Finitude, Possibility, Dimensionality: Aesthetics After Complexity

This thesis proposes a reconceptualisation of aesthetics moving from the irreversibility of emergence as described by the theory of complexity. Existing aesthetic platforms reflect a binary ontology that perpetuates the oppositions of concept and object or discourse and practice, thus projecting aesthetics as a contingent surface. The metaphysical split of material and immaterial is therefore maintained as the ultimate structure of sense and the sensual is still represented as the other of reason. This produces a dichotomy where art is either identified with a medium or a technology or is approached as a hermeneutical exercise that anesthetises its poetic modes of operation, thereby drifting towards visual communication. The thesis turns to complexity theory for an alternative ontological approach that can overcome the need for such metaphysical a priori structures. Indeed, complexity offers forms of coherence that install sense locally and heterogeneously, without the possibility of universalisation. This recasts aesthetics as a cohesive surface or genetic logic, rather than mere phenomenological appearance as the image of an object or the body of a concept. Thus, the thesis exhorts not to seek or think the ultimate, but to dwell in the finite pattern of possibility laid out by the radical irreducibility of the processes of emergence. In this light, the relation of concept and object can be re-thought as a continuum; a rhizomatic pattern of organisation that, however, no longer relies on the transcendental move adopted by Deleuze, or on Heidegger’s infamous leap out of metaphysics. In fact, the thesis shows that metaphysics is not the purveyor of dimensions, but is itself a dimension of thought. Hence, the move towards Prigogine, Stengers, Barad, and Golding in order to re-articulate the structure that supports sense as the local interference of continua, or ontological segments, rather than external coordinates. This radical materialism or dimensionality names a regime beyond transcendence and immanence where aesthetics is inseparable from ontology and offers a wholly different way to think and practice art - one best understood as diffraction

Sviluppo di un modello computazionale per la simulazione di sistemi per energy harvesting

Questa tesi è stata sviluppata nel corso di un programma di tirocinio presso l'azienda Poggipolini srl, leader nello studio e realizzazione di componenti meccaniche in titanio e leghe speciali per applicazioni in ambito automotive e aerospace. Lo scopo è l'analisi e lo studio di una nuova tecnologia per il recupero di energia da vibrazioni. L'ambito in cui si inserisce è quello dell'energy harvesting, cioè processi in cui l'energia proveniente da sorgenti esterne e gratuite viene catturata e immagazzinata. Il processo di ricerca e sviluppo è stato articolato in due fasi successive: studio della prior art ed elaborazione di un modello virtuale. Lo studio della prior art si è concentrato in prima istanza sull'ambito teorico di manuali e articoli scientifici per poi continuare in ambito brevettuale e di tutela della proprietà intellettuale. Sulla base delle conoscenze ottenute nella prima fase è stato elaborato un modello virtuale della tecnologia studiata attraverso il sofwta- re commerciale Comsol Multiphisic 5.4. Questo modello ha subito una validazione attraverso un confronto con un'applicazione svolta nel laboratorio di innovazione tecnologica dell'Università di Bologna. La realizzazione del modello virtuale si è basata su particolari vincoli dimensionali e tecnologici al fine di creare un sistema per il recupero di energia dalle vibrazioni in elementi di piccole dimensioni. Nel corso dell'analisi computazionale sono state valu- tate una vasta gamma di energy harvester, differenti per tipologia di funzionamento, materiale, frequenze di risonanza, geometrie

Progetto di un sistema wireless a microcontrollore per il monitoraggio di consumi elettrici

L’obiettivo che questo elaborato si pone è la realizzazione di un prototipo di smart meter distribuito che, in modalità Near-Real-Time, acquisisca ed invii ad un database remoto i consumi relativi ad ogni singolo carico elettrico presente in una abitazione

Data Loam: Sometimes hard, usually soft. The future of knowledge systems

Data Loam: Sometimes Hard, Usually Soft (the future of knowledge systems) is the culmination of a major two year research grant bringing together over 20 artists, philosophers, computing engineers, crypto-economists, block-chain speculations, game theorists and a range of cyberneticists information and library science scholars in order to re-think the current apocalyptic approach to the impact of the digital, machine learning and the internet of 'things'. It takes as its starting point that one must re-invigorate science, and with it certain forms of binaric logics, with 'old fashioned' alchemies of sense, of art and of the humanities. The central piece of the book develops from an international exhibition of the same name held in Vienna Feb-Mar 2019. Taking its cues from the artists involved, the book spiders out to include analytic repositioning of the archive, the museum, fine art practice(s), and distributed forms of intelligence

Toward Autonomous Guidance and Control: A Robust AI-Based Solution for Low-Thrust Orbit Transfers

The focus of our initial application scenario centers around a low-thrust orbit transfer in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). This specific use-case has been chosen due to its inherent challenges, including the requirements for robustness and real-time computation. We propose an AI-based solution capable of autonomous and robust on-board G&C. The core of our approach leverages a Deep Neural Network (DNN) trained through Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques. Our method aims at enhancing a traditional guidance approach by managing environmental perturbations, it processes the on-board navigation coordinates and provides the thrust to be imposed by the propulsion subsystem. Our approach demonstrates effectiveness in performing maneuvers changing semi-major axis (SMA), eccentricity (ECC), and inclination (INC), operating continuously with a control horizon of several days. Robustness is tested by using physical model uncertainties, introducing disturbances in the mission coordinates, and injecting perturbations in subsystems

An easily recoverable and recyclable homogeneous polyester-based Pd catalytic system for the hydrogenation of α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds

Homogeneous catalysis is an efficient tool to carry out hydrogenation processes but the major drawback is represented by the separation of the expensive catalyst from the product mixture. In this view we prepared a polyester-based Pd catalytic system that offers the advantages of both homogenous and heterogeneous catalyses: efficacy, selectivity and recyclability. Here its application in the hydrogenation of selected alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds is described

An easily recoverable and recyclable homogeneous polyester-based Pd catalytic system for the hydrogenation of alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds

Abstract Homogeneous catalysis is an efficient tool to carry out hydrogenation processes but the major drawback is represented by the separation of the expensive catalyst from the product mixture. In this view we prepared a polyester-based Pd catalytic system that offers the advantages of both homogenous and heterogeneous catalyses: efficacy, selectivity and recyclability. Here its application in the hydrogenation of selected α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds is described.Homogeneous catalysis is an efficient tool to carry out hydrogenation processes but the major drawback is represented by the separation of the expensive catalyst from the product mixture. In this view we prepared a polyester-based Pd catalytic system that offers the advantages of both homogenous and heterogeneous catalyses: efficacy, selectivity and recyclability. Here its application in the hydrogenation of selected alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds is described. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Combined antiretroviral therapy reduces hyperimmunoglobulinemia in HIV-1 infected children

Objective: To evaluate the effect of combined antiretroviral therapy on serum immunoglobulin (Ig) levels in HIV-1 perinatally infected children. Methods: Data from 1250 children recorded by the Italian Register for HIV Infection in Children from 1985 to 2002 were analysed. Since Ig levels physiologically vary with age, differences at different age periods were evaluated as differences in z-scores calculated using means and standard deviations of normal population for each age period. Combined antiretroviral therapy has become widespread in Italy since 1996, thus differences in Ig z-scores between the periods 1985-1995 and 1996-2002 were analysed. Data according to type of therapeutic regimen were also analysed. Results: Between the two periods 1985-1995 and 1996-2002, significant (P < 0.0001) decreases in IgG (6.29 ± 4.72 versus 4.44 ± 4.33), IgM (9.25 ± 13.32 versus 5.61 ± 7.93), and IgA (10.25 ± 15.68 versus 6.48 ± 11.56) z-scores, together with a parallel significant (P < 0.0001) increase in CD4 T-lymphocyte percentages, were found. These decreases were confirmed regardless of whether the children were receiving intravenous Ig or not. Ig z-scores were significantly higher in children receiving mono-therapy than in those receiving double-combined therapy (IgC, P < 0.0001; IgM, P = 0.003; IgA, P = 0.031) and in the latter children than in those receiving three or more drugs (P < 0.0001 for all z-scores). Ig z-scores correlated inversely with CD4 T-lymphocyte percentages and, directly, with viral loads. Conclusions: Our data show that in HIV-1 infected children combined antiretroviral therapy leads to reduction of hyperimmunoglobulinemia which parallels restoration of CD4 T-lymphocyte percentage and viral load decrease, which it turn probably reflects improved B-lymphocyte functions. © 2004 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Sentinel node detection in pre-operative axillary staging

Sentinel lymph node (SLN) localisation and biopsy represent one of the most important developments in surgery and have already produced important changes in the management of patients affected by early infiltrating breast carcinoma. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) was first applied in melanoma patients by Morton and colleagues (Morton et al. 1992); they intra-operatively injected the patent with vital blue dye close to the primary lesion, and the blue-stained SLN was later found by dissection, following tracer diffusion. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg