Search results for: Lorenzo M. Pastrana

Authors: Lina F. Ballesteros, Hafsae Lamsaf, Miguel A. Cerqueira, Lorenzo M. Pastrana, Sandra Carvalho, Jose A. Teixeira, S. Calderon V.

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The use of bio-based packaging materials containing metallic and bimetallic nanostructures is relatively modern technology. In this sense, the food packaging industry has been investigating biological and renewable resources that can replace petroleum-based materials to reduce the environmental impact and, at the same time, including new functionalities using nanotechnology. Therefore, the main objective of the present work consisted of developing bio-based poly-lactic acid (PLA) films with Zinc (Zn) and Zinc-Iron (Zn-Fe) nanostructures deposited by magnetron sputtering. The structural, antimicrobial, and optical properties of the films were evaluated when exposed at 60% and 96% relative humidity (RH). The morphology and elemental analysis of the samples were determined by scanning (transmission) electron microscopy (SEM and STEM), and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The structure of the PLA was monitored before and after deposition by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis, and the antimicrobial and color assays were performed by using the zone of inhibition (ZOI) test and a Minolta colorimeter, respectively. Finally, the films were correlated in terms of the deposit conditions, Zn or Zn-Fe concentrations, and thickness. The results revealed PLA films with different morphologies, compositions, and thicknesses of Zn or Zn-Fe nanostructures. The samples showed a significant antibacterial and antifungal activity against E. coli, P. aeruginosa, P. fluorescens, S. aureus, and A. niger, and considerable changes of color and opacity at 96% RH, especially for the thinner nanostructures (150-250 nm). On the other hand, when the Fe fraction was increased, the lightness of samples increased, as well as their antimicrobial activity when compared to the films with pure Zn. Hence, these findings are relevant to the food packaging field since intelligent and active films with multiple properties can be developed.

Keywords: biopolymers, functional properties, magnetron sputtering, Zn and Zn-Fe nanostructures

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Authors: Milton Montejano Castillo, Tarsicio Pastrana Salcedo

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Based on the hypothesis that disaster risk is constructed socially and historically, this article shows the importance of keeping alive the historical memory of disaster by means of architectural and urban heritage conservation. This is illustrated with three examples of Latin American World Heritage cities where disasters like floods and earthquakes have shaped urban form. Therefore, the study of urban form or ‘Urban Morphology’ is proposed as a tool to understand and analyze urban transformations with the documentation of the occurrence of disasters. Lessons learned from such cities may be useful to reduce disasters risk in contemporary built environments.

Keywords: conservation, disaster risk reduction, urban morphology, World Heritage

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Authors: Carlo Bianchini, Lorenzo Catena

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The appearance of 3D scanners and then, more recently, of image-based systems that generate point clouds directly from common digital images have deeply affected the survey process in terms of both capturing and 2D/3D modelling. In this context, low cost and mobile systems are increasingly playing a key role and actually paving the way to the democratization of what in the past was the realm of few specialized technicians and expensive equipment. The application of Google Tango on the ancient church of Santa Maria delle Vigne in Pratica di Mare – Rome presented in this paper is one of these examples.

Keywords: the architectural survey, augmented/mixed/virtual reality, Google Tango project, image-based 3D capturing

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Authors: M. Peña Aguilar Juan, Valencia Luis, Pastrana Alberto, Nava Estefany, A. Martinez, M. Vivanco, A. Castañeda

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This paper seeks to compare the innovation of Mexico from an economic and human perspective, with the seven most innovative countries according to the Global Innovation Index 2013, done by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The above analysis suggests nine dimensions: Expenditure on R & D, intellectual property, appropriate environment to conduct business, economic stability, and triple helix for R & D, ICT Infrastructure, education, human resources and quality of life. Each dimension is represented by an indicator which is later used to construct a radial graph that compares the innovative capacity of the countries analysed. As a result, it is proposed a new indicator of innovation called The Area of Innovation. Observations are made from the results, and finally as a conclusion, those items or dimensions in which Mexico suffers lag in innovation are identify.

Keywords: dimension, measure, innovation level, economy, radar chart

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Authors: Glenn A. Palmer, Lorenzo Bowman, Juanita Johnson-Bailey

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The ubiquitous economic upheaval that has gripped the global environment in the past few years displaced many workers through unemployment or underemployment. Globally, this disruption has caused many adult workers to seek additional education or skills to remain competitive, and acquire the ability and options to find gainful employment. While many learners have availed themselves of some opportunities to be retrained and retooled at locations within their communities, others have explored those options through the online learning environment. This paper examines the empirical research that explores the various strategies that are used in the adult online learning community that could also foster transformative learning.

Keywords: online learning, transformational learning, adult education, economic crisis, unemployment

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Authors: Paulina Solórzano Salgado, Luis Rodrigo Valencia Pérez, Alberto de Jesús Pastrana Palma

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In this research, it is presented a digital maturity framework, which contributes to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the commercial sector. This proposal is based on three important concepts: Marketing activities in the enterprise, information and communication technologies ICT, as well as Innovation. Prior to the development of this framework, was formulated a quantitative assessment tool through a literature review, and was validated with a method used by experts, and which determines the relationship of digital marketing and innovation activities in companies. The instrument was applied to 64 Mexican companies from the Made in Mexico database, which allowed both descriptive results and correlation results. These contributed to the development of the methodology, and confirming that the management of digital marketing has a positive relation with innovation activities of companies. Also, that analytics in digital marketing is a source for its development. In this paper, the management stages and activities are presented to be developed by companies in order to generate knowledge, which will allow them to reach its digital maturity.

Keywords: digital marketing, digital maturity, innovation, SMEs

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Authors: M. Peña Aguilar Juan, E. Nava Galván Claudia, Pastrana Palma Alberto

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In this work was developed and implemented a thermal fogging disinfection system to counteract pathogens from poultry feces in agribusiness farms, to reduce mortality rates and increase biosafety in them. The control system consists of two phases for the conditioning of the farm during the sanitary break. In the first phase, viral and bacterial inactivation was performed by treating the stool dry cleaning, along with the development of a specialized product that foster the generation of temperatures above 55 °C in less than 24 hr, for virus inactivation. In the second phase, a process for disinfection by fogging was implemented, along with the development of a specialized disinfectant that guarantee no risk for the operators’ health or birds. As a result of this process, it was possible to minimize the level of mortality of chickens on farms from 12% to 5.49%, representing a reduction of 6.51% in the death rate, through the formula applied to the treatment of poultry litter based on oxidising agents used as antiseptics, hydrogen peroxide solutions, glacial acetic acid and EDTA in order to act on bacteria, viruses, micro bacteria and spores.

Keywords: innovation, triple helix, poultry farms, biosecurity

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Authors: Iñaki Aliende, Tom Webb, Lorenzo Escot

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There is a concern about the decrease in football referees globally. A study in Spain has analyzed the factors affecting a referee's career over the past 30 years through a survey of 758 referees. Results showed the impact of factors such as threats, education, initial vocation, and dependents on a referee's career. To improve the situation, the federation needs to provide better information, support young referees, monitor referees, and raise public awareness of violence toward referees. The study also formed a comprehensive model for federations to enhance their officiating policies by means of data-driven techniques that can serve other federations to improve referees' careers.

Keywords: data science, football referees, sport management, sport careers, survival analysis

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Authors: John Lorenzo Bautista, Yoon-Joong Kim

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This paper presents the development of a Filipino speech recognition tool using the HTK System. The system was trained from a subset of the Filipino Speech Corpus developed by the DSP Laboratory of the University of the Philippines-Diliman. The speech corpus was both used in training and testing the system by estimating the parameters for phonetic HMM-based (Hidden-Markov Model) acoustic models. Experiments on different mixture-weights were incorporated in the study. The phoneme-level word-based recognition of a 5-state HMM resulted in an average accuracy rate of 80.13 for a single-Gaussian mixture model, 81.13 after implementing a phoneme-alignment, and 87.19 for the increased Gaussian-mixture weight model. The highest accuracy rate of 88.70% was obtained from a 5-state model with 6 Gaussian mixtures.

Keywords: Filipino language, Hidden Markov Model, HTK system, speech recognition

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Authors: Lorenzo Gontrani, Marilena Carbone, Domenica Tommasa Donia, Elvira Maria Bauer, Pietro Tagliatesta

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One of the fields where DES shows remarkable added values is the synthesis Of inorganic materials, in particular nanoparticles. In this field, the higher- ent and highly-tunable nano-homogeneities of DES structure give origin to a marked templating effect, a precious role that has led to the recent bloom of a vast number of studies exploiting these new synthesis media to prepare Nanomaterials and composite structures of various kinds. In this contribution, the most recent developments in the field will be reviewed, and some ex-citing examples of novel metal oxide nanoparticles syntheses using non-toxic type-IV Deep Eutectic Solvents will be described. The prepared materials possess nanometric dimensions and show flower-like shapes. The use of the pre- pared nanoparticles as fluorescent materials for the detection of various contaminants is under development.

Keywords: metal deep eutectic solvents, nanoparticles, inorganic synthesis, type IV DES, lamellar

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Authors: Lorenzo Bonoldi, Gianluca Memoli, Abdelhalim Azbaid El Ouahabi

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In this paper, a series of ring-shaped attenuators utilizing Helmholtz and quarter wavelength resonators in variable, fixed, and combined configurations have been manufactured using a 3D printer. We illustrate possible uses by incorporating such devices into musical instruments (e.g. in acoustic guitar sound holes) and audio speakers with a view to controlling such devices tonal emissions without electronic equalization systems. Numerical investigations into the transmission loss values of these ring-shaped attenuators using finite element method simulations (COMSOL Multiphysics) have been presented in the frequency range of 100– 1000 Hz. We compare such results for each attenuator model with experimental measurements using different driving sources such as white noise, a maximum-length sequence (MLS), square and sine sweep pulses, and point scans in the frequency domain. Finally, we present a preliminary discussion on the comparison of numerical and experimental results.

Keywords: equaliser, metamaterials, musical, instruments

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Authors: Luisa Carrer, Lorenzo De Masi

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In this paper, we exploit the massive amount of information from Facebook to build a measure of gender attitudes in Italy at a previously impossible resolution—the municipal level. We construct our index via a machine learning method to replicate a benchmark region-level measure. Interestingly, we find that most of the variation in our Gender Norms Index (GNI) is across towns within narrowly defined geographical areas rather than across regions or provinces. In a second step, we show how this local variation in norms can be leveraged for identification purposes. In particular, we use our index to investigate whether these differences in norms carry over to the policy activity of politicians elected in the Italian Parliament. We document that females are more likely to sit in parliamentary committees focused on gender-sensitive matters, labor, and social issues, but not if they come from a relatively conservative town. These effects are robust to conditioning the legislative term and electoral district, suggesting the importance of social norms in shaping legislators’ policy activity.

Keywords: gender equality, gender norms index, Facebook, machine learning, politics

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Authors: José Luis Lorenzo Bayona, Ljiljana Medic-Pejic, Isabel Amez Arenillas, Blanca Castells Somoza

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The communication presents the study results carried out by the Official Laboratory J. M. Madariaga (LOM) of the Polytechnic University of Madrid to analyze the reliability of methane detection systems used in underground mining. Poor firedamp control in work can cause from production stoppages to fatal accidents and since there is currently a great variety of equipment with different functional characteristics, a study is needed to indicate which measurement principles have the highest degree of confidence. For the development of the project, a series of fixed, transportable and portable methane detectors with different measurement principles have been selected to subject them to laboratory tests following the methods described in the applicable regulations. The test equipment has been the one usually used in the certification and calibration of these devices, subject to the LOM quality system, and the tests have been carried out on detectors accessible in the market. The conclusions establish the main advantages and disadvantages of the equipment according to the measurement principle used; catalytic combustion, interferometry and infrared absorption.

Keywords: ATEX standards, gas detector, methane meter, mining safety

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Authors: Andrea J. Alarcón, Maxime Daulat, Raydel Lorenzo, Renato P. Da Cunha, Pierre Breul

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Brazil has increased the use of renewable energy during the last years. Due to its sunshine and large surface area, photovoltaic panels founded in helical piles have been used to produce solar energy. Since Brazilian territory is mainly cover by highly porous structured tropical soils, when the helical piles are installed this structure is broken and its soil properties are modified. Considering the special characteristics of these soils, helical foundations behavior must be extensively studied. The first objective of this work is to determine the most suitable method to estimate the tensile capacity of helical piles in tropical soils. The second objective is to simulate the behavior of these piles in tropical soil. To obtain the rupture to assess load-displacement curves and the ultimate load, also a numerical modelling using Plaxis software was conducted. Lastly, the ultimate load and the load-displacements curves are compared with experimental values to validate the implemented model.

Keywords: finite element, helical piles, modelling, tropical soil, uplift capacity

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Authors: Lorenzo Maiorino, Fabio Fortuna, Giovanni Panebianco, Marco Sanzari, Gabriella Arcese, Valerio Maria Paolozzi

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It is well known that sport is a factor of social cohesion and the breaking down of barriers between people. From this point of view, the aim is to demonstrate how, through the (re)generation of sustainable structures, it is possible to give life to a new social, cultural, and economic pathway, where possible, in peripheral areas with problems of abandonment and degradation. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to study realities such as European programs and funds and to highlight the ways in which planning can be used to respond to critical issues such as urban decay, abandonment, and the mitigation of social differences. For this reason, the analysis will be carried out through the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) package, the Next Generation EU, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the Cohesion Fund, the European Social Fund, and other managed funds. The procedure will rely on sources and data of unquestionable origin, and the relation to the object of study in question will be highlighted. The project lends itself to be ambitious and exploring a further aspect of the sports theme, which, as we know, is one of the foundations for a healthy society.

Keywords: sport, social inclusion, urban regeneration, sports facilities, European funds

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Authors: Stefano Zappacosta, Cristiano Bove, Maria Carmela Marinelli, Paola di Lauro, Katarina Spasenovic, Lorenzo Ostano, Giuseppe Aiello, Marco Pietrosanto

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This paper proposes a novel neural network approach for assessing flood hazard mapping. The core of the model is a machine learning component fed by frequency ratios, namely statistical correlations between flood event occurrences and a selected number of topographic properties. The proposed hybrid model can be used to classify four different increasing levels of hazard. The classification capability was compared with the flood hazard mapping River Basin Plans (PAI) designed by the Italian Institute for Environmental Research and Defence, ISPRA (Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale). The study area of Piemonte, an Italian region, has been considered without loss of generality. The frequency ratios may be used as a standalone block to model the flood hazard mapping. Nevertheless, the mixture with a neural network improves the classification power of several percentage points, and may be proposed as a basic tool to model the flood hazard map in a wider scope.

Keywords: flood modeling, hazard map, neural networks, hydrogeological risk, flood risk assessment

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Authors: Silvia Lorenzo, Hongmian Gong

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With the influx of research assessing the economic impact of the global financial crisis of 2007-8, a spatial analysis based on empirical data is needed to better understand the spatial significance of the financial crisis in New York, a key international financial center also considered the origin of the crisis. Using spatial statistics, the existence of financial clusters specializing in credit and securities throughout the New York metropolitan area are identified for 2000 and 2010, the time period before and after the height of the global financial crisis. Geographically Weighted Regressions are then used to examine processes underlying the formation and movement of financial geographies across state, county and ZIP codes of the New York metropolitan area throughout the 2000s with specific attention to tax regimes, employment, household income, technology, and transportation hubs. This analysis provides useful inputs for financial risk management and public policy initiatives aimed at addressing regional economic sustainability across state boundaries, while also developing the groundwork for further research on a spatial analysis of the global financial crisis.

Keywords: financial clusters, New York, global financial crisis, geographically weighted regression

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Authors: John Lorenzo Bautista, Yoon-Joong Kim

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In this paper, a set of Filipino Phonetically Balanced Word list consisting of 250 words (PBW250) were constructed for a phoneme-level ASR system for the Filipino language. The Entropy Maximization is used to obtain phonological balance in the list. Entropy of phonemes in a word is maximized, providing an optimal balance in each word’s phonological distribution using the Add-Delete Method (PBW algorithm) and is compared to the modified PBW algorithm implemented in a dynamic algorithm approach to obtain optimization. The gained entropy score of 4.2791 and 4.2902 for the PBW and modified algorithm respectively. The PBW250 was recorded by 40 respondents, each with 2 sets data. Recordings from 30 respondents were trained to produce an acoustic model that were tested using recordings from 10 respondents using the HMM Toolkit (HTK). The results of test gave the maximum accuracy rate of 97.77% for a speaker dependent test and 89.36% for a speaker independent test.

