An ontology-based approach to define and manage B2B interoperability

Electronic business surely represents the new development perspective for world-wide trade. Together with the idea of ebusiness, and the exigency to exchange business messages between trading partners, the concept of business-to-business (B2B) integration arouse. B2B integration is becoming necessary to allow partners to communicate and exchange business documents, like catalogues, purchase orders, reports and invoices, overcoming architectural, applicative, and semantic differences, according to the business processes implemented by each enterprise. Business relationships can be very heterogeneous, and consequently there are variousways to integrate enterprises with each other. Moreover nowadays not only large enterprises, but also the small- and medium- enterprises are moving towards ebusiness: more than two-thirds of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) use the Internet as a business tool. One of the business areas which is actively facing the interoperability problem is that related with the supply chain management. In order to really allow the SMEs to improve their business and to fully exploit ICT technologies in their business transactions, there are three main players that must be considered and joined: the new emerging ICT technologies, the scenario and the requirements of the enterprises and the world of standards and standardisation bodies. This thesis presents the definition and the development of an interoperability framework (and the bounded standardisation intiatives) to provide the Textile/Clothing sectorwith a shared set of business documents and protocols for electronic transactions. Considering also some limitations, the thesis proposes a ontology-based approach to improve the functionalities of the developed framework and, exploiting the technologies of the semantic web, to improve the standardisation life-cycle, intended as the development, dissemination and adoption of B2B protocols for specific business domain. The use of ontologies allows the semantic modellisation of knowledge domains, upon which it is possible to develop a set of components for a better management of B2B protocols, and to ease their comprehension and adoption for the target users.

Multidimensional Measures of Firm Competitiveness: a Model-Based Approach

The concept of competitiveness, for a long time considered as strictly connected to economic and financial performances, evolved, above all in recent years, toward new, wider interpretations disclosing its multidimensional nature. The shift to a multidimensional view of the phenomenon has excited an intense debate involving theoretical reflections on the features characterizing it, as well as methodological considerations on its assessment and measurement. The present research has a twofold objective: going in depth with the study of tangible and intangible aspect characterizing multidimensional competitive phenomena by assuming a micro-level point of view, and measuring competitiveness through a model-based approach. Specifically, we propose a non-parametric approach to Structural Equation Models techniques for the computation of multidimensional composite measures. Structural Equation Models tools will be used for the development of the empirical application on the italian case: a model based micro-level competitiveness indicator for the measurement of the phenomenon on a large sample of Italian small and medium enterprises will be constructed.

Spatial based approach to fisheries management. An application to bottom trawling in the strait of Sicily

At the beginning of my thesis project, considering that some stocks are in overfishing status due to both high fishing effort and high level of juveniles in the catch, my main purpose was to understand how to contribute to improving the state of the fishery resources of the Mediterranean Sea. To mitigate the overfishing, the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) adopted several Fishery Restricted Areas, which are geographically defined areas where some specific fishing activities are temporarily or permanently banned or restricted in order to reduce the exploitation patterns and conservation of specific stocks as well as of habitats and deep-sea ecosystems, including the Essential Fish Habitats (EFH) and the Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VME). Considering that GFCM established 3 Fisheries Restricted Areas (FRAs) in the Strait of Sicily (SoS) in 2016 aimed at protecting the nursery areas of the deep-water rose shrimp (DPS, Parapenaeus longirostris – Lucas, 1846) and the European hake (HKE, Merluccius merluccius – Linnaeus, 1758) to reduce the exploitation pattern of undersized species, in my thesis project I devoted myself to evaluate the effect of the FRAs on the status stock and the fishery performance using a spatial bio-economic model.

