Scaling up strategies of the chronic respiratory disease programme of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (Action Plan B3: Area 5)

Action Plan B3 of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA) focuses on the integrated care of chronic diseases. Area 5 (Care Pathways) was initiated using chronic respiratory diseases as a model. The chronic respiratory disease action plan includes (1) AIRWAYS integrated care pathways (ICPs), (2) the joint initiative between the Reference site MACVIA-LR (Contre les MAladies Chroniques pour un VIeillissement Actif) and ARIA (Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma), (3) Commitments for Action to the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing and the AIRWAYS ICPs network. It is deployed in collaboration with the World Health Organization Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory Diseases (GARD). The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing has proposed a 5-step framework for developing an individual scaling up strategy: (1) what to scale up: (1-a) databases of good practices, (1-b) assessment of viability of the scaling up of good practices, (1-c) classification of good practices for local replication and (2) how to scale up: (2-a) facilitating partnerships for scaling up, (2-b) implementation of key success factors and lessons learnt, including emerging technologies for individualised and predictive medicine. This strategy has already been applied to the chronic respiratory disease action plan of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing.

Conquerors, Brides and Concubines. Interfaith Relations and Social Power in Medieval Iberia.

As its title indicates, this book, which is divided into four chapters, seeks to provide an overview of “the diverse political, social and cultural functions that interfaith marriage alliances and other sexual encounters fulfilled within the overall dynamic of Christian- Muslim relations in the Iberian Peninsula during the medieval period, both within al- Andalus (…) and the expansionist Christian-dominated polities of the North” (4). In this sense, its chronological span reaches from the early eighth century (the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Muslims) to 1492 (the Christian conquest of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada)

Circadian Phase Control - Genetic Algorithm and Non-linear Control Approach

This paper deals with the phase control for Neurospora circadian rhythm. The nonlinear control, given by tuning the parameters (considered as controlled variables) in Neurospora dynamical model, allows the circadian rhythms tracking a reference one. When there are many parameters (e.g. 3 parameters in this paper) and their values are unknown, the adaptive control law reveals its weakness since the parameters converging and control objective must be guaranteed at the same time. We show that this problem can be solved using the genetic algorithm for parameters estimation. Once the unknown parameters are known, the phase control is performed by chaos synchronization technique.

Hairpin windings for high reliability and high power density electrical machines

In the last years the increasing demand of higher torque and power densities has led to the adoption of hairpin windings (HWs) in electrical machines, mainly in those intended for automotive applications. However, this winding topology is quite sensitive to AC losses, hence one of their main challenges is represented by their reduction. This work deals with different design aspects related to the enhancements of some performance figures of rotating electrical machines for traction applications, above all power density and reliability, mainly through the adoption of HWs.

Study and implementation of control strategies for polymerization processes assisted by atmospheric pressure plasma jets

In recent years, polymerization processes assisted by atmospheric pressure plasma jets (APPJs) have received increasing attention in numerous industrially relevant sectors since they allow to coat complex 3D substrates without requiring expensive vacuum systems. Therefore, advancing the comprehension of these processes has become a high priority topic of research. This PhD dissertation is focused on the study and the implementation of control strategies for a polymerization process assisted by an atmospheric pressure single electrode plasma jet. In the first section, a study of the validity of the Yasuda parameter (W/FM) as controlling parameter in the polymerization process assisted by the plasma jet and an aerosolized fluorinated silane precursor is proposed. The surface characterization of coatings deposited under different W/FM values reveals the presence of two very well-known deposition domains, thus suggesting the validity of W/FM as controlling parameter. In addition, the key role of the Yasuda parameter in the process is further demonstrated since coatings deposited under the same W/FM exhibit similar properties, regardless of how W/FM is obtained. In the second section, the development of a methodology for measuring the energy of reactions in the polymerization process assisted by the plasma jet and vaporized hexamethyldisiloxane is presented. The values of energy per precursor molecule are calculated through the identification and resolution of a proper equivalent electrical circuit. To validate the methodology, these energy values are correlated to the bond energies in the precursor molecule and to the properties of deposited thin films. It is shown that the precursor fragmentation in the discharge and the coating characteristics can be successfully explained according to the obtained values of energy per molecule. Through a detailed discussion of the limits and the potentialities of both the control strategies, this dissertation provides useful insights into the control of polymerization processes assisted by APPJs.

