Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) is the main project of the Istituto di Radioastronomia (IRA), aimed to build one of the world largest single dish radio telescopes. The instrument, a 64m dish of modern design, is intended to operate with multi focal postions in order to cover almost the full frequency spectrum between 300 MHz and 100 GHz. The site is about 30 km from Cagliari, main city in Sardinia Island. SRT will joint the Medicina (Bologna) and Noto (Siracusa) IRA radio telescopes to complete ...

In the literature methods exist which allow to reach consensus on the solution of complex problems within a group of experts/advocates who never meet during the process and do not know the other members of the group. One of these methods is the Delphi method. The Delphi technique has nothing to do with the oracle: it is research method particularly suitable to allow experts, working independently, to act as a whole while dealing with complex problems, increasing the communication inside a group ...

The role of human resources for developing new knowledge is crucial. Which are the best ways for educating training and employing human resources in the field of science and technology? How is the demand for new employment changing and how these changes affect research training? The Human Resources and Knowledge Society Research Unit of the IRPPS, following the international debate and its institutional role as Italian official delegate within OECD, is carrying out a research on these topics ...

In Italy most of the drinking water comes from groundwater that, according to update surveys, are often polluted by organic chemicals such as chlorinated solvents and pesticides. These pollutants reach groundwater because of rainfalls, over irrigation and/or unauthorized disposals. The removal of such toxic and persistent pollutants at potabilization plants is achieved by specific treatments such as adsorption onto activated carbon or membrane filtration. However, these treatments are ...

Object of the study The contamination of aquifers by chlorinated solvents, caused by their widespread use in industrial processes and their improper handling and disposal, is today a major problem. The pollution of water resources by organo-halogenated compounds, started during 50s and continued for several decades, and is common to all the industrialised countries, including Italy. For the Italian legislation the decontamination of the polluted site by the responsible of the pollution or, if ...

The neurons in our brain communicate with one another through specialized structures called synapses. In certain types of neuron, synapses sit on spiny protrusions. These spines are more than just structural protuberances: it seems that spine growth can be induced by stimulating neurons, indicating that changes in spine density may reflect changes in the synaptic activity -- and hence the computational power -- of individual neurons. Spines are associated mainly with excitatory postsynaptic ...

Female infertility is a common condition, affecting about 1% of all women. A frequent cause is premature ovarian failure which is a heterogeneous disorder resulting from chromosomal aberrations, genetic conditions, autoimmune ovary destruction, enzymatic defects, infectious or iatrogenic factors. The clinical features consist in incomplete menarche , secondary amenhorrea or early menopause. Our group recently identified a new gene, FOXL2 which belongs to the family of the transcription factor ...

Conventional batteries are already unable to deliver power in more and more shrunk volumes maintaining the requirements of long duration and light weight. A possible solution to overcome these limits is the use of miniaturised fuel cell. The fuel cell offers a greater gravimetric energy density compared to conventional batteries. They are typically realised using an electrolyte material, usually a polymer membrane (proton exchange type), that is encapsulated between electrodes. Fuel cell ...

Learning to use the dictionary more easily, being able to study one's native language in an amusing way is possible ... Just by using Addizionario, a multimedia software for the primary school, realized at the Institute for Computational Linguistics, in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science of Turin University. The tool suggests innovative and appealing ways for improving the language and cognitive development of primary school children and novel ways of approaching the ...

Italy is one of the countries with the highest concentration of art in the world. Protection of this heritage requires the contribution of science and technology, and targeted funding. In response to a specific call for bids, in 2001 the consortium SIINDA (Sistemi Innovativi di Indagine e Diagnosi Assistita - innovative systems for computer-aided investigation and diagnosis) was set up to develop a research project bearing the same name. Consortium members are three private companies and four ...

A Heat-Pipe is basically a closed chamber, filled with a small quantity of the so-called "working fluids", depending on the field of temperature ad application needed, having a capillary structure placed or machined all along the inner walls. One end of the tube is externally heated, causing the inside liquid to vaporise and the vapour to move to the opposite end of the pipe. This part of the Heat-Pipe is cooled, in order to condense the vapour back to liquid. The condensed fluid returns back to ...

Catalytic combustion can be regarded as an intrinsically clean and safe technology which allows a primary air pollution control, since energy is produced with high efficiency burning fuel/air mixtures also outside the flammability limits, at operating temperatures far lower than those of flame combustion and without the instability problems and pollutants (CO, NOx, soot and unburned hydrocarbons) typical of the traditional processes (fig.1). Moreover the catalytic oxidative conversion of natural ...

Nitrogen oxide, carbonaceous particles and policyclic aromatic hydrocarbon produced in combustion processes are among the main responsible of pollution both on global scale, "greenhouse effect", and in the urban areas, effect on human health. A drastic reduction of such emission can be obtained by using a new combustion technology that allows for minimizing the maximum temperature reached during combustion processes by means of high concentration of diluent species, such as nitrogen, water or ...

Cyclic environmental changes have occurred during the last two million years. Living organisms react to changing phases through adaptation strategies, otherwise they get extinct. Forest trees are among the most ancient living organisms and in many cases they symbolise the last representatives of taxonomic units that underwent severe selection and/or extinction. The present distribution of trees in the forest landscape is the result of population dynamics experienced during the last millennia. In ...

New non-Viral Vectors for Gene Therapy The know how on amphiphilic aggregates such as micelles or liposomes allowed us to set up a program, in collaboration with other European groups, on the preparation of new lipidic vectors for complexing DNA for Gene Therapy. The program includes: a) the preparation of new cationic amphiphilic molecules to be used as components of liposomes formed by natural lipids; b) the morphological, physico chemical and biological characterization of the obtained ...