Inference on copula-based correlation structures

We propose an extension of the approach provided by Kluppelberg and Kuhn (2009) for inference on second-order structure moments. As in Kluppelberg and Kuhn (2009) we adopt a copula-based approach instead of assuming normal distribution for the variables, thus relaxing the equality in distribution assumption. A new copula-based estimator for structure moments is investigated. The methodology provided by Kluppelberg and Kuhn (2009) is also extended considering the copulas associated with the family of Eyraud-Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern distribution functions (Kotz, Balakrishnan, and Johnson, 2000, Equation 44.73). Finally, a comprehensive simulation study and an application to real financial data are performed in order to compare the different approaches.

Linguistica Cognitiva e analisi retorica: indicazioni per un percorso sulla metafora nella didattica della lingua.

La tesi sviluppa le proposte teoriche della Linguistica Cognitiva a proposito della metafora e propone una loro possibile applicazione in ambito didattico. La linguistica cognitiva costituisce la cornice interpretativa della ricerca, a partire dai suoi concetti principali: la prospettiva integrata, l’embodiment, la centralità della semantica, l’attenzione per la psicolinguistica e le neuroscienze. All’interno di questo panorama, prende vigore un’idea di metafora come punto d’incontro tra lingua e pensiero, come criterio organizzatore delle conoscenze, strumento conoscitivo fondamentale nei processi di apprendimento. A livello didattico, la metafora si rivela imprescindibile sia come strumento operativo che come oggetto di riflessione. L’approccio cognitivista può fornire utili indicazioni su come impostare un percorso didattico sulla metafora. Nel presente lavoro, si indaga in particolare l’uso didattico di stimoli non verbali nel rafforzamento delle competenze metaforiche di studenti di scuola media. Si è scelto come materiale di partenza la pubblicità, per due motivi: il diffuso impiego di strategie retoriche in ambito pubblicitario e la specificità comunicativa del genere, che permette una chiara disambiguazione di fenomeni che, in altri contesti, non potrebbero essere analizzati con la stessa univocità. Si presenta dunque un laboratorio finalizzato al miglioramento della competenza metaforica degli studenti che si avvale di due strategie complementari: da una parte, una spiegazione ispirata ai modelli cognitivisti, sia nella terminologia impiegata che nella modalità di analisi (di tipo usage-based); dall’altra un training con metafore visive in pubblicità, che comprende una fase di analisi e una fase di produzione. È stato usato un test, suddiviso in compiti specifici, per oggettivare il più possibile i progressi degli studenti alla fine del training, ma anche per rilevare le difficoltà e i punti di forza nell’analisi rispetto sia ai contesti d’uso (letterario e convenzionale) sia alle forme linguistiche assunte dalla metafora (nominale, verbale, aggettivale).

Next-Generation Sequencing-Based Mutations Scanning Strategy of the BCR-ABL Kinase Domain in Patients with PhiladelPhia-Chromosome Positive Leukemias Treated with Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors

In chronic myeloid leukemia and Philadelphia-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients resistant to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), BCR-ABL kinase domain mutation status is an essential component of the therapeutic decision algorithm. The recent development of Ultra-Deep Sequencing approach (UDS) has opened the way to a more accurate characterization of the mutant clones surviving TKIs conjugating assay sensitivity and throughput. We decided to set-up and validated an UDS-based for BCR-ABL KD mutation screening in order to i) resolve qualitatively and quantitatively the complexity and the clonal structure of mutated populations surviving TKIs, ii) study the dynamic of expansion of mutated clones in relation to TKIs therapy, iii) assess whether UDS may allow more sensitive detection of emerging clones, harboring critical 2GTKIs-resistant mutations predicting for an impending relapse, earlier than SS. UDS was performed on a Roche GS Junior instrument, according to an amplicon sequencing design and protocol set up and validated in the framework of the IRON-II (Interlaboratory Robustness of Next-Generation Sequencing) International consortium.Samples from CML and Ph+ ALL patients who had developed resistance to one or multiple TKIs and collected at regular time-points during treatment were selected for this study. Our results indicate the technical feasibility, accuracy and robustness of our UDS-based BCR-ABL KD mutation screening approach. UDS was found to provide a more accurate picture of BCR-ABL KD mutation status, both in terms of presence/absence of mutations and in terms of clonal complexity and showed that BCR-ABL KD mutations detected by SS are only the “tip of iceberg”. In addition UDS may reliably pick 2GTKIs-resistant mutations earlier than SS in a significantly greater proportion of patients.The enhanced sensitivity as well as the possibility to identify low level mutations point the UDS-based approach as an ideal alternative to conventional sequencing for BCR-ABL KD mutation screening in TKIs-resistant Ph+ leukemia patients