Keywords: entropy maximization, Filipino language, Hidden Markov Model, phonetically balanced words, speech recognition

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Authors: Nabil Jallouli, Luisa M. Pastrana-Martínez, Ana R. Ribeiro, Nuno F. F. Moreira, Joaquim L. Faria, Olfa Hentati, Adrián M. T. Silva, Mohamed Ksibi

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Degradation and mineralization of ibuprofen (IBU) were investigated using Ultraviolet (UV) Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in TiO2 photocatalysis. Samples of ultrapure water (UP) and a secondary treated effluent of a municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), both spiked with IBU, as well as a highly concentrated IBU (230 mgL-1) pharmaceutical industry wastewater (PIWW), were tested in the TiO2/UV-LED system. Three operating parameters, namely, pH, catalyst load and number of LEDs were optimized. The process efficiency was evaluated in terms of IBU removal using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). Additionally, the mineralization was investigated by determining the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content. The chemical structures of transformation products were proposed based on the data obtained using liquid chromatography with a high resolution mass spectrometer ion trap/time-of-flight (LC-MS-IT-TOF). A possible pathway of IBU degradation was accordingly proposed. Bioassays were performed using the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri to evaluate the potential acute toxicity of original and treated wastewaters. TiO2 heterogeneous photocatalysis was efficient to remove IBU from UP and from PIWW, and less efficient in treating the wastewater from the municipal WWTP. The acute toxicity decreased by ca. 40% after treatment, regardless of the studied matrix.

Keywords: acute toxicity, Ibuprofen, UV-LEDs, wastewaters

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Authors: J. Andrade-Garda, A. Anguera, J. Ares-Casal, M. Hidalgo-Lorenzo, J.-A. Lara, D. Lizcano, S. Suárez-Garaboa

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In the current constantly changing economic context, collaborative networks allow partners to undertake projects that would not be possible if attempted by them individually. These projects usually involve the performance of a group of tasks (named roles) that have to be distributed among the partners. Thus, an allocation/matching problem arises that will be referred to as Role-Partner Allocation problem. In real life this situation is addressed by negotiation between partners in order to reach ad hoc agreements. Besides taking a long time and being hard work, both historical evidence and economic analysis show that such approach is not recommended. Instead, the allocation process should be automated by means of a centralized matching scheme. However, as a preliminary step to start the search for such a matching mechanism (or even the development of a new one), the problem and its core components must be specified. To this end, this paper establishes (i) the definition of the problem and its constraints, (ii) the key features of the involved elements (i.e., roles and partners); and (iii) how to create preference lists both for roles and partners. Only this way it will be possible to conduct subsequent methodological research on the solution method.     

Keywords: collaborative network, matching, partner, preference list, role

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Authors: Vera Karla S. Caingles, Glen A. Lorenzo

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Soil, as the main material of landslides, plays a vital role in landslide assessment. An efficient and accurate method of doing an assessment is significantly important to prevent damage of properties and loss of lives. The study has two phases: to establish an empirical correlation of the residual soil thickness with the slope angle and to investigate the geotechnical characteristics of residual soil. Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to establish the slope map and to program sampling points for field investigation. Physical and index property tests were undertaken on the 20 soil samples obtained from the area with Pliocene-Pleistocene geology and different slope angle in Kibawe, Bukidnon. The regression analysis result shows that the best fitting model that can describe the soil thickness-slope angle relationship is an exponential function. The physical property results revealed that soils contain a high percentage of clay and silts ranges from 41% - 99.52%. Based on the index properties test results, the soil exhibits a high degree of plasticity and expansion but not collapsible. It is deemed that this compendium will serve as primary data for slope stability analysis and deterministic landslide assessment.

Keywords: collapsibility, correlation, expansiveness, landslide, plasticity

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Authors: Andreas Aceranti, Simonetta Vernocchi, Marco Colorato, Guido Bighiani, Lorenzo Moretti

