The defence of fortified ruins on the Italian coast

[EN] The essay, as part of a more extensive scientific research, aims at evaluating the theoretical and technical issues linked to the active conservation of fortified heritage in ruins present on the Italian coast. Through the analysis of some exemplary projects, the study will describe the relationship between the architecture and the context, deal with the theme of the absence (lacuna) and the relative interventions, reflect upon the different ways of interpretation and reinstatement, look into the design and management of the vegetation and, last but not least, define strategies and processes for a planned preventive maintenance of these important testimonies of the pastUgolini, A.; Mariotti, C. (2015). The defence of fortified ruins on the Italian coast. En Defensive architecture of the mediterranean: XV to XVIII centuries. Vol. II. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 319-326. https://doi.org/10.4995/FORTMED2015.2015.1778OCS31932

The restoration of castles in Italy: 1964-2014

La presente Tesi di Dottorato fornisce una lettura della vicenda del restauro dei castelli in Italia a partire dalla seconda metà nel Novecento, approfondendo un punto di vista sull’argomento ancora poco indagato. Lo studio si sviluppa dal 1964, anno in cui si condensano una serie di avvenimenti culturali e disciplinari che offrono l’occasione per una esplicita denuncia dello stato di conservazione delle fortificazioni del nostro territorio e contribuiscono significativamente all’avvio di un dibattito rigoroso e scientifico del quale si fa principale portavoce Piero Gazzola. La ricerca si pone come obiettivo quello di verificare a distanza di cinquant’anni la posizione dell’architetto piacentino, indagare le modalità con cui si è intervenuti sulle strutture difensive dagli anni sessanta, nonché riflettere sul problema della salvaguardia e della gestione di questo genere di edifici oggi così lontani dalle motivazioni che un tempo ne hanno determinato la costruzione. La prima parte della Tesi ricostruisce l’azione condotta da Gazzola a favore delle strutture fortificate. A fronte della trattazione di alcune specifiche questioni interpretative e metodologiche, la ricerca prende in esame otto progetti di restauro realizzati tra il 1964 e il 2014 attraverso i quali si propone di analizzare le risposte fornite al problema della «vitalizzazione» gazzoliana e a partire dai quali richiama altri significativi interventi che definiscono con più compiutezza i nodi fondamentali a livello teorico e progettuale individuati nei casi studio. L’esito dello studio consente di riconoscere l’affermarsi, nel secondo Novecento, di una nuova coscienza culturale capace di influenzare positivamente la tutela e la conservazione dell’architettura militare della nostra penisola suggerendo orientamenti teorici ed operativi che hanno dimostrato di aver trovato origine in un momento straordinariamente complesso per la storia della disciplina legandosi al contributo di uno dei suoi principali rappresentanti, qui riconosciuto come figura-cardine anche nella ricerca sul restauro del patrimonio fortificato italiano.This PhD Thesis provides a reading of the issue of castle restoration in Italy from the second half of the twentieth century, by focusing on a little investigated point of view on this topic. The study deals with the period after 1964 when a series of cultural and disciplinary events provided an opportunity to explicitly unveil the state of conservation of local fortified buildings, thus launching a rigorous and scientifically based cultural debate of which Piero Gazzola became the main spokesman. The study aims to verify fifty years later the position of the architect from Piacenza, to investigate the interventions on the defensive buildings from the Sixties, and to reflect on the issue of the conservation and management of these buildings that nowadays are totally unrelated to the context in which they came into being. The first part of this Thesis is focused on the action undertaken by Gazzola in favour of fortified buildings. In dealing with some specific issues relating to interpretation and method, the study investigates eight restoration projects carried out between 1964 and 2014, thus analysing the different answers provided for addressing the issue of the «vitalizzazione» raised by Gazzola. Furthermore, this description enables us to focus on a series of other significant interventions, so as to clarify the main topic identified in the case studies. Moreover, the study allows us to recognise, in the second half of the twentieth century, the building of a new cultural awareness having a positive impact on the protection and conservation of military facilities in Italy. In this sense, the study also takes into account the many facets of the intellectual profile of Piero Gazzola who is regarded as key figure in the field of research on the restoration of Italian fortified buildings

Unsteady Flow Regimes in a T-Shaped Micromixer: Mixing and Characteristic Frequencies

Experiments and direct numerical simulations are used jointly to study the asymmetric and symmetric time-periodic regimes occurring in a T-shaped micro mixer for larger Reynolds numbers than those of steady regimes. The first is characterized by a large mixing degree, whereas the flow in the second regime Always exhibits a nearly double mirror symmetry in the mixing channel, which strongly hampers mixing. The characteristic nondimensional frequency, calculated using the hydraulic diameter of the mixing channel and the bulk velocity, augments with the Reynolds number in both periodic regimes, but a large discontinuity is observed at the transition between the two regimes. A detailed description of the main flow features is given to provide a physical explanation on the Strouhal number variation. The present analysis can be exploited in practice to design active control strategies, e.g., by exciting the flow at the frequencies typical of the asymmetric unsteady regime

From point cloud data to HBIM for public performance spaces knowledge, management and storytelling: Palazzo Olivieri in Pesaro

