Tradurre la saggistica: proposta di traduzione di un estratto di "The invisible history of the human race"

The aim of this dissertation is to propose the translation of four chapters from "The invisible history of the human race", an essay by the Australian author and journalist Christine Kenneally. This essay offers a non-systematic overview upon genealogy in connection to the idea of personal identity; above all, the author wants to persuade the reader that genealogy could be the perfect linking point between history and science, family lines and DNA. The translated chapters particularly concentrate on the reasons of the current underestimation of genealogy, which, according to Kenneally, lies in the Nazi’s distorted use of ancestry and in the exploitation of the idea of biological diversity in order to discriminate people. The dissertation is composed of four chapters. The first chapter consists in a concise analysis of the characteristics of the textual genre and in a theoretical introduction and approach to the translation of essays, where the main generic and essay-specific translation strategies are outlined. The second chapter presents a detailed illustration of the topics treated in the essay and particularly in the translated pages. The third chapter contains the translation and the fourth presents a systematic comment to the translation and to the choices made during the translation of the text.

Three decades of Space Activities at the Instituto Universitario de Microgravedad "Ignacio Da Riva" / Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (IDR/UPM) en History of Rocketry and Astronautics

Strictly speaking, space related activities at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Aeronáuticos (ETSIA) begun in 1973, when Prof. Ignacio Da Riva got a contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) to compile a handbook on spacecraft thermal control. By the same time, ESA issued an announcement of opportunities offering to the European scientific community the possibility of perform microgravity relevant experiments on board space platform like the European orbital laboratory Spacelab. Prof. Da Riva proposed one of the few selected experiments dealing with fluid physics under microgravity conditions, later flown on Spacelab-1 mission in 1983. These two events were the starting point where Prof. Da Riva, full professor of Aerodynamics at ETSIA, nucleated a small group of young professors and students located at the Laboratorio de Aerodinámica y Mecánica de Fluidos (LAMF) of ETSIA. Such group was leaded by Prof. Da Riva since its creation till 1991, when Prof. Da Riva died, and it was the seed of the more recently created research institute for aerospace science and technology named "Ignacio Da Riva" (IDR) in his honour. In this communication space related activities performed either at LAMF or IDR during the last three decades are briefly described.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1960-1968 /

Shipping list no.: 2010-0179-P (pt. 3).

The conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian war after the conquest of Canada.

University of Illinois Library bookplate: "Received by request from Albert H. Lybyer, Professor of History, University of Illinois, 1916-1949".

Personal recollections and observations of General Nelson A. Miles, embracing a brief view of the Civil War; or, From New England to the Golden gate, and the story of his Indian campaigns, with comments on the exploration, development and progress of our great western empire;

A campaign against Apaches [1885-86] (Captain Maus' narrative): p. 450-471.

Birds around New York city, where and when to find them, by Allan D. Cruickshank, with the cooperation of the Department of ornithology of the American museum of natural history, and the Linnaean society of New York, with photographs by the author.

Maps on lining-papers.

The educational principle, as recognized and exemplified in the history of the society. Remarks at the semicentennial celebration [of the Boston society of natural history]

From the Anniversary memoirs of the Boston society of natural history.

An act establishing rules and articles for the government of the armies of the United States with the regulations of the war department.

Mode of access: Internet.

Papers illustrating the history of the Scots brigade in the service of the United Netherlands, 1572-1782;

Vol. 3 includes half-title: The remebrance, or The progress of a regiment commanded by my Lord Portmore in the year 1701 and 1702 ... giveing a true acount of al ther deeds and quartering the space of the ... by John Scot, souldier.

History of La Grange military academy and the cadet corps, 1857-1862, La Grange college, 1830-1857,

Mode of access: Internet.

What is history? Five lectures on the modern science of history,

--Historical development and present character of the science of history.--The general course of German history from a psychological point of view.--The transition to the psychic character of the German present; universal mechanism of psychic periods of transition.--Psychology of the periods of culture in general.--Problems of universal history.

Transmission of image data over digital networks involving mobile terminals

There is a growing demand for data transmission over digital networks involving mobile terminals. An important class of data required for transmission over mobile terminals is image information such as street maps, floor plans and identikit images. This sort of transmission is of particular interest to the service industries such as the Police force, Fire brigade, medical services and other services. These services cannot be applied directly to mobile terminals because of the limited capacity of the mobile channels and the transmission errors caused by the multipath (Rayleigh) fading. In this research, transmission of line diagram images such as floor plans and street maps, over digital networks involving mobile terminals at transmission rates of 2400 bits/s and 4800 bits/s have been studied. A low bit-rate source encoding technique using geometric codes is found to be suitable to represent line diagram images. In geometric encoding, the amount of data required to represent or store the line diagram images is proportional to the image detail. Thus a simple line diagram image would require a small amount of data. To study the effect of transmission errors due to mobile channels on the transmitted images, error sources (error files), which represent mobile channels under different conditions, have been produced using channel modelling techniques. Satisfactory models of the mobile channel have been obtained when compared to the field test measurements. Subjective performance tests have been carried out to evaluate the quality and usefulness of the received line diagram images under various mobile channel conditions. The effect of mobile transmission errors on the quality of the received images has been determined. To improve the quality of the received images under various mobile channel conditions, forward error correcting codes (FEC) with interleaving and automatic repeat request (ARQ) schemes have been proposed. The performance of the error control codes have been evaluated under various mobile channel conditions. It has been shown that a FEC code with interleaving can be used effectively to improve the quality of the received images under normal and severe mobile channel conditions. Under normal channel conditions, similar results have been obtained when using ARQ schemes. However, under severe mobile channel conditions, the FEC code with interleaving shows better performance.

Ocean acidification and its potential effects on the early life-history of non-calcifying and calcifying echinoderm (Odontaster validus, Patiriella regularis and Arachnoides placenta) larvae, 2011

Ocean acidification, as a result of increased atmospheric CO2, has the potential to adversely affect the larval stages of many marine organisms and hence have profound effects on marine ecosystems. This is the first study of its kind to investigate the effects of ocean acidification on the early life-history stages of three echinoderms species, two asteroids and one irregular echinoid. Potential latitudinal variations on the effects of ocean acidification were also investigated by selecting a polar species (Odontaster validus), a temperate species (Patiriella regularis), and a tropical species (Arachnoides placenta). The effects of reduced seawater pH levels on the fertilization of gametes, larval survival and morphometrics on the aforementioned species were evaluated under experimental conditions. The pH levels considered for this research include ambient seawater (pH 8.1 or pH 8.2), levels predicted for 2100 (pH 7.7 and pH 7.6) and the extreme pH of 7.0, adjusted by bubbling CO2 gas into filtered seawater. Fertilization for Odontaster validus and Patiriella regularis for the predicted scenarios for 2100 was robust, whereas fertilization was significantly reduced in Arachnoides placenta. Larval survival was robust for the three species at pH 7.8, but numbers declined when pH dropped below 7.6. Normal A. placenta larvae developed in pH 7.8, whereas smaller larvae were observed for O. validus and P. regularis under the same pH treatment. Seawater pH levels below 7.6 resulted in smaller and underdeveloped larvae for all three species. The greatest effects were expected for the Antarctic asteroid O. validus but overall the tropical sand dollar A. placenta was the most affected by the reduction in seawater pH. The effects of ocean acidification on the asteroids O. validus and P. regulars, and the sand dollar A. placenta are species-specific. Several parameters, such as taxonomic differences, physiology, genetic makeup and the population's evolutionary history may have contributed to this variability. This study highlights the vulnerability of the early developmental stages and the complexity of ocean acidification. However, future research is needed to understand the effects at individual, community and ecosystem levels.

CONCURRENT LOCALIZATION AND MAPPING WITH SONAR SENSORS AND CONSIDERATION OF VEHICLE MOTION

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is a procedure used to determine the location of a mobile vehicle in an unknown environment, while constructing a map of the unknown environment at the same time. Mobile platforms, which make use of SLAM algorithms, have industrial applications in autonomous maintenance, such as the inspection of flaws and defects in oil pipelines and storage tanks. A typical SLAM consists of four main components, namely, experimental setup (data gathering), vehicle pose estimation, feature extraction, and filtering. Feature extraction is the process of realizing significant features from the unknown environment such as corners, edges, walls, and interior features. In this work, an original feature extraction algorithm specific to distance measurements obtained through SONAR sensor data is presented. This algorithm has been constructed by combining the SONAR Salient Feature Extraction Algorithm and the Triangulation Hough Based Fusion with point-in-polygon detection. The reconstructed maps obtained through simulations and experimental data with the fusion algorithm are compared to the maps obtained with existing feature extraction algorithms. Based on the results obtained, it is suggested that the proposed algorithm can be employed as an option for data obtained from SONAR sensors in environment, where other forms of sensing are not viable. The algorithm fusion for feature extraction requires the vehicle pose estimation as an input, which is obtained from a vehicle pose estimation model. For the vehicle pose estimation, the author uses sensor integration to estimate the pose of the mobile vehicle. Different combinations of these sensors are studied (e.g., encoder, gyroscope, or encoder and gyroscope). The different sensor fusion techniques for the pose estimation are experimentally studied and compared. The vehicle pose estimation model, which produces the least amount of error, is used to generate inputs for the feature extraction algorithm fusion. In the experimental studies, two different environmental configurations are used, one without interior features and another one with two interior features. Numerical and experimental findings are discussed. Finally, the SLAM algorithm is implemented along with the algorithms for feature extraction and vehicle pose estimation. Three different cases are experimentally studied, with the floor of the environment intentionally altered to induce slipping. Results obtained for implementations with and without SLAM are compared and discussed. The present work represents a step towards the realization of autonomous inspection platforms for performing concurrent localization and mapping in harsh environments.