Strategia di locomozione autonoma di dispositivi magnetici endovascolari mediante tracking ad ultrasuoni

L'obbiettivo di questa tesi riguarda l'implementazione di una strategia di locomozione autonoma integrata in una piattaforma robotica per procedure mediche intravascolari, combinando i benefici delle immagini ecograche e della navigazione magnetica robot-assistita di una sonda robotica

Dose influence on the PMMA e-resist for the development of high-aspect ratio and reproducible sub-micrometric structures by electron beam lithography

In this work, a statistical process control method is presented showing the accuracy and the reliability obtained with of PMMA E-resist AR-P 672, using an Elphy Quantum Electron Beam Lithography module integrated on a FE-SEM Zeiss Auriga instrument. Reproducible nanostructures with an high aspect ratio between e-resist thickness and width of written geometric structure are shown. Detailed investigation of geometry features are investigated with dimension in the range of 200nm to 1-m. The adopted method will show how tuning the Area Dose factor and the PMMA thickness it was possible to determine the correct and reproducible parameters that allows to obtain well defined electron-beam features with a 4:1 aspect ratio. Such high aspect ratio opens the possibility to realize an electron-beam lithography lift-off process by using a standard e-beam resist. © 2016 Author(s)

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

Tecniche innovative per l'inventariazione e il monitoraggio, l'implementazione dell'approccio sistemico nella gestione forestale

The shift towards the holistic approach in science and general thinking is rapidly taking place. This fact leads to an overhauling on the methods developed to study and build new knowledge in almost every scientific field. In forestry this change resulted in the theory of systemic silviculture. This theory critiques the old practices related to studying and managing forests and implements holism in researches and practices, challenging today’s climatic and social changes. For this new way of acting, where the forest is seen as complex adaptive system, monitoring represents the key issue in management and research. In turn, monitoring for complexity requires the capacity to constantly gather new data, improve data quantity and quality while reducing or avoiding survey costs. These objectives can be reached integrating customary forest mensuration procedures with new techniques to gather and process data. In this work we asses how auxiliary variables derived processing remote sensing images, both ALS and multispectral, can be implemented in the analysis of a typical coniferous plantation. Furthermore customary area-based surveys are compared with the integration of the line based sampling method and ALS metrics in several ways. Comparisons are extended to the estimation of density, basal area, mean height and volume. This work has shown that the use of more agile sampling approaches and these auxiliary variables has a great potential to reduce monitoring costs, improve estimates quality and extend information depth

Octopus: Expert Cloud management for Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines have become a standard unit of resource allocation for cloud environment, and virtualization has been used for implementing cloud infrastructures because of its natural ability to decouple the physical hardware from logical servers. The increasing density of computational power allows packing a significant number of virtual machines on a single node, leading to an exponential growth of the number of logical servers to be manages by the cloud infrastructure. To investigate smart policies to administer such a large number of virtual machines we have developed Octopus, a lightweight system for scheduling virtual machines on a cluster of hypervisors. Octopus has been implemented using Microsoft Hyper-V in order to exploit the WMI interface to control the hypervisor programmatically with the F# programming language. The original goal was to design a system capable of moving virtual machines across different computing nodes in order to optimize the workload and pack computations to save energy by turning off nodes. Moreover, the VM creation is under control of the final user through a web page where it is possible to ask for specific requirements about computing cores, memory and the OS image to be provisioned. More recently, our investigation has focused on the possibility of using expert systems to express complex policies and to govern this ever-increasing set of virtual machines. For this reason, we have embedded the CLIPS expert system inside Octopus in order to rely on a full rule-based expert system engine to define the resource management policies: the Octopus code asserts facts about VMs in the CLIPS systems and rules access system primitives exposed as functions invokes by triggered rules. The well-known RETE algorithm ensures a fast execution of policy while ensuring the ability to define policies that may even contain conflicting rules

Sexual Dimorphism in Rissoides Pallidus (Giesbrecht) (Crustacea, Stomatopoda)

