3d modelling for valorizing 20th century architectural archives: the case of the unbuilt project for a theatre in Cagliari by Carlo Mollino

Abstract. The issue of conservation and valorisation of Cultural Heritage involves today 20th century architectural archives, that come to us with their often considerable amount of materials, where the predominance of the design drawings arises. Interpretation, fruition and sharing of archival materials aimed to deepening the knowledge of contemporary masters and architectural movements address the works of many international scholars. In particular, using the continuous innovations of digital modelling tools, a field of this research is developing reconstruction and new interpretations of masters' unbuilt projects. The rise of H-BIM for modelling architectural heritage, has been flanked by some experiments really aimed to represent unbuilt architectures. This is the case presented in this paper: the unbuilt project for the "Teatro Comunale" in Cagliari, designed by Carlo Mollino between 1964 and 1965. The building has been digitally modelled and the potentialities of BIM tools are today in phase of evaluation, also in light of the aim to create a collection of reconstructive models of Mollino's projects, to be shared on-line. In particular, in this phase of the research, we are exploring the potentiality of BIM aimed to evidencing the reliability of reconstructive modelling based on different documentary sources.</p

System Identification Methods for Dynamic Testing of Fluid-Film Bearings

There are various system identification approaches typically used to extract the rotordynamic coefficients from simultaneously measured dynamic force and motion signals. Since the coefficient values extracted can vary significantly as a function of the system identification approach used, more attention is needed to treat this issue than is typically included in the rotor dynamics literature. This paper describes system identification and data reduction methods used for extracting rotordynamic coefficients of fluid-film journal bearings. Data is used from a test apparatus incorporating a double-spoolshaft spindle which permits independent control over the journal spin speed and the frequency of an adjustable-magnitude circular orbit, for both forward and backward whirling. For example, a least squares linear regression on the force-displacement equations of the experiment provides only one of the rational approaches to extract the anisotropic rotordynamic coefficients (stiffness, damping and fluid inertia effects). Rotordynamic coefficients are also extracted with both first and second order orbital frequency dependencies. To assess the quality of the measured signals, coherence functions are calculated to relate the time-averaged input motion signals and the time-averaged output force signals

Radon in active volcanic areas of southern Italy

The radiogenic gas radon is considered a valid precursor of events like eruptions and earthquakes. We are monitoring the variations in time of this gas in soils and in waters of many active volcanic areas of Southern Italy. The greatest differences in Rn content of the investigated volcanic areas are: Ischia and Campi Flegrei have more Rn than Vesuvio and Vulcano, both in soils and in waters. The thermalized waters of Ischia are enriched in Rn 15 times with respect to soils, while in the other areas soils and underground waters have comparable Rn contents

Effects of hunger state on flavour pleasantness conditioning at home: flavour-nutrient learning vs. flavour-flavour learning

This study examined acquired liking of flavour preferences through flavour-flavour and flavour-nutrient learning under hungry or sated conditions in a naturalistic setting. Each participant consumed one of three versions of a test drink at home either before lunch or after lunch: minimally sweetened (CONTROL: 3% sucrose, 40kcal), artificially sweetened (3% sucrose 40kcal plus artificial sweeteners ASPARTAME) and sucrose-sweetened (SUCROSE: 9.9% sugar, 132kcal). The test drink was an uncarbonated peach-flavoured iced tea served in visually identical drink cans (330ml). Participants preselected as "sweet likers" evaluated the minimally sweetened flavoured drink (conditioned stimulus, CS) in the same state (hungry or sated) in which they consumed the test drink at home. Overall, liking for the CS flavour increased in participants who consumed the SUCROSE drink, however, this increase in liking was significantly larger when tested and trained hungry than sated, consistent with a flavour-nutrient model. Overall increases in pleasantness for the CS flavour in participants who consumed the SUCROSE drink when sated or the ASPARTAME drink independent of hunger state, suggest that flavour-flavour learning also occurred. These results are discussed in light of current learning models of flavour preference

Pulmonary Imaging Phenotypes of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Using Multiparametric Response Maps

Background Pulmonary imaging of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has focused on CT or MRI measurements, but these have not been evaluated in combination. Purpose To generate multiparametric response map (mPRM) measurements in ex-smokers with or without COPD by using volume-matched CT and hyperpolarized helium 3

Role of Secondary Motifs in Fast Folding Polymers: A Dynamical Variational Principle

A fascinating and open question challenging biochemistry, physics and even geometry is the presence of highly regular motifs such as alpha-helices in the folded state of biopolymers and proteins. Stimulating explanations ranging from chemical propensity to simple geometrical reasoning have been invoked to rationalize the existence of such secondary structures. We formulate a dynamical variational principle for selection in conformation space based on the requirement that the backbone of the native state of biologically viable polymers be rapidly accessible from the denatured state. The variational principle is shown to result in the emergence of helical order in compact structures.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 4 eps figure

A self-organized model for cell-differentiation based on variations of molecular decay rates

Systemic properties of living cells are the result of molecular dynamics governed by so-called genetic regulatory networks (GRN). These networks capture all possible features of cells and are responsible for the immense levels of adaptation characteristic to living systems. At any point in time only small subsets of these networks are active. Any active subset of the GRN leads to the expression of particular sets of molecules (expression modes). The subsets of active networks change over time, leading to the observed complex dynamics of expression patterns. Understanding of this dynamics becomes increasingly important in systems biology and medicine. While the importance of transcription rates and catalytic interactions has been widely recognized in modeling genetic regulatory systems, the understanding of the role of degradation of biochemical agents (mRNA, protein) in regulatory dynamics remains limited. Recent experimental data suggests that there exists a functional relation between mRNA and protein decay rates and expression modes. In this paper we propose a model for the dynamics of successions of sequences of active subnetworks of the GRN. The model is able to reproduce key characteristics of molecular dynamics, including homeostasis, multi-stability, periodic dynamics, alternating activity, differentiability, and self-organized critical dynamics. Moreover the model allows to naturally understand the mechanism behind the relation between decay rates and expression modes. The model explains recent experimental observations that decay-rates (or turnovers) vary between differentiated tissue-classes at a general systemic level and highlights the role of intracellular decay rate control mechanisms in cell differentiation.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure