Reconhecimento de voz para aplicações em automação implementado em FPGA

In many movies of scientific fiction, machines were capable of speaking with humans. However mankind is still far away of getting those types of machines, like the famous character C3PO of Star Wars. During the last six decades the automatic speech recognition systems have been the target of many studies. Throughout these years many technics were developed to be used in applications of both software and hardware. There are many types of automatic speech recognition system, among which the one used in this work were the isolated word and independent of the speaker system, using Hidden Markov Models as the recognition system. The goals of this work is to project and synthesize the first two steps of the speech recognition system, the steps are: the speech signal acquisition and the pre-processing of the signal. Both steps were developed in a reprogrammable component named FPGA, using the VHDL hardware description language, owing to the high performance of this component and the flexibility of the language. In this work it is presented all the theory of digital signal processing, as Fast Fourier Transforms and digital filters and also all the theory of speech recognition using Hidden Markov Models and LPC processor. It is also presented all the results obtained for each one of the blocks synthesized e verified in hardware

Implementação da metodologia TPM em uma indústria do setor de higiene pessoal, saúde e beleza

This work presents a project of Action Search in a consumption industry of the sector of personal care, health and beauty. Following the implementation steps of Autonomous Maintenance Pillar of TPM methodology, stands for Total Productive Maintenance, this work aims to ensure the advancement of some machines in a production line of the company to the next steps of the methodology implementation, demonstrating the results achieved by the TPM. In the company in question, the TPM has been implemented in the past but lost strength over the years and some of its concepts were abandoned, producing then a drop in the equipments efficiency, increased wastes and breaks in the processes, as well as loss in product quality. Then, the need arose to restart the implementation process from the beginning, to strictly follow all the steps of the methodology, ensuring increased efficiency of equipment and processes. Through training and a changing in the company culture, it was possible a joint effort between Operation and Maintenance in order to enhance the knowledge of the operators on their machines. Initially, it was developed a general cleanliness program of equipments so that it could be possible to find the anomalies in the process. Subsequently, operators and maintainers were trained to detect anomalies, enabling equipments to work under their basic conditions of operation and subsequently building provisional standards of equipment cleaning, lubrication and inspection. Through the improvement presented by some indicators such as OEE, wastes, bankruptcies and unavailability, it was proved the importance and the positive effects of TPM implementation in manufacturing

Um Estudo de caso sobre a fabricação de engrenagens

Human evolution has always been linked to personal or group needs. This statement is based on observations of the day to day. With time, we can now choose from among many excellent techniques and materials that can be employed in the construction of this part of the machinery so important to the functionality of machines and equipment. When we look at a machine, we see that this is usually designed by combining a set of pre-determined in your project. Among the many pieces that we can highlight one of them is of fundamental importance, the gear. Gears are an example of the mechanical devices used by the older man, and are currently the most important components in the transmission technique. This is responsible for transmitting rotary motion from one shaft to another. Gears are one of the best among the various means available for the transmission of motion. Gears are the most important components of modern technique of transmission. The main purpose of a transmission gear is precisely transmit torque and speed. The requirements have increased significantly due to pollution and energy conservation. Nowadays, gear transmissions are required to transmit high strength through all his life together with the high demand on performance and sound properties. An optimal design for the gear you need a set of the most modern fabrication machines and cutting tools. In the following work is studied on the manufacture of gears, making the monitoring of a case study of the try out the installation of a gear grinding machine

Identificação de parâmetros em sistemas rotativos utilizando funções de otimização e observadores de estado

Pós-graduação em Engenharia Mecânica - FEIS

The illuminist discourse of the digital divide: a critic to the Post-Fordist Informatic Mundaneum from Knoxville, Tennessee

