Information Sharing Among Disaster Responders - An Interactive Spreadsheet-Based Collaboration Approach

Recent natural disasters have led crisis management organizations to revise their protocols so as to rely on the contribution of a wider range of actors, including simple citizens as well as expert operators, to support decision making activities. Reliable and timely information sharing among members of distributed teams of disaster responders has become paramount for the success of the overall crisis management process. In this paper we propose a crisis management system based on spreadsheet-mediated collaboration among on-site responders and decision makers. To share data a common spreadsheet artifact has been developed by using a participatory design approach which is accessed through mobile user interfaces. The evaluation results showed that the use of the spreadsheet artifact has resulted in more effective decision making relating to set of earthquake management scenarios in high-risk areas located in Italy.     

HLA_ACTOR_REPAST: An approach to distributing RePast models for high-performance simulations

RePast is a popular agent toolkit with proven capabilities to fulfil the modelling challenges of large multi-agent systems (MASs). The toolkit, though, is normally used on a standalone workstation and therefore its practical use can be constrained (in space and time) by the limited available computing resources. This paper proposes an original approach – HLA_ACTOR_REPAST – aimed to distributing RePast models for high-performance simulation of complex scalable models. Novel in HLA_ACTOR_REPAST is an exploitation of a lean actor infrastructure implemented in Java. Actors bring to RePast agents such features as migration, location-transparent naming, efficient communications, and a control-centric framework. Actors can be orchestrated by an in-the-large custom control structure which is in charge of ensuring the necessary message causality constraints. Distribution and time management concerns depend on the IEEE standard HLA middleware. The paper first discusses details of the software engineering process underlying the development of HLA_ACTOR_REPAST. The mapping techniques, assisted by Java text annotations and aspect-oriented programming, try to minimize “code intrusions” in the original model and favour model transparency. The paper then furnishes some experimental data which witness the good performance results achieved by applying HLA_ACTOR_REPAST to a distributed version of a classic MAS benchmark model.     

Project proposal for the investigation of particle-stabilised emulsions and foams by microgravity experiments

The utilisation of particle-surfactants nanostructures as stabilising agents represents today the technologic and scientific frontier in the stabilisation of liquid films in emulsion and foams. This topic will be addressed by the proposal STEFAN (STabilisation of Emulsions and FoAms by Nanoparticles), proposed by European groups in the framework of the ESA AO-2004 for Life and Physical Sciences and Applied Research projects Similarly to what can be observed for surfactant-stabilised emulsions and foams, microgravity provides ideal conditions for the investigation of the hierarchy of involved objects: interfacial layer, liquid film, dispersed systems foam or emulsion. Microgravity experiments are planned by refurbishing the Experimental Container FASES for the ISS Fluid Science Laboratory and the facility FASTER for the European Drawer Rack, already under development in existing research programmes. Here the scientific guidelines of the project are presented together with examples and preliminary results on the effect of nano-particle-surfactant structures adsorbed at liquid interfaces. First experimental results have been achieved for particle monolayers at the water/air interface and a thermodynamic model was derived to describe the obtained surface pressure-area isotherms.     

Rheological studies with spherically shaped thin liquid films

The present work shows the first experimental and theoretical results for investigations on the rheology of liquid films. The experiments are planned to be performed under microgravity conditions. This environment will allow forming films of different thickness, which is impossible under ground conditions due to drainage. Then the films are forced to harmonic oscillations of the film area so that the film elasticity can be measured as a function of frequency. The presented theoretical model demonstrates the main relationships to be solved under corresponding boundary conditions     

Intrinsic Fluorescence of the Active and the Inactive Functional Forms of Human Thymidylate Synthase

The observables associated with protein intrinsic fluorescence – spectra, time decays, anisotropies – offer opportunities to monitor in real time and non-invasively a protein‘s functional form and its interchange with other forms with different functions. We employed these observables to sketch the fluorometric profiles of two functional forms of human thymidylate synthase (hTS), a homodimeric enzyme crucial for cell proliferation and thus targeted by anticancer drugs. The protein takes an active and an inactive form. Stabilization of the latter by peptides that, unlike classical hTS inhibitors, bind it at the monomer/monomer interface offers an alternative inhibition mechanism that promises to avoid the onset of drug resistance in anticancer therapy. The fluorescence features depicted herein can be used as tools to identify and quantify each of the two protein forms in solution, thus making it possible to investigate the kinetic and thermodynamic aspects of the active/inactive conformational interchange. Two examples of fluorometrically monitored interconversion kinetics are provided.     

Development of virtual data acquisition systems based on multimedia internetworking

This paper proposes a novel approach centered on multimedia internetworking for the development of Distributed Virtual Instruments (DVI). Multimedia internetworking refers to network infrastructures, protocols, models, applications and techniques being currently deployed over the Internet to support multimedia applications, e.g., videoconferencing, video-on-demand, shared workspaces. It is applied to broaden the concept of virtual instrument and enable new measurement patterns leveraging efficiency and interactivity. A DVI is a virtual instrument split into possibly multiple and independent parts, sender and receiver, which are linked by real-time continuous media and control streams. Senders and receivers are built by using open, composable and modular components based on a time sensitive actor framework and glued by multimedia middleware. A prototype is described to demonstrate the potential and the benefits of the proposed approach.     

Catalysts for the Ethoxylation of Esters

The intermediates for the production of nonionic surfactants can be derived from petrochemicals and/or from renewable raw materials. In both, the role of catalysis is fundamental. In this paper the main results reported in the literature related with the catalysis for ethoxylation of fatty esters will be reviewed. The main open challenges for these technologies will be outlined.     

The Art of War:

A Review of Keshvaram N. lengar. Composing Architecture, Mysore, India: Academy of Art and Architecture, 1996, illustrated. Reviwed by: PETER KOLLAR

Vaughn Hart with Peter Hicks (eds.), Paper Palaces: The Rise of the Renaissance Architectural Treatise, New Haven Yale University Press, c. 1998, Reviewed by: PETER ARMSTRONG