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Internalized homo/biphobia refers to a set of negative feelings (feelings of guilt, contempt, anger, a sense of inferiority) that nonheterosexuals may feel towards themselves. We studied 22 young males struggling with their bisexuality or homosexuality. All have come to psychoanalysis/counselling because something was “not going right in their lives.” Even though they were all involved in heterosexual relations, they felt that the relationship was not satisfactory, and even tried having affairs with other women, they felt unsatisfied. All revealed that even though they felt sexually attracted to women, they fell in love with other men. When we investigated the main resistances, the answers were almost the same fearing rejection: four from their mates; six from their parents; eight both from mates and parents; the other four were unable to accept the “deviation for religious reasons.” During the sessions, we educated them about sexual orientation and affection, and we spent much time educating them about the normality of sexual orientation. We found out that the majority (20 subjects) were totally ignorant about sexual orientation and had evaluated themselves only on prejudice or religious approaches. After many sessions, 18 subjects stopped coming to sessions as they felt at peace with themselves. Interestingly the four patients who still come to therapy and are still struggling with themselves are the four subjects with religious issues. Based on our experience, the most destructive aspect of sexual orientation acceptance is the lack of education. Prejudice and religion, unfortunately, still play a big role in self-acceptance.

Keywords: prejudice, homophobia, sexual orientation, biphobia, acceptance, ignorance

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Authors: Angelica S. Valeriani, Lorenzo Biasiolo

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In recent years, the scale of the impact of climate change and its related side effects has become ever more massive and devastating. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), promoted by United Nations, aim to front issues related to climate change, among others. In particular, the project CROWD4SDG focuses on a bunch of SDGs since it promotes environmental activities and climate-related issues. In this context, we developed a prototype of an application, under advanced development considering web design, that focuses on SDG 13 (SDG on climate action) by providing users with useful instruments to face environmental crises and climate-related disasters. Our prototype is thought and structured for both web and mobile development. The main goal of the application, POLI4SDG, is to help users to get through emergency services. To this extent, an organized overview and classification prove to be very effective and helpful to people in need. A careful analysis of data related to environmental crises prompted us to integrate the user contribution, i.e., exploiting a core principle of Citizen Science, into the realization of a public catalog, available for consulting and organized according to typology and specific features. In addition, gender equality and opportunity features are considered in the prototype in order to allow women, often the most vulnerable category, to have direct support. The overall description of the application functionalities is detailed. Moreover, the implementation features and properties of the prototype are discussed.

Keywords: crowdsourcing, social media, SDG, climate change, natural disasters, gender equality

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Authors: Rosa Buxeda, Lorenzo Saliceti-Piazza, Rodolfo J. Romañach, Luis Ríos, Sandra L. Maldonado-Ramírez

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Biopharmaceuticals manufacturing is one of the major economic activities worldwide. Ninety-three percent of the workforce in a biomanufacturing environment concentrates in production-related areas. As a result, strategic collaborations between industry and academia are crucial to ensure the availability of knowledgeable workforce needed in an economic region to become competitive in biomanufacturing. In the past decade, our institution has been a key strategic partner with multinational biotechnology companies in supplying science and engineering graduates in the field of industrial biotechnology. Initiatives addressing all levels of the educational pipeline, from K-12 to college to continued education for company employees have been established along a ten-year span. The Amgen BioTalents Program was designed to provide undergraduate science and engineering students with training in biomanufacturing. The areas targeted by this educational program enhance their academic development, since these topics are not part of their traditional science and engineering curricula. The educational curriculum involved the process of producing a biomolecule from the genetic engineering of cells to the production of an especially targeted polypeptide, protein expression and purification, to quality control, and validation. This paper will report and describe the implementation details and outcomes of the first sessions of the program.

Keywords: biomanufacturing curriculum, interdisciplinary learning, workforce development, industry-academia partnering

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Authors: Arturo S. Daag, Ira Karrel D. L. San Jose, Mike Gabriel G. Pedrosa, Ken Adrian C. Villarias, Rayfred P. Ingeniero, Cyrah Gale H. Rocamora, Margarita P. Dizon, Roland Joseph B. De Leon, Teresito C. Bacolcol

