Valutazione del rischio ecologico e sviluppo di strategie innovative per il monitoraggio della qualita’ dei corpi idrici: applicazione di un nuovo approccio integrato in un bacino pilota.

Freshwater is extremely precious; but even more precious than freshwater is clean freshwater. From the time that 2/3 of our planet is covered in water, we have contaminated our globe with chemicals that have been used by industrial activities over the last century in a unprecedented way causing harm to humans and wildlife. We have to adopt a new scientific mindset in order to face this problem so to protect this important resource. The Water Framework Directive (European Parliament and the Council, 2000) is a milestone legislative document that transformed the way that water quality monitoring is undertaken across all Member States by introducing the Ecological and Chemical Status. A “good or higher” Ecological Status is expected to be achieved for all waterbodies in Europe by 2015. Yet, most of the European waterbodies, which are determined to be at risk, or of moderate to bad quality, further information will be required so that adequate remediation strategies can be implemented. To date, water quality evaluation is based on five biological components (phytoplankton, macrophytes and benthic algae, macroinvertebrates and fishes) and various hydromorphological and physicochemical elements. The evaluation of the chemical status is principally based on 33 priority substances and on 12 xenobiotics, considered as dangerous for the environment. This approach takes into account only a part of the numerous xenobiotics that can be present in surface waters and could not evidence all the possible causes of ecotoxicological stress that can act in a water section. The mixtures of toxic chemicals may constitute an ecological risk not predictable on the basis of the single component concentration. To improve water quality, sources of contamination and causes of ecological alterations need to be identified. On the other hand, the analysis of the community structure, which is the result of multiple processes, including hydrological constrains and physico-chemical stress, give back only a “photograph” of the actual status of a site without revealing causes and sources of the perturbation. A multidisciplinary approach, able to integrate the information obtained by different methods, such as community structure analysis and eco-genotoxicological studies, could help overcome some of the difficulties in properly identifying the different causes of stress in risk assessment. In synthesis, the river ecological status is the result of a combination of multiple pressures that, for management purposes and quality improvement, have to be disentangled from each other. To reduce actual uncertainty in risk assessment, methods that establish quantitative links between levels of contamination and community alterations are needed. The analysis of macrobenthic invertebrate community structure has been widely used to identify sites subjected to perturbation. Trait-based descriptors of community structure constitute a useful method in ecological risk assessment. The diagnostic capacity of freshwater biomonitoring could be improved by chronic sublethal toxicity testing of water and sediment samples. Requiring an exposure time that covers most of the species’ life cycle, chronic toxicity tests are able to reveal negative effects on life-history traits at contaminant concentrations well below the acute toxicity level. Furthermore, the responses of high-level endpoints (growth, fecundity, mortality) can be integrated in order to evaluate the impact on population’s dynamics, a highly relevant endpoint from the ecological point of view. To gain more accurate information about potential causes and consequences of environmental contamination, the evaluation of adverse effects at physiological, biochemical and genetic level is also needed. The use of different biomarkers and toxicity tests can give information about the sub-lethal and toxic load of environmental compartments. Biomarkers give essential information about the exposure to toxicants, such as endocrine disruptor compounds and genotoxic substances whose negative effects cannot be evidenced by using only high-level toxicological endpoints. The increasing presence of genotoxic pollutants in the environment has caused concern regarding the potential harmful effects of xenobiotics on human health, and interest on the development of new and more sensitive methods for the assessment of mutagenic and cancerogenic risk. Within the WFD, biomarkers and bioassays are regarded as important tools to gain lines of evidence for cause-effect relationship in ecological quality assessment. Despite the scientific community clearly addresses the advantages and necessity of an ecotoxicological approach within the ecological quality assessment, a recent review reports that, more than one decade after the publication of the WFD, only few studies have attempted to integrate ecological water status assessment and biological methods (namely biomarkers or bioassays). None of the fifteen reviewed studies included both biomarkers and bioassays. The integrated approach developed in this PhD Thesis comprises a set of laboratory bioassays (Daphnia magna acute and chronic toxicity tests, Comet Assay and FPG-Comet) newly-developed, modified tacking a cue from standardized existing protocols or applied for freshwater quality testing (ecotoxicological, genotoxicological and toxicogenomic assays), coupled with field investigations on macrobenthic community structures (SPEAR and EBI indexes). Together with the development of new bioassays with Daphnia magna, the feasibility of eco-genotoxicological testing of freshwater and sediment quality with Heterocypris incongruens was evaluated (Comet Assay and a protocol for chronic toxicity). However, the Comet Assay, although standardized, was not applied to freshwater samples due to the lack of sensitivity of this species observed after 24h of exposure to relatively high (and not environmentally relevant) concentrations of reference genotoxicants. Furthermore, this species demonstrated to be unsuitable also for chronic toxicity testing due to the difficult evaluation of fecundity as sub-lethal endpoint of exposure and complications due to its biology and behaviour. The study was applied to a pilot hydrographic sub-Basin, by selecting section subjected to different levels of anthropogenic pressure: this allowed us to establish the reference conditions, to select the most significant endpoints and to evaluate the coherence of the responses of the different lines of evidence (alteration of community structure, eco-genotoxicological responses, alteration of gene expression profiles) and, finally, the diagnostic capacity of the monitoring strategy. Significant correlations were found between the genotoxicological parameter Tail Intensity % (TI%) and macrobenthic community descriptors SPEAR (p<0.001) and EBI (p<0.05), between the genotoxicological parameter describing DNA oxidative stress (ΔTI%) and mean levels of nitrates (p<0.01) and between reproductive impairment (Failed Development % from D. magna chronic bioassays) and TI% (p<0.001) as well as EBI (p<0.001). While correlation among parameters demonstrates a general coherence in the response to increasing impacts, the concomitant ability of each single endpoint to be responsive to specific sources of stress is at the basis of the diagnostic capacity of the integrated approach as demonstrated by stations presenting a mismatch among the different lines of evidence. The chosen set of bioassays, as well as the selected endpoints, are not providing redundant indications on the water quality status but, on the contrary, are contributing with complementary pieces of information about the several stressors that insist simultaneously on a waterbody section providing this monitoring strategy with a solid diagnostic capacity. Our approach should provide opportunities for the integration of biological effects into monitoring programmes for surface water, especially in investigative monitoring. Moreover, it should provide a more realistic assessment of impact and exposure of aquatic organisms to contaminants. Finally this approach should provide an evaluation of drivers of change in biodiversity and its causalities on ecosystem function/services provision, that is the direct and indirect contributions to human well-being.

