"Making Sense of Figures": Statistics, Computing and Information Technologies in Agriculture and Biology in Britain, 1920s-1960s

Throughout the twentieth century statistical methods have increasingly become part of experimental research. In particular, statistics has made quantification processes meaningful in the soft sciences, which had traditionally relied on activities such as collecting and describing diversity rather than timing variation. The thesis explores this change in relation to agriculture and biology, focusing on analysis of variance and experimental design, the statistical methods developed by the mathematician and geneticist Ronald Aylmer Fisher during the 1920s. The role that Fisher’s methods acquired as tools of scientific research, side by side with the laboratory equipment and the field practices adopted by research workers, is here investigated bottom-up, beginning with the computing instruments and the information technologies that were the tools of the trade for statisticians. Four case studies show under several perspectives the interaction of statistics, computing and information technologies, giving on the one hand an overview of the main tools – mechanical calculators, statistical tables, punched and index cards, standardised forms, digital computers – adopted in the period, and on the other pointing out how these tools complemented each other and were instrumental for the development and dissemination of analysis of variance and experimental design. The period considered is the half-century from the early 1920s to the late 1960s, the institutions investigated are Rothamsted Experimental Station and the Galton Laboratory, and the statisticians examined are Ronald Fisher and Frank Yates.

Nanotechnology control of self organized biomolecules and biomaterials for medical research

Nanotechnology entails the manufacturing and manipulation of matter at length scales ranging from single atoms to micron-sized objects. The ability to address properties on the biologically-relevant nanometer scale has made nanotechnology attractive for Nanomedicine. This is perceived as a great opportunity in healthcare especially in diagnostics, therapeutics and more in general to develop personalized medicine. Nanomedicine has the potential to enable early detection and prevention, and to improve diagnosis, mass screening, treatment and follow-up of many diseases. From the biological standpoint, nanomaterials match the typical size of naturally occurring functional units or components of living organisms and, for this reason, enable more effective interaction with biological systems. Nanomaterials have the potential to influence the functionality and cell fate in the regeneration of organs and tissues. To this aim, nanotechnology provides an arsenal of techniques for intervening, fabricate, and modulate the environment where cells live and function. Unconventional micro- and nano-fabrication techniques allow patterning biomolecules and biocompatible materials down to the level of a few nanometer feature size. Patterning is not simply a deterministic placement of a material; in a more extended acception it allows a controlled fabrication of structures and gradients of different nature. Gradients are emerging as one of the key factors guiding cell adhesion, proliferation, migration and even differentiation in the case of stem cells. The main goal of this thesis has been to devise a nanotechnology-based strategy and tools to spatially and temporally control biologically-relevant phenomena in-vitro which are important in some fields of medical research.

Sense of Community in contexts of multi culture

The theme “Belongingness” has a central role in the current debate on Community Psychology and in daily life. To try to understand the consequences of these changes, the research focuses on the concept of Sense of Community. In fact, Sense of Community has always been a central tool (Sarason, 1974; MacMillan & Chavis, 1986) to study communities (McMillan, 2011; Nowell & Boyd, 2011) and for a long time has represented positive values and something to aspire to. However, current debates indicate that Sense of Community is an outmoded concept and underline the problematic issue of “promotion of Sense of Community” in contexts of multi culture. The aim of the present research is to analyze Sense of Community in context of multi culture, as we consider that it can still be a fundamental tool to study and understand communities. In particular we are interested in understanding the role of Multiple Sense of Community (Brodsky, 2009) on Identity and Wellbeing (and its dimensions). We focused on a specific context, the Station Zone in Reggio Emilia, that is characterized by high levels of cultural diversity and different social problems (Giovannini & Vezzali, 2011). The research is developed and divided into two parts. The first part consists of an exploratory qualitative study that analyzes meanings of community among leaders of different ethnic groups living in the Station Zone. The second part consists of a “General Model” study and four parallel studies to analyze Multiple Sense of Community in different ethnic groups (Albanians, Moroccans, Chinese and Italians. The results indicate the different role of Multiple SOC in the relation between Identity and Wellbeing, in particular the relevance of Relational SOC and its different implications. Moreover, the factor “culture” represents an significant element in order to consider differences among ethnic groups.

Enhancement of Trajectory Determination of Orbiter Spacecraft by Using Pairs of Planetary Optical Images

The subject of the present thesis is about the enhancement of orbiter spacecraft navigation capabilities obtained by the standard radiometric link, taking advantage of an imaging payload and making use of a novel definition of optical measurements. An ESA Mission to Mercury called BepiColombo, was selected as a reference case for this study, and in particular its Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), because of the presence of SIMBIO-SYS, an instrument suite part of the MPO payload, capable of acquiring high resolution images of the surface of Mercury. The use of optical measurements for navigation, can provide complementary informations with respect to Doppler, for enhanced performances or a relaxation of the radio tracking requisites in term of ground station schedule. Classical optical techniques based on centroids, limbs or landmarks, were the base to a novel idea for optical navigation, inspired by concepts of stereoscopic vision. In brief, the relation between two overlapped images acquired by a nadir pointed orbiter spacecraft at different times, was defined, and this information was then formulated into an optical measurement, to be processed by a navigation filter. The formulation of this novel optical observable is presented, moreover the analysis of the possible impact on the mission budget and images scheduling is addressed. Simulations are conducted using an orbit determination software already in use for spacecraft navigation in which the proposed optical measurements were implemented and the final results are given.