Development and characterization of cutting-edge equipment for EMC measurements and advanced power line filter design

This Doctoral Thesis aims at studying, developing, and characterizing cutting edge equipment for EMC measurements and proposing innovative and advanced power line filter design techniques. This document summarizes a three-year work, is strictly industry oriented and relies on EMC standards and regulations. It contains the main results, findings, and effort with the purpose of bringing innovative contributions at the scientific community. Conducted emissions interferences are usually suppressed with power line filters. These filters are composed by common mode chokes, X capacitors and Y capacitors in order to mitigate both the differential mode and common mode noise, which compose the overall conducted emissions. However, even at present days, available power line filter design techniques show several disadvantages. First of all, filters are designed to be implemented in ideal 50 Ω systems, condition which is far away from reality. Then, the attenuation introduced by the filter for common or differential mode noise is analyzed independently, without considering the possible mode conversion that can be produced by impedance mismatches, or asymmetries in either the power line filter itself or the equipment under test. Ultimately, the instrumentation used to perform conducted emissions measurement is, in most cases, not adequate. All these factors lead to an inaccurate design, contributing at increasing the size of the filter, making it more expensive and less performant than it should be.

Modeling and Model Predictive Control of an Industrial Hydraulic System

This thesis aims to illustrate the construction of a mathematical model of a hydraulic system, oriented to the design of a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm. The modeling procedure starts with the basic formulation of a piston-servovalve system. The latter is a complex non linear system with some unknown and not measurable effects that constitute a challenging problem for the modeling procedure. The first level of approximation for system parameters is obtained basing on datasheet informations, provided workbench tests and other data from the company. Then, to validate and refine the model, open-loop simulations have been made for data matching with the characteristics obtained from real acquisitions. The final developed set of ODEs captures all the main peculiarities of the system despite some characteristics due to highly varying and unknown hydraulic effects, like the unmodeled resistive elements of the pipes. After an accurate analysis, since the model presents many internal complexities, a simplified version is presented. The latter is used to linearize and discretize correctly the non linear model. Basing on that, a MPC algorithm for reference tracking with linear constraints is implemented. The results obtained show the potential of MPC in this kind of industrial applications, thus a high quality tracking performances while satisfying state and input constraints. The increased robustness and flexibility are evident with respect to the standard control techniques, such as PID controllers, adopted for these systems. The simulations for model validation and the controlled system have been carried out in a Python code environment.

Application of active and transfer learning to wound image segmentation

Wound management is a fundamental task in standard clinical practice. Automated solutions already exist for humans, but there is a lack of applications on wound management for pets. The importance of a precise and efficient wound assessment is helpful to improve diagnosis and to increase the effectiveness of treatment plans for the chronic wounds. The goal of the research was to propose an automated pipeline capable of segmenting natural light-reflected wound images of animals. Two datasets composed by light-reflected images were used in this work: Deepskin dataset, 1564 human wound images obtained during routine dermatological exams, with 145 manual annotated images; Petwound dataset, a set of 290 wound photos of dogs and cats with 0 annotated images. Two implementations of U-Net Convolutioal Neural Network model were proposed for the automated segmentation. Active Semi-Supervised Learning techniques were applied for human-wound images to perform segmentation from 10% of annotated images. Then the same models were trained, via Transfer Learning, adopting an Active Semi- upervised Learning to unlabelled animal-wound images. The combination of the two training strategies proved their effectiveness in generating large amounts of annotated samples (94% of Deepskin, 80% of PetWound) with the minimal human intervention. The correctness of automated segmentation were evaluated by clinical experts at each round of training thus we can assert that the results obtained in this thesis stands as a reliable solution to perform a correct wound image segmentation. The use of Transfer Learning and Active Semi-Supervied Learning allows to minimize labelling effort from clinicians, even requiring no starting manual annotation at all. Moreover the performances of the model with limited number of parameters suggest the implementation of smartphone-based application to this topic, helping the future standardization of light-reflected images as acknowledge medical images.

