L’espace urbain indien dans la littérature européenne au XXème siecle. Pour une perspective post-orientaliste.

L'affermarsi della teoria della « imaginative geography » di Edward Saïd (Orientalism, 1978), nell'arco degli ultimi trent'anni, ha imposto un orientamento prettamente sociopolitico, gramsciano e foucaultiano alla critica del testo, proponendo un'unica soluzione interpretativa per un corpus eterogeneo di testi (scientifici e artistici, antichi e moderni) accomunati dal fatto di « rappresentare l'Oriente ». La costruzione europea dello spazio orientale, dice Saïd, non rappresenta solo un misconoscimento dell'Altro, ma una sua rappresentazione tendenziosa e finalizzata a sostenere la macchina dell'imperialismo occidentale. In particolare, la rappresentazione « femminilizzata » della geografia orientale (come luogo dell'exploit del maschio bianco) preparebbe e accompagnerebbe l'impresa di assoggettamento politico e di sfruttamento economico dei paesi ad Est dell'Europa. Se Orientalism ha conosciuto fortune alterne dall'anno della sua apparizione, negli ultimi anni una vera e propria corrente anti-saidiana ha preso forza, soprattutto in ambito francese. Attraverso l'analisi di circa trenta opere francesi, belga, inglesi e italiane del Novecento, questa tesi cerca di visualizzare i limiti teorici della prospettiva saidiana rivolgendosi a un esame della rappresentazione dello spazio urbano indiano nella letteratura europea contemporanea. Nello specifico, uno studio delle nuove strutture e dei nuovi modelli della femminilizzazione dello spazio orientale indiano cercherà di completare – superandolo in direzione di un « post-orientalismo » – il riduzionismo della prospettiva saidiana.

Robust Nonlinear Output Regulation by Identification Tools

The present thesis focuses on the problem of robust output regulation for minimum phase nonlinear systems by means of identification techniques. Given a controlled plant and an exosystem (an autonomous system that generates eventual references or disturbances), the control goal is to design a proper regulator able to process the only measure available, i.e the error/output variable, in order to make it asymptotically vanishing. In this context, such a regulator can be designed following the well known “internal model principle” that states how it is possible to achieve the regulation objective by embedding a replica of the exosystem model in the controller structure. The main problem shows up when the exosystem model is affected by parametric or structural uncertainties, in this case, it is not possible to reproduce the exact behavior of the exogenous system in the regulator and then, it is not possible to achieve the control goal. In this work, the idea is to find a solution to the problem trying to develop a general framework in which coexist both a standard regulator and an estimator able to guarantee (when possible) the best estimate of all uncertainties present in the exosystem in order to give “robustness” to the overall control loop.

Mathematical Optimization Applied to Thermal and Electrical Energy Systems

This Thesis aims at building and discussing mathematical models applications focused on Energy problems, both on the thermal and electrical side. The objective is to show how mathematical programming techniques developed within Operational Research can give useful answers in the Energy Sector, how they can provide tools to support decision making processes of Companies operating in the Energy production and distribution and how they can be successfully used to make simulations and sensitivity analyses to better understand the state of the art and convenience of a particular technology by comparing it with the available alternatives. The first part discusses the fundamental mathematical background followed by a comprehensive literature review about mathematical modelling in the Energy Sector. The second part presents mathematical models for the District Heating strategic network design and incremental network design. The objective is the selection of an optimal set of new users to be connected to an existing thermal network, maximizing revenues, minimizing infrastructure and operational costs and taking into account the main technical requirements of the real world application. Results on real and randomly generated benchmark networks are discussed with particular attention to instances characterized by big networks dimensions. The third part is devoted to the development of linear programming models for optimal battery operation in off-grid solar power schemes, with consideration of battery degradation. The key contribution of this work is the inclusion of battery degradation costs in the optimisation models. As available data on relating degradation costs to the nature of charge/discharge cycles are limited, we concentrate on investigating the sensitivity of operational patterns to the degradation cost structure. The objective is to investigate the combination of battery costs and performance at which such systems become economic. We also investigate how the system design should change when battery degradation is taken into account.

Fault detection, diagnosis and active fault tolerant control for a satellite attitude control system

Modern control systems are becoming more and more complex and control algorithms more and more sophisticated. Consequently, Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD) and Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) have gained central importance over the past decades, due to the increasing requirements of availability, cost efficiency, reliability and operating safety. This thesis deals with the FDD and FTC problems in a spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS). Firstly, the detailed nonlinear models of the spacecraft attitude dynamics and kinematics are described, along with the dynamic models of the actuators and main external disturbance sources. The considered ADCS is composed of an array of four redundant reaction wheels. A set of sensors provides satellite angular velocity, attitude and flywheel spin rate information. Then, general overviews of the Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI), Fault Estimation (FE) and Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) problems are presented, and the design and implementation of a novel diagnosis system is described. The system consists of a FDI module composed of properly organized model-based residual filters, exploiting the available input and output information for the detection and localization of an occurred fault. A proper fault mapping procedure and the nonlinear geometric approach are exploited to design residual filters explicitly decoupled from the external aerodynamic disturbance and sensitive to specific sets of faults. The subsequent use of suitable adaptive FE algorithms, based on the exploitation of radial basis function neural networks, allows to obtain accurate fault estimations. Finally, this estimation is actively exploited in a FTC scheme to achieve a suitable fault accommodation and guarantee the desired control performances. A standard sliding mode controller is implemented for attitude stabilization and control. Several simulation results are given to highlight the performances of the overall designed system in case of different types of faults affecting the ADCS actuators and sensors.

La diagnostica molecolare nel laboratorio di patologia clinica veterinaria

La prima parte del nostro studio riguarda la tecnica LAMP (Loop-mediated isothermal amplification), una tecnica di amplificazione isotermica recentemente inventata (Notomi et al., 2000). Essa presenta notevoli vantaggi rispetto alle tradizionali PCR: non necessita di strumentazioni sofisticate come i termociclatori, può essere eseguita da personale non specializzato, è una tecnica altamente sensibile e specifica ed è molto tollerante agli inibitori. Tutte queste caratteristiche fanno sì che essa possa essere utilizzata al di fuori dei laboratori diagnostici, come POCT (Point of care testing), con il vantaggio di non dover gestire la spedizione del campione e di avere in tempi molto brevi risultati paragonabili a quelli ottenuti con la tradizionale PCR. Sono state prese in considerazione malattie infettive sostenute da batteri che richiedono tempi molto lunghi per la coltivazione o che non sono addirittura coltivabili. Sono stati disegnati dei saggi per la diagnosi di patologie virali che necessitano di diagnosi tempestiva. Altri test messi a punto riguardano malattie genetiche del cane e due batteri d’interesse agro-alimentare. Tutte le prove sono state condotte con tecnica real-time per diminuire il rischio di cross-contaminazione pur riuscendo a comprendere in maniera approfondita l’andamento delle reazioni. Infine è stato messo a punto un metodo di visualizzazione colorimetrico utilizzabile con tutti i saggi messi a punto, che svincola completamente la reazione LAMP dall’esecuzione in un laboratorio specializzato. Il secondo capitolo riguarda lo studio dal punto di vista molecolare di un soggetto che presenza totale assenza di attività mieloperossidasica all’analisi di citochimica automatica (ADVIA® 2120 Hematology System). Lo studio è stato condotto attraverso amplificazione e confronto dei prodotti di PCR ottenuti sul soggetto patologico e su due soggetti con fenotipo wild-type. Si è poi provveduto al sequenziamento dei prodotti di PCR su sequenziatore automatico al fine di ricercare la mutazione responsabile della carenza di MPO nel soggetto indicato.

Design and Control of Robotic Hands

The application of dexterous robotic hands out of research laboratories has been limited by the intrinsic complexity that these devices present. This is directly reflected as an economically unreasonable cost and a low overall reliability. Within the research reported in this thesis it is shown how the problem of complexity in the design of robotic hands can be tackled, taking advantage of modern technologies (i.e. rapid prototyping), leading to innovative concepts for the design of the mechanical structure, the actuation and sensory systems. The solutions adopted drastically reduce the prototyping and production costs and increase the reliability, reducing the number of parts required and averaging their single reliability factors. In order to get guidelines for the design process, the problem of robotic grasp and manipulation by a dual arm/hand system has been reviewed. In this way, the requirements that should be fulfilled at hardware level to guarantee successful execution of the task has been highlighted. The contribution of this research from the manipulation planning side focuses on the redundancy resolution that arise in the execution of the task in a dexterous arm/hand system. In literature the problem of coordination of arm and hand during manipulation of an object has been widely analyzed in theory but often experimentally demonstrated in simplified robotic setup. Our aim is to cover the lack in the study of this topic and experimentally evaluate it in a complex system as a anthropomorphic arm hand system.

Classification algorithms for Intelligent Transport Systems

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) consists in the application of ICT to transport to offer new and improved services to the mobility of people and freights. While using ITS, travellers produce large quantities of data that can be collected and analysed to study their behaviour and to provide information to decision makers and planners. The thesis proposes innovative deployments of classification algorithms for Intelligent Transport System with the aim to support the decisions on traffic rerouting, bus transport demand and behaviour of two wheelers vehicles. The first part of this work provides an overview and a classification of a selection of clustering algorithms that can be implemented for the analysis of ITS data. The first contribution of this thesis is an innovative use of the agglomerative hierarchical clustering algorithm to classify similar travels in terms of their origin and destination, together with the proposal for a methodology to analyse drivers’ route choice behaviour using GPS coordinates and optimal alternatives. The clusters of repetitive travels made by a sample of drivers are then analysed to compare observed route choices to the modelled alternatives. The results of the analysis show that drivers select routes that are more reliable but that are more expensive in terms of travel time. Successively, different types of users of a service that provides information on the real time arrivals of bus at stop are classified using Support Vector Machines. The results shows that the results of the classification of different types of bus transport users can be used to update or complement the census on bus transport flows. Finally, the problem of the classification of accidents made by two wheelers vehicles is presented together with possible future application of clustering methodologies aimed at identifying and classifying the different types of accidents.

Models and Algorihtm for the Optimization of Real-World Routing and Logistics Problems

Logistics involves planning, managing, and organizing the flows of goods from the point of origin to the point of destination in order to meet some requirements. Logistics and transportation aspects are very important and represent a relevant costs for producing and shipping companies, but also for public administration and private citizens. The optimization of resources and the improvement in the organization of operations is crucial for all branches of logistics, from the operation management to the transportation. As we will have the chance to see in this work, optimization techniques, models, and algorithms represent important methods to solve the always new and more complex problems arising in different segments of logistics. Many operation management and transportation problems are related to the optimization class of problems called Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs). In this work, we consider several real-world deterministic and stochastic problems that are included in the wide class of the VRPs, and we solve them by means of exact and heuristic methods. We treat three classes of real-world routing and logistics problems. We deal with one of the most important tactical problems that arises in the managing of the bike sharing systems, that is the Bike sharing Rebalancing Problem (BRP). We propose models and algorithms for real-world earthwork optimization problems. We describe the 3DP process and we highlight several optimization issues in 3DP. Among those, we define the problem related to the tool path definition in the 3DP process, the 3D Routing Problem (3DRP), which is a generalization of the arc routing problem. We present an ILP model and several heuristic algorithms to solve the 3DRP.

NLGA based Active Control in Aerospace: fault tolerability, disturbance rejection, and parameter estimation

A new control scheme has been presented in this thesis. Based on the NonLinear Geometric Approach, the proposed Active Control System represents a new way to see the reconfigurable controllers for aerospace applications. The presence of the Diagnosis module (providing the estimation of generic signals which, based on the case, can be faults, disturbances or system parameters), mean feature of the depicted Active Control System, is a characteristic shared by three well known control systems: the Active Fault Tolerant Controls, the Indirect Adaptive Controls and the Active Disturbance Rejection Controls. The standard NonLinear Geometric Approach (NLGA) has been accurately investigated and than improved to extend its applicability to more complex models. The standard NLGA procedure has been modified to take account of feasible and estimable sets of unknown signals. Furthermore the application of the Singular Perturbations approximation has led to the solution of Detection and Isolation problems in scenarios too complex to be solved by the standard NLGA. Also the estimation process has been improved, where multiple redundant measuremtent are available, by the introduction of a new algorithm, here called "Least Squares - Sliding Mode". It guarantees optimality, in the sense of the least squares, and finite estimation time, in the sense of the sliding mode. The Active Control System concept has been formalized in two controller: a nonlinear backstepping controller and a nonlinear composite controller. Particularly interesting is the integration, in the controller design, of the estimations coming from the Diagnosis module. Stability proofs are provided for both the control schemes. Finally, different applications in aerospace have been provided to show the applicability and the effectiveness of the proposed NLGA-based Active Control System.

Meccanizzazione dei vigneti allevati a doppia cortina e a cordone libero

La ricerca svolta ha voluto approfondire le possibilità offerte dai sistemi di allevamento dei vigneti a Doppia Cortina (GDC) e a Cordone Libero nei riguardi della meccanizzazione. La ricerca ha considerato gli interventi di potatura invernale, di gestione della chioma (spollonatura, cimatura, defogliazione e pettinatura della doppia cortina) e di vendemmia. Un’operazione particolarmente seguita è stata la potatura invernale realizzando differenti livelli di meccanizzazione. Tutti gli interventi sono stati eseguiti sia manualmente che meccanicamente, confrontando i tempi d’impiego, la qualità del lavoro svolto e gli impegni di manodopera. I risultati sono stati sintetizzati in una valutazione economica, ipotizzando differenti livelli di costo della manodopera impiegata, per ottenere giudizi di convenienza per i singoli interventi e per costruire una valutazione completa e più organica della linea di lavoro proposta. Nelle due forme d’allevamento la meccanizzazione della potatura invernale e della gestione della chioma hanno rispettato pienamente gli obbiettivi tecnici prefissati, dimostrando di essere un valido mezzo per ridurre tempi e costi di gestione. Per questi interventi l’acquisto delle macchine risulta conveniente anche per vigneti di piccola dimensione. Ancor più evidenti in queste due forme d’allevamento sono i vantaggi economici offerti dalla vendemmia meccanica, realizzata con pochi maltrattamenti e perdite di prodotto. La tendenza a meccanizzare integralmente gli interventi di gestione del ciclo colturale della vite, può essere nei prossimi anni un motivo di interesse e di scelta nella realizzazione di nuovi impianti con queste due forme di allevamento, che hanno dimostrato di essere un’espressione completa di sinergia tra macchina e pianta.