The very latest lines of European research in the field of Cultural Heritage are mainly focusing on disruptive global transitions through valueand future-oriented strategies in a green and digital scenario. This approach stems from the concept of Heritage as a unique but nonrenewable resource, featuring multilayer cultural contents (tangible and intangible), and evolving in close correlation with the constantly changing components in the territory. Digitisation is increasingly confirming itself as an enabling factor for many practices involving cultural heritage. With specific regard to the built heritage, digital technologies provide functions that can catalyse and optimally support architecture knowledge and storytelling, which in turn enhance new levels of interaction, and can improve the active conservation and integrated management of heritage asset. Starting from this assumptions, Palazzo Olivieri-Machirelli in Pesaro (Italy) was studied for challenging trials. Nowadays, the historical building is used as a music conservatory thanks to the testamentary legacy of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini and the homonymous Foundation, and incorporates the Auditorium Pedrotti, which is the focus of this research. Thus, this architecture was selected as a testing case for inventive and immersive experiences as well as for long-term management solutions and systems, which exploit the paradigm of Heritage – or Historic – Building Information Modelling (HIBIM) and the robust technology of Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR, VR), taking advantage of solid base in the survey phase, which developed an high-detailed 3D numerical model

Silicon Taper Based D-band Chip to Waveguide Interconnect for Millimeter-wave Systems

This paper presents a novel interconnect for coupling Millimeter-wave (mmW) signals from integrated circuits to air-filled waveguides. The proposed solution is realized through a slot antenna implemetend in embedded Wafer Level Ball Grid Array (eWLB) process. The antenna radiates into a high-resistivity (HR) silicon taper perpendicular to its plane, which in turn radiates into an air-filled waveguide. The interconnect achieves a measured average insertion loss of 3.4 dB over the frequency range 166-151 GHz. The proposed interconnect is generic and does not require any galvanic contacts. The utilized eWLB packaging process is suitable for low-cost high-volume productionand allows heterogeneous integration with other technologies. This work proposes a straightforward cost-effective high-performance interconnect for mmW integration and thus addressing one of the main challenges facing systems operating beyond 100 GHz

The German Bunker Built to Defend the Linea Galla Placidia. Preserving a Forgotten Heritage

After the armistice, the threat of an Allied landing on the Italian coasts of Romagna, north of the Gothic Line, spread among the German Army. This danger led to a real arms race, as it would have offered free access to the heart of the Third Reich. What ensued was therefore the organization of a strong line of defence consisting of bunkers, defensive emplacements and structures like dragon’s teeth. The landing, however, never took place and it turned out to be part of a deception strategy. At the end of the war the bunkers were largely destroyed, silted or covered by sand; since then, only some of them have been reused as storages or warehouses. As rejected ruins they were never perceived as cultural heritage, but nowadays they offer the opportunity to reflect on their destiny

Same Sign WW Scattering Process as a Probe of Higgs Boson in pp Collision at s\sqrt{s} = 10 TeV

WW scattering is an important process to study electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model at the LHC, in which the Higgs mechanism or other new physics processes must intervene to preserve the unitarity of the process below 1 TeV. This channel is expected to be one of the most sensitive to determine whether the Higgs boson exists. In this paper, the final state with two same sign Ws is studied, with a simulated sample corresponding to the integrated luminosity of 60 fb$^{-1}$ in pp collision at $\sqrt{s}=$10 TeV. Two observables, the invariant mass of $\mu\mu$ from W decays and the azimuthal angle difference between the two $\mu$s, are utilized to distinguish the Higgs boson existence scenario from the Higgs boson absence scenario. A good signal significance for the two cases can be achieved. If we define the separation power of the analysis as the distance, in the log-likelihood plane, of pseudo-experiments outcomes in the two cases, with the total statistics expected from the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the nominal centre-of-mass energy of 14 TeV, the separation power will be at the level of 4 $\sigma$.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

Effects on human transcriptome of mutated BRCA1 BRCT domain: A microarray study

BACKGROUND: BRCA1 (breast cancer 1, early onset) missense mutations have been detected in familial breast and ovarian cancers, but the role of these variants in cancer predisposition is often difficult to ascertain. In this work, the molecular mechanisms affected in human cells by two BRCA1 missense variants, M1775R and A1789T, both located in the second BRCT (BRCA1 C Terminus) domain, have been investigated. Both these variants were isolated from familial breast cancer patients and the study of their effect on yeast cell transcriptome has previously provided interesting clues to their possible role in the pathogenesis of breast cancer. METHODS: We compared by Human Whole Genome Microarrays the expression profiles of HeLa cells transfected with one or the other variant and HeLa cells transfected with BRCA1 wild-type. Microarray data analysis was performed by three comparisons: M1775R versus wild-type (M1775RvsWT-contrast), A1789T versus wild-type (A1789TvsWT-contrast) and the mutated BRCT domain versus wild-type (MutvsWT-contrast), considering the two variants as a single mutation of BRCT domain. RESULTS: 201 differentially expressed genes were found in M1775RvsWT-contrast, 313 in A1789TvsWT-contrast and 173 in MutvsWT-contrast. Most of these genes mapped in pathways deregulated in cancer, such as cell cycle progression and DNA damage response and repair. CONCLUSIONS: Our results represent the first molecular evidence of the pathogenetic role of M1775R, already proposed by functional studies, and give support to a similar role for A1789T that we first hypothesized based on the yeast cell experiments. This is in line with the very recently suggested role of BRCT domain as the main effector of BRCA1 tumor suppressor activity