Processes Mapping in Cotton Culture to Traceability Creation

Traceability is a concept that arose from the need for monitoring of production processes, this concept is usually used in sectors related to food production or activities involving some kind of direct risk to people. Agribusiness in the cotton industry does not have a comprehensive infrastructure for all stages of the processes involved in production. Map and define the data to enable traceability of products is synonymous to delegate responsibilities for all involved in the production, the collection of aggregate data on cotton production is done in stages and specific pre-defined since the choice of the variety through the processing, the scope of this article specifically addresses the production of lint cotton. The paper presents a proposal based on service oriented architecture (SOA) for data integration processes in the cotton industry, this proposal provide support for the implementation of platform independent solutions.

Poli (metil azoteto de glicidila) - GAP. I: síntese e caracterização

O poli (metil azoteto de glicidila) - GAP - é um material energético que pode ser utilizado como aglutinante (binder) e como plastificante energético em compostos explosivos e propulsores de foguetes. Neste trabalho, foi abordada a síntese do (GAP) através da conversão direta da epicloridrina (ECH) a GAP. Os reagentes utilizados foram azida de sódio, epicloridrina e vários álcoois extensores de cadeias, o etanodiol, o 1,4-butanodiol, o dietilenoglicol e o glicerol. Alguns parâmetros de operação foram avaliados, como o tempo de reação, a proporção entre os reagentes, dois tipos de solvente e a ordem de adição dos reagentes. A variável observada para a análise foi a massa molecular do GAP. Todos os materiais sintetizados também foram caracterizados por análises de FTIR, UV, RMN, DSC, análise elementar e TGA. Uma maior massa molecular, maior rendimento e uma melhor conversão do grupo azida a GAP foram obtidos com a adição de epicloridrina sobre a azida de sódio e usando DMF como solvente.

Poli (metil azoteto de glicidila) - GAP. II: mecanismo de reação

O poli (metil azoteto de glicidila) - GAP - é um material energético que pode ser utilizado como aglutinante (binder) e como plastificante energético em compostos explosivos e propulsores de foguetes. O GAP de baixo peso molecular pode ser obtido pela conversão direta da epicloridrina (ECH) a GAP. Neste trabalho, é proposto um possível mecanismo para esta conversão direta, fundamentado em análises de infravermelho de espécies intermediárias.

Narrowing the gap of personalized medicine in emerging countries: the case of multiple endocrine neoplasias in Brazil

The finished version of the human genome sequence was completed in 2003, and this event initiated a revolution in medical practice, which is usually referred to as the age of genomic or personalized medicine. Genomic medicine aims to be predictive, personalized, preventive, and also participative (4Ps). It offers a new approach to several pathological conditions, although its impact so far has been more evident in mendelian diseases. This article briefly reviews the potential advantages of this approach, and also some issues that may arise in the attempt to apply the accumulated knowledge from genomic medicine to clinical practice in emerging countries. The advantages of applying genomic medicine into clinical practice are obvious, enabling prediction, prevention, and early diagnosis and treatment of several genetic disorders. However, there are also some issues, such as those related to: (a) the need for approval of a law equivalent to the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which was approved in 2008 in the USA; (b) the need for private and public funding for genetics and genomics; (c) the need for development of innovative healthcare systems that may substantially cut costs (e.g. costs of periodic medical followup); (d) the need for new graduate and postgraduate curricula in which genomic medicine is emphasized; and (e) the need to adequately inform the population and possible consumers of genetic testing, with reference to the basic aspects of genomic medicine.