Articulating wider smartphone emerging security issues in the case of M-government in Turkey

For the last several years, mobile devices and platform security threats, including wireless networking technology, have been top security issues. A departure has occurred from automatic anti-virus software based on traditional PC defense: risk management (authentication and encryption), compliance, and disaster recovery following polymorphic viruses and malware as the primary activities within many organizations and government services alike. This chapter covers research in Turkey as a reflection of the current market – e-government started officially in 2008. This situation in an emerging country presents the current situation and resistances encountered while engaging with mobile and e-government interfaces. The authors contend that research is needed to understand more precisely security threats and most of all potential solutions for sustainable future intention to use m-government services. Finally, beyond m-government initiatives' success or failure, the mechanisms related to public administration mobile technical capacity building and security issues are discussed.

May the contact lens force be with you

FULL TEXT: Like many people one of my favourite pastimes over the holiday season is to watch the great movies that are offered on the television channels and new releases in the movie theatres or catching up on those DVDs that you have been wanting to watch all year. Recently we had the new ‘Star Wars’ movie, ‘The Force Awakens’, which is reckoned to become the highest grossing movie of all time, and the latest offering from James Bond, ‘Spectre’ (which included, for the car aficionados amongst you, the gorgeous new Aston Martin DB10). It is always amusing to see how vision correction or eye injury is dealt with by movie makers. Spy movies and science fiction movies have a freehand to design aliens with multiples eyes on stalks or retina scanning door locks or goggles that can see through walls. Eye surgery is usually shown in some kind of day case simplified laser treatment that gives instant results, apart from the great scene in the original ‘Terminator’ movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger's android character encounters an injury to one eye and then proceeds to remove the humanoid covering to this mechanical eye over a bathroom sink. I suppose it is much more difficult to try and include contact lenses in such movies. Although you may recall the film ‘Charlie's Angels’, which did have a scene where one of the Angels wore a contact lens that had a retinal image imprinted on it so she could by-pass a retinal scan door lock and an Eddy Murphy spy movie ‘I-Spy’, where he wore contact lenses that had electronic gadgetry that allowed whatever he was looking at to be beamed back to someone else, a kind of remote video camera device. Maybe we aren’t quite there in terms of devices available but these things are probably not the behest of science fiction anymore as the technology does exist to put these things together. The technology to incorporate electronics into contact lenses is being developed and I am sure we will be reporting on it in the near future. In the meantime we can continue to enjoy the unrealistic scenes of eye swapping as in the film ‘Minority Report’ (with Tom Cruise). Much more closely to home, than in a galaxy far far away, in this issue you can find articles on topics much nearer to the closer future. More and more optometrists in the UK are becoming registered for therapeutic work as independent prescribers and the number is likely to rise in the near future. These practitioners will be interested in the review paper by Michael Doughty, who is a member of the CLAE editorial panel (soon to be renamed the Jedi Council!), on prescribing drugs as part of the management of chronic meibomian gland dysfunction. Contact lenses play an active role in myopia control and orthokeratology has been used not only to help provide refractive correction but also in the retardation of myopia. In this issue there are three articles related to this topic. Firstly, an excellent paper looking at the link between higher spherical equivalent refractive errors and the association with slower axial elongation. Secondly, a paper that discusses the effectiveness and safety of overnight orthokeratology with high-permeability lens material. Finally, a paper that looks at the stabilisation of early adult-onset myopia. Whilst we are always eager for new and exciting developments in contact lenses and related instrumentation in this issue of CLAE there is a demonstration of a novel and practical use of a smartphone to assisted anterior segment imaging and suggestions of this may be used in telemedicine. It is not hard to imagine someone taking an image remotely and transmitting that back to a central diagnostic centre with the relevant expertise housed in one place where the information can be interpreted and instruction given back to the remote site. Back to ‘Star Wars’ and you will recall in the film ‘The Phantom Menace’ when Qui-Gon Jinn first meets Anakin Skywalker on Tatooine he takes a sample of his blood and sends a scan of it back to Obi-Wan Kenobi to send for analysis and they find that the boy has the highest midichlorian count ever seen. On behalf of the CLAE Editorial board (or Jedi Council) and the BCLA Council (the Senate of the Republic) we wish for you a great 2016 and ‘may the contact lens force be with you’. Or let me put that another way ‘the CLAE Editorial Board and BCLA Council, on behalf of, a great 2016, we wish for you!’

Detecting and monitoring the symptoms of Parkinson's disease using smartphones:a pilot study

Background: Remote, non-invasive and objective tests that can be used to support expert diagnosis for Parkinson's disease (PD) are lacking. Methods: Participants underwent baseline in-clinic assessments, including the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and were provided smartphones with an Android operating system that contained a smartphone application that assessed voice, posture, gait, finger tapping, and response time. Participants then took the smart phones home to perform the five tasks four times a day for a month. Once a week participants had a remote (telemedicine) visit with a Parkinson disease specialist in which a modified (excluding assessments of rigidity and balance) UPDRS performed. Using statistical analyses of the five tasks recorded using the smartphone from 10 individuals with PD and 10 controls, we sought to: (1) discriminate whether the participant had PD and (2) predict the modified motor portion of the UPDRS. Results: Twenty participants performed an average of 2.7 tests per day (68.9% adherence) for the study duration (average of 34.4 days) in a home and community setting. The analyses of the five tasks differed between those with Parkinson disease and those without. In discriminating participants with PD from controls, the mean sensitivity was 96.2% (SD 2%) and mean specificity was 96.9% (SD 1.9%). The mean error in predicting the modified motor component of the UPDRS (range 11-34) was 1.26 UPDRS points (SD 0.16). Conclusion: Measuring PD symptoms via a smartphone is feasible and has potential value as a diagnostic support tool.

Mobile Applications for Cultural and Historical Places

A review of free applications of smartphones working under the operation system of Android is made in the paper. The applications present users information about historical and cultural places of interest at travelling. There are three main groups of applications subject of discussion in the paper – world, national and regional. Their abilities, positive and negative characteristics are compares and described. A conclusion can be made that there is a necessity of new application that presents tourists detailed information about the Old capital of Bulgaria.

Smartphone-based digital government model:the case of the beyaz masa (white table) app in Turkey

M-Government services are now at the forefront of both user expectations and technology capabilities. Within the current setting, there is growing evidence that interoperability is becoming a key issue towards service sustainability. Thus, the objective of this chapter is to highlight the case of "Beyas Masa" - a Turkish application for infrastructure repair services. This application requires different stakeholders from different cultural background and geographically dispersed regions to work together. The major aim of this chapter to showcase experiences in as far as implementation and adoption of m-Government is concerned in the case of Turkey. The study utilizes the co-creation literature to investigate the factors influencing successful implementation of the Beyas Masa. This study reveals that initiatives are fragmented due to differences in the characteristics of the targeted audience, the marketing strategy, technology supply, distribution, and media utilized to promote its awareness. The chapter posits that in order to have affluent m-Government implementation in Turkey, it is important that many of the standalone applications are integrated to encourage interoperability and that socio-cultural behaviours should be re-shaped to encourage active engagement and interactive government service provisions that unlock the power of ICT.