This article discusses the project of the Information Society and the discourses that undergo it, as part of a political and ideological conception universalized by those countries that created and dominate computer technology, which is in turn is aligned with the Post-Fordist industrial capitalist order and its emphasis on economic accumulation and consumerism. We explain how information technology creates routines and legitimate social orders, taking for analyzes the case of the Clinton-Gore policy in the United States, when the discourse of the computer society was associated with the development and social welfare. This association is revealed in the speech made by Clinton in the city of Knoxville in year 1996. There we see the beginnings of the concern about the Digital Divide as a new form of "social disease" that prevents the passage to a better world, focused on productivity, accumulation and consumption in information-dense societies. This generates a clash between the industrial-graph-centric world and the oral-pre-industrial communities, as a result of attempting to transplant the institutional forms of the developed West. We explain the pillars of the new computerized order, and how they replaced previous epic narratives creating techno-deterministic or techno-phobic discourses in prejudice of more critical approaches. We identify the effects such deterministic discourses that connote the association between the Information Society, welfare and development, questioning the urgency of deploying this system at global level without profound critical discussion, clear goals focused on the benefit of the human beings, and the open participation of the users of the system.

Experimental investigation of gravitational gas separation in an inclined annular channel

The oil industry uses gas separators in production wells as the free gas present in the suction of the pump reduces the pumping efficiency and pump lifetime. Therefore, free gas is one of the most important variables in the design of pumping systems. However, in the literature there is little information on these separators. It is the case of the inverted-shroud gravitational gas separator. It has an annular geometry due to the installation of a cylindrical container in between the well casing and pioduction pipe (tubing). The purpose of the present study is to understand the phenomenology and behavior of inverted-shroud separator. Experimental tests were performed in a 10.5-m-length inclinable glass tube with air and water as working fluids. The water flow rate was in the range of 8.265-26.117 l/min and the average inlet air mass flow rate was 1.1041 kg/h, with inclination angles of 15 degrees, 30 degrees, 45 degrees, 60 degrees, 75 degrees, 80 degrees and 85 degrees. One of the findings is that the length between the inner annular level and production pipe inlet is one of the most important design parameters and based on that a new criterion for total gas separation is proposed. We also found that the phenomenology of the studied separator is not directly dependent on the gas flow rate, but on the average velocity of the free surface flow generated inside the separator. Maps of efficiency of gas separation were plotted and showed that liquid flow rate, inclination angle and pressure difference between casing and production pipe outlet are the main variables related to the gas separation phenomenon. The new data can be used for the development of design tools aiming to the optimized project of the pumping system for oil production in directional wells. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Algorithm for the treatment of type 2 diabetes: a position statement of Brazilian Diabetes Society

The Brazilian Diabetes Society is starting an innovative project of quantitative assessment of medical arguments of and implementing a new way of elaborating SBD Position Statements. The final aim of this particular project is to propose a new Brazilian algorithm for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, based on the opinions of endocrinologists surveyed from a poll conducted on the Brazilian Diabetes Society website regarding the latest algorithm proposed by American Diabetes Association /European Association for the Study of Diabetes, published in January 2009.

Purification, characterization and structural determination of chitinases produced by Moniliophthora perniciosa

The enzyme chitinase from Moniliophthora perniciosa the causative agent of the witches' broom disease in Theobroma cacao, was partially purified with ammonium sulfate and filtration by Sephacryl S-200 using sodium phosphate as an extraction buffer. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to determine the optimum pH and temperature conditions. Four different isoenzymes were obtained: ChitMp I, ChitMp II, ChitMp III and ChitMp IV. ChitMp I had an optimum temperature at 44-73ºC and an optimum pH at 7.0-8.4. ChitMp II had an optimum temperature at 45-73ºC and an optimum pH at 7.0-8.4. ChitMp III had an optimum temperature at 54-67ºC and an optimum pH at 7.3-8.8. ChitMp IV had an optimum temperature at 60ºC and an optimum pH at 7.0. For the computational biology, the primary sequence was determined in silico from the database of the Genome/Proteome Project of M. perniciosa, yielding a sequence with 564 bp and 188 amino acids that was used for the three-dimensional design in a comparative modeling methodology. The generated models were submitted to validation using Procheck 3.0 and ANOLEA. The model proposed for the chitinase was subjected to a dynamic analysis over a 1 ns interval, resulting in a model with 91.7% of the residues occupying favorable places on the Ramachandran plot and an RMS of 2.68.