La protezione dei diritti sociali nell'ordinamento dell'Unione Europea

This study deals with the protection of social rights in Europe and aims to outline the position currently held by these rights in the EU law. The first two chapters provide an overview of the regulatory framework in which the social rights lie, through the reorganisation of international sources. In particular the international instruments of protection of social rights are taken into account, both at the universal level, due to the activity of the United Nations Organisation and of its specialized agency, the International Labour Organization, and at a regional level, related to the activity of the Council of Europe. Finally an analysis of sources concludes with the reconstruction of the stages of the recognition of social rights in the EU. The second chapter describes the path followed by social rights in the EU: it examines the founding Treaties and subsequent amendments, the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers of 1989 and, in particularly, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the legal status of which was recently treated as the primary law by the Treaty of Lisbon signed in December 2007. The third chapter is, then, focused on the analysis of the substantive aspects of the recognition of the rights made by the EU: it provides a framework of the content and scope of the rights accepted in the Community law by the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is an important contribution to the location of the social rights among the fundamental and indivisible rights of the person. In the last section of the work, attention is focused on the two profiles of effectiveness and justiciability of social rights, in order to understand the practical implications of the gradual creation of a system of protection of these rights at Community level. Under the first profile, the discussion is focused on the effectiveness in the general context of the mechanisms of implementation of the “second generation” rights, with particular attention to the new instruments and actors of social Europe and the effect of the procedures of soft law. Second part of chapter four, finally, deals with the judicial protection of rights in question. The limits of the jurisprudence of the European Union Court of Justice are more obvious exactly in the field of social rights, due to the gap between social rights and other fundamental rights. While, in fact, the Community Court ensures the maximum level of protection to human rights and fundamental freedoms, social rights are often degraded into mere aspirations of EU institutions and its Member States. That is, the sources in the social field (European Social Charter and Community Charter) represent only the base for interpretation and application of social provisions of secondary legislation, unlike the ECHR, which is considered by the Court part of Community law. Moreover, the Court of Justice is in the middle of the difficult comparison between social values and market rules, of which it considers the need to make a balance: despite hesitancy to recognise the juridical character of social rights, the need of protection of social interests has justified, indeed, certain restrictions to the free movement of goods, freedom to provide services or to Community competition law. The road towards the recognition and the full protection of social rights in the European Union law appears, however, still long and hard, as shown by the recent judgments Laval and Viking, in which the Community court, while enhancing the Nice Charter, has not given priority to fundamental social rights, giving them the role of limits (proportionate and justified) of economic freedoms.

The gender wage gap in developing and transition countries

The aim of my dissertation is to study the gender wage gap with a specific focus on developing and transition countries. In the first chapter I present the main existing theories proposed to analyse the gender wage gap and I review the empirical literature on the gender wage gap in developing and transition countries and its main findings. Then, I discuss the overall empirical issues related to the estimation of the gender wage gap and the issues specific to developing and transition countries. The second chapter is an empirical analysis of the gender wage gap in a developing countries, the Union of Comoros, using data from the multidimensional household budget survey “Enquete integrale auprès des ménages” (EIM) run in 2004. The interest of my work is to provide a benchmark analysis for further studies on the situation of women in the Comorian labour market and to contribute to the literature on gender wage gap in Africa by making available more information on the dynamics and mechanism of the gender wage gap, given the limited interest on the topic in this area of the world. The third chapter is an applied analysis of the gender wage gap in a transition country, Poland, using data from the Labour Force Survey (LSF) collected for the years 1994 and 2004. I provide a detailed examination of how gender earning differentials have changed over the period starting from 1994 to a more advanced transition phase in 2004, when market elements have become much more important in the functioning of the Polish economy than in the earlier phase. The main contribution of my dissertation is the application of the econometrical methodology that I describe in the beginning of the second chapter. First, I run a preliminary OLS and quantile regression analysis to estimate and describe the raw and conditional wage gaps along the distribution. Second, I estimate quantile regressions separately for males and females, in order to allow for different rewards to characteristics. Third, I proceed to decompose the raw wage gap estimated at the mean through the Oaxaca-Blinder (1973) procedure. In the second chapter I run a two-steps Heckman procedure by estimating a model of participation in the labour market which shows a significant selection bias for females. Forth, I apply the Machado-Mata (2005) techniques to extend the decomposition analysis at all points of the distribution. In Poland I can also implement the Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1991) decomposition over the period 1994-2004, to account for effects to the pay gap due to changes in overall wage dispersion beyond Oaxaca’s standard decomposition.

Teaching and learning english phonetics and phonology in the EHEA through design and creation of audiovisual material at the ULPGC

[ES]In this paper we describe the procedure followed in the design and recording of a set of videos for teaching and learning ‘English phonetics and phonology’, a second-year undergraduate course at Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The student’s L1 is Spanish. Two different types of technological support were used: screencast and Powerpoint® presentations. The traditional whiteboard together with the lecturer’s presence also contributed both to the integrated learning of certain acoustic/articulatory aspects of the course contents and to the use of specific software for speech analysis. This video production owns the advantage of being an interactive and autonomous tool which favours a continuous learning process on the student’s side.

Study of silicon-on-insulator multiple-gate MOS structures including band-gap engineering and self heating effects

The progresses of electron devices integration have proceeded for more than 40 years following the well–known Moore’s law, which states that the transistors density on chip doubles every 24 months. This trend has been possible due to the downsizing of the MOSFET dimensions (scaling); however, new issues and new challenges are arising, and the conventional ”bulk” architecture is becoming inadequate in order to face them. In order to overcome the limitations related to conventional structures, the researchers community is preparing different solutions, that need to be assessed. Possible solutions currently under scrutiny are represented by: • devices incorporating materials with properties different from those of silicon, for the channel and the source/drain regions; • new architectures as Silicon–On–Insulator (SOI) transistors: the body thickness of Ultra-Thin-Body SOI devices is a new design parameter, and it permits to keep under control Short–Channel–Effects without adopting high doping level in the channel. Among the solutions proposed in order to overcome the difficulties related to scaling, we can highlight heterojunctions at the channel edge, obtained by adopting for the source/drain regions materials with band–gap different from that of the channel material. This solution allows to increase the injection velocity of the particles travelling from the source into the channel, and therefore increase the performance of the transistor in terms of provided drain current. The first part of this thesis work addresses the use of heterojunctions in SOI transistors: chapter 3 outlines the basics of the heterojunctions theory and the adoption of such approach in older technologies as the heterojunction–bipolar–transistors; moreover the modifications introduced in the Monte Carlo code in order to simulate conduction band discontinuities are described, and the simulations performed on unidimensional simplified structures in order to validate them as well. Chapter 4 presents the results obtained from the Monte Carlo simulations performed on double–gate SOI transistors featuring conduction band offsets between the source and drain regions and the channel. In particular, attention has been focused on the drain current and to internal quantities as inversion charge, potential energy and carrier velocities. Both graded and abrupt discontinuities have been considered. The scaling of devices dimensions and the adoption of innovative architectures have consequences on the power dissipation as well. In SOI technologies the channel is thermally insulated from the underlying substrate by a SiO2 buried–oxide layer; this SiO2 layer features a thermal conductivity that is two orders of magnitude lower than the silicon one, and it impedes the dissipation of the heat generated in the active region. Moreover, the thermal conductivity of thin semiconductor films is much lower than that of silicon bulk, due to phonon confinement and boundary scattering. All these aspects cause severe self–heating effects, that detrimentally impact the carrier mobility and therefore the saturation drive current for high–performance transistors; as a consequence, thermal device design is becoming a fundamental part of integrated circuit engineering. The second part of this thesis discusses the problem of self–heating in SOI transistors. Chapter 5 describes the causes of heat generation and dissipation in SOI devices, and it provides a brief overview on the methods that have been proposed in order to model these phenomena. In order to understand how this problem impacts the performance of different SOI architectures, three–dimensional electro–thermal simulations have been applied to the analysis of SHE in planar single and double–gate SOI transistors as well as FinFET, featuring the same isothermal electrical characteristics. In chapter 6 the same simulation approach is extensively employed to study the impact of SHE on the performance of a FinFET representative of the high–performance transistor of the 45 nm technology node. Its effects on the ON–current, the maximum temperatures reached inside the device and the thermal resistance associated to the device itself, as well as the dependence of SHE on the main geometrical parameters have been analyzed. Furthermore, the consequences on self–heating of technological solutions such as raised S/D extensions regions or reduction of fin height are explored as well. Finally, conclusions are drawn in chapter 7.

Untersuchungen von intrazellulären Signalwegen bei neuraler Determinierung und Differenzierung in vitro: Einfluß von GAP-43 und Bcl-2

Die PCC7-Mz1-Zellinie stellt ein geeignetes Modell dar, um frühe neurale Determinierungs- und Differenzierungsprozesse unter kontrollierten Bedingungen in vitro zu untersuchen. Aus pluripotenten Stammzellen entwickelt sich nach Behandlung mit dem Morphogen Retinsäure (RA) ein stabiles Muster aus Neuronen, Fibroblasten und Astroglia-Zellen. Parallel stirbt ein reproduzierbarer Anteil der Kultur apoptotisch. Zur näheren Aufklärung der molekularen Vorgänge während der neuralen Entwicklung wurde der Einfluß von zwei Schlüsselmolekülen - dem Proteinkinase C Substrat (PKC) GAP-43 sowie dem antiapoptotischen Bcl-2 Protein - auf die neurale Differenzierung und die damit assoziierten Apoptoseereignisse der PCC7-Mz1-Zellen untersucht. Dazu wurden stabile Zellinien, die eine Überexpression von GAP-43 bzw. von Bcl-2 aufwiesen, hergestellt. GAP-43In PCC7-Mz1-Zellen wurde die Expression von GAP-43 sowohl auf mRNA- als auch auf Protein-Ebene innerhalb von 24 Stunden nach Zugabe von RA hochreguliert. GAP-43 war bereits in noch proliferierenden neuronalen Vorläuferzellen als Substrat für PKC und als Interaktionspartner von Calmodulin funktionell. Die Überexpression von GAP-43 in PCC7-Mz1-Zellen förderte die Ausprägung des neuronalen Phänotyps. Das Differenzierungspotential der Mz-GAP-43 Klone war eingeschränkt, da sich nach Induktion mit RA aus den Stammzellen nur noch Neurone, aber keine Fibroblasten und Astroglia-Zellen mehr entwickelten. Die Determinierung für das neuronale Entwicklungsschicksal war in den Mz-GAP-43 Klonen stärker fortgeschritten als in MzN-Klonen, die durch Subklonierung aus PCC7-Mz1-Zellen generiert wurden, da die GAP-43 überexprimierenden Zellen durch Wachstum auf Laminin nicht in den pluripotenten Phänotyp revertiert werden konnten. Aufgrund der Interaktion zwischen GAP-43 und Calmodulin in Stammzellen der Mz-GAP-43 Klone kann man vermuten, daß die neuronalen Determinierungsprozesse über Ca2+/Calmodulin-abhängige Signalwege verlaufen. Da das Gen für den Transkriptionsfaktor NCNF (

Sistemi riconfigurabili a basso consumo per applicazioni di monitoraggio distribuito