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The province of Leyte consists of various geomorphological landforms: These are: a) landforms of tectonic origin transect large part of the volcanic centers in upper Ormoc area; b) landforms of volcanic origin, several inactive volcanic centers located in Upper Ormoc are transected by Philippine Fault; c) landforms of volcano-denudational and denudational slopes dominates the area where most of the earthquake-induced landslide occurred; and d) Colluvium and alluvial deposits dominate the foot slope of Ormoc and Jaro-Pastrana plain. Earthquake ground acceleration and geotechnical properties of various landforms are crucial for landslide studies. To generate the landslide critical acceleration model of sliding block, various data were considered, these are: geotechnical data (i.e., soil and rock strength parameters), slope, topographic wetness index (TWI), landslide inventory, soil map, geologic maps for the calculation of the factor of safety. Horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) surveying methods, refraction microtremor (ReMi), and three-component microtremor (3CMT) were conducted to measure site period and surface wave velocity as well as to create a soil thickness model. Critical acceleration model of various geomorphological unit using Remote Sensing, field geotechnical, geophysical, and geospatial data collected from the areas affected by the 06 July 2017 M6.5 Leyte earthquake. Spatial analysis of earthquake-induced landslide from the 06 July 2017, were then performed to assess the relationship between the calculated critical acceleration and peak ground acceleration. The observed trends proved helpful in establishing the role of critical acceleration as a determining factor in the distribution of co-seismic landslides.

Keywords: earthquake-induced landslide, remote sensing, geomorphology, seismic response

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Authors: Bhogendra Mishra, Andy Nelson, Mirco Boschetti, Lorenzo Busetto, Alice Laborte

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Rice is grown on over 100 million hectares in almost every country of Asia. It is the most important staple crop for food security and has high economic and cultural importance in Asian societies. The combination of genetic diversity and management options, coupled with the large geographic extent means that there is a large variation in seasonality (when it is grown) and cropping intensity (how often it is grown per year on the same plot of land), even over relatively small distances. Seasonality and intensity can and do change over time depending on climatic, environmental and economic factors. Detecting where and when these changes happen can provide information to better understand trends in regional and even global rice production. Remote sensing offers a unique opportunity to estimate these trends. We apply the recently published PhenoRice algorithm to 14 years of moderate resolution remote sensing (MODIS) data (utilizing 250m resolution 16 day composites from Terra and Aqua) to estimate seasonality and cropping intensity per year and changes over time. We compare the results to the surveyed data collected by International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The study results in a unique and validated dataset on the extent and change of extent, the seasonality and change in seasonality and the cropping intensity and change in cropping intensity between 2003 and 2016 for the Philippines. Observed trends and their implications for food security and trade policies are also discussed.

Keywords: rice, cropping intensity, moderate resolution remote sensing (MODIS), phenology, seasonality

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Authors: Tiziana Biasutti, Daniela Rigamonti, Lorenzo Palmiotti, Adelaide Nespoli, Paolo Bettini

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Aerospace industry is based on the continuous development of new technologies and solutions that allows constant improvement of the systems. Shape Memory Alloys are smart materials that can be used as dampers due to their pseudoelastic effect. The purpose of the research was to design a passive damper in Nitinol, manufactured by Selective Laser Melting, for space applications to reduce vibration between different structural parts in space structures. The powder is NiTi (50.2 at.% of Ni). The structure manufactured by additive technology allows us to eliminate the presence of joint and moving parts and to have a compact solution with high structural strength. The designed dampers had single or double cell structures with three different internal angles (30°, 45° and 60°). This particular shape has damping properties also without the pseudoelastic effect. For this reason, the geometries were reproduced in different materials, SS316L and Ti6Al4V, to test the geometry loss factor. The mechanical performances of these specimens were compared to the ones of NiTi structures, pointing out good damping properties of the designed structure and the highest performances of the NiTi pseudoelastic effect. The NiTi damper was mechanically characterized by static and dynamic tests and with DSC and microscope observations. The experimental results were verified with numerical models and with some scaled steel specimens in which optical fibers were embedded. The realized structure presented good mechanical and damping properties. It was observed that the loss factor and the dissipated energy increased with the angles of the cells.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, damper, nitinol, pseudo elastic effect, selective laser melting, shape memory alloys

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Authors: Lorenzo Buti

Abstract:

