Moulded pulp products manufacturing with thermoforming

For an effective optimization of pulp thermoforming and of the moulded pulp products manufactured by this process, a full understanding of the process physics combined with full knowledge of the pressing equipment is necessary. For this reason, in this Addendum, we clarify how the process parameters “Holding time,” “Vacuum time,” “Cycle time,” and “Temperature” were interpreted and subsequently defined for the analysis of the process and product‐related outputs of the thermoforming experiments.     

Creating an Holistic Emergency Alert Management Platform

ABSTRACT

Extreme natural events require effective emergency procedures to minimize adverse effects on a region’s population and economy. Such procedures typically involve the effort of several different teams of first responders (e.g., fire fighters, public administrations, police departments, utility companies), hence coordination is fundamental to the effectiveness of the response to the emergency that must be supported with adequate infrastructures. Nonetheless, first responders often rely on manual processes, in the life cycle of extreme events, which do not change consistently with the type of shock or affected population. The aim of this paper is to present a technology transfer process to improve both the emergency alert process and the knowledge of disaster-type safety procedures through the implementation of a proposed platform. We also highlight a pilot application on a post-disaster case study—the province of L’Aquila (Abruzzi) in Italy.     

Development and validation of a probabilistic model for notch fatigue strength prediction of tool steels based on surface defects

A new model for the high cycle notch fatigue strength prediction of tool steels subjected to axial loading is proposed, based on previous literatures studies and experimental tests carried out on six different tool steels, including rotating bending fatigue tests on notched specimens, fractographic analyses, hardness, residual stress, and roughness measurements. The novelty is the assumption that surface defects are the main cause of notch fatigue failures of such steels. A probabilistic approach was implemented by modeling size distributions of defects, resulting in the prediction of normal distributions of fatigue strength. Like to other previous models, the effect of steel hardness, surface residual stress, notch severity, and specimen size was also taken into account. Model calibration and validation were performed using the data collected by the experimental activity. Model behavior was investigated by performing a sensitivity analysis, aiming to verify the response to variations of the considered input variables. Prediction errors of only 1.3% (on average) and 3.1% (maximum) resulted from the comparison between model-predicted and experimental notch fatigue strength.     

Ejection chain moves for automatic neighborhood synthesis in constrained cardinality‐minimization problems

In this paper, we deal with the problem of automatically synthesizing “good” neighborhoods for a specific class of problems, namely constrained cardinality‐minimization problems. Exploiting the peculiarity of the objective function of such problems, we develop automatic ejection chain moves that define neighborhood structures to be explored with a black‐box solver. In particular, starting from a formulation of a cardinality‐minimization problem and a feasible solution, our procedure automatically detects the “entities” involved in the problem and learns the strength of the relationships among them. This information is then used to define the characteristics of our moves that consist in ejecting one entity at a time from the solution. If one of such moves results in an infeasible solution, then feasibility is recovered by performing an additional step based on the solution of an auxiliary problem. The computational results show that, when assessed on four well‐known constrained cardinality‐minimization problems, our approach outperforms both a black‐box mixed integer programming solver and a state‐of‐the‐art model‐based neighborhood search procedure with respect to both solution quality and computing times.     

A Novel GUCA1A Variant Associated with Cone Dystrophy Alters cGMP Signaling in Photoreceptors by Strongly Interacting with and Hyperactivating Retinal Guanylate Cyclase

Guanylate cyclase-activating protein 1 (GCAP1), encoded by the GUCA1A gene, is a neuronal calcium sensor protein involved in shaping the photoresponse kinetics in cones and rods. GCAP1 accelerates or slows the cGMP synthesis operated by retinal guanylate cyclase (GC) based on the light-dependent levels of intracellular Ca²⁺, thereby ensuring a timely regulation of the phototransduction cascade. We found a novel variant of GUCA1A in a patient affected by autosomal dominant cone dystrophy (adCOD), leading to the Asn104His (N104H) amino acid substitution at the protein level. While biochemical analysis of the recombinant protein showed impaired Ca²⁺ sensitivity of the variant, structural properties investigated by circular dichroism and limited proteolysis excluded major structural rearrangements induced by the mutation. Analytical gel filtration profiles and dynamic light scattering were compatible with a dimeric protein both in the presence of Mg²⁺ alone and Mg²⁺ and Ca²⁺. Enzymatic assays showed that N104H-GCAP1 strongly interacts with the GC, with an affinity that doubles that of the WT. The doubled IC₅₀ value of the novel variant (520 nM for N104H vs. 260 nM for the WT) is compatible with a constitutive activity of GC at physiological levels of Ca²⁺. The structural region at the interface with the GC may acquire enhanced flexibility under high Ca²⁺ conditions, as suggested by 2 μs molecular dynamics simulations. The altered interaction with GC would cause hyper-activity of the enzyme at both low and high Ca²⁺ levels, which would ultimately lead to toxic accumulation of cGMP and Ca²⁺ in the photoreceptor outer segment, thus triggering cell death.     

A variational integrators approach to second order modeling and identification of linear mechanical systems

The theory of variational integration provides a systematic procedure to discretize the equations of motion of a mechanical system, preserving key properties of the continuous time flow. The discrete-time model obtained by variational integration theory inherits structural conditions which in general are not guaranteed under general discretization procedures. We discuss a simple class of variational integrators for linear second order mechanical systems and propose a constrained identification technique which employs simple linear transformation formulas to recover the continuous time parameters of the system from the discrete-time identified model. We test this approach on a simulated eight degrees of freedom system and show that the new procedure leads to an accurate identification of the continuous-time parameters of second-order mechanical systems starting from discrete measured data.     

Minimal resources identifiability and estimation of quantum channels

We characterize and discuss the identifiability condition for quantum process tomography, as well as the minimal experimental resources that ensure a unique solution in the estimation of quantum channels, with both direct and convex optimization methods. A convenient parametrization of the constrained set is used to develop a globally converging Newton-type algorithm that ensures a physically admissible solution to the problem. Numerical simulation is provided to support the results and indicate that the minimal experimental setting is sufficient to guarantee good estimates.     

Antennal fine morphology of the threatened beetle Osmoderma eremita (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), revealed by scanning electron microscopy

The aim of this study was to characterize the antennal morphology of Osmoderma eremita, a threatened scarab beetle inhabiting tree hollows. O. eremita males produce a sex pheromone, (R)‐(+)‐γ‐decalactone, responsible mainly for the attraction of females but also other males. Gross and fine morphology of microstructures including sensilla, microsculpture and pores were analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscopy. The antenna of O. eremita showed the typical lamellicorn shape of scarab beetles, with a basal scape, a pedicel, a funicle composed of five antennomeres and a club composed of three lamellae. Six different subtypes of sensilla chaetica (Ch.1 ? 6), Böhm sensilla (Bo), one subtype of sensilla basiconica (Ba.1), two subtypes of sensilla coeloconica (Co.1 ? 2), two subtypes of sensilla placodea (Pl.1 ? 2), pores and peculiar folds were described. The two sexes did not show any significant differences in the occurrence and number of the sensilla placodea, known to be responsible for the pheromone reception. Instead, some sexual differences were found on the occurrence and topology of three different microstructures: (1) one subtype of sensillum chaeticum (Ch.2) occurring on the pedicel only in males; (2) a characteristic pore occurring on the funicle only in males; (3) a peculiar fold occurring on different antennomeres of the funicle in the two sexes, on the fourth in males and on the fifth in females. A comparison between sensilla of O. eremita and those of other Scarabaeoidea is provided. Microsc. Res. Tech. 79:178–191, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.