The term Ambient Intelligence (AmI) refers to a vision on the future of the information society where smart, electronic environment are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people and their activities (Context awareness). In an ambient intelligence world, devices work in concert to support people in carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals in an easy, natural way using information and intelligence that is hidden in the network connecting these devices. This promotes the creation of pervasive environments improving the quality of life of the occupants and enhancing the human experience. AmI stems from the convergence of three key technologies: ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous communication and natural interfaces. Ambient intelligent systems are heterogeneous and require an excellent cooperation between several hardware/software technologies and disciplines, including signal processing, networking and protocols, embedded systems, information management, and distributed algorithms. Since a large amount of fixed and mobile sensors embedded is deployed into the environment, the Wireless Sensor Networks is one of the most relevant enabling technologies for AmI. WSN are complex systems made up of a number of sensor nodes which can be deployed in a target area to sense physical phenomena and communicate with other nodes and base stations. These simple devices typically embed a low power computational unit (microcontrollers, FPGAs etc.), a wireless communication unit, one or more sensors and a some form of energy supply (either batteries or energy scavenger modules). WNS promises of revolutionizing the interactions between the real physical worlds and human beings. Low-cost, low-computational power, low energy consumption and small size are characteristics that must be taken into consideration when designing and dealing with WSNs. To fully exploit the potential of distributed sensing approaches, a set of challengesmust be addressed. Sensor nodes are inherently resource-constrained systems with very low power consumption and small size requirements which enables than to reduce the interference on the physical phenomena sensed and to allow easy and low-cost deployment. They have limited processing speed,storage capacity and communication bandwidth that must be efficiently used to increase the degree of local ”understanding” of the observed phenomena. A particular case of sensor nodes are video sensors. This topic holds strong interest for a wide range of contexts such as military, security, robotics and most recently consumer applications. Vision sensors are extremely effective for medium to long-range sensing because vision provides rich information to human operators. However, image sensors generate a huge amount of data, whichmust be heavily processed before it is transmitted due to the scarce bandwidth capability of radio interfaces. In particular, in video-surveillance, it has been shown that source-side compression is mandatory due to limited bandwidth and delay constraints. Moreover, there is an ample opportunity for performing higher-level processing functions, such as object recognition that has the potential to drastically reduce the required bandwidth (e.g. by transmitting compressed images only when something ‘interesting‘ is detected). The energy cost of image processing must however be carefully minimized. Imaging could play and plays an important role in sensing devices for ambient intelligence. Computer vision can for instance be used for recognising persons and objects and recognising behaviour such as illness and rioting. Having a wireless camera as a camera mote opens the way for distributed scene analysis. More eyes see more than one and a camera system that can observe a scene from multiple directions would be able to overcome occlusion problems and could describe objects in their true 3D appearance. In real-time, these approaches are a recently opened field of research. In this thesis we pay attention to the realities of hardware/software technologies and the design needed to realize systems for distributed monitoring, attempting to propose solutions on open issues and filling the gap between AmI scenarios and hardware reality. The physical implementation of an individual wireless node is constrained by three important metrics which are outlined below. Despite that the design of the sensor network and its sensor nodes is strictly application dependent, a number of constraints should almost always be considered. Among them: • Small form factor to reduce nodes intrusiveness. • Low power consumption to reduce battery size and to extend nodes lifetime. • Low cost for a widespread diffusion. These limitations typically result in the adoption of low power, low cost devices such as low powermicrocontrollers with few kilobytes of RAMand tenth of kilobytes of program memory with whomonly simple data processing algorithms can be implemented. However the overall computational power of the WNS can be very large since the network presents a high degree of parallelism that can be exploited through the adoption of ad-hoc techniques. Furthermore through the fusion of information from the dense mesh of sensors even complex phenomena can be monitored. In this dissertation we present our results in building several AmI applications suitable for a WSN implementation. The work can be divided into two main areas:Low Power Video Sensor Node and Video Processing Alghoritm and Multimodal Surveillance . Low Power Video Sensor Nodes and Video Processing Alghoritms In comparison to scalar sensors, such as temperature, pressure, humidity, velocity, and acceleration sensors, vision sensors generate much higher bandwidth data due to the two-dimensional nature of their pixel array. We have tackled all the constraints listed above and have proposed solutions to overcome the current WSNlimits for Video sensor node. We have designed and developed wireless video sensor nodes focusing on the small size and the flexibility of reuse in different applications. The video nodes target a different design point: the portability (on-board power supply, wireless communication), a scanty power budget (500mW),while still providing a prominent level of intelligence, namely sophisticated classification algorithmand high level of reconfigurability. We developed two different video sensor node: The device architecture of the first one is based on a low-cost low-power FPGA+microcontroller system-on-chip. The second one is based on ARM9 processor. Both systems designed within the above mentioned power envelope could operate in a continuous fashion with Li-Polymer battery pack and solar panel. Novel low power low cost video sensor nodes which, in contrast to sensors that just watch the world, are capable of comprehending the perceived information in order to interpret it locally, are presented. Featuring such intelligence, these nodes would be able to cope with such tasks as recognition of unattended bags in airports, persons carrying potentially dangerous objects, etc.,which normally require a human operator. Vision algorithms for object detection, acquisition like human detection with Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification and abandoned/removed object detection are implemented, described and illustrated on real world data. Multimodal surveillance: In several setup the use of wired video cameras may not be possible. For this reason building an energy efficient wireless vision network for monitoring and surveillance is one of the major efforts in the sensor network community. Energy efficiency for wireless smart camera networks is one of the major efforts in distributed monitoring and surveillance community. For this reason, building an energy efficient wireless vision network for monitoring and surveillance is one of the major efforts in the sensor network community. The Pyroelectric Infra-Red (PIR) sensors have been used to extend the lifetime of a solar-powered video sensor node by providing an energy level dependent trigger to the video camera and the wireless module. Such approach has shown to be able to extend node lifetime and possibly result in continuous operation of the node.Being low-cost, passive (thus low-power) and presenting a limited form factor, PIR sensors are well suited for WSN applications. Moreover techniques to have aggressive power management policies are essential for achieving long-termoperating on standalone distributed cameras needed to improve the power consumption. We have used an adaptive controller like Model Predictive Control (MPC) to help the system to improve the performances outperforming naive power management policies.

