The Arts in Basic Curriculum Project : Looking at the Past and Preparing for the Future

The primary findings of this evaluation are (1) that the ABC Project has built and supported a strong network that measurably strengthens arts education, and (2) for the reform to continue, there must be new initiatives. The Project has made a significant first step toward providing quality opportunities for all children in South Carolina, but the gap between the current state of arts education and the stated goal of the Project is very wide. Therefore, these new initiatives must be bold, innovative, strongly funded, and backed with the energies and passions of those in the core arts education network. The basic recommendation that subsumes all the specific recommendations in this report is to develop a data-informed strategic plan for arts education, then determine funding priorities based on this plan.

De la clandestinité à la fierté : l’appropriation de l’espace urbain par la communauté gay

À partir de la décennie 1970, on voit surgir dans la plupart des métropoles en Occident des quartiers comprenant une grande concentration de ménages gays et d’établissements commerciaux destinés à cette clientèle. Les recherches menées sur le phénomène ont négligé de se pencher sur la façon dont la trajectoire de la communauté homosexuelle locale s’articule au parcours historique, politique et urbain de la ville où le quartier est situé. Ce travail vise à combler cette lacune et à éclairer la trajectoire qui a mené la population gay à s’approprier un espace urbain. Il dresse d’abord un panorama des quartiers étant devenus le secteur homosexuel de la ville et de la vie de ses habitants dans les métropoles de San Francisco, Paris et Montréal, à partir de sources secondaires sur l’urbanisation du quartier et sur la communauté gay locale depuis 1900 jusqu’à nos jours. Ensuite, il compare leur évolution selon une périodisation comportant deux axes principaux : l’époque où les homosexuels avaient un vécu clandestin dans la ville et la période où les gays cherchaient à vivre leur sexualité dans la sphère publique. Le résultat montre une trajectoire similaire où la sortie de la clandestinité aboutisse à un quartier ouvert, gentryfié et touristique qui passe par une formation de ghetto liée au contexte économique et politique national, mais aussi au cadre urbain de la ville. En identifiant les facteurs déterminants, il était possible de concevoir l’existence de figures types de quartier gay rendant possible la vie communautaire : le quartier gay portuaire et militant, le quartier symbole d’une culture et le quartier bastion ethnique.

Ichthyofauna of the Selvagens Islands. Do small coastal areas show high species richness in the northeastern Atlantic?

The Selvagens Islands are located in the northeastern Atlantic between the Canary Islands and Madeira Island. As a result of their small size, remote location and harsh sea conditions only a few studies have been conducted to describe their marine species diversity. We were able to identify 29 new coastal fish species, an increase of 33% in the ichthyofauna described for these islands (n = 88). There is a prevalence of species with tropical affinities and only 2.3% (n = 2) are endemic to Macaronesia. Considered a stepping-stone colonization vector from the nearest continental shore, as proposed by other authors for this region, the Selvagens Islands host 34.1% of the ichthyofauna described for the much larger Canary Islands (nspecies = 258, submerged area nSelvagensIs. = 2.3%) and 47.3% of the ichthyofauna described for the more distantly located Madeira Island (nspecies = 186, submerged area nSelvagensIs. = 17.9%). Interestingly, 6.8% (n = 6) of the species failed to bridge the gap between the Selvagens Islands and Madeira Island. Data collected so far showed no trend toward an increasing number of species with high dispersal capability. The Selvagens Islands are an example of a high coastal species diversity occurring even in very small areas of the northeastern Atlantic Ocean.