Uma proposta de solução para funcionamento offline em aplicações android

Given the growing demand for the development of mobile applications, driven by use increasingly common in smartphones and tablets grew in society the need for remote data access in full in the use of mobile application without connectivity environments where there is no provision network access at all times. Given this reality, this work proposes a framework that present main functions are the provision of a persistence mechanism, replication and data synchronization, contemplating the creation, deletion, update and display persisted or requested data, even though the mobile device without connectivity with the network. From the point of view of the architecture and programming practices, it reflected in defining strategies for the main functions of the framework are met. Through a controlled study was to validate the solution proposal, being found as the gains in reducing the number of lines code and the amount of time required to perform the development of an application without there being significant increase for the operations.

Uma proposta de solução para funcionamento offline em aplicações android

Given the growing demand for the development of mobile applications, driven by use increasingly common in smartphones and tablets grew in society the need for remote data access in full in the use of mobile application without connectivity environments where there is no provision network access at all times. Given this reality, this work proposes a framework that present main functions are the provision of a persistence mechanism, replication and data synchronization, contemplating the creation, deletion, update and display persisted or requested data, even though the mobile device without connectivity with the network. From the point of view of the architecture and programming practices, it reflected in defining strategies for the main functions of the framework are met. Through a controlled study was to validate the solution proposal, being found as the gains in reducing the number of lines code and the amount of time required to perform the development of an application without there being significant increase for the operations.

Estudo da usabilidade do portal do aluno do SIGAA Mobile Android da UFRN: identificando diretrizes de interface a serem utilizadas como recomendações no processo de desenvolvimento das funcionalidades deste sistema

Avaliação de usabilidade é um processo importante durante o desenvolvimento de um software, seja ele para um sistema web ou mobile. No caso de um sistema mobile, o custo é bastante oneroso, tanto no que se refere à mão de obra especializada, como de recursos tecnológicos utilizados, tornando essa avaliação de usabilidade ainda mais importante. Além disso, as versões webdos sistemas SIG da UFRN já estão consolidadas e com uma grande aceitação, fazendo com que suas versões mobile tenham, ainda mais, a preocupação de lançar um produto de boa qualidade para manter essa credibilidade dos sistemas SIG , tanto na UFRN, como nas demais instituições que utilizam esses sistemas. Com este trabalho, buscou-se identificar algumas diretrizes de interface que possam ser utilizadas no processo de desenvolvimento dos sistemas SIG Mobile, mais especificamente o SIGAA Mobile, de modo a facilitar o desenvolvimento de novas funcionalidades voltadas para estes sistemas. Para isso, foi realizada uma avaliação de usabilidade no Portal do Aluno do SIGAA Mobile Android, tomando como base padrões de interface já existentes na literatura. Posteriormente, foi aplicado um questionário com os usuários do sistema para coletar as opiniões e sugestões dos mesmos. De posse de todos esses dados coletados, foi possível definir algumas diretrizes de interface a serem seguidas como recomendações no processo de desenvolvimento dos sistemas SIG Mobile.

Progettazione e implementazione di una applicazione didattica interattiva per il riconoscimento di oggetti basata sull'algoritmo SIFT

Nell'elaborato viene introdotto l'ambito della Computer Vision e come l'algoritmo SIFT si inserisce nel suo panorama. Viene inoltre descritto SIFT stesso, le varie fasi di cui si compone e un'applicazione al problema dell'object recognition. Infine viene presentata un'implementazione di SIFT in linguaggio Python creata per ottenere un'applicazione didattica interattiva e vengono mostrati esempi di questa applicazione.

Implementazione e valutazione delle prestazioni di algoritmi di localizzazione Indoor basati su dispositivi Beacon

Questo elaborato di tesi ha lo scopo di illustrare un'applicazione realizzata per dispositivi Android in grado di localizzare l'utente all'interno di un ambiente indoor sfruttando l'utilizzo dei Beacon e dare una valutazione dei risultati ottenuti. L'utente potrà registrare i dispositivi Beacon in suo possesso all'interno dell'applicazione, caricare la planimetria di un ambiente e configurarlo indicando esattamente quale Beacon si trova in una determinata posizione. Infine potrà scegliere quale tra i tre algoritmi implementati (Prossimità, Triangolazione e Fingerprinting) utilizzare per visualizzare la propria posizione sulla mappa. I tre algoritmi sono stati sottoposti a vari test che hanno permesso di analizzare le differenze tra di essi in termini di accuratezza e le performance generali dell'applicativo.