EnThirteen morphometric characters of Rissoides pallidus (Giesbrecht), a small stomatopod crustacean, were measured from 34 males and 32 females. The specimens were collected by means of bottom trawlers on the upper continental slope of the North Tyrrhenian Sea (mid-western Mediterranean Sea). Comparisons of the slopes between sexes indicated no significant difference in all studied dependent parameters (Y) with carapace length (X), except antennular length and scaphocerite width which were significantly longer and larger in females than in males, respectively. The hierarchical cluster analysis was also performed to identify similarity or dissimilarity among the morphometric characters measured. The biometric relationships considered in this work may prove useful during studies of feeding habits, and to reconstruct the size and biomass of the individuals of this small mantis shrimp from the remains of its exoskeleton.ItTredici caratteri morfometrici sono stati misurati in 34 maschi e 32 femmine di Rissoides pallidus (Giesbrecht), un piccolo crostaceo stomatopode. Gli esemplari sono stati raccolti per mezzo di motopescherecci che operano sulla scarpata continentale superiore del Mar Tirreno settentrionale (Mediterraneo occidentale). La comparazione del parametro b delle regressioni nei due sessi non ha mostrato alcuna differenza significativa tra tutti i parametri indagati, ad esclusione della lunghezza delle antennule e della larghezza dello scafocerite che rispettivamente sono risultati significativamente più lunghe e più larghe nelle femmine che nei maschi. È stata eseguita anche un’analisi di agglomerazione al fine di identificare similarità o dissimilarità tra i caratteri morfometrici utilizzati. Le relazioni biometriche considerate in questo lavoro possono risultare utili negli studi di alimentazione poiché dai resti degli individui di questo piccolo stomatopode è possibile risalire alla loro taglia e relativa biomassa

Survey of the genetic variability of populations of <i>Ruditapes philippinarum</i> from tre Gulf of Olbia (N-E Sardinia) by microsatellites = Indagine sulla variabilità genetica di popolazioni di <i>Ruditapes philippinarum</i> provenienti dal golfo di Olbia (N-E Sardegna)

Genetic variability was investigated at six microsatellite loci of the Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum (Adams &amp; Reeve, 1850) (Bivalvia) from the Gulf of Olbia (N-E Sardinia) and Sacca di Goro (N Adriatic Sea). We found no significant differentiation among Sardinian samples and between those and the Adriatic one, which suggests the absence of a founder effect in Sardinian population

The determinants of Facebook social engagement for National Tourism Organisations’ Facebook pages: a quantitative approach

This work explores how the National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) of the top 10 most visited countries by international tourists strategically employ Facebook to promote and market their destinations. Based on big data retrieved from the NTOs’ Facebook pages, and leveraging advanced metrics for capturing user engagement, the study sheds light on the factors contributing to superior level of social activity. The findings indicate that the way Facebook is tactically employed varies significantly across sampled NTOs. The panel data regression analyses suggest that engagement is positively affected by posting visual content (namely photos), and posting during the weekends, and negatively affected by evening posting. Post frequency displays no statistically significant effect on social engagement. The study also shows that most of the NTOs (except for Italy, Spain, Turkey and the UK) deploy Facebook with a top-down approach, and spontaneous user generated content (UGC) is allowed to a very little extent

Why universities and scientific world should stay away from the tobacco industry. Journey in Big Tobacco deception

Universities are institutions dedicated to improving life through the research and dissemination of knowledge. They facilitates the "peer to peer" communication among young people; the acquisition of knowledge and skills to improve personal and community health; the propagation of healthy lifestyles through the emulation of behavior. Tobacco industry, through commercial policies, enlist young people and transform them, through dependence, into "loyal customers" for many years. The recent introduction of the "reduced risk" products, (the so-called "cold smoke" for example), are a threat for young people who might underestimate the dangers, not even completely known by the experts. Universities and Scientific world that turn a blind eye to tobacco market, accepting the advantages offered by grants and donations from tobacco industry, become accomplices in spreading the "tobacco epidemic" because the funding comes directly from the sale of tobacco products. This "dirty" money causes illness, suffering and death. Universities are invested with an important ethical responsibility to help the world reduce and eliminate the tobacco epidemic, with research, training and information. Universities should have a policy statement that specifically prohibits academic bodies from accepting tobacco industry funding including grant funding. In the U.S.A. several scientific journals no longer publish tobacco industry- supported researches

An orientation-based unification of young jetted AGN: the case of 3C 286

In recent years, the old paradigm according to which only high-mass black holes can launch powerful relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) has begun to crumble. The discovery of $\gamma$-rays coming from narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s), usually considered young and growing AGN harboring a central black hole with mass typically lower than 10$^8$ M$_\odot$, indicated that also these low-mass AGN can produce powerful relativistic jets. The search for parent population of $\gamma$-ray emitting NLS1s revealed their connection with compact steep-spectrum sources (CSS). In this proceeding we present a review of the current knowledge of these sources, we present the new important case of 3C 286, classified here for the fist time as NLS1, and we finally provide a tentative orientation based unification of NLS1s and CSS sources.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. Proceeding of the conference "Quasars at all cosmic epochs", held in Padova, April 2-7, 2017, published on Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science