Development of Mass Spectrometry-based analytical tools for characterization of bioconjugate vaccines in E. coli

Antigen design is generally driven by the need to obtain enhanced stability,efficiency and safety in vaccines.Unfortunately,the antigen modification is rarely proceeded in parallel with analytical tools development characterization.The analytical tools set up is required during steps of vaccine manufacturing pipeline,for vaccine production modifications,improvements or regulatory requirements.Despite the relevance of bioconjugate vaccines,robust and consistent analytical tools to evaluate the extent of carrier glycosylation are missing.Bioconjugation is a glycoengineering technology aimed to produce N-glycoprotein in vivo in E.coli cells,based on the PglB-dependent system by C. jejuni,applied for production of several glycoconjugate vaccines.This applicability is due to glycocompetent E. coli ability to produce site-selective glycosylated protein used,after few purification steps, as vaccines able to elicit both humoral and cell-mediate immune-response.Here, S.aureus Hla bioconjugated with CP5 was used to perform rational analytical-driven design of the glycosylation sites for the glycosylation extent quantification by Mass Spectrometry.The aim of the study was to develop a MS-based approach to quantify the glycosylation extent for in-process monitoring of bioconjugate production and for final product characterization.The three designed consensus sequences differ for a single amino-acid residue and fulfill the prerequisites for engineered bioconjugate more appropriate from an analytical perspective.We aimed to achieve an optimal MS detectability of the peptide carrying the consensus sequences,complying with the well-characterized requirements for N-glycosylation by PglB.Hla carrier isoforms,bearing these consensus sequences allowed a recovery of about 20 ng/μg of periplasmic protein glycosylated at 40%.The SRM-MS here developed was successfully applied to evaluate the differential site occupancy when carrier protein present two glycosites.The glycosylation extent in each glycosite was determined and the difference in the isoforms were influenced either by the overall source of protein produced and by the position of glycosite insertion.The analytical driven design of the bioconjugated antigen and the development of accurate,precise and robust analytical method allowed to finely characterize the vaccine.

MCAO for Extremely Large Telescopes: the cases of LBT and E-ELT

Several MCAO systems are under study to improve the angular resolution of the current and of the future generation large ground-based telescopes (diameters in the 8-40 m range). The subject of this PhD Thesis is embedded in this context. Two MCAO systems, in dierent realization phases, are addressed in this Thesis: NIRVANA, the 'double' MCAO system designed for one of the interferometric instruments of LBT, is in the integration and testing phase; MAORY, the future E-ELT MCAO module, is under preliminary study. These two systems takle the sky coverage problem in two dierent ways. The layer oriented approach of NIRVANA, coupled with multi-pyramids wavefront sensors, takes advantage of the optical co-addition of the signal coming from up to 12 NGS in a annular 2' to 6' technical FoV and up to 8 in the central 2' FoV. Summing the light coming from many natural sources permits to increase the limiting magnitude of the single NGS and to improve considerably the sky coverage. One of the two Wavefront Sensors for the mid- high altitude atmosphere analysis has been integrated and tested as a stand- alone unit in the laboratory at INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna and afterwards delivered to the MPIA laboratories in Heidelberg, where was integrated and aligned to the post-focal optical relay of one LINC-NIRVANA arm. A number of tests were performed in order to characterize and optimize the system functionalities and performance. A report about this work is presented in Chapter 2. In the MAORY case, to ensure correction uniformity and sky coverage, the LGS-based approach is the current baseline. However, since the Sodium layer is approximately 10 km thick, the articial reference source looks elongated, especially when observed from the edge of a large aperture. On a 30-40 m class telescope, for instance, the maximum elongation varies between few arcsec and 10 arcsec, depending on the actual telescope diameter, on the Sodium layer properties and on the laser launcher position. The centroiding error in a Shack-Hartmann WFS increases proportionally to the elongation (in a photon noise dominated regime), strongly limiting the performance. To compensate for this effect a straightforward solution is to increase the laser power, i.e. to increase the number of detected photons per subaperture. The scope of Chapter 3 is twofold: an analysis of the performance of three dierent algorithms (Weighted Center of Gravity, Correlation and Quad-cell) for the instantaneous LGS image position measurement in presence of elongated spots and the determination of the required number of photons to achieve a certain average wavefront error over the telescope aperture. An alternative optical solution to the spot elongation problem is proposed in Section 3.4. Starting from the considerations presented in Chapter 3, a first order analysis of the LGS WFS for MAORY (number of subapertures, number of detected photons per subaperture, RON, focal plane sampling, subaperture FoV) is the subject of Chapter 4. An LGS WFS laboratory prototype was designed to reproduce the relevant aspects of an LGS SH WFS for the E-ELT and to evaluate the performance of different centroid algorithms in presence of elongated spots as investigated numerically and analytically in Chapter 3. This prototype permits to simulate realistic Sodium proles. A full testing plan for the prototype is set in Chapter 4.

Creazione e sviluppo di corpora multimediali. Nuove metodologie di ricerca nella traduzione audiovisiva

The construction and use of multimedia corpora has been advocated for a while in the literature as one of the expected future application fields of Corpus Linguistics. This research project represents a pioneering experience aimed at applying a data-driven methodology to the study of the field of AVT, similarly to what has been done in the last few decades in the macro-field of Translation Studies. This research was based on the experience of Forlixt 1, the Forlì Corpus of Screen Translation, developed at the University of Bologna’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in Translation, Languages and Culture. As a matter of fact, in order to quantify strategies of linguistic transfer of an AV product, we need to take into consideration not only the linguistic aspect of such a product but all the meaning-making resources deployed in the filmic text. Provided that one major benefit of Forlixt 1 is the combination of audiovisual and textual data, this corpus allows the user to access primary data for scientific investigation, and thus no longer rely on pre-processed material such as traditional annotated transcriptions. Based on this rationale, the first chapter of the thesis sets out to illustrate the state of the art of research in the disciplinary fields involved. The primary objective was to underline the main repercussions on multimedia texts resulting from the interaction of a double support, audio and video, and, accordingly, on procedures, means, and methods adopted in their translation. By drawing on previous research in semiotics and film studies, the relevant codes at work in visual and acoustic channels were outlined. Subsequently, we concentrated on the analysis of the verbal component and on the peculiar characteristics of filmic orality as opposed to spontaneous dialogic production. In the second part, an overview of the main AVT modalities was presented (dubbing, voice-over, interlinguistic and intra-linguistic subtitling, audio-description, etc.) in order to define the different technologies, processes and professional qualifications that this umbrella term presently includes. The second chapter focuses diachronically on various theories’ contribution to the application of Corpus Linguistics’ methods and tools to the field of Translation Studies (i.e. Descriptive Translation Studies, Polysystem Theory). In particular, we discussed how the use of corpora can favourably help reduce the gap existing between qualitative and quantitative approaches. Subsequently, we reviewed the tools traditionally employed by Corpus Linguistics in regard to the construction of traditional “written language” corpora, to assess whether and how they can be adapted to meet the needs of multimedia corpora. In particular, we reviewed existing speech and spoken corpora, as well as multimedia corpora specifically designed to investigate Translation. The third chapter reviews Forlixt 1's main developing steps, from a technical (IT design principles, data query functions) and methodological point of view, by laying down extensive scientific foundations for the annotation methods adopted, which presently encompass categories of pragmatic, sociolinguistic, linguacultural and semiotic nature. Finally, we described the main query tools (free search, guided search, advanced search and combined search) and the main intended uses of the database in a pedagogical perspective. The fourth chapter lists specific compilation criteria retained, as well as statistics of the two sub-corpora, by presenting data broken down by language pair (French-Italian and German-Italian) and genre (cinema’s comedies, television’s soapoperas and crime series). Next, we concentrated on the discussion of the results obtained from the analysis of summary tables reporting the frequency of categories applied to the French-Italian sub-corpus. The detailed observation of the distribution of categories identified in the original and dubbed corpus allowed us to empirically confirm some of the theories put forward in the literature and notably concerning the nature of the filmic text, the dubbing process and Italian dubbed language’s features. This was possible by looking into some of the most problematic aspects, like the rendering of socio-linguistic variation. The corpus equally allowed us to consider so far neglected aspects, such as pragmatic, prosodic, kinetic, facial, and semiotic elements, and their combination. At the end of this first exploration, some specific observations concerning possible macrotranslation trends were made for each type of sub-genre considered (cinematic and TV genre). On the grounds of this first quantitative investigation, the fifth chapter intended to further examine data, by applying ad hoc models of analysis. Given the virtually infinite number of combinations of categories adopted, and of the latter with searchable textual units, three possible qualitative and quantitative methods were designed, each of which was to concentrate on a particular translation dimension of the filmic text. The first one was the cultural dimension, which specifically focused on the rendering of selected cultural references and on the investigation of recurrent translation choices and strategies justified on the basis of the occurrence of specific clusters of categories. The second analysis was conducted on the linguistic dimension by exploring the occurrence of phrasal verbs in the Italian dubbed corpus and by ascertaining the influence on the adoption of related translation strategies of possible semiotic traits, such as gestures and facial expressions. Finally, the main aim of the third study was to verify whether, under which circumstances, and through which modality, graphic and iconic elements were translated into Italian from an original corpus of both German and French films. After having reviewed the main translation techniques at work, an exhaustive account of possible causes for their non-translation was equally provided. By way of conclusion, the discussion of results obtained from the distribution of annotation categories on the French-Italian corpus, as well as the application of specific models of analysis allowed us to underline possible advantages and drawbacks related to the adoption of a corpus-based approach to AVT studies. Even though possible updating and improvement were proposed in order to help solve some of the problems identified, it is argued that the added value of Forlixt 1 lies ultimately in having created a valuable instrument, allowing to carry out empirically-sound contrastive studies that may be usefully replicated on different language pairs and several types of multimedia texts. Furthermore, multimedia corpora can also play a crucial role in L2 and translation teaching, two disciplines in which their use still lacks systematic investigation.

Neural basis of visual deficits recovery: visual residual functions and multisensory integration.