In Between : The Gap of quality L'influenza dell'insegnamento di Gurdjieff nel teatro di Peter Brook, Decalan Donnellan e Robert Lepage

Il Lavoro é incentrato sull' influenza dell'insegnamento di G. I Gurdjieff sul teatro del novecento in particolare sul lavoro di Peter Brook, Declan Donnellan e Robert Lepage

Dalle feste di nozze alle orchestre di stato: Maria Lătărețu e l'invenzione della muzică populară

Le musiche “popolaresche” urbane, in genere trascurate nella letteratura etnomusicologica, sono state quasi completamente ignorate nel caso della Romania. Il presente studio si propone di colmare almeno in parte questa lacuna, indagando questo fenomeno musicale nella Bucarest degli anni Trenta e Quaranta del Novecento. Le musiche esaminate sono tuttavia inserite entro una cornice storica più ampia, che data a partire dalla fine del XVIII secolo, e messe in relazione con alcune produzioni di origine rurale che con queste hanno uno stretto rapporto. Il caso di Maria Lătărețu (1911-1972) si è rivelato particolarmente fecondo in questo senso, dal momento che la cantante apparteneva ad entrambi i versanti musicali, rurale e urbano, e nepadroneggiava con disinvoltura i rispettivi repertori. Dopo il suo trasferimento nella capitale, negli anni Trenta, è diventata una delle figure di maggior spicco di quel fenomeno noto come muzică populară (creazione musicale eminentemente urbana e borghese con radici però nel mondo delle musiche rurali). L’analisi del repertorio (o, per meglio dire, dei due repertori) della Lătărețu, anche nel confronto con repertori limitrofi, ha permesso di comprendere più da vicino alcuni dei meccanismi musicali alla base di questa creazione. Un genere musicale che non nasce dal nulla nel dopo-guerra, ma piuttosto continua una tradizione di musica urbana, caratterizzata in senso locale, ma influenzata dal modello della canzone europea occidentale, che data almeno dagli inizi del Novecento. Attraverso procedimenti in parte già collaudati da compositori colti che sin dal XIX secolo, in Romania come altrove, si erano cimentati con la creazione di melodie in stile popolare o nell’armonizzazione di musiche di provenienza contadina, le melodie rurali nel bagaglio della cantante venivano trasformate in qualcosa di inedito. Una trasformazione che, come viene dimostrato efficacemente nell’ultimo capitolo, non investe solo il livello superficiale, ma coinvolge in modo profondo la sintassi musicale.