Propuesta de creación de la Reserva Natural Municipal El Chuval en el Municipio de El Retén, Magdalena, Colombia

Colombia se ha comprometido a nivel internacional a realizar acciones que conduzcan al país hacia el desarrollo sostenible, específicamente a proteger los recursos naturales. En línea con esta apuesta, la presente investigación propone la construcción de la Reserva Natural El Chuval, en el municipio El Retén, Magdalena. Para la construcción de dicha Reserva se realiza un diagnóstico que indica las principales características del Chuval, se identifican posibles riesgos para la conservación de sus valores ambientales, y se complementa el análisis con una propuesta de manejo que se enmarca en la metodología de Agendas Ambientales Locales desarrollada por la ONU. Pese a que el municipio es consciente de la relevancia ambiental del Chuval, aún no se han tomado decisiones definitivas para proteger esta zona, razón por la cual, la presente investigación busca llenar un vacío en el ordenamiento territorial del municipio, que fortalezca la protección de la Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta.

Development of methodologies supporting the sustainable and safe integration of offshore conventional and renewable energy production

Against a backdrop of rapidly increasing worldwide population and growing energy demand, the development of renewable energy technologies has become of primary importance in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is often technically and economically infeasible to transport discontinuous renewable electricity for long distances to the shore. Another shortcoming of non-programmable renewable power is its integration into the onshore grid without affecting the dispatching process. On the other hand, the offshore oil & gas industry is striving to reduce overall carbon footprint from onsite power generators and limiting large expenses associated to carrying electricity from remote offshore facilities. Furthermore, the increased complexity and expansion towards challenging areas of offshore hydrocarbons operations call for higher attention to safety and environmental protection issues from major accident hazards. Innovative hybrid energy systems, as Power-to-Gas (P2G), Power-to-Liquid (P2L) and Gas-to-Power (G2P) options, implemented at offshore locations, would offer the opportunity to overcome challenges of both renewable and oil & gas sectors. This study aims at the development of systematic methodologies based on proper sustainability and safety performance indicators supporting the choice of P2G, P2L and G2P hybrid energy options for offshore green projects in early design phases. An in-depth analysis of the different offshore hybrid strategies was performed. The literature reviews on existing methods proposing metrics to assess sustainability of hybrid energy systems, inherent safety of process routes in conceptual design stage and environmental protection of installations from oil and chemical accidental spills were carried out. To fill the gaps, a suite of specific decision-making methodologies was developed, based on representative multi-criteria indicators addressing technical, economic, environmental and societal aspects of alternative options. A set of five case-studies was defined, covering different offshore scenarios of concern, to provide an assessment of the effectiveness and value of the developed tools.

Data protection by design in the e-health care sector: theoretical and applied perspectives

In the digital age, e-health technologies play a pivotal role in the processing of medical information. As personal health data represents sensitive information concerning a data subject, enhancing data protection and security of systems and practices has become a primary concern. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the concept of Privacy by Design, which aims at developing a product or a service in a way that it supports privacy principles and rules. In the EU, Article 25 of the General Data Protection Regulation provides a binding obligation of implementing Data Protection by Design technical and organisational measures. This thesis explores how an e-health system could be developed and how data processing activities could be carried out to apply data protection principles and requirements from the design stage. The research attempts to bridge the gap between the legal and technical disciplines on DPbD by providing a set of guidelines for the implementation of the principle. The work is based on literature review, legal and comparative analysis, and investigation of the existing technical solutions and engineering methodologies. The work can be differentiated by theoretical and applied perspectives. First, it critically conducts a legal analysis on the principle of PbD and it studies the DPbD legal obligation and the related provisions. Later, the research contextualises the rule in the health care field by investigating the applicable legal framework for personal health data processing. Moreover, the research focuses on the US legal system by conducting a comparative analysis. Adopting an applied perspective, the research investigates the existing technical methodologies and tools to design data protection and it proposes a set of comprehensive DPbD organisational and technical guidelines for a crucial case study, that is an Electronic Health Record system.

Machine learning tools for protein annotation: the cases of transmembrane β-barrel and myristoylated proteins

Biology is now a “Big Data Science” thanks to technological advancements allowing the characterization of the whole macromolecular content of a cell or a collection of cells. This opens interesting perspectives, but only a small portion of this data may be experimentally characterized. From this derives the demand of accurate and efficient computational tools for automatic annotation of biological molecules. This is even more true when dealing with membrane proteins, on which my research project is focused leading to the development of two machine learning-based methods: BetAware-Deep and SVMyr. BetAware-Deep is a tool for the detection and topology prediction of transmembrane beta-barrel proteins found in Gram-negative bacteria. These proteins are involved in many biological processes and primary candidates as drug targets. BetAware-Deep exploits the combination of a deep learning framework (bidirectional long short-term memory) and a probabilistic graphical model (grammatical-restrained hidden conditional random field). Moreover, it introduced a modified formulation of the hydrophobic moment, designed to include the evolutionary information. BetAware-Deep outperformed all the available methods in topology prediction and reported high scores in the detection task. Glycine myristoylation in Eukaryotes is the binding of a myristic acid on an N-terminal glycine. SVMyr is a fast method based on support vector machines designed to predict this modification in dataset of proteomic scale. It uses as input octapeptides and exploits computational scores derived from experimental examples and mean physicochemical features. SVMyr outperformed all the available methods for co-translational myristoylation prediction. In addition, it allows (as a unique feature) the prediction of post-translational myristoylation. Both the tools here described are designed having in mind best practices for the development of machine learning-based tools outlined by the bioinformatics community. Moreover, they are made available via user-friendly web servers. All this make them valuable tools for filling the gap between sequential and annotated data.

Impact of gentrification processes in rural landscapes: a methodology for landscape assessment towards sustainable rural development

With an increasing demand for rural resources and land, new challenges are approaching affecting and restructuring the European countryside. While creating opportunities for rural living, it has also opened a discussion on rural gentrification risks. The concept of rural gentrification encircles the influx of new residents leading to an economic upgrade of an area making it unaffordable for local inhabitants to stay in. Rural gentrification occurs in areas perceived as attractive. Paradoxically, in-migrants re-shape their surrounding landscape. Rural gentrification may not only cause displacement of people but also landscape values. Thus, this research aims to understand the twofold role of landscape in rural gentrification theory: as a possible driver to attract residents and as a product shaped by its residents. To understand the potential gentrifiers’ decision process, this research has provided a collection of drivers behind in-migration. Moreover, essential indicators of rural gentrification have been collected from previous studies. Yet, the available indicators do not contain measures to understand related landscape changes. To fill this gap, after analysing established landscape assessment methodologies, evaluating the relevance for assessing gentrification, a new Landscape Assessment approach is proposed. This method introduces a novel approach to capture landscape change caused by gentrification through a historical depth. The measures to study gentrification was applied on Gotland, Sweden. The study showed a population stagnating while the number of properties increased, and housing prices raised. These factors are not indicating positive growth but risks of gentrification. Then, the research applied the proposed Landscape Assessment method for areas exposed to gentrification. Results suggest that landscape change takes place on a local scale and could over time endanger key characteristics. The methodology contributes to a discussion on grasping nuances within the rural context. It has also proven useful for indicating accumulative changes, which is necessary in managing landscape values.

Synergies among safety and security in the prevention of major accidents related to dangerous substances

