In evoluzione. Per una storia quasi naturale degli artefatti

Il volume è essenzialmente diretto a riprendere alcuni dei molti contributi teorici tradizionalmente sviluppati come approcci evolutivi all’analisi del cambiamento tecnologico, delineandone gli elementi ricorrenti e sistematizzandoli in un impianto unitario qui meglio orientato al quadro disciplinare del disegno industriale. Il tratto comune tra i saggi – articolati nel testo come capitoli ma indipendenti nel proprio singolo sviluppo – sta nell’assumere che per i diversi ordini in cui si manifesta la produzione artificiale (i singoli oggetti, le popolazioni di prodotti, i sistemi tecnici che generano prodotti e tecnologie) sia delineabile un’interpretazione evolutiva. Sulla scorta dell’analogia, la finalità didattica del testo è quella di proporre un avvicinamento al tema del cambiamento, letto alla microscala degli artefatti e alla macroscala dei sistemi socio-tecnici, rapportandolo ad alcune tematiche convenzionali di largo respiro: le unità evolutive nella tecnologia, l’evoluzione della forma degli artefatti, i meccanismi di generazione della varietà nei prodotti dell’attività umana, le genealogie dell’artificiale, i processi inventivi e innovativi tra tesi continuiste e discontinuiste. Il volume si rivolge a studenti e ricercatori universitari dell’area disciplinare del design, in particolare dei prodotti, con interessi per lo studio della variabilità morfologica e funzionale degli oggetti e per la speculazione teorica nell’analisi degli artefatti e dei sistemi tecnici

The least informative distribution and correlation coefficient of measurement results

Correlations play a significant role in data analysis and the evaluation and expression of the uncertainty, yet estimating them is often difficult. This paper provides examples of how to infer the measurand value, given only the uncertainties and correlation ranges of the measurement results. The least informative data-distribution is not Gaussian, but the marginal distributions are. Explicit results are given in the case of a data pair, where the inferred correlation coefficient is the midpoint of the given range

Conversational Sensing

Recent developments in sensing technologies, mobile devices and context-aware user interfaces have made it possible to represent information fusion and situational awareness as a conversational process among actors - human and machine agents - at or near the tactical edges of a network. Motivated by use cases in the domain of security, policing and emergency response, this paper presents an approach to information collection, fusion and sense-making based on the use of natural language (NL) and controlled natural language (CNL) to support richer forms of human-machine interaction. The approach uses a conversational protocol to facilitate a flow of collaborative messages from NL to CNL and back again in support of interactions such as: turning eyewitness reports from human observers into actionable information (from both trained and untrained sources); fusing information from humans and physical sensors (with associated quality metadata); and assisting human analysts to make the best use of available sensing assets in an area of interest (governed by management and security policies). CNL is used as a common formal knowledge representation for both machine and human agents to support reasoning, semantic information fusion and generation of rationale for inferences, in ways that remain transparent to human users. Examples are provided of various alternative styles for user feedback, including NL, CNL and graphical feedback. A pilot experiment with human subjects shows that a prototype conversational agent is able to gather usable CNL information from untrained human subjects

A compact ultranarrow high-power laser system for experiments with 578nm Ytterbium clock transition

In this paper we present the realization of a compact, high-power laser system able to excite the Ytterbium clock transition at 578 nm. Starting from an external-cavity laser based on a quantum dot chip at 1156 nm with an intra-cavity electro-optic modulator, we were able to obtain up to 60 mW of visible light at 578 nm via frequency doubling. The laser is locked with a 500 kHz bandwidth to a ultra-low-expansion glass cavity stabilized at its zero coefficient of thermal expansion temperature through an original thermal insulation and correction system. This laser allowed the observation of the clock transition in fermionic $^{173}$Yb with a < 50 Hz linewidth over 5 minutes, limited only by a residual frequency drift of some 0.1 Hz/s

Rotational sensitivity of the "G-Pisa" gyrolaser

G-Pisa is an experiment investigating the possibility to operate a high sensitivity laser gyroscope with area less than $1 \rm m^2$ for improving the performances of the mirrors suspensions of the gravitational wave antenna Virgo. The experimental set-up consists in a He-Ne ring laser with a 4 mirrors square cavity. The laser is pumped by an RF discharge where the RF oscillator includes the laser plasma in order to reach a better stability. The contrast of the Sagnac fringes is typically above 50% and a stable regime has been reached with the laser operating both single mode or multimode. The effect of hydrogen contamination on the laser was also checked. A low-frequency sensitivity, below $1 \rm Hz$, in the range of $10^{-8} \rm {(rad / s)/ \sqrt{Hz}}$ has been measured.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, presented at the EFTF-IFCS joint conference 200

Generation of an ultrastable 578 nm laser for Yb lattice clock

In this paper we described the development and the characterization of a 578 nm laser source to be the clock laser for an Ytterbium Lattice Optical clock. Two independent laser sources have been realized and the characterization of the stability with a beat note technique is presente

High accuracy measure of atomic polarizability in an optical lattice clock

Despite being a canonical example of quantum mechanical perturbation theory, as well as one of the earliest observed spectroscopic shifts, the Stark effect contributes the largest source of uncertainty in a modern optical atomic clock through blackbody radiation. By employing an ultracold, trapped atomic ensemble and high stability optical clock, we characterize the quadratic Stark effect with unprecedented precision. We report the ytterbium optical clock's sensitivity to electric fields (such as blackbody radiation) as the differential static polarizability of the ground and excited clock levels: 36.2612(7) kHz (kV/cm)^{-2}. The clock's fractional uncertainty due to room temperature blackbody radiation is reduced an order of magnitude to 3 \times 10^{-17}.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

Intense uptake evidenced by 18F-FDG PET/CT without a corresponding CT finding — dream or reality?

Although 18F-fluoro-deoxy-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) has been widely validated and extensively used in the latest years in clinical practice, interpretation of PET/CT images can be affected by several pitfalls. We here present a case of intense lung uptake in a patient without a corresponding finding on CT images, probably due to a microembolism produced during the injection process and located in small vascular structures of the lung parenchyma

Effect of Water Content on the Thermal Inactivation Kinetics of Horseradish Peroxidase Freeze-Dried from Alkaline pH

The thermal inactivation of horseradish peroxidase freeze-dried from solutions of different pH (8, 10 and 11.5, measured at 25 C) and equilibrated to different water contents was studied in the temperature range from 110 to 150 C. The water contents studied (0.0, 1.4, 16.2 and 25.6 g water per 100 g of dry enzyme) corresponded to water activities of 0.0, 0.11, 0.76 and 0.88 at 4 C. The kinetics were well described by a double exponential model. The enzyme was generally more stable the lower the pH of the original solution, and for all pH values, the maximum stability was obtained at 1.4 g water/100 g dry enzyme. Values of z were generally independent of water content and of the pH of the original solution, and in the range of 15–25 °C, usually found in neutral conditions, with the exception of the enzyme freeze dried from pH 11.5 and equilibrated with phosphorus pentoxide, where a z-value of the stable fraction close to 10 C was found