Origin and variability of PM10 and atmospheric radiotracers at the WMO-GAW station of Mt. Cimone (1998-2011) and in the central Po Valley

Particulate matter is one of the main atmospheric pollutants, with a great chemical-environmental relevance. Improving knowledge of the sources of particulate matter and of their apportionment is needed to handle and fulfill the legislation regarding this pollutant, to support further development of air policy as well as air pollution management. Various instruments have been used to understand the sources of particulate matter and atmospheric radiotracers at the site of Mt. Cimone (44.18° N, 10.7° E, 2165 m asl), hosting a global WMO-GAW station. Thanks to its characteristics, this location is suitable investigate the regional and long-range transport of polluted air masses on the background Southern-Europe free-troposphere. In particular, PM10 data sampled at the station in the period 1998-2011 were analyzed in the framework of the main meteorological and territorial features. A receptor model based on back trajectories was applied to study the source regions of particulate matter. Simultaneous measurements of atmospheric radionuclides Pb-210 and Be-7 acquired together with PM10 have also been analysed to acquire a better understanding of vertical and horizontal transports able to affect atmospheric composition. Seasonal variations of atmospheric radiotracers have been studied both analysing the long-term time series acquired at the measurement site as well as by means of a state-of-the-art global 3-D chemistry and transport model. Advection patterns characterizing the circulation at the site have been identified by means of clusters of back-trajectories. Finally, the results of a source apportionment study of particulate matter carried on in a midsize town of the Po Valley (actually recognised as one of the most polluted European regions) are reported. An approach exploiting different techniques, and in particular different kinds of models, successfully achieved a characterization of the processes/sources of particulate matter at the two sites, and of atmospheric radiotracers at the site of Mt. Cimone.

L'alternanza scuola-lavoro al museo: una ricerca empirico-descrittiva in Emilia-Romagna

La tesi si propone di approfondire il tema dell’Alternanza scuola-lavoro (ASL) al museo, un ambito di interesse che ha ricevuto un’importante attenzione a seguito della promulgazione della L.107/2015. La legge ha, infatti, stabilito l’obbligatorietà per tutti gli studenti del triennio delle scuole secondarie di secondo grado di svolgere dei percorsi di ASL in contesti di lavoro differenti, con un esplicito riferimento a quello museale. Il contesto di riferimento scelto per la ricerca è l’Emilia-Romagna, una scelta fatta tenendo conto dell’impegno che la regione ha portato avanti, già dalla fine degli anni Novanta, in direzione di valorizzazione di percorsi integrati scuola-formazione professionale. La ricerca è partita dall’analisi della letteratura di riferimento sul rapporto istruzione-mondo del lavoro in ambito nazionale e internazionale e ha previsto due successive fasi: la prima con una esplorazione qualitativa del fenomeno su un campione ristretto di testimoni privilegiati, appartenenti all’ambito istituzionale, scolastico e museale mediante interviste; la seconda con un’esplorazione quantitativa del fenomeno tramite survey su un campione più ampio mediante la sommistrazione di questionari rivolti agli studenti e ai referenti e tutor ASL delle scuole e dei musei. Nello specifico l’analisi ha coinvolto 430 studenti di 28 scuole della regione che hanno partecipato a 495 percorsi di alternanza scuola-lavoro realizzati nel corso del triennio e a partire dall’anno scolastico 2015-2016. Inoltre hanno preso parte alla ricerca 56 referenti e tutor ASL di 45 scuole e 86 referenti e tutor ASL provenienti da 83 musei.

1° level of automation: the effectiveness of adaptive cruise control on driving and visual behaviour

The research activities have allowed the analysis of the driver assistance systems, called Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in relation to road safety. The study is structured according to several evaluation steps, related to definite on-site tests that have been carried out with different samples of users, according to their driving experience with the ACC. The evaluation steps concern: •The testing mode and the choice of suitable instrumentation to detect the driver’s behaviour in relation to the ACC. •The analysis modes and outputs to be obtained, i.e.: - Distribution of attention and inattention; - Mental workload; - The Perception-Reaction Time (PRT), the Time To Collision (TTC) and the Time Headway (TH). The main purpose is to assess the interaction between vehicle drivers and ADAS, highlighting the inattention and variation of the workloads they induce regarding the driving task. The research project considered the use of a system for monitoring visual behavior (ASL Mobile Eye-XG - ME), a powerful GPS that allowed to record the kinematic data of the vehicle (Racelogic Video V-BOX) and a tool for reading brain activity (Electroencephalographic System - EEG). Just during the analytical phase, a second and important research objective was born: the creation of a graphical interface that would allow exceeding the frame count limit, making faster and more effective the labeling of the driver’s points of view. The results show a complete and exhaustive picture of the vehicle-driver interaction. It has been possible to highlight the main sources of criticalities related to the user and the vehicle, in order to concretely reduce the accident rate. In addition, the use of mathematical-computational methodologies for the analysis of experimental data has allowed the optimization and verification of analytical processes with neural networks that have made an effective comparison between the manual and automatic methodology.