Historical evidence shows that chemical, process, and Oil&Gas facilities where dangerous substances are stored or handled are target of deliberate malicious attacks (security attacks) aiming at interfering with normal operations. Physical attacks and cyber-attacks may generate events with consequences on people, property, and the surrounding environment that are comparable to those of major accidents caused by safety-related causes. The security aspects of these facilities are commonly addressed using Security Vulnerability/Risk Assessment (SVA/SRA) methodologies. Most of these methodologies are semi-quantitative and non-systematic approaches that strongly rely on expert judgment, leading to security assessments that are not reproducible. Moreover, they do not consider the synergies with the safety domain. The present 3-year research is aimed at filling the gap outlined by providing knowledge on security attacks, as well as rigorous and systematic methods supporting existing SVA/SRA studies suitable for the chemical, process, and Oil&Gas industry. The different nature of cyber and physical attacks resulted in the development of different methods for the two domains. The first part of the research was devoted to the development and statistical analysis of security databases that allowed to develop new knowledge and lessons learnt on security threats. Based on the obtained background, a Bow-Tie based procedure and two reverse-HazOp based methodologies were developed as hazard identification approaches for physical and cyber threats respectively. To support the quantitative estimation of the security risk, a quantitative procedure based on the Bayesian Network was developed allowing to calculate the probability of success of physical security attacks. All the developed methods have been applied to case studies addressing chemical, process and Oil&Gas facilities (offshore and onshore) proving the quality of the results that can be achieved in improving site security. Furthermore, the outcomes achieved allow to step forward in developing synergies and promoting integration among safety and security management.

La prima casa editrice femminista per l'infanzia in Italia: gli albi illustrati di "Dalla parte delle bambine" di Adela Turin

La presente tesi di dottorato propone uno studio sulla casa editrice “Dalla parte delle bambine” di Adela Turin. Attiva dal 1975 al 1982 a Milano, si tratta della prima impresa editoriale femminista per l’infanzia in Italia. Nonostante l’originalità e il successo internazionale dei suoi libri, è stata riscontrata una sorprendente scarsità di studi sull’argomento. Questa ricerca interdisciplinare si propone quindi di colmare questa lacuna, inserendosi nel vivace ambito dello studio della letteratura per l’infanzia in prospettiva di genere. La dissertazione è divisa in cinque capitoli, a cui si aggiunge un’appendice iconografica che raccoglie le copertine dell’intero catalogo di DPDB. Nel primo capitolo viene introdotto il quadro teorico della ricerca, dalla complessità della letteratura per il giovane pubblico all’indagine in ottica di genere. Il secondo capitolo si concentra sulle pubblicazioni per bambine e bambini negli anni Settanta, passando in rassegna innovative esperienze editoriali nonché l’opera di scrittori e scrittrici sensibili alle questioni di genere. La terza sezione si occupa di ricostruire il profilo biografico di Turin e il suo decennale impegno contro il sessismo veicolato dai libri per l’infanzia, per poi concentrarsi sulla storia, il catalogo, la diffusione e la ricezione di DPDB. Il quarto capitolo propone un’analisi qualitativa e quantitativa di un corpus di 20 albi illustrati scritti da Turin, oltre a un confronto fra questi libri e diverse ricerche sulla rappresentazione di genere, allo scopo di evidenziare la peculiarità delle proposte di DPDB. La quinta sezione, infine, si occupa del rapporto con la contemporaneità. Dopo aver tracciato un quadro della complessa situazione dell’educazione di genere in Italia e aver proposto una panoramica di esperienze editoriali per il giovane pubblico attente alle questioni di genere, quest’ultima parte indagherà i contesti in cui gli albi di Turin vengono oggi letti e consigliati, offrendosi come narrazione alternativa e tutt’ora attuale.

Optimizing fused deposition modelling: the impact of geometrical slicing parameters on mechanical properties

This comprehensive study explores the intricate world of 3D printing, with a focus on Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM). It sheds light on the critical factors that influence the quality and mechanical properties of 3D printed objects. Using an optical microscope with 40X magnification, the shapes of the printed beads is correlated to specific slicing parameters, resulting in a 2D parametric model. This mathematical model, derived from real samples, serves as a tool to predict general mechanical behaviour, bridging the gap between theory and practice in FDM printing. The study begins by emphasising the importance of geometric parameters such as layer height, line width and filament tolerance on the final printed bead geometry and the resulting theoretical effect on mechanical properties. The introduction of VPratio parameter (ratio between the area of the voids and the area occupied by printed material) allows the quantification of the variation of geometric slicing parameters on the improvement or reduction of mechanical properties. The study also addresses the effect of overhang and the role of filament diameter tolerances. The research continues with the introduction of 3D FEM (Finite Element Analysis) models based on the RVE (Representative Volume Element) to verify the results obtained from the 2D model and to analyse other aspects that affect mechanical properties and not directly observable with the 2D model. The study also proposes a model for the examination of 3D printed infill structures, introducing also an innovative methodology called “double RVE” which speeds up the calculation of mechanical properties and is also more computationally efficient. Finally, the limitations of the RVE model are shown and a so-called Hybrid RVE-based model is created to overcome the limitations and inaccuracy of the conventional RVE model and homogenization procedure on some printed geometries.

