Creativity at its best: making science by making art

Creativity and vision capability are common to many disciplines and are involved in artistic and scientific thinking and activities. Scientists and artists are often asked to see and think beyond the perceivable reality, to imagine aspects of things and events, which can be better seen from an unusual perspective. Developing such a open-wide perspective to foster the spread of scientific knowledge in high-school is one of the key ingredient of "Art & Science across Italy", a European science communication project led by the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in collaboration with CERN. The main idea is to put in practice the basic concept of the STEAM field in which neither STEM nor arts are privileged over the other, but both are equally in play and engaging high school students with science using artistic languages, regardless of student's specific skills or level of knowledge. During the project, high-school students attend scientific seminars and then, inspired by science, create their own artworks. The latter are shown in local and national art shows. The project is now running the third edition (2020 2022). Here we will describe the project and the methodology used, and some results obtained in the first two editions in which more than 7.500 students coming from about 200 Italian high schools participated

CHASMAPORTHETES MELEI N.SP., AN ENDEMIC HYAENID (CARNIVORA, MAMMALIA) FROM THE MONTE TUTTAVISTA FISSURE FILLINGS (LATE PLIOCENE TO EARLY PLEISTOCENE; SARDINIA, ITALY)

Occurrence of large carnivores in island ecosystems is unusual, especially in the case of top predators. Here, a new endemic hyaenid species, Chasmaporthetes melei, from the late Late Pliocene to earliest Pleistocene fissure fillings of Monte Tuttavista, Orosei, Sardinia, is described. Although smaller, C. melei is morphologically comparable with the Plio-Pleistocene Eurasian hunting-hyena Chasmaporthetes lunensis, a possible ancestor of the Sardinian species. C. melei displays all the characteristic feeding adaptations of Chasmaporthetes, including a derived enamel structure similar to the condition in extant bone-crushing hyaenas. C. melei was an active predator that nonetheless included a relatively large amount of bone in its diet. SHORT NOTE

Real-Time neural signal decoding on heterogeneous MPSocs based on VLIW ASIPs

An important research problem, at the basis of the development of embedded systems for neuroprosthetic applications, is the development of algorithms and platforms able to extract the patient's motion intention by decoding the information encoded in neural signals. At the state of the art, no portable and reliable integrated solutions implementing such a decoding task have been identified. To this aim, in this paper, we investigate the possibility of using the MPSoC paradigm in this application domain. We perform a design space exploration that compares different custom MPSoC embedded architectures, implementing two versions of a on-line neural signal decoding algorithm, respectively targeting decoding of single and multiple acquisition channels. Each considered design points features a different application configuration, with a specific partitioning and mapping of parallel software tasks, executed on customized VLIW ASIP processing cores. Experimental results, obtained by means of FPGA-based prototyping and post-floorplanning power evaluation on a 40nm technology library, assess the performance and hardware-related costs of the considered configurations. The reported power figures demonstrate the usability of the MPSoC paradigm within the processing of bio-electrical signals and show the benefits achievable by the exploitation of the instruction-level parallelism within tasks

Adaptivity Support for MPSoCs Based on Process Migration in Polyhedral Process Networks

987209Computer System

Radiation Pressure Acceleration by Ultraintense Laser Pulses

The future applications of the short-duration, multi-MeV ion beams produced in the interaction of high-intensity laser pulses with solid targets will require improvements in the conversion efficiency, peak ion energy, beam monochromaticity, and collimation. Regimes based on Radiation Pressure Acceleration (RPA) might be the dominant ones at ultrahigh intensities and be most suitable for specific applications. This regime may be reached already with present-day intensities using circularly polarized (CP) pulses thanks to the suppression of fast electron generation, so that RPA dominates over sheath acceleration at any intensity. We present a brief review of previous work on RPA with CP pulses and a few recent results. Parametric studies in one dimension were performed to identify the optimal thickness of foil targets for RPA and to study the effect of a short-scalelength preplasma. Three-dimensional simulations showed the importance of ``flat-top'' radial intensity profiles to minimise the rarefaction of thin targets and to address the issue of angular momentum conservation and absorption.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication to the special issue "EPS 2008" of PPC

A wireless sensors network for monitoring the Carasau bread manufacturing process

This work copes with the design and implementation of a wireless sensors network architecture to automatically and continuously monitor, for the first time, the manufacturing process of Sardinian Carasau bread. The case of a traditional bakery company facing the challenge of the Food-Industry 4.0 competitiveness is investigated. The process was analyzed to identify the most relevant variables to be monitored during the product manufacturing. Then, a heterogeneous, multi-tier wireless sensors network was designed and realized to allow the real-time control and the data collection during the critical steps of dough production, sheeting, cutting and leavening. Commercial on-the-shelf and cost-effective integrated electronics were employed, making the proposed approach of interest for many practical cases. Finally, a user-friendly interface was provided to enhance the understanding, control and to favor the process monitoring. With the wireless senors network (WSN) we designed, it is possible to monitor environmental parameters (temperature, relative humidity, gas concentrations); cinematic quantities of the belts; and, through a dedicated image processing system, the morphological characteristics of the bread before the baking. The functioning of the WSN was demonstrated and a statistical analysis was performed on the variables monitored during different seasons

Rapid In Situ Detection of THC and CBD in Cannabis sativa L. by 1064 nm Raman Spectroscopy

The need to find a rapid and worthwhile technique for the in situ detection of the content of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) in Cannabis sativa L. is an ever-increasing problem in the forensic field. Among all the techniques for the detection of cannabinoids, Raman spectroscopy can be identified as the most cost-effective, fast, noninvasive, and nondestructive. In this study, 42 different samples were analyzed using Raman spectroscopy with 1064 nm excitation wavelength. The use of an IR wavelength laser showed the possibility to clearly identify THC and CBD in fresh samples, without any further processing, knocking out the contribution of the fluorescence generated by visible and near-IR sources. The results allow assigning all the Raman features in THC- and CBD-rich natural samples. The multivariate analysis underlines the high reproducibility of the spectra and the possibility to distinguish immediately the Raman spectra of the two cannabinoid species. Furthermore, the ratio between the Raman bands at 1295/1440 and 1623/1663 cm-1 is identified as an immediate test parameter to evaluate the THC content in the samples

Performance of the readout system of the ALICE Zero Degree Calorimeters in LHC Run 3

The ALICE Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC) provide information about event geometry in heavy-ion collisions through the detection of spectator nucleons and allow to estimate the delivered luminosity. They are also very useful in p–A collisions, allowing an unbiased estimation of collision centrality. The Run 3 operating conditions will involve a tenfold increase in instantaneous luminosity in heavy-ion collisions, with event rates that, taking into account the different processes, could reach 5 MHz in the ZDCs. The challenges posed by this demanding environment lead to a redesign of the readout system and to the transition to a continuous acquisition. The new system is based on 12 bit, 1 Gsps FMC digitizers that will continuously sample the 26 ZDC channels. Triggering, pedestal estimation and luminosity measurements will be performed on FPGA directly connected to the front-end. The new readout system and the performances foreseen in Run 3 are presented