This paper investigates the nature of democratic action through a critical reading of Claude Lefort’s notion of the democratic ‘regime’. Lefort provides one of the most innovative accounts of the essential features of a democratic regime. According to him, democracy is a political regime that acknowledges the indeterminacy of a society and stages it as a contestation between competing political actors. As such, democracy provides the symbolic markers of society’s openness towards the future. However, despite their democratic features, the recent decades in late capitalist societies attest to a sense of the future becoming fixed and predetermined. This suggests that Lefort’s conception of democracy harbours a misunderstanding of the character and experience of democratic action. This paper examines this underlying tension in Lefort’s work. It claims that Lefort underestimates how a democratic regime, next to its symbolic function, also takes a materially constituted form with its particular dynamics of power relations. Lefort’s systematic dismissal of this material dimension for democratic action can lead to the contemporary paradoxical situation where democracy’s symbolic markers are upheld (free elections, public debate, dynamic between government and opposition in parliament,…) but the room for political decision-making is constrained due to a myriad of material constraints (e.g., market pressures, institutional inertias). The paper draws out the implications for the notion of democratic action. Contra Lefort, it argues that democratic action necessarily targets the material conditions that impede the capacity for decision-making on the basis of equality and liberty. This analysis shapes our understanding of democratic action in two ways. First, democratic action takes an asymmetrical, insurgent form, as a contestation of material power relations from below. Second, it reveals an ambivalent position vis-à-vis the political regime: democratic action is symbolically made possible by the democratic dispositive, but it contests the constituted form that the democratic regime takes.

Keywords: Claude Lefort, democratic action, material constitution, political regime

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Authors: Danila Zuffetti, Lorenzo Chiesa

Abstract:

Background: A hospice narrative interview aims at putting the sick at the core of disease and treatment allowing them to explore their most intimate facets. The aim of this work is to favor authentic narration by leading towards awareness and acceptance of terminality and to face death with serenity. Narration in palliative care aims at helping to reduce the chaos generated by the disease and to elaborate interpretations on the course of reality, besides, the narration delivered to the doctor is fundamental and communicates the meaning given to symptoms. Methods: The narrative interview has become a regular activity in the Castellini Foundation since 2017. Patients take part every week, and for more days, in one hour sessions, in a welcoming and empathic setting and the interaction with the operator leads to a gradual awareness of their terminality. Patients are submitted with free answer questions with the purpose of facilitating and stimulating self-narration. Narration has not always been linear, but patients are left free to shift in time to revisit their disease process by making use of different tools, such as digital storytelling. Results: The answers provided by the patients show to which extent the narrative interview is an instrument allowing the analysis of the stories and gives the possibility to better understand and deepen the different implications of patient and caregiver’s background. Conclusion: The narration work in the hospice demonstrates that narrative medicine is an added value. This instrument has proven useful not only in the support of patients but also for the palliative doctor to identify wishes for accompanying them to the end with dignity and serenity. The narrative interview favors the construction of an authentic therapeutic relationship. The sick are taken wholly in charge, and they are guaranteed a high quality of life until their very last instant.

Keywords: construction of an authentic therapy relationship, gradual awareness of their terminality, narrative interview, reduce the chaos generated by the desease

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Authors: Giulia Sarego, Lorenzo Olivieri, Andrea Valmorbida, Carlo Bettanini, Giacomo Colombatti, Marco Pertile, Enrico C. Lorenzini

Abstract:

International guidelines recommend removing any artificial body in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) within 25 years from mission completion. Among disposal strategies, electrodynamic tethers appear to be a promising option for LEO, thanks to the limited storage mass and the minimum interface requirements to the host spacecraft. In particular, recent technological advances make it feasible to deorbit large objects with tether lengths of a few kilometers or less. To further investigate such an innovative passive system, the European Union is currently funding the project E.T.PACK – Electrodynamic Tether Technology for Passive Consumable-less Deorbit Kit in the framework of the H2020 Future Emerging Technologies (FET) Open program. The project focuses on the design of an end of life disposal kit for LEO satellites. This kit aims to deploy a taped tether that can be activated at the spacecraft end of life to perform autonomous deorbit within the international guidelines. In this paper, the orbital performance of the E.T.PACK deorbiting kit is compared to other disposal methods. Besides, the orbital decay prediction is parametrized as a function of spacecraft mass and tether system performance. Different values of length, width, and thickness of the tether will be evaluated for various scenarios (i.e., different initial orbital parameters). The results will be compared to other end-of-life disposal methods with similar allocated resources. The analysis of the more innovative system’s performance with the tape coated with a thermionic material, which has a low work-function (LWT), for which no active component for the cathode is required, will also be briefly discussed. The results show that the electrodynamic tether option can be a competitive and performant solution for satellite disposal compared to other deorbit technologies.

Keywords: deorbiting performance, H2020, spacecraft disposal, space electrodynamic tethers

Procedia PDF Downloads 142