Perfils: Carlo Magnani

Carlo Magnani (1950) és arquitecte, rector de l'Institut Universitari d'Arquitectura de Venècia i professor extraordinari de Composició arquitectònica. Ha estat convidat a la Universitat de Girona, dins el cicle de conferències de l'EPS, per parlar del MOSE. Darrere de l'acrònim es presenta un pla complex per salvaguardar la llacuna de Venècia i evitar les inundacions que els temporals del sud provoquen a la ciutat. Com totes les grans obres públiques, el Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico té defensors i detractors. Magnani ha vingut a explicar què pot fer l'arquitectura per millorar una obra pensada des de l'enginyeria

Estimation of the probability of congestion using Monte Carlo method in OPS networks

In networks with small buffers, such as optical packet switching based networks, the convolution approach is presented as one of the most accurate method used for the connection admission control. Admission control and resource management have been addressed in other works oriented to bursty traffic and ATM. This paper focuses on heterogeneous traffic in OPS based networks. Using heterogeneous traffic and bufferless networks the enhanced convolution approach is a good solution. However, both methods (CA and ECA) present a high computational cost for high number of connections. Two new mechanisms (UMCA and ISCA) based on Monte Carlo method are proposed to overcome this drawback. Simulation results show that our proposals achieve lower computational cost compared to enhanced convolution approach with an small stochastic error in the probability estimation

A Monte Carlo method for accelerating the computation of animated radiosity sequences

Realistic rendering animation is known to be an expensive processing task when physically-based global illumination methods are used in order to improve illumination details. This paper presents an acceleration technique to compute animations in radiosity environments. The technique is based on an interpolated approach that exploits temporal coherence in radiosity. A fast global Monte Carlo pre-processing step is introduced to the whole computation of the animated sequence to select important frames. These are fully computed and used as a base for the interpolation of all the sequence. The approach is completely view-independent. Once the illumination is computed, it can be visualized by any animated camera. Results present significant high speed-ups showing that the technique could be an interesting alternative to deterministic methods for computing non-interactive radiosity animations for moderately complex scenarios

A Monte Carlo-Based Fiber Tracking Algorithm using Diffusion Tensor MRI

Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, which measures directional information of water diffusion in the brain, has emerged as a powerful tool for human brain studies. In this paper, we introduce a new Monte Carlo-based fiber tracking approach to estimate brain connectivity. One of the main characteristics of this approach is that all parameters of the algorithm are automatically determined at each point using the entropy of the eigenvalues of the diffusion tensor. Experimental results show the good performance of the proposed approach

Error and complexity of random walk Monte Carlo radiosity

The author studies the error and complexity of the discrete random walk Monte Carlo technique for radiosity, using both the shooting and gathering methods. The author shows that the shooting method exhibits a lower complexity than the gathering one, and under some constraints, it has a linear complexity. This is an improvement over a previous result that pointed to an O(n log n) complexity. The author gives and compares three unbiased estimators for each method, and obtains closed forms and bounds for their variances. The author also bounds the expected value of the mean square error (MSE). Some of the results obtained are also shown

La projecció d'un ideal estètic durant el Noucentisme. Josep Aragay i Blanchar (1889-1973)

"La projecció d'un ideal estètic durant el Noucentisme. Josep Aragay i Blanchar (1889-1973)" es el primer estudi integral dedicat a aquest artista i teòric del Noucentisme. La tesi analitza amb profunditat la trajectòria d’Aragay com a dibuixant, pintor, gravador i ceramista, però també com a poeta, professor i polític; a més del paper que va exercir com a crític, polemista i teòric de l’art. La tesi posa de manifest la labor artística i intel•lectual d’aquest personatge que va assumir, defensar i projectar, fins el final de la seva vida, aquell ideal estètic de signe mediterraneista i classitzant, que sorgia a Catalunya a principis del segle XX.

Manuel Brunet i Solà (1889-1956). El periodisme d'idees al servei de la "veritat personal"

This doctoral thesis deals with the intellectual biography of the writer and journalist Manuel Brunet (Vic, 1889, Figueres, 1956). It reconstructs the life and professional studies of the author, and the most important facets of his literature and journalism. In addition, it examines his literary texts. A special emphasis has been placed on the study of journalistic production of Brunet and on the analysis of the professional profile of the author. Examination and assessment of its production has been accurate, including a classification of the items and a comparison of his journalistic style with that of other contemporary authors, both Catalan (Josep Pla and Joseph M. de Sagarra), French (Charles Maurras and Léon Daudet) and English (GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc). The latter part of the work analysises the condition of "victor won" of Manuel Brunet after the Spanish Civil War, and how this author is an example of a whole generation of conservative Catalan nationalist witers who lived a difficult situation after the conflict.