Thermal analysis and energy-efficient solutions to preserve listed building façades. The INA-Casa building heritage

Energy efficiency of building heritage derived from pre-regulation period is one of the most debated topics in Europe. Building facades, through opaque walls and thermal bridges, are a major source of transmission heat losses and require sustainable and consistent solutions. Aiming to achieve an energy demand reduction, thermal features of building facades were evaluated by field measurements and simulations for one INA-Casa listed apartment building built in the 1950s. Non-destructive insulating solutions have been proposed and a comparison between transmission heat loss coefficient in the current situation and the designed intervention was made. Results show that before the renovation, opaque walls and thermal bridges respectively contributed to 25% and 44% of total transmission heat loss in the case-study building facade. After the renovation, total impact was reduced up to 70% depending on whether high performance windows were replaced; in particular, the impact of opaque walls and thermal bridges were reduced by 66% and 82%, respectively. Interventions performed primarily on the internal layer of the facade with insulation elements, when appropriately designed, strengthen the negative effects of thermal bridges in junctions. Findings show that an accurate insulation design allows for both more efficient conditions and the preservation of the heritage-listed building

Extending snBench to Support a Video-Based Intrusion Detection and Alerting System with a Centralized Hash Table

In this project we design and implement a centralized hashing table in the snBench sensor network environment. We discuss the feasibility of this approach and compare and contrast with the distributed hashing architecture, with particular discussion regarding the conditions under which a centralized architecture makes sense. There are numerous computational tasks that require persistence of data in a sensor network environment. To help motivate the need for data storage in snBench we demonstrate a practical application of the technology whereby a video camera can monitor a room to detect the presence of a person and send an alert to the appropriate authorities

Behavioural evidence for separate mechanisms of audiovisual temporal binding as a function of leading sensory modality

The ability to integrate auditory and visual information is critical for effective perception and interaction with the environment, and is thought to be abnormal in some clinical populations. Several studies have investigated the time window over which audiovisual events are integrated, also called the temporal binding window, and revealed asymmetries depending on the order of audiovisual input (i.e. the leading sense). When judging audiovisual simultaneity, the binding window appears narrower and non-malleable for auditory-leading stimulus pairs and wider and trainable for visual-leading pairs. Here we specifically examined the level of independence of binding mechanisms when auditory-before-visual vs. visual-before-auditory input is bound. Three groups of healthy participants practiced audiovisual simultaneity detection with feedback, selectively training on auditory-leading stimulus pairs (group 1), visual-leading stimulus pairs (group 2) or both (group 3). Subsequently, we tested for learning transfer (crossover) from trained stimulus pairs to non-trained pairs with opposite audiovisual input. Our data confirmed the known asymmetry in size and trainability for auditory–visual vs. visual–auditory binding windows. More importantly, practicing one type of audiovisual integration (e.g. auditory–visual) did not affect the other type (e.g. visual–auditory), even if trainable by within-condition practice. Together, these results provide crucial evidence that audiovisual temporal binding for auditory-leading vs. visual-leading stimulus pairs are independent, possibly tapping into different circuits for audiovisual integration due to engagement of different multisensory sampling mechanisms depending on leading sense. Our results have implications for informing the study of multisensory interactions in healthy participants and clinical populations with dysfunctional multisensory integration

Being first matters: topographical representational similarity analysis of ERP signals reveals separate networks for audiovisual temporal binding depending on the leading sense

In multisensory integration, processing in one sensory modality is enhanced by complementary information from other modalities. Inter-sensory timing is crucial in this process as only inputs reaching the brain within a restricted temporal window are perceptually bound. Previous research in the audiovisual field has investigated various features of the temporal binding window (TBW), revealing asymmetries in its size and plasticity depending on the leading input (auditory-visual, AV; visual-auditory, VA). We here tested whether separate neuronal mechanisms underlie this AV-VA dichotomy in humans. We recorded high-density EEG while participants performed an audiovisual simultaneity judgment task including various AV/VA asynchronies and unisensory control conditions (visual-only, auditory-only) and tested whether AV and VA processing generate different patterns of brain activity. After isolating the multisensory components of AV/VA event-related potentials (ERPs) from the sum of their unisensory constituents, we run a time-resolved topographical representational similarity analysis (tRSA) comparing AV and VA ERP maps. Spatial cross-correlation matrices were built from real data to index the similarity between AV- and VA-maps at each time point (500ms window post-stimulus) and then correlated with two alternative similarity model matrices: AVmaps=VAmaps vs. AVmaps≠VAmaps. The tRSA results favored the AVmaps≠VAmaps model across all time points, suggesting that audiovisual temporal binding (indexed by synchrony perception) engages different neural pathways depending on the leading sense. The existence of such dual route supports recent theoretical accounts proposing that multiple binding mechanisms are implemented in the brain to accommodate different information parsing strategies in auditory and visual sensory systems

