italy) and an application of precision agriculture in Lamole (Greve in Chianti, Italy) will be presented. In particular, the analysis will focus on the accuracy of the obtained data, in terms of both metric and image quality, the possible information to extract from the IR imaging, the relationship between costs and benefits and the total amount of information that can be gained. The two different fields of research (archaeological and agricultural one) show that there are some similarities in the approaches and which could be the improving to obtain using the aerial survey in the visual and IR bands

ALMA photometry of extragalactic radio sources

We present a new catalogue of ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) observations of 3364 bright, compact radio sources, mostly blazars, used as calibrators. These sources were observed between 2011 May and 2018 July, for a total of 47?115 pointings in different bands and epochs. We have exploited the ALMA data to validate the photometry given in the new Planck multifrequency Catalogue of Non-Thermal sources (PCNT), for which an external validation was not possible so far. We have also assessed the positional accuracy of Planck catalogues and the PCNT completeness limits, finding them to be consistent with those of the Second Planck Catalogue of Compact Sources. The ALMA continuum spectra have allowed us to extrapolate the observed radio source counts at 100 GHz to the effective frequencies of ALMA bands 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (145, 233, 285, 467, and 673?GHz, respectively), where direct measurements are scanty, especially at the three highest frequencies. The results agree with the predictions of the Tucci et al. model C2Ex, while the model C2Co is disfavoured