The ability of integrating into a unified percept sensory inputs deriving from different sensory modalities, but related to the same external event, is called multisensory integration and might represent an efficient mechanism of sensory compensation when a sensory modality is damaged by a cortical lesion. This hypothesis has been discussed in the present dissertation. Experiment 1 explored the role of superior colliculus (SC) in multisensory integration, testing patients with collicular lesions, patients with subcortical lesions not involving the SC and healthy control subjects in a multisensory task. The results revealed that patients with collicular lesions, paralleling the evidence of animal studies, demonstrated a loss of multisensory enhancement, in contrast with control subjects, providing the first lesional evidence in humans of the essential role of SC in mediating audio-visual integration. Experiment 2 investigated the role of cortex in mediating multisensory integrative effects, inducing virtual lesions by inhibitory theta-burst stimulation on temporo-parietal cortex, occipital cortex and posterior parietal cortex, demonstrating that only temporo-parietal cortex was causally involved in modulating the integration of audio-visual stimuli at the same spatial location. Given the involvement of the retino-colliculo-extrastriate pathway in mediating audio-visual integration, the functional sparing of this circuit in hemianopic patients is extremely relevant in the perspective of a multisensory-based approach to the recovery of unisensory defects. Experiment 3 demonstrated the spared functional activity of this circuit in a group of hemianopic patients, revealing the presence of implicit recognition of the fearful content of unseen visual stimuli (i.e. affective blindsight), an ability mediated by the retino-colliculo-extrastriate pathway and its connections with amygdala. Finally, Experiment 4 provided evidence that a systematic audio-visual stimulation is effective in inducing long-lasting clinical improvements in patients with visual field defect and revealed that the activity of the spared retino-colliculo-extrastriate pathway is responsible of the observed clinical amelioration, as suggested by the greater improvement observed in patients with cortical lesions limited to the occipital cortex, compared to patients with lesions extending to other cortical areas, found in tasks high demanding in terms of spatial orienting. Overall, the present results indicated that multisensory integration is mediated by the retino-colliculo-extrastriate pathway and that a systematic audio-visual stimulation, activating this spared neural circuit, is able to affect orientation towards the blind field in hemianopic patients and, therefore, might constitute an effective and innovative approach for the rehabilitation of unisensory visual impairments.

Il corpus DIRSI: creazione e sviluppo di un corpus elettronico per lo studio della direzionalità in interpretazione simultanea

Con questa tesi abbiamo messo a punto una metodologia per l'applicazione del "corpus-based approach" allo studio dell'interpretazione simultanea, creando DIRSI-C, un corpus elettronico parallelo (italiano-inglese) e allineato di trascrizioni di registrazioni tratte da convegni medici, mediati da interpreti simultaneisti. Poiché gli interpreti professionisti coinvolti hanno lavorato dalla lingua straniera alla loro lingua materna e viceversa, il fattore direzionalità è il parametro di analisi delle prestazioni degli interpreti secondo i metodi di indagine della linguistica dei corpora. In this doctoral thesis a methodology was developed to fully apply the corpus-based approach to simultaneous interpreting research. DIRSI-C is a parallel (Italian-English/English-Italian) and aligned electronic corpus, containing transcripts of recorded medical international conferences with professional simultaneous interpreters working both from and into their foreign language. Against this backdrop, directionality represents the research parameter used to analyze interpreters' performance by means of corpus linguistics tools.

A Design Methodology for Computer Security Testing

The field of "computer security" is often considered something in between Art and Science. This is partly due to the lack of widely agreed and standardized methodologies to evaluate the degree of the security of a system. This dissertation intends to contribute to this area by investigating the most common security testing strategies applied nowadays and by proposing an enhanced methodology that may be effectively applied to different threat scenarios with the same degree of effectiveness. Security testing methodologies are the first step towards standardized security evaluation processes and understanding of how the security threats evolve over time. This dissertation analyzes some of the most used identifying differences and commonalities, useful to compare them and assess their quality. The dissertation then proposes a new enhanced methodology built by keeping the best of every analyzed methodology. The designed methodology is tested over different systems with very effective results, which is the main evidence that it could really be applied in practical cases. Most of the dissertation discusses and proves how the presented testing methodology could be applied to such different systems and even to evade security measures by inverting goals and scopes. Real cases are often hard to find in methodology' documents, in contrary this dissertation wants to show real and practical cases offering technical details about how to apply it. Electronic voting systems are the first field test considered, and Pvote and Scantegrity are the two tested electronic voting systems. The usability and effectiveness of the designed methodology for electronic voting systems is proved thanks to this field cases analysis. Furthermore reputation and anti virus engines have also be analyzed with similar results. The dissertation concludes by presenting some general guidelines to build a coordination-based approach of electronic voting systems to improve the security without decreasing the system modularity.

Nonlinear Control Strategies for Cooperative Control of Multi-Robot Systems

This thesis deals with distributed control strategies for cooperative control of multi-robot systems. Specifically, distributed coordination strategies are presented for groups of mobile robots. The formation control problem is initially solved exploiting artificial potential fields. The purpose of the presented formation control algorithm is to drive a group of mobile robots to create a completely arbitrarily shaped formation. Robots are initially controlled to create a regular polygon formation. A bijective coordinate transformation is then exploited to extend the scope of this strategy, to obtain arbitrarily shaped formations. For this purpose, artificial potential fields are specifically designed, and robots are driven to follow their negative gradient. Artificial potential fields are then subsequently exploited to solve the coordinated path tracking problem, thus making the robots autonomously spread along predefined paths, and move along them in a coordinated way. Formation control problem is then solved exploiting a consensus based approach. Specifically, weighted graphs are used both to define the desired formation, and to implement collision avoidance. As expected for consensus based algorithms, this control strategy is experimentally shown to be robust to the presence of communication delays. The global connectivity maintenance issue is then considered. Specifically, an estimation procedure is introduced to allow each agent to compute its own estimate of the algebraic connectivity of the communication graph, in a distributed manner. This estimate is then exploited to develop a gradient based control strategy that ensures that the communication graph remains connected, as the system evolves. The proposed control strategy is developed initially for single-integrator kinematic agents, and is then extended to Lagrangian dynamical systems.

From fall-risk assessment to fall detection: inertial sensors in the clinical routine and daily life

Falls are caused by complex interaction between multiple risk factors which may be modified by age, disease and environment. A variety of methods and tools for fall risk assessment have been proposed, but none of which is universally accepted. Existing tools are generally not capable of providing a quantitative predictive assessment of fall risk. The need for objective, cost-effective and clinically applicable methods would enable quantitative assessment of fall risk on a subject-specific basis. Tracking objectively falls risk could provide timely feedback about the effectiveness of administered interventions enabling intervention strategies to be modified or changed if found to be ineffective. Moreover, some of the fundamental factors leading to falls and what actually happens during a fall remain unclear. Objectively documented and measured falls are needed to improve knowledge of fall in order to develop more effective prevention strategies and prolong independent living. In the last decade, several research groups have developed sensor-based automatic or semi-automatic fall risk assessment tools using wearable inertial sensors. This approach may also serve to detect falls. At the moment, i) several fall-risk assessment studies based on inertial sensors, even if promising, lack of a biomechanical model-based approach which could provide accurate and more detailed measurements of interests (e.g., joint moments, forces) and ii) the number of published real-world fall data of older people in a real-world environment is minimal since most authors have used simulations with healthy volunteers as a surrogate for real-world falls. With these limitations in mind, this thesis aims i) to suggest a novel method for the kinematics and dynamics evaluation of functional motor tasks, often used in clinics for the fall-risk evaluation, through a body sensor network and a biomechanical approach and ii) to define the guidelines for a fall detection algorithm based on a real-world fall database availability.

Measurement of the differential cross section of tt pairs in pp collision at sqrt(s) = 7TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

In this thesis three measurements of top-antitop differential cross section at an energy in the center of mass of 7 TeV will be shown, as a function of the transverse momentum, the mass and the rapidity of the top-antitop system. The analysis has been carried over a data sample of about 5/fb recorded with the ATLAS detector. The events have been selected with a cut based approach in the "one lepton plus jets" channel, where the lepton can be either an electron or a muon. The most relevant backgrounds (multi-jet QCD and W+jets) have been extracted using data driven methods; the others (Z+ jets, diboson and single top) have been simulated with Monte Carlo techniques. The final, background-subtracted, distributions have been corrected, using unfolding methods, for the detector and selection effects. At the end, the results have been compared with the theoretical predictions. The measurements are dominated by the systematic uncertainties and show no relevant deviation from the Standard Model predictions.