A 2-dimensional computational model to analyze the effects of cellular heterogeinity on cardiac pacemaking

The mechanical action of the heart is made possible in response to electrical events that involve the cardiac cells, a property that classifies the heart tissue between the excitable tissues. At the cellular level, the electrical event is the signal that triggers the mechanical contraction, inducing a transient increase in intracellular calcium which, in turn, carries the message of contraction to the contractile proteins of the cell. The primary goal of my project was to implement in CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture, an hardware architecture for parallel processing created by NVIDIA) a tissue model of the rabbit sinoatrial node to evaluate the heterogeneity of its structure and how that variability influences the behavior of the cells. In particular, each cell has an intrinsic discharge frequency, thus different from that of every other cell of the tissue and it is interesting to study the process of synchronization of the cells and look at the value of the last discharge frequency if they synchronized.

Aggregazione di dati con gestione a eventi su Node JS

L'obbiettivo di questa tesi è dimostrare che è attualmente possibile realizzare un sistema di aggregazione dati in grado di gestire un numero elevato di connessioni contemporanee con relativamente poco sforzo per lo sviluppatore grazie all'utilizzo di Node JS, piattaforma che utilizza internamente una gestione a eventi a livello di linguaggio di programmazione.

FS.js, una libreria file system per Node.js e HTML5

La tesi illustra le funzionalita e l'architettura di Node.js elencando e analizzando le caratteristiche che lo rendono un framework vincente nella sfida che il web attuale pone. La tesi comprende l'analisi e la descrizione del lavoro svolto per creare una libreria HTTP/ File system, integrata nel sistema di sviluppo cloud proprietario: Instant Developer , funzionante sia su Node.JS che sui browser che supportano appieno le nuove API File system di HTML 5. Particolare attenzione viene riservata per la descrizione della struttura della libreria, pensata per permettere all'utente dell'IDE di utilizzarla indifferentemente su server/browser senza preoccuparsi di chiamare metodi diversi. Fs.js permette di operare con file/cartelle, richieste HTTP in modo semplificato rispetto alle API Ufficiali dei rispettivi ambienti.

Design, fabrication and mechanical characterization of a structural node made using Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) technology

Additive Manufacturing (AM), also known as “3D printing”, is a recent production technique that allows the creation of three-dimensional elements by depositing multiple layers of material. This technology is widely used in various industrial sectors, such as automotive, aerospace and aviation. With AM, it is possible to produce particularly complex elements for which traditional techniques cannot be used. These technologies are not yet widespread in the civil engineering sector, which is slowly changing thanks to the advantages of AM, such as the possibility of realizing elements without geometric restrictions, with less material usage and a higher efficiency, in particular employing Wire-and-Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) technology. Buildings that benefit most from AM are all those structures designed using form-finding and free-form techniques. These include gridshells, where joints are the most critical and difficult elements to design, as the overall behaviour of the structure depends on them. It must also be considered that, during the design, the engineer must try to minimize the structure's own weight. Self-weight reductions can be achieved by Topological Optimization (TO) of the joint itself, which generates complex geometries that could not be made using traditional techniques. To sum up, weight reductions through TO combined with AM allow for several potential benefits, including economic ones. In this thesis, the roof of the British Museum is considered as a case study, analysing the gridshell structure of which a joint will be chosen to be designed and manufactured, using TO and WAAM techniques. Then, the designed joint will be studied in order to understand its structural behaviour in terms of stiffness and strength. Finally, a printing test will be performed to assess the production feasibility using WAAM technology. The computational design and fabrication stages were carried out at Technische Universität Braunschweig in Germany.