Several natural systems are characterized by a large number of agents, interacting only locally, whose individual actions produce a macroscopic organized behavior. Examples of this phenomenon are the collective motion of flocks of birds or schools of fishes, the functioning of multicellular biological organisms and genetic networks (Figure 1). All the above mentioned systems exhibit an emergent behavior stemming from local and simple coordination rules among the entities. The aim of this ...

Intervertebral disc degeneration, an inevitable process of aging, is one of the major causes of low back pain. Currently, there are two major surgical interventions for treating conditions related to the degenerative disc: discectomy and fusion. Although discectomy and fusion produce a relatively good short-term clinical results, both these surgical treatment alter the biomechanics of the spine, possibly leading to further degeneration of the surrounding tissues and the discs at adjacent level. ...

Agricultural and forestry tractors are equipped of quick-action hydraulic couplers designed to operate different implements used for agricultural and forestry works. Power supplied by engine can be easy conveyed by high pressure hydraulic fluid in pipes to rotary tools or to cylinders driving apparatus with linear movements on agricultural machinery pulled, pushed or carried by tractors. Higher available oil flow and the rising number of connections for fluid power present on modern agricultural ...

The increasing awareness of the impact of human activities on the Earth system has lead some authors to introduce a new term for the present geological era, calling it "the Anthropocene Era". The dimension, the spatial and temporal scale of changes due to human activity is unique in the human history. Biomass burning from vegetation fire is one of the major disturbances of natural terrestrial ecosystems: from boreal forests to temperate zones, from tropical savannas to equatorial ...

In the last years the problem of the non invasive monitoring of the environment have gained a great attention and in particular the diagnostic techniques based on fiber optic sensors play an important role. In fact, these sensors have small dimension, low cost, are immune to electromagnetic interference, are suitable for large scale monitoring networks, and are chemically and mechanically compatible with many materials. However, a typical fiber optic sensor permits only a local measurement of ...

The notable population and urban growth of last decades has determined the necessity to provide for a detailed monitoring program of urban zones in the geologic and environmental field; in such a context deformation monitoring represents a very critical problem. The particularity of this kind of area and the sensitivity of the context has induced to the development of detective methods as little as possible invading, in alternative to the classical geodetic methodology that has a direct contact ...

The Italian language in the new generation of Internet Even in the digital era, language remains the primary and most natural key to knowledge. In spite of the fact that English represented so far a kind of lingua franca of the Web, participation of national cultures to the development of the global information society can be measured through the quantity of documents in languages other than English available on the web. The steeply increasing amount of multilingual texts strongly ...

The Institute of Computational Linguistics (ILC) is historically in the van with respect to methodologies and tools for text processing, in particular for what concerns the area of "Digital Library for Social Sciences". One of the more interesting aspects of the Digital Library is represented by the word 'integration', both in the already well-known sense of 'multimedial integration' and in the sense of a fruitful co-operation among the various approaches to texts. In the last years, the ...

Industrialized nations' passing flirtation with asbestos has left a nasty legacy. Exposure to airborne asbestos fibrils causes in fact asbestosis and malignancies such as bronchogenic carcinoma and pleural mesothelioma. Although extraction and use of asbestos have been banned in many countries, substantial amounts of fibres have remained on sites previously occupied by dismissed asbestos industries. Cleaning up contaminated soil around defunct asbestos mines and factories is a lot harder than ...

In the framework of the research activities for industrial safety, the "Istituto di Ricerche sulla Combustione" identifies risks assessment concerning accident in industrial plants. Furthermore, it studies the related chemical-physical phenomena with a specific focus to thermal explosions of gaseous mixtures. These issues are important from both a scientific and practical point of view. In fact, by understanding the mechanisms leading to explosions and the analysis of the related risks is ...

Materials tailoring is dictated by the relevant development in structural ceramics of the last five years and the ever-increasing demand of high properties. This mean actions involving composition, structure and texture. In this respect, in 2002, ISTEC has carried out three distinct activities with the aim to develop innovative ceramic materials with specific and tailored properties. About composition, Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics (UHTC) have been developed, mainly based on borides and ...

New synthesis methods were set up exploiting the ability of biological systems to store and transfer informations at a molecular level. Through this approach, biomimetic composites based on collagen and hydroxyapatite were prepared, directly nucleating HA nanocrystals on self-assembling collagen fibers. The obtained composites are perfectly corresponding to the natural mineralised tissues (bone), with the mineral phase showing needle-shaped morphology, nanometric size and crystallites ...

Progress and technological evolution require an increasing amount of energy and the present shortage of the national production is alarming. An eventual contraction of the energy supplies would have negative repercussion on the national productive system. Possible answer comes by diversification of the energy sources, introduction of energy recovery strategies of industrial wastes and utilization of renewable sources. Of course, the development and the adaptation of energy generation and/or ...

In the last few years the debate on the impact of the new information and communication technologies (ICT) has shifted from the large firms to small ones, with particular emphasis on industrial districts Ceris' research has assessed how widespread ICT has become in the industrial districts of Piedmont (Biella, Canelli, Chieri, Cusio, Omegna, province of Turin and Valenza Po), involving all the companies with a turnover of over five million euros. On average, the industrial districts in Piedmont ...

The described application constitutes the first part of a project in which the experience on vehicle management, developed in the car field, is transferred to the heavy-duty vehicles, which use hydraulic systems for power transmission and motion generation. The project belongs to the activity area of the IMAMOTER institute directed to the evolution of power management systems for vehicles in the agricultural and earth-moving field. Mapping techniques and complex diagnosis systems have allowed ...