Study of apoptotic deletion mediated by Bifidobacterium longum with construction of recombinant strains for Serpin encoding gene and phenotypes comparison in a pig cell model

The first part of the research project of the Co-Advisorship Ph.D Thesis was aimed to select the best Bifidobacterium longum strains suitable to set the basis of our study. We were looking for strains with the abilities to colonize the intestinal mucosa and with good adhesion capacities, so that we can test these strains to investigate their ability to induce apoptosis in “damaged” intestinal cells. Adhesion and apoptosis are the two process that we want to study to better understand the role of an adhesion protein that we have previously identified and that have top scores homologies with the recent serpin encoding gene identified in B. longum by Nestlè researchers. Bifidobacterium longum is a probiotic, known for its beneficial effects to the human gut and even for its immunomodulatory and antitumor activities. Recently, many studies have stressed out the intimate relation between probiotic bacteria and the GIT mucosa and their influence on human cellular homeostasis. We focused on the apoptotic deletion of cancer cells induced by B. longum. This has been valued in vitro, performing the incubation of three B.longum strains with enterocyte-like Caco- 2 cells, to evidence DNA fragmentation, a cornerstone of apoptosis. The three strains tested were defined for their adhesion properties using adhesion and autoaggregation assays. These features are considered necessary to select a probiotic strain. The three strains named B12, B18 and B2990 resulted respectively: “strong adherent”, “adherent” and “non adherent”. Then, bacteria were incubated with Caco-2 cells to investigate apoptotic deletion. Cocultures of Caco-2 cells with B. longum resulted positive in DNA fragmentation test, only when adherent strains were used (B12 and B18). These results indicate that the interaction with adherent B. longum can induce apoptotic deletion of Caco-2 cells, suggesting a role in cellular homeostasis of the gastrointestinal tract and in restoring the ecology of damaged colon tissues. These results were used to keep on researching and the strains tested were used as recipient of recombinant techniques aimed to originate new B.longum strains with enhanced capacity of apoptotic induction in “damaged” intestinal cells. To achieve this new goal it was decided to clone the serpin encoding gene of B. longum, so that we can understand its role in adhesion and apoptosis induction. Bifidobacterium longum has immunostimulant activity that in vitro can lead to apoptotic response of Caco-2 cell line. It secretes a hypothetical eukaryotic type serpin protein, which could be involved in this kind of deletion of damaged cells. We had previously characterised a protein that has homologies with the hypothetical serpin of B. longum (DD087853). In order to create Bifidobacterium serpin transformants, a B. longum cosmid library was screened with a PCR protocol using specific primers for serpin gene. After fragment extraction, the insert named S1 was sub-cloned into pRM2, an Escherichia coli - Bifidobacterium shuttle vector, to construct pRM3. Several protocols for B. longum transformation were performed and the best efficiency was obtained using MRS medium and raffinose. Finally bacterial cell supernatants were tested in a dotblot assay to detect antigens presence against anti-antitrypsin polyclonal antibody. The best signal was produced by one starin that has been renamed B. longum BLKS 7. Our research study was aimed to generate transformants able to over express serpin encoding gene, so that we can have the tools for a further study on bacterial apoptotic induction of Caco-2 cell line. After that we have originated new trasformants the next step to do was to test transformants abilities when exposed to an intestinal cell model. In fact, this part of the project was achieved in the Department of Biochemistry of the Medical Faculty of the University of Maribor, guest of the abroad supervisor of the Co-Advisorship Doctoral Thesis: Prof. Avrelija Cencic. In this study we examined the probiotic ability of some bacterial strains using intestinal cells from a 6 years old pig. The use of intestinal mammalian cells is essential to study this symbiosis and a functional cell model mimics a polarised epithelium in which enterocytes are separated by tight junctions. In this list of strains we have included the Bifidobacterium longum BKS7 transformant strain that we have previously originated; in order to compare its abilities. B. longum B12 wild type and B. longum BKS7 transformant and eight Lactobacillus strains of different sources were co-cultured with porcine small intestine epithelial cells (PSI C1) and porcine blood monocytes (PoM2) in Transwell filter inserts. The strains, including Lb. gasseri, Lb. fermentum, Lb. reuterii, Lb. plantarum and unidentified Lactobacillus from kenyan maasai milk and tanzanian coffee, were assayed for activation of cell lines, measuring nitric oxide by Griess reaction, H202 by tetramethylbenzidine reaction and O2 - by cytochrome C reduction. Cytotoxic effect by crystal violet staining and induction on metabolic activity by MTT cell proliferation assay were tested too. Transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) of polarised PSI C1 was measured during 48 hours co-culture. TER, used to observe epithelium permeability, decrease during pathogenesis and tissue becomes permeable to ion passive flow lowering epithelial barrier function. Probiotics can prevent or restore increased permeability. Lastly, dot-blot was achieved against Interleukin-6 of treated cells supernatants. The metabolic activity of PoM2 and PSI C1 increased slightly after co-culture not affecting mitochondrial functions. No strain was cytotoxic over PSI C1 and PoM2 and no cell activation was observed, as measured by the release of NO2, H202 and O2 - by PoM2 and PSI C1. During coculture TER of polarised PSI C1 was two-fold higher comparing with constant TER (~3000 ) of untreated cells. TER raise generated by bacteria maintains a low permeability of the epithelium. During treatment Interleukin-6 was detected in cell supernatants at several time points, confirming immunostimulant activity. All results were obtained using Lactobacillus paracasei Shirota e Carnobacterium divergens as controls. In conclusion we can state that both the list of putative probiotic bacteria and our new transformant strain of B. longum are not harmful when exposed to intestinal cells and could be selected as probiotics, because can strengthen epithelial barrier function and stimulate nonspecific immunity of intestinal cells on a pig cell model. Indeed, we have found out that none of the strains tested that have good adhesion abilities presents citotoxicity to the intestinal cells and that non of the strains tested can induce cell lines to produce high level of ROS, neither NO2. Moreover we have assayed even the capacity of producing certain citokynes that are correlated with immune response. The detection of Interleukin-6 was assayed in all our samples, including B.longum transformant BKS 7 strain, this result indicates that these bacteria can induce a non specific immune response in the intestinal cells. In fact, when we assayed the presence of Interferon-gamma in cells supernatant after bacterial exposure, we have no positive signals, that means that there is no activation of a specific immune response, thus confirming that these bacteria are not recognize as pathogen by the intestinal cells and are certainly not harmful for intestinal cells. The most important result is the measure of Trans Epithelial Electric Resistance that have shown how the intestinal barrier function get strengthen when cells are exposed to bacteria, due to a reduction of the epithelium permeability. We have now a new strain of B. longum that will be used for further studies above the mechanism of apoptotic induction to “damaged cells” and above the process of “restoring ecology”. This strain will be the basis to originate new transformant strains for Serpin encoding gene that must have better performance and shall be used one day even in clinical cases as in “gene therapy” for cancer treatment and prevention.