Newberry Library MS 53: Unlocking the Secrets of a Late Medieval Book of Hours

This thesis investigates a manuscript in the Newberry Library collection, Newberry Library MS 53, a Book of Hours for the Use of Rome made around 1470 in Bruges, Flanders, and thought to be connected to the circle of Willem Vrelant (d. 1481), one of the most prolific Flemish illuminators of his time. The manuscript itself has received little scholarly attention, and the present study reconstructs its history by identifying elements within the manuscripts that demonstrate a connection to Vrelant and his associates, describing the production process used for smaller, less expensive Books of Hours, identifying its likely audience, and comparing it to other similar manuscripts in the Walters Art Museum collection and in particular to Walters W 180, a Book of Hours that present a remarkable resemblance to Newberry Library MS 53

A Tree Without Branches? On Coptic Arab historian Mufaḍḍal Ibn Abī l-Faḍā’il and His Conjectural Stammbaum

The Coptic Arab writer Mufaḍḍal Ibn Abī l-Faḍā’il (d. after 759 AH/1358 AD), author of al-Nahj al sadīd (“The Correct Path”), a chronicle of the early Mamluk period, is apparently “ a historian without history”. Indeed, the only known information about his life is the date of completion of his work : the 11th of Shawwāl 759 AH, i.e. the 16th of September 1358 AD, as the author himself declared in the introduction of his book. Apart from this, he did not provide any information on himself and he apparently left no trace on any other writer, either in his generation or in the following ones. Nevertheless, some modern scholars tried to speculate on possible connections between Mufaḍḍal and some personalities mentioned in sources of the time. In particular, Edgard Blochet, in 1919, argued that some Coptic notables mentioned in other manuscripts should be identified as members of Mufaḍḍal’s family. Blochet's hypothesis has been accepted by scholars until now, in spite of its merely conjectural nature, and has been the basis for further speculations. In the present paper, we argue that the whole matter deserves to be carefully reconsidered and we endeavour to demonstrate that none of the hypotheses made on Mufaḍḍal’s family until now can be considered as conclusive

DALLA TUTELA DELL’INTERESSE DELLA COMUNITÀ LOCALE ALLA TUTELA DEI DIRITTI. IL SINDACATO DEL GIUDICE AMMINISTRATIVO SUGLI ATTI DI PREVENZIONE DEL GIOCO D’AZZARDO

Il ruolo dei Comuni nella prevenzione e nel contrasto al gioco d'azzardo patologico. Dal sindacato disomogeneo e ad intensità variabile della giurisdizione amministrativa alla complessità del flusso delle relazioni tra istituzioni e comunità nel modello multilivello su base territoriale. La prevenzione del gioco d’azzardo patologico si sostanzia in provvedimenti che comprimono un diritto a vantaggio di un interesse pubblico che tutela posizioni individuali determinabili. In a legal context which does not prosecute gambling because of the benefits that these activities bring to government revenues, many municipalities in their areas of competence have adopted gambling prevention regimes to ensure and preserve the personality, dignity, health of the individual citizen and, at the same time, the harmony and welfare of their community. Against these acts, the sector operators have brought to court a judicial dispute from which has involved the decision of the Italian Constitutional Court. The judicial interpretation given in this case-law has set the boundaries within which municipal measures are legitimate to limit the freedom of economic initiative in the gaming and betting sector. It was thus highlighted the close link between the measures adopted at the municipal level to combat and prevent ludopathy and the protection of those people who are particularly exposed to gambling addiction and related disorders. By virtue of this link, which gives a strong social merit to municipal measures, the administrative court seems to be better prepared in its union with the public administration because the exercise of public power ensures the protection of a weak person, namely the person exposed to the risk of becoming a pathological gambler

Le iscrizioni anagrafiche per gli stranieri richiedenti protezione internazionale dopo il d.l.n.113 del 2018, il cd. Decreto Salvini. Quando il legislatore demagogicamente orientato disorienta l’amministrazione pubblica.

Le disposizioni introdotte dal c.d. decreto Salvini in materia di iscrizioni anagrafiche degli stranieri richiedenti protezione internazionale, hanno l’intento di introdurre un divieto a procedere a iscrizioni, mutazioni e cancellazioni anagrafiche su dichiarazioni rese da persone straniere munite di permesso di soggiorno per richiedente asilo. Tuttavia, la loro lettura nel quadro sistematico di riferimento, rispettosa dell’orientamento costituzionale e della normativa eurounitaria, non consegna un risultato scontato, anzi, esclude che vi sia un espresso divieto alla registrazione anagrafica dello straniero richiedente asilo