Development and Testing of a Software Framework for Controlling Humanoid Robots in Disaster-Response Scenarios

The aim of this thesis is to design and develop a modular software framework for controlling humanoid robots in teleoperation, in a context of disaster-response or civil defense. Over the years, natural (earthquakes, floods, etc.) or man-made disasters (nuclear reactor meltdowns, terrorist attacks, etc.) have caused several victims. The state of the art of disaster-robotics allows to deploy efficient and powerful robots in order to assist and support humans in the delicate phases of searching and rescuing survivors. In particular, with the use of teleoperation, the inclusion of a human operator (human-in-the-loop) can dramatically promote the application of humanoid robots, due to the human superior competence in critical thinking and context-awareness. This way, robots can be used as an interface between man and environment. Under these concepts, the thesis work focused on the design of a robust and efficient control architecture that brings whole-body locomotion and manipulation capabilities to the robot. Specifically, this thesis dealt with the development of a software module for teleoperating a robot while it is in a vehicle, making it able to drive. The module internal architecture is structured as a Finite State Machine, which allows to model a workflow of behaviors in an event-driven manner, providing safe and robust control in a teleoperation scenario. The effectiveness of the developed software has been validated during the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals, occured in Pomona, CA (USA), on June 5-6 of 2015

Public Procurement and Private Standards: Ensuring Sustainability Under the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement

With the globalization of the supply chain around different countries, the effective implementation of social and environmental objectives in procurement practices becomes a crucial priority. For this reason, the inclusion in procurement practices of transnational private regulations (TPRs) such as standards, labelling, and certifications has drastically increased as an instrument of verification for environmental and social criteria. However, the use of these private initiatives is not immune from critics and concerns, in particular regarding its international legal implications. If standards and labels provide important information on the suppliers and guidance alongside the procurement process, their inclusion in the procurement documents has also the potential to generate distortive and discriminatory effects on international competition and market access dynamics, resulting in a barrier to trade. This article analyses the main international legal implications inside the World Trade Organization (WTO) regulatory framework of the use of private standards in public procurement. The inclusion of these voluntary initiatives will be analysed under the lens of the non-discriminatory principle framed in the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) of the WTO, establishing a comparative analysis with the Agreement on Technical Barrier to Trade

ASPETTI REGOLATORI SULL'USO TERAPEUTICO DEI FARMACI: IL CASO DEL SOFOSBUVIR E DEL NIVOLUMAB

The purpose of this Thesis is the discussion about regulatory aspects of "compassionate use" of drugs and in particular the relative Italian regulations and necessary procedures to apply them correctly (for example, important documents to be submitted to the Ethics Committee). At last two drugs were considered and they are: 1) "Sofosbuvir", today on the market, and for which, when it wasn't on the market yet, the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) had started up the programme for compassionate use that has allowed to provide drugs free of charge to all patients who needed this therapy. But when Sofosbuvir went on the market, problems began, because of its high cost. 2) "Nivolumab" is still in phase III of clinical trial in Europe, but it is already on the market in USA. For this drug the AIFA has started up the programme for compassionate use, but expanding the access to all patients who have the same disease (in particular, the NSCLC - non small cell lung cancer), because of interesting results of Nivolumab

Advanced modelling of lubricating gaps in positive displacement machines

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Comparison of 0D and 3D Hydraulic Models for Axial Piston Pumps

Abstract In this the paper, a comparison between a 0D and a 3D model for the simulation of an axial piston pump is presented. The lumped parameter approach implements a detailed mathematical model developed in the Amesim® environment for the evaluation of the geometric features of the variable chambers. The commercial tool PumpLinx® has been used for the 3D computational fluid dynamics model. The aim is to assess the capability of the 0D model in predicting the main quantities and to evaluate the use of the three-dimensional analysis for fine tuning purposes. The comparison has been performed in conditions of fixed displacement and constant speed. A good agreement was found in the evaluation of the flow ripple and of the chamber pressure history

Extraterritoriality and public procurement regulation in the context of global supply chains’ governance

With the globalisation of supply chains, the respect for human rights and labour standards in procurement practices has become a crucial priority also in the domestic regulation of public procurement. This paper focuses on two specific characteristics of the use of public procurement regulation for the enforcement of human rights and labour standards: its extraterritorial effects on companies and firms across different jurisdictions and its reliance on private certifications and labels. Both of these new aspects are evident within the new 2014 EU Procurement Directives, which includes a number of far-reaching regulatory features that facilitate the monitoring of the respect for human rights and labour standards of contractors and subcontractors across borders. However, this new dimension of public procurement has the potential to create tension within the framework of multilateral trade governance, specifically, the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade regime

Lumped Parameters Model of a Crescent Pump

This paper presents the lumped parameters model of an internal gear crescent pump with relief valve, able to estimate the steady-state flow-pressure characteristic and the pressure ripple. The approach is based on the identification of three variable control volumes regardless of the number of gear teeth. The model has been implemented in the commercial environment LMS Amesim with the development of customized components. Specific attention has been paid to the leakage passageways, some of them affected by the deformation of the cover plate under the action of the delivery pressure. The paper reports the finite element method analysis of the cover for the evaluation of the deflection and the validation through a contactless displacement transducer. Another aspect described in this study is represented by the computational fluid dynamics analysis of the relief valve, whose results have been used for tuning the lumped parameters model. Finally, the validation of the entire model of the pump is presented in terms of steady-state flow rate and of pressure oscillations

Comparing the Quality of Multiple Descriptions of Multimedia Documents

With the definition of the MPEG-7 standard, thanks to its inter-operability behaviors, it is now possible for applications to use content descriptions of a same document, coming from different sources. This implies that the overall information available at the application can be highly redundant and mechanisms for filtering the information are hence required. In this work, a general approach to descriptions integration is proposed. The idea is to manipulate information readily available from the considered descriptions to reach an accurate integration result, without having to reprocess the multimedia material. The proposed general framework has been applied at a real problem showing how segment decompositions can be integrated on the basis of dominant color descriptors series. This work introduces also the concept of reliability of descriptor extraction methods demonstrating how it can be effectively used through the proposed integration process

La /b/ "forte" in salentino (Puglia): uno studio acustico, percettivo e fisiologico

International audienceI dialetti salentini sono caratterizzati dalla presenza dell'opposizione tra le consonanti geminate e quelle semplici non solo all'interno della parola ma anche in posizione iniziale (Mancarella 1974, Romano 2003). Questa manca pero' nel caso delle occlusive sonore. interessante notare infatti come la realizzazione fonetica della consonante bilabiale sonora, sia sempre rinforzata. (Mancarella 1974) Con la nostra ricerca ci proponiamo di esaminare le seguenti caratteristiche della /b/ detta "forte": 1) acustiche; 2) percettive; 3) fisiologiche. A questo scopo, ci siamo serviti degli esempi di un dialetto, quello di Taurisano, nel Salento meridionale. In primo luogo, due liste di parole sono state sottosposte a due informatrici originarie del paese appena citato: la prima, composta da 77 parole in italiano; la seconda, composta da†23 parole in italiano che potrebbero contenere la realizzazione dialettale della /b/ (e la corrispondente forma dialettale). Queste parole sono state pronunciate†all'interno di una frase predefinita come: "dico ... ma non dico ..."/ /tiku ... ma no tiku .../. Per sapere se la bilabiale "forte" del dialetto assomigli alla geminata dell'italiano sul piano temporale, si misurata la durata dell'occlusione della bilabiale sonora e quella della vocale che la precede. In secondo luogo, per studiare la percezione del fonema, si effettuato un test di percezione su 15 italiani originari delle tre zone d'Italia (Nord, Centro, Sud) utilizzando delle sequenze VbV et VbbV in italiano e in dialetto, tratte dal corpus registrato. I soggetti hanno avuto il compito di dire se si trattasse di una /b/ semplice o doppia. In terzo luogo, si misurata la pressione intra-orale durante l'occlusione della bialabiale pronunciata sempre dalla stessa locutrice. I risultati mostrano che: 1) la durata dell'occlusione della /b/ in dialetto significativamente pi lunga della durata della /b/ semplice in italiano, proprio come la /bb/ doppia; 2) gli stimuli della /b/ in dialetto che sono stati identificati come una /bb/ geminata sono significativamente pi numerosi di quelli della /b/ semplice. 3) la pressione intra-orale durante la /b/ in dialetto significativamente pi alta di quella della /b/ semplice in italiano. Questi risulatati, pur essendo preliminari, sembrano suggerire che la /b/ "forte" in dialetto salentino assomigli effettivamente pi alla bilabiale sonora geminata che a quella semplice dell'italiano