Mitochondrial Genomics: structure, inheritance and phylogenetic utility of the Mitochondrial genome in Bivalvia and Insecta

This PhD Thesis is the result of my research activity in the last three years. My main research interest was centered on the evolution of mitochondrial genome (mtDNA), and on its usefulness as a phylogeographic and phylogenetic marker at different taxonomic levels in different taxa of Metazoa. From a methodological standpoint, my main effort was dedicated to the sequencing of complete mitochondrial genomes, and the approach to whole-genome sequencing was based on the application of Long-PCR and shotgun sequences. Moreover, this research project is a part of a bigger sequencing project of mtDNAs in many different Metazoans’ taxa, and I mostly dedicated myself to sequence and analyze mtDNAs in selected taxa of bivalves and hexapods (Insecta). Sequences of bivalve mtDNAs are particularly limited, and my study contributed to extend the sampling. Moreover, I used the bivalve Musculista senhousia as model taxon to investigate the molecular mechanisms and the evolutionary significance of their aberrant mode of mitochondrial inheritance (Doubly Uniparental Inheritance, see below). In Insects, I focused my attention on the Genus Bacillus (Insecta Phasmida). A detailed phylogenetic analysis was performed in order to assess phylogenetic relationships within the genus, and to investigate the placement of Phasmida in the phylogenetic tree of Insecta. The main goal of this part of my study was to add to the taxonomic coverage of sequenced mtDNAs in basal insects, which were only partially analyzed.

"Water users must be efficient producers". Women's access to and use of land in Chókwè irrigation scheme, Mozambique

The irrigation scheme Eduardo Mondlane, situated in Chókwè District - in the Southern part of the Gaza province and within the Limpopo River Basin - is the largest in the country, covering approximately 30,000 hectares of land. Built by the Portuguese colonial administration in the 1950s to exploit the agricultural potential of the area through cash-cropping, after Independence it became one of Frelimo’s flagship projects aiming at the “socialization of the countryside” and at agricultural economic development through the creation of a state farm and of several cooperatives. The failure of Frelimo’s economic reforms, several infrastructural constraints and local farmers resistance to collective forms of production led to scheme to a state of severe degradation aggravated by the floods of the year 2000. A project of technical rehabilitation initiated after the floods is currently accompanied by a strong “efficiency” discourse from the managing institution that strongly opposes the use of irrigated land for subsistence agriculture, historically a major livelihood strategy for smallfarmers, particularly for women. In fact, the area has been characterized, since the end of the XIX century, by a stable pattern of male migration towards South African mines, that has resulted in an a steady increase of women-headed households (both de jure and de facto). The relationship between land reform, agricultural development, poverty alleviation and gender equality in Southern Africa is long debated in academic literature. Within this debate, the role of agricultural activities in irrigation schemes is particularly interesting considering that, in a drought-prone area, having access to water for irrigation means increased possibilities of improving food and livelihood security, and income levels. In the case of Chókwè, local governments institutions are endorsing the development of commercial agriculture through initiatives such as partnerships with international cooperation agencies or joint-ventures with private investors. While these business models can sometimes lead to positive outcomes in terms of poverty alleviation, it is important to recognize that decentralization and neoliberal reforms occur in the context of financial and political crisis of the State that lacks the resources to efficiently manage infrastructures such as irrigation systems. This kind of institutional and economic reforms risk accelerating processes of social and economic marginalisation, including landlessness, in particular for poor rural women that mainly use irrigated land for subsistence production. The study combines an analysis of the historical and geographical context with the study of relevant literature and original fieldwork. Fieldwork was conducted between February and June 2007 (where I mainly collected secondary data, maps and statistics and conducted preliminary visit to Chókwè) and from October 2007 to March 2008. Fieldwork methodology was qualitative and used semi-structured interviews with central and local Government officials, technical experts of the irrigation scheme, civil society organisations, international NGOs, rural extensionists, and water users from the irrigation scheme, in particular those women smallfarmers members of local farmers’ associations. Thanks to the collaboration with the Union of Farmers’ Associations of Chókwè, she has been able to participate to members’ meeting, to education and training activities addressed to women farmers members of the Union and to organize a group discussion. In Chókwè irrigation scheme, women account for the 32% of water users of the familiar sector (comprising plot-holders with less than 5 hectares of land) and for just 5% of the private sector. If one considers farmers’ associations of the familiar sector (a legacy of Frelimo’s cooperatives), women are 84% of total members. However, the security given to them by the land title that they have acquired through occupation is severely endangered by the use that they make of land, that is considered as “non efficient” by the irrigation scheme authority. Due to a reduced access to marketing possibilities and to inputs, training, information and credit women, in actual fact, risk to see their right to access land and water revoked because they are not able to sustain the increasing cost of the water fee. The myth of the “efficient producer” does not take into consideration the characteristics of inequality and gender discrimination of the neo-liberal market. Expecting small-farmers, and in particular women, to be able to compete in the globalized agricultural market seems unrealistic, and can perpetuate unequal gendered access to resources such as land and water.