Applied genomics to monitor the genetic diversity and integrity of honey bee (Apis mellifera) populations and define sustainable strategies to benefit the beekeeping sector

Honey bees are considered keystone species in ecosystem, the effect of harmful pesticides for the honey bees, the action of extreme climatic waves and their consequence on honey bees health can cause the loss of many colonies which could contribute to the reduction of the effective population size and incentive the use of non-autochthonous queens to replace dead colonies. Over the last decades, the use of non-ligustica bee subspecies in Italy has increased and together with the mentioned phenomena exposed native honey bees to hybridization, laeding to a dramatic loss of genetic erosion and admixture. Healthy genetic diversity within honey bee populations is critical to provide tolerance and resistance to current and future threatening. Nowadays it is urgent to design strategies for the conservation of local subspecies and their valorisation on a productive scale. In this Thesis we applied genomics tool for the analysis of the genetic diversity and the genomic integrity of honey bee populations in Italy are described. In this work mtDNA based methods are presented using honey bee DNA or honey eDNA as source of information of the genetic diversity of A. mellifera at different level. Taken together, the results derived from these studies should enlarge the knowledge of the genetic diversity and integrity of the honey bee populations in Italy, filling the gap of information necessary to design efficient conservation programmes. Furthermore, the methods presented in these works will provide a tool for the honey authentication to sustain and valorise beekeeping products and sector against frauds.

Development and testing of methodologies for the control and diagnosis of innovative combustion systems

In pursuit of aligning with the European Union's ambitious target of achieving a carbon-neutral economy by 2050, researchers, vehicle manufacturers, and original equipment manufacturers have been at the forefront of exploring cutting-edge technologies for internal combustion engines. The introduction of these technologies has significantly increased the effort required to calibrate the models implemented in the engine control units. Consequently the development of tools that reduce costs and the time required during the experimental phases, has become imperative. Additionally, to comply with ever-stricter limits on 〖"CO" 〗_"2" emissions, it is crucial to develop advanced control systems that enhance traditional engine management systems in order to reduce fuel consumption. Furthermore, the introduction of new homologation cycles, such as the real driving emissions cycle, compels manufacturers to bridge the gap between engine operation in laboratory tests and real-world conditions. Within this context, this thesis showcases the performance and cost benefits achievable through the implementation of an auto-adaptive closed-loop control system, leveraging in-cylinder pressure sensors in a heavy-duty diesel engine designed for mining applications. Additionally, the thesis explores the promising prospect of real-time self-adaptive machine learning models, particularly neural networks, to develop an automatic system, using in-cylinder pressure sensors for the precise calibration of the target combustion phase and optimal spark advance in a spark-ignition engines. To facilitate the application of these combustion process feedback-based algorithms in production applications, the thesis discusses the results obtained from the development of a cost-effective sensor for indirect cylinder pressure measurement. Finally, to ensure the quality control of the proposed affordable sensor, the thesis provides a comprehensive account of the design and validation process for a piezoelectric washer test system.

Lazer nos acampamentos de ferias : uma analise da ação dos animadores socio-culturais

Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Faculdade de Educação Física

Canoagem velocidade : dinamica das cargas de treinamento no macrociclo e a dinamica da alteração de marcadores funcionais externos

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física