Loistehon tuottaminen painehiomon tahtimoottoreilla

Tämän työn tavoitteena on selvittää, millaisia häviöitä loistehon tuottaminen Stora Enson Anjalankosken tehtaiden hiomorakennuksessa sijaitsevilla kuudella 14 MW tahtimoottorilla aiheuttaa. Lähtötietoina käytettiin moottoreiden valmistajalta saatuja rkistotietoja ja niiden perusteella laadittiin äivitetty akselitehon ja loistehotuotannon ilaa kuvaava PQ-diagrammi digitaaliseen muotoon. Saatujen tulosten avulla on mahdollista suunnitella kustannustehokas tapa käyttää painehiomon tahtimoottoreita koko tehdasalueen loistehon säätöön.

20 kV ilmajohtoverkon maakaapeloinnin vaikutus maasulkusuojaukseen ja loistehotaseeseen

Sähkömarkkinalakimuutokset ovat ohjanneet useita verkkoyhtiötä muuttamaan investoin-tistrategioitaan. Kiristyneet toimitusvarmuusvaatimukset edellyttävät useilta verkkoyh-tiöiltä aiempaa suurempaa panostusta jakeluverkon kehittämiseksi. Toimitusvarmuusvaa-timusten täyttäminen edellyttää myös merkittäviä muutoksia verkkoyhtiöiden käyttämiin verkostotekniikoihin. Suurhäiriöille alttiita ilmajohtoja muutetaan verkkoyhtiöissä totuttua nopeammalla aikataululla maakaapeleiksi tiukentuneiden toimitusvarmuusvaatimusten täyttämiseksi. PKS Sähkönsiirto Oy:n 20 kV sähköverkko on ollut suurimmalta osalta avojohtoverkkoa jossa toimitusvarmuus ei ole nykyisellään muuttuneen sähkömarkkinalain asettamalla ta-solla. Tämä on johtanut verkostostrategian luomiseen, jossa yhtenä toimena toimitusvar-muuden lisäämiseksi vaaditulle tasolle on avojohtolinjojen korvaaminen maakaapeleilla. Maakaapelointien nopea rakennusaikataulu tuo monia haasteita verkkoyhtiöille. Maakaa-pelointien korkea maasulkuvirran ja loistehon tuotto verrattuna avojohtoverkkoon tulee huomioida yhtiössä verkkoa rakennettaessa. Tässä diplomityössä selvitetään PKS Sähkönsiirto Oy:n verkostostrategian mukaisten maakaapelointien vaikutuksia sähköverkolle. Työssä on arvioitu tavoiteverkon mukaisten maakaapeleiden aiheuttamaa maasulkuvirran ja loistehon tuoton tasoa. Tulosten perusteel-la on tehty johtopäätökset mihin verkkoyhtiön on kiinnitettävä huomioita kaapelointeja suunnitellessa ja toteuttaessa.