Progetto e valutazione di una piattaforma sperimentale di Internet of Energy per veicoli elettrici

This dissertation deals with the development of a project concerning a demonstration in the scope of the Supply Chain 6 of the Internet of Energy (IoE) project: the Remote Monitoring Emulator, which bears my personal contribution in several sections. IoE is a project of international relevance, that means to establish an interoperability standard as regards the electric power production and utilization infrastructure, using Smart Space platforms. The future perspectives of IoE have to do with a platform for electrical power trade-of, the Smart Grid, whose energy is produced by decentralized renewable sources and whose services are exploited primarily according to the Internet of Things philosophy. The main consumers of this kind of smart technology will be Smart Houses (that is to say, buildings controlled by an autonomous system for electrical energy management that is interoperable with the Smart Grid) and Electric Mobility, that is a smart and automated management regarding movement and, overall, recharging of electrical vehicles. It is precisely in the latter case study that the project Remote Monitoring Emulator takes place. It consists in the development of a simulated platform for the management of an electrical vehicle recharging in a city. My personal contribution to this project lies in development and modeling of the simulation platform, of its counterpart in a mobile application and implementation of a city service prototype. This platform shall, ultimately, make up a demonstrator system exploiting the same device which a real user, inside his vehicle, would use. The main requirements that this platform shall satisfy will be interoperability, expandability and relevance to standards, as it needs to communicate with other development groups and to effectively respond to internal changes that can affect IoE.

Multicelled Behaviour in E. coli: Design and experimental characterization of an engineered library of hybrid promoters.

Synthetic biology has recently had a great development, many papers have been published and many applications have been presented, spanning from the production of biopharmacheuticals to the synthesis of bioenergetic substrates or industrial catalysts. But, despite these advances, most of the applications are quite simple and don’t fully exploit the potential of this discipline. This limitation in complexity has many causes, like the incomplete characterization of some components, or the intrinsic variability of the biological systems, but one of the most important reasons is the incapability of the cell to sustain the additional metabolic burden introduced by a complex circuit. The objective of the project, of which this work is part, is trying to solve this problem through the engineering of a multicellular behaviour in prokaryotic cells. This system will introduce a cooperative behaviour that will allow to implement complex functionalities, that can’t be obtained with a single cell. In particular the goal is to implement the Leader Election, this procedure has been firstly devised in the field of distributed computing, to identify the process that allow to identify a single process as organizer and coordinator of a series of tasks assigned to the whole population. The election of the Leader greatly simplifies the computation providing a centralized control. Further- more this system may even be useful to evolutionary studies that aims to explain how complex organisms evolved from unicellular systems. The work presented here describes, in particular, the design and the experimental characterization of a component of the circuit that solves the Leader Election problem. This module, composed of an hybrid promoter and a gene, is activated in the non-leader cells after receiving the signal that a leader is present in the colony. The most important element, in this case, is the hybrid promoter, it has been realized in different versions, applying the heuristic rules stated in [22], and their activity has been experimentally tested. The objective of the experimental characterization was to test the response of the genetic circuit to the introduction, in the cellular environment, of particular molecules, inducers, that can be considered inputs of the system. The desired behaviour is similar to the one of a logic AND gate in which the exit, represented by the luminous signal produced by a fluorescent protein, is one only in presence of both inducers. The robustness and the stability of this behaviour have been tested by changing the concentration of the input signals and building dose response curves. From these data it is possible to conclude that the analysed constructs have an AND-like behaviour over a wide range of inducers’ concentrations, even if it is possible to identify many differences in the expression profiles of the different constructs. This variability accounts for the fact that the input and the output signals are continuous, and so their binary representation isn’t able to capture the complexity of the behaviour. The module of the circuit that has been considered in this analysis has a fundamental role in the realization of the intercellular communication system that is necessary for the cooperative behaviour to take place. For this reason, the second phase of the characterization has been focused on the analysis of the signal transmission. In particular, the interaction between this element and the one that is responsible for emitting the chemical signal has been tested. The desired behaviour is still similar to a logic AND, since, even in this case, the exit signal is determined by the hybrid promoter activity. The experimental results have demonstrated that the systems behave correctly, even if there is still a substantial variability between them. The dose response curves highlighted that stricter constrains on the inducers concentrations need to be imposed in order to obtain a clear separation between the two levels of expression. In the conclusive chapter the DNA sequences of the hybrid promoters are analysed, trying to identify the regulatory elements that are most important for the determination of the gene expression. Given the available data it wasn’t possible to draw definitive conclusions. In the end, few considerations on promoter engineering and complex circuits realization are presented. This section aims to briefly recall some of the problems outlined in the introduction and provide a few possible solutions.

