Valorization of pomaces from the mechanical extraction of virgin olive oils in dairy animal feeding

This research work is aimed at the valorization of two types of pomace deriving from the extra virgin olive oil mechanical extraction process, such as olive pomace and a new by-product named “paté”, in the livestock sector as important sources of antioxidants and unsaturated fatty acids. In the first research the suitability of dried stoned olive pomace as a dietary supplement for dairy buffaloes was evaluated. The effectiveness of this utilization in modifying fatty acid composition and improving the oxidative stability of buffalo milk and mozzarella cheese have been proven by means of the analysis of qualitative and quantitative parameters. In the second research the use of paté as a new by-product in dietary feed supplementation for dairy ewes, already fed with a source of unsaturated fatty acids such as extruded linseed, was studied in order to assess the effect of this combination on the dairy products obtained. The characterization of paté as a new by-product was also carried out, studying the optimal conditions of its stabilization and preservation at the same time. The main results, common to both researches, have been the detection and the characterization of hydrophilic phenols in the milk. The analytical detection of hydroxytyrosol and tyrosol in the ewes’ milk fed with the paté and hydroxytyrosol in buffalo fed with pomace showed for the first time the presence in the milk of hydroxytyrosol, which is one of the most important bioactive compounds of the oil industry products; the transfer of these antioxidants and the proven improvement of the quality of milk fat could positively interact in the prevention of some human cardiovascular diseases and some tumours, increasing in this manner the quality of dairy products, also improving their shelf-life. These results also provide important information on the bioavailability of these phenolic compounds.

Knowledge Patterns for the Web: extraction, tranformation and reuse

This thesis aims at investigating methods and software architectures for discovering what are the typical and frequently occurring structures used for organizing knowledge in the Web. We identify these structures as Knowledge Patterns (KPs). KP discovery needs to address two main research problems: the heterogeneity of sources, formats and semantics in the Web (i.e., the knowledge soup problem) and the difficulty to draw relevant boundary around data that allows to capture the meaningful knowledge with respect to a certain context (i.e., the knowledge boundary problem). Hence, we introduce two methods that provide different solutions to these two problems by tackling KP discovery from two different perspectives: (i) the transformation of KP-like artifacts to KPs formalized as OWL2 ontologies; (ii) the bottom-up extraction of KPs by analyzing how data are organized in Linked Data. The two methods address the knowledge soup and boundary problems in different ways. The first method provides a solution to the two aforementioned problems that is based on a purely syntactic transformation step of the original source to RDF followed by a refactoring step whose aim is to add semantics to RDF by select meaningful RDF triples. The second method allows to draw boundaries around RDF in Linked Data by analyzing type paths. A type path is a possible route through an RDF that takes into account the types associated to the nodes of a path. Then we present K~ore, a software architecture conceived to be the basis for developing KP discovery systems and designed according to two software architectural styles, i.e, the Component-based and REST. Finally we provide an example of reuse of KP based on Aemoo, an exploratory search tool which exploits KPs for performing entity summarization.

Secondary Microseisms Characterization and Green’s Function Extraction at the Larderello-Travale Geothermal Field (Italy)

Over the past ten years, the cross-correlation of long-time series of ambient seismic noise (ASN) has been widely adopted to extract the surface-wave part of the Green’s Functions (GF). This stochastic procedure relies on the assumption that ASN wave-field is diffuse and stationary. At frequencies <1Hz, the ASN is mainly composed by surface-waves, whose origin is attributed to the sea-wave climate. Consequently, marked directional properties may be observed, which call for accurate investigation about location and temporal evolution of the ASN-sources before attempting any GF retrieval. Within this general context, this thesis is aimed at a thorough investigation about feasibility and robustness of the noise-based methods toward the imaging of complex geological structures at the local (∼10-50km) scale. The study focused on the analysis of an extended (11 months) seismological data set collected at the Larderello-Travale geothermal field (Italy), an area for which the underground geological structures are well-constrained thanks to decades of geothermal exploration. Focusing on the secondary microseism band (SM;f>0.1Hz), I first investigate the spectral features and the kinematic properties of the noise wavefield using beamforming analysis, highlighting a marked variability with time and frequency. For the 0.1-0.3Hz frequency band and during Spring- Summer-time, the SMs waves propagate with high apparent velocities and from well-defined directions, likely associated with ocean-storms in the south- ern hemisphere. Conversely, at frequencies >0.3Hz the distribution of back- azimuths is more scattered, thus indicating that this frequency-band is the most appropriate for the application of stochastic techniques. For this latter frequency interval, I tested two correlation-based methods, acting in the time (NCF) and frequency (modified-SPAC) domains, respectively yielding esti- mates of the group- and phase-velocity dispersions. Velocity data provided by the two methods are markedly discordant; comparison with independent geological and geophysical constraints suggests that NCF results are more robust and reliable.

Recenti tecnologie per la chirurgia mini-invasiva cardiovascolare.

L’aterosclerosi rappresenta una delle malattie più diffuse in tutto il mondo ed è caratterizzata da infiammazione cronica delle arterie di grande e medio calibro. In Italia, per esempio, le conseguenze dell’aterosclerosi, quali infarti e ischemie, sono la principale causa di 224.482 decessi annui, pari al 38,8% del totale delle morti. Oltre all’aterosclerosi, una cardiomiopatia congenita abbastanza diffusa, soprattutto nei bambini, è la presenza di anomalie dei setti inter-atriali e inter-ventricolari, che seppure non siano molto pericolosi per la vita del paziente, possono portare a ipertensione polmonare. L’obiettivo di questa tesi è mostrare le tecnologie recenti utilizzati per la cura dell’aterosclerosi e per la rimozione delle placche ateromatose, e per la chiusura trans-catetere dei difetti inter-atriali e inter-ventricolari. Nel primo capitolo viene effettuata una concisa presentazione dell’anatomia e della fisiologia dell’apparato cardio-vascolare; nel secondo capitolo invece vengono prese in rassegna le patologie appena citate e le metodiche di imaging per la loro analisi, evidenziandone, per ognuna, pregi e difetti. Nel terzo capitolo verranno presentate tutte le tecnologie recenti per la cura dell’aterosclerosi, concentrandoci principalmente sulle arterie coronarie, che sono, statisticamente, le più colpite da questa patologia. Infine, sempre nel terzo capitolo, verranno presentati i dispositivi medici per la chiusura dei difetti inter-atriali e inter-ventricolari, chiamati informalmente “ombrellini". L’ultimo capitolo riguarderà un caso particolare, vale a dire il trattamento delle lesioni alle biforcazioni coronariche, che richiedono tecnologie per la cura leggermente diverse rispetto al trattamento di una lesione aterosclerotica di una singola arteria coronarica.