Entwicklung eines verkehrsbezogenen und bewusstseinsbildenden Multimodalitätstools für ländliche Räume

Multimodales Mobilitätsverhalten, also die bewusste Nutzung unterschiedlicher Verkehrsmittel für die alltägliche Mobilität, kann einen Beitrag zur nachhaltigen Mobilität leisten. Ziel ist es, starre Mobilitätsmuster zu reflektieren, gegebenenfalls aufzubrechen und optimierte Transportlösungen zu finden, die die ökonomischen, ökologischen und sozialen Strukturen sicherstellen. Das Forschungsprojekt MULTMOTIV widmete sich dieser Aufgabenstellung am Untersuchungsbeispiel des ländlichen Raumes. Dabei wurde die aktuelle Wissenslage über multimodales Verkehrsverhalten von Personen, die im ländlichen Raum wohnen, verbessert, erstmalig österreichweit Multimodalität umfassend erhoben und darauf aufbauend in einem partizipativen Prozess Werkzeuge, Maßnahmen und Methoden sowie ein Konzept für ein verkehrsbezogenes und bewusstseinsbildendes Multimodalitätstool für die Planung, Politik, Umsetzung und Evaluierung im Kontext der Multimodalität ausgearbeitet

Galileo Galilei's location, shape and size of Dante's Inferno: an artistic and educational project

Mathematics and Art have a long historical relationship, which goes as far back as the ancient Greeks. It suffices to think, for instance, to their use of the golden ratio, regarded as an aesthetically pleasing canon and incorporated into the design of many monuments and temples. With the Renaissance we can see a rebirth of Classical (Greek and Roman) culture and ideas, and among them the study of Mathematics as a relevant subject needed to understand the nature and the arts. Two major reasons drove Renaissance artists towards the pursuit of Mathematics. Firstly, painters needed to figure out how to depict three-dimensional scenes on a two-dimensional canvas. Secondly, philosophers and artists alike were convinced that Mathematics was the true essence of the physical world so that the entire universe, including the arts, could be explained in geometrical terms. For instance, Galileo Galilei in his Il Saggiatore wrote that “[The universe] is written in the language of Mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures.” Thus, there is a close relation between Mathematics and Fine Arts during the Renaissance: mathematical knowledge is applied in drawings and paintings with the use of symmetry, producing ratios and proportions. Within the study of such a context arises the artistic and educational project “Galileo: location, shape and size of Dante’s Inferno” as a collaboration between the FDS Laboratory for Mathematical Education and Science Communication at the Department of Mathematics of the Politecnico di Milano and Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. The project is inspired by the first of two lectures held by Galileo Galilei at the Accademia Fiorentina in 1588. These lectures were commissioned by the Accademia to solve a literary controversy concerning the interpretation of Dante’s Inferno. In these lessons Galileo took the opportunity to show his mathematical abilities combined with his strong background in Humanities. His ultimate aim was to show that Mathematics is not merely useful from a technical point of view, but can also give a contribution to nobler cultural debates, thus acquiring an intellectual status comparable to that of the Humanities. When giving his lectures Galileo probably used drawings to explain how to map Dante’s Inferno, because of “ la difficoltà del suggetto che non patisce esser con la penna facilmente esplicato” (the difficulty of the subject which does not admit of easy explication in writing). Galileo’s manuscript survives and is catalogued in the Filza Rinucciniana 21 of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, but the drawings are lost. The project here presented included an accurate analysis of Galileo’s work and was meant as an opportunity for the students of Graphic to investigate the relationship between geometric representation and artistic interpretation. They made scale drawings of the Inferno, by using different paper media and drawing techniques of their choice. Later they produced original art works resulting from a personal artistic interpretation of the subject, free of pure scientific representation. The results reflect various artistic and creative sensibilities: drawings, paintings, engravings. The students’ works were gathered, accompanied by short sentences associated with the selected quotes of Inferno and displayed on the exhibition that was held at Politecnico di Milano (May 2012). After the works were exhibited at the Museo Dantesco of Ravenna (September 2013) and at the Bergamo Science Festival (XI Edition, October 2013)

Exposure-Tolerant Imaging Solution forCultural Heritage Monitoring

This paper describes a simple and cheap solution specifically designed for monitoring the degradation of thin coatings employed for metal protection. The proposed solution employs a commercial photocamera and a frequency-domain-based approach that is capable of highlighting the surface uniformity changes due to initial corrosion. Even though the proposed solution is specifically designed to monitor the long-time performance of protective coatings employed for the restoration of silver artifacts, it can be successfully used also for assessing the conservation state of other ancient metallic works of art. The proposed solution is made tolerant to exposure changes by using a procedure for sensor nonlinearity identification and correction, does not require a precise lighting control, and employs only free open-source software, so that its overall cost is very low and can be used also by not specifically trained operator

Measuring Economic Well-Being in a Multidimensional Perspective

The paper aims to identify structural differences among European countries concerning inequality of living conditions and opportunities, and quantified by well-being indicators, so to: 1) compare living standards across countries and 2) find out whether a trend may be singled out

CommunityHub: Potenzialanalyse für die gemeinschaftliche Nutzung innerstädtischer Logistikflächen

Problemstellung: Durch kontinuierliche Urbanisierungsprozesse und die voranschreitende Wohnraumverdichtung sowie die Zunahme der Bevölkerungs- und Verkehrsdichte ist ein sparsamer Umgang mit der Ressource Boden von Nöten. Die steigende Bedeutung des E-Commerce sowie die sich daraus resultierende Veränderung von Konsumentinnen- und Konsumentenanforderungen und zunehmenden Anzahl an Sendungen stellt vor allem die innerstädtische Logistik im Hinblick auf eine effiziente Abwicklung bzw. Organisation der First- und Last-Mile vor eine große Herausforderung. Beim Zusammentreffen unterschiedlicher Akteurinnen und Akteure (Stadt, Endnutzerinnen und Endnutzer, Wirtschaft) sind – bedingt durch verschiedene Interessen und Zielsetzungen – Entwicklungs- und Nutzungskonflikte – im Speziellen bei knappem Platzangebot – kaum vermeidbar. Es existieren jedoch auch im urbanen Raum ungenutzte Logistikkapazitäten, die durch ungleichmäßige Aufteilung von Wohn- und Lagerraum entstehen. Besonderes Augenmerk wird hierbei auf leerstehende Erdgeschoßzonen gelegt. Zielsetzung: Das Projekt CommunityHub1 zielt auf eine optimale Allokation der Ressource Raum ab. Unter dem Begriff CommunityHub werden Mikro-Logistikknotenpunkte verstanden, welche eine Versorgung der Bevölkerung mit logistischen Dienstleistungen und eine gleichberechtigte Zugänglichkeit für alle Akteurinnen und Akteure (Stadt, Endnutzerinnen und Endnutzer, Wirtschaft) gewährleisten. Dabei werden in städtischen Erdgeschoßzonen logistische Leistungen (Lagerung, Paketzustellung etc.) mit weiteren koppelbaren (Dienst-)Leistungen (Entsorgung, Versicherungen, Umkleidekabinen etc.) bereit gestellt. Die unterschiedlichen Komponenten der Partizipation, Nahversorgung und Mehrfachnutzung existieren für sich allein, wurden bisher jedoch noch nicht im Rahmen eines innovativen Konzeptes vereint. Mittels Primär- und Sekundärdatenerhebung wird die Grundlage für die Durchführung einer Potenzialanalyse am Anwendungsbeispiel Wien und die Untersuchung möglicher Risiken von CommunityHubs geschaffen. Darauf aufbauend werden konkrete Lösungsvorschläge und Implementierungsstrategien für (inner-)städtische Multi-Use-Konzepte erarbeitet. Ergebnisse: Auf diese Art kann das Projekt CommunityHub einen Beitrag für die Lösung der First- bzw. Last-Mile- Problematik leisten, wodurch die Zustellbarkeit von Paketen erhöht und gleichzeitig CO2-Emissionen (z. B. durch Bündelung von Ressourcen) reduziert werden können. Des Weiteren werden durch die Umnutzung von – z. B. leerstehenden Geschäfts- und Bankfilialen zu (inner-)städtischen CommunityHubs – Erdgeschoßzonen aufgewertet und die Nahversorgung im urbanen Raum sichergestellt

Archaeology and virtual acoustics. A pan flute from ancient Egypt

This paper presents the early developments of a recently started research project, aimed at studying from a multidisciplinary perspective an exceptionally well preserved ancient pan flute. A brief discussion of the history and iconography of pan flutes is provided, with a focus on Classical Greece. Then a set of non-invasive analyses are presented, which are based on 3D scanning andmaterials chemistry, and are the starting point to inspect the geometry, construction, age and geographical origin of the instrument. Based on the available measurements, a preliminary analysis of the instrument tuning is provided, which is also informed with elements of theory of ancient Greek music. Finally, the paper presents current work aimed at realizing an interactive museum installation that recreates a virtual flute and allows intuitive access to all these research facets

Developmental, hormone- and stress-modulated expression profiles of four members of the Arabidopsis copper-amine oxidase gene family

Copper-containing amine oxidases (CuAOs) catalyze polyamines (PAs) terminal oxidation producing ammonium, an aminoaldehyde and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Plant CuAOs are induced by stress-related hormones, methyl-jasmonate (MeJA), abscisic acid (ABA) and salicylic acid (SA). In the Arabidopsis genome, eight genes encoding CuAOs have been identified. Here, a comprehensive investigation of the expression pattern of four genes encoding AtCuAOs from the α and γ phylogenetic subfamilies, the two peroxisomal AtCuAOα2 (At1g31690) and AtCuAOα3 (At1g31710) and the two apoplastic AtCuAOγ1 (At1g62810) and AtCuAOγ2 (At3g43670), has been carried out by RT-qPCR and promoter::green fluorescent protein-β-glucuronidase fusion (GFP-GUS). Expression in hydathodes of new emerging leaves (AtCuAOγ1 and AtCuAOγ2) and/or cotyledons (AtCuAOα2, AtCuAOγ1 and AtCuAOγ2) as well as in vascular tissues of new emerging leaves and in cortical root cells at the division/elongation transition zone (AtCuAOγ1), columella cells (AtCuAOγ2) or hypocotyl and root (AtCuAOα3) was identified. Quantitative and tissue-specific gene expression analysis performed by RT-qPCR and GUS-staining in 5- and 7-day-old seedlings under stress conditions or after treatments with hormones or PAs, revealed that all four AtCuAOs were induced during dehydration recovery, wounding, treatment with indoleacetic acid (IAA) and putrescine (Put). AtCuAOα2, AtCuAOα3, AtCuAOγ1 and AtCuAOγ2 expression in vascular tissues and hydathodes involved in water supply and/or loss, along with a dehydration-recovery dependent gene expression, would suggest a role in water balance homeostasis. Moreover, occurrence in zones where an auxin maximum has been observed along with an IAA-induced alteration of expression profiles, support a role in tissue maturation and xylem differentiation events