Pavement and alignment design of a new rural road in the province of Bologna

This thesis aims to give a general view of pavement types all over the world, by showing the different characteristics of each one and its different life steps starting from construction, passing by maintenance and arriving until recycling phase. The flexible pavement took the main part of this work because it has been used in the last part of this thesis to design a project of a rural road. This project is located in the province of Bologna-Italy (‘Comune di Argelato’, 26 km in the north of Bologna), and has 5677, 81 m of length. A pavement design was made using the program BISAR 3.0 and a fatigue life study was made, also, in order to estimate the number of loads (in terms of heavy vehicles axle) to cause road’s failure . An alignment design was made for this project and a safety study was established in order to check if the available sight distance at curves respects the safety norms or not, by comparing it to the stopping sight distance. Different technical sheets are demonstrated and several cases are discussed in order to clarify the main design principles and underline the main hazardous cases to be avoided especially at intersection. This latter, its type’s choice depends on several factors in order to make the suitable design according to the environmental data. At this part of the road, the safety is a primordial point due to the high accident rate in this zone. For this reason, different safety aspects are discussed especially at roundabouts, signalized intersections, and also some other common intersection types. The design and the safety norms are taken with reference to AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials), ACT (Transportation Association of Canada), and also according to Italian norms (Decreto Ministeriale delle Starde).

Social inclusion of vulnerable groups through participatory and emancipatory approaches. Implementing active citizenship and socially innovative actions in the framework of civil & human rights model of disability

The research hypothesis of the thesis is that “an open participation in the co-creation of the services and environments, makes life easier for vulnerable groups”; assuming that the participatory and emancipatory approaches are processes of possible actions and changes aimed at facilitating people’s lives. The adoption of these approaches is put forward as the common denominator of social innovative practices that supporting inclusive processes allow a shift from a medical model to a civil and human rights approach to disability. The theoretical basis of this assumption finds support in many principles of Inclusive Education and the main focus of the hypothesis of research is on participation and emancipation as approaches aimed at facing emerging and existing problems related to inclusion. The framework of reference for the research is represented by the perspectives adopted by several international documents concerning policies and interventions to promote and support the leadership and participation of vulnerable groups. In the first part an in-depth analysis of the main academic publications on the central themes of the thesis has been carried out. After investigating the framework of reference, the analysis focuses on the main tools of participatory and emancipatory approaches, which are able to connect with the concepts of active citizenship and social innovation. In the second part two case studies concerning participatory and emancipatory approaches in the areas of concern are presented and analyzed as example of the improvement of inclusion, through the involvement and participation of persons with disability. The research has been developed using a holistic and interdisciplinary approach, aimed at providing a knowledge-base that fosters a shift from a situation of passivity and care towards a new scenario based on the person’s commitment in the elaboration of his/her own project of life.