I materiali a memoria di forma: caratterizzazione e applicazione nel mondo dell'automazione

L'obiettivo di questo lavoro di tesi è stato studiare le caratteristiche, le proprietà, le applicazioni con conseguenti vantaggi e svantaggi di un particolare tipo di smart materials: i materiali a memoria di forma. Il capitolo 1 tratterà delle leghe metalliche a memoria di forma, il successivo si concentrerà invece sui polimeri a memoria di forma. In ognuno di questi, relativamente al materiale affrontato, si presterà particolare attenzione agli “effetti” che contraddistinguono tali materiali da quelli più comuni, come l’effetto memoria di forma o la superelasticità. Successivamente, nei vari sottoparagrafi, l’attenzione si sposterà sulle tecniche di caratterizzazione, utili per capire le proprietà di una lega o di un polimero rispetto ad un altro, e sulle conseguenti classificazioni di entrambi. Per quanto riguarda i polimeri, si accenneranno certi parametri fondamentali di cui è necessario tener conto per conoscere bene il polimero considerato. La trattazione, in ambedue i casi, terminerà con un focus sulle applicazioni più diffuse e su quelle più interessanti di tali materiali, fornendo dettagli sulle tecnologie utilizzate e sugli stimoli dettati per eccitare i sistemi.

Progettazione e sviluppo di un framework in ambiente Android per la realizzazione di interfacce utente see-through e hands-free

La tesi tratta l'esplorazione dell'idea per una nuova tipologia di interfacce utente, progettate specificatamente per dispositivi wearable hands free (più nel dettaglio per un'accoppiata smart glass Android based e gesture recognizer). Per facilitare lo sviluppo di applicazioni basate su questi dispositivi è stato realizzato un framework che permetta di costruire, in maniera relativamente semplice, interfacce utente innovative, che consentano all'utente di interagire con i contenuti digitali senza interrompere il suo contatto con la realtà e senza costringerlo a utilizzare le mani.

Applicazioni di Mixed Reality e Microsoft Hololens: studio e riprogettazione del concetto di ologramma e della relativa gestione all'interno di un'applicazione olografica.

La tesi presenta una panoramica sull'augmented, virtual e mixed reality, descrivendone le caratteristiche e le modalità di sviluppo. Come caso di studio viene analizzato il dispositivo Microsoft Hololens, descrivendone le caratteristiche concettuali, hardware e software. Per le applicazioni di questo dispositivo viene effettuata una riprogettazione della gestione e del concetto di ologramma all'interno di un'applicazione olografica, analizzandone i motivi e i vantaggi. E' fornita una overview sui dettagli implementativi della riprogettazione al fine di chiarire ogni aspetto dell'applicazione.

Assimilazione dati di precipitazione in un modello meteorologico ad alta risoluzione (MOLOCH): sviluppo ed applicazione alla previsione di eventi intensi in Liguria

L'Italia è spesso sede di eventi d'intensa precipitazione, frequentemente associati ad alluvioni con conseguente perdita di vite umane e gravi danni economici. È quindi di fondamentale importanza poter prevedere questi eventi con un adeguato anticipo. Allo stato attuale, i modelli meteorologici non permettono sempre di raggiungere tale obbiettivo e, di conseguenza, è in atto un'intensa attività di ricerca al fine di di renderne più accurata la previsione, sia attraverso il miglioramento dei modelli stessi, sia sviluppando l'assimilazione dati, la quale riduce l'incertezza della condizione iniziale da cui parte la previsione. All'interno di questo contesto, la tesi si prefigge l'obiettivo di studiare gli effetti dell'assimilazione di dati di precipitazione, effettuata mediante uno schema di nudging, nel modello non idrostatico MOLOCH. Al fine di ottimizzare lo schema e di valutarne l'impatto, sono stati simulati tutti gli eventi di maltempo di ottobre e novembre del 2014 che hanno interessato la Liguria, area frequentemente soggetta ad alluvioni. Dalla sistematica verifica dei risultati, effettuata sia qualitativamente che mediante numerosi metodi statistici (tra cui la tecnica SAL basata sull'individuazione dei nuclei di precipitazione), si riscontra un generale miglioramento della previsione della precipitazione anche se limitato alle prime ore dopo la fine del periodo di assimilazione. L'impatto dello schema di nudging varia a seconda dell'evento e, in particolare, si osserva una certa correlazione tra il miglioramento ottenuto e la tipologia di evento, come descritto dalla teoria dell'equilibrio convettivo e come riportato in alcuni studi analoghi recentemente comparsi in letteratura. La ricaduta del miglioramento della previsione meteorologica è stata valutata anche in termini di impatti al suolo accoppiando il modello meteorologico con il modello idrologico utilizzato dal Centro Funzionale della Regione Liguria, con risultati abbastanza positivi.