Propuesta de Instrumentos de Promoción Dd Inversión Directa en el Extranjero Enfocados en Encadenamientos Productivos

La Inversión Directa en el Exterior representa el proceso más grande hacia la internacionalización de las empresas después de las exportaciones. Tal proceso significa una mejora en la competitividad de las empresas, traducida en mayor penetración en el mercado internacional, acceso a mejores tecnologías, recursos naturales e investigación. Este proyecto de investigación pretende formular una propuesta de instrumentos o servicios de promoción de inversión directa en el exterior, enfocados en encadenamientos productivos. En un primer lugar, se establecerá el marco teórico bajo el cual se desarrollara el proyecto, mediante la recolección de información relevante en teorías de internacionalización y en la descripción de encadenamientos productivos y clúster. En segundo lugar, se presentara el entorno macroeconómico y la evolución de los flujos de inversión directa en el extranjero en Colombia y Latinoamérica. Y finalmente, se hará un estudio comparativo de los servicios prestados por las principales agencias de promoción de inversión, que servirá de base para la posterior formulación de la propuesta de instrumentos de promoción de inversión.

Esquemas alternativos para o passo de parametrização do método da continuação baseados em parâmetros físicos

O método de fluxo de carga convencional é considerado inadequado para se obter o ponto de máximo carregamento (PMC) de sistemas de potência, devido à singularidade da matriz Jacobiana neste ponto. Os métodos da continuação são ferramentas eficientes para a solução deste tipo de problema, visto que técnicas de parametrização podem ser utilizadas para evitar a singularidade da matriz Jacobiana. Neste trabalho, novas opções para a etapa de parametrização do método da continuação são apresentadas. Mostra-se que variáveis com claro significado físico podem ser utilizadas na etapa de parametrização. As seguintes variáveis foram testadas: perda total de potência ativa e reativa, potência ativa e reativa na barra de referência, potência reativa das barras de geração, e as perdas de potência ativa e reativa nas linhas de transmissão (LT). Além de facilitar a implementação computacional do método de continuação, as técnicas de parametrização apresentadas simplificam a definição matemática e o entendimento do método por parte de engenheiros de potência, visto que os métodos de continuação existentes na literatura sempre utilizam técnicas de parametrização complexas, e de interpretação puramente geométrica. Resultados obtidos com a nova metodologia para os sistemas testes do IEEE (14, 30, 57 e 118 barras) mostram que as características de convergência do método de fluxo de carga convencional são melhoradas na região do PMC. Além disso, durante o traçado das curvas PV, as diversas técnicas de parametrização podem ser comutadas entre si possibilitando o cálculo de todos os pontos da curva com um número reduzido de iterações. Diversos testes são realizados para proporcionar a comparação do desempenho dos esquemas de parametrização propostos.

Photoelastic analysis of forces generated by T-loop springs made with stainless steel or titanium-molybdenum alloy

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to use photoelastic analysis to compare the system of forces generated by retraction T-loop springs made with stainless steel and titanium-molybdenum alloy (TMA) (Ormco, Glendora, Calif) with photoelastic analysis. Methods: Three photoelastic models were used to evaluate retraction T-loop springs with the same preactivations in 2 groups. In group 1, the loop was constructed with a stainless steel wire, and 2 helicoids were incorporated on top of the T-loop; in group 2, it was made with TMA and no helicoids. Results: Upon using the qualitative analysis of the fringe order in the photoelastic model, it was observed that the magnitude of force generated by the springs in group 1 was significantly higher than that in group 2. However, both had symmetry for the active and reactive units related to the system of force. Conclusions: Both springs had the same mechanical characteristics. TMA springs showed lower force levels. (Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop 2011;140:e123-e128)

A specialized genetic algorithm to solve the short term transmission network expansion planning

In this paper, the short term transmission network expansion planning (STTNEP) is solved through a specialized genetic algorithm (SGA). A complete AC model of the transmission network is used, which permits the formulation of an integrated power system transmission network expansion planning problem (real and reactive power planning). The characteristics of the proposed SGA to solve the STTNEP problem are detailed and an interior point method is employed to solve nonlinear programming problems during the solution steps of the SGA. Results of tests carried out with two electrical energy systems show the capabilities of the SGA and also the viability of using the AC model to solve the STTNEP problem. © 2009 IEEE.