Influence of uncertainty in selected aerodynamic and structural parameters on the buffeting response of long-span bridges

Multimode-analysis methods for the study and derivation of flutter instability and buffeting response are readily available from the literature and have been successfully applied to the assessment of the susceptibility of long-span bridges to wind loading. In both cases flutter critical velocity and buffeting oscillation are usually estimated from deterministic analyses. However, the probabilistic nature of the problem is latent since uncertainties, especially those associated with the definition of wind and aerodynamic characteristics, are intrinsically present. These quantities include, for example, wind-turbulence power spectral density, static coefficients and aerodynamic derivatives, usually derived from either site observations or experimental analysis. Their effects are often neglected or usually addressed through sensitivity analyses only.While in the past uncertainty in flutter estimates has been analyzed by researchers (for example through reliability analysis), little attention has been devoted to buffeting. In this paper the effects associated with the random nature of wind and structural characteristics are analyzed through the derivation of a closed-form solution associated with the single-mode buffeting problem with selected random parameters. A specific example is provided to clarify the role of wind power spectral density, damping and selected aeroelastic derivatives.     

Beam separator for high-order harmonic radiation in the 3-10 nm spectral region

We present the scheme of a beam separator for ultrashort high-order harmonic radiation below 10 nm. The system consists of a collimating mirror and two plane grazing-incidence gratings in compensated configuration. The first grating acts as the beam separator: it diffracts the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light into the first order while reflecting the fundamental laser beam into the zero order. The diffracted light goes to a second grating that compensates both for the spectral dispersion and for the temporal broadening of the XUV ultrashort pulse caused by the diffraction at the first grating. The system can be designed for any wavelength in the 3-40 nm region. Since the gratings are operated at extreme grazing incidence, the area of the optical surface illuminated by the fundamental laser pulse is large, and therefore there is no risk of damage of the optical surfaces. The effects on the phase of the ultrashort pulse for narrowband applications are discussed.     

Multiscale investigation of the functional properties of the human femur

The mechanical strength of human bones has often been investigated in the past. Bone failure is related to musculoskeletal loading, tissue properties, bone metabolism, etc. This is intrinsically a multiscale problem. However, organ-level performance in most cases is investigated as a separate problem, incorporating only part (if any) of the information available at a higher scale (body level) or at a lower one (tissue level, cell level). A multiscale approach is proposed, where models available at different levels are integrated. A middle-out strategy is taken: the main model to be investigated is at the organ level. The organ-level model incorporates as an input the outputs from the body-level (musculoskeletal loads), tissue-level (constitutive equations) and cell-level models (bone remodelling). In this paper, this approach is exemplified by a clinically relevant application: fractures of the proximal femur. We report how a finite-element model of the femur (organ level) becomes part of a multiscale model. A significant effort is related to model validation: a number of experiments were designed to quantify the model's sensitivity and accuracy. When possible, the clinical accuracy and the clinical impact of a model should be assessed. Whereas a large amount of information is available at all scales, only organ-level models are really mature in this perspective. More work is needed in the future to integrate all levels fully, while following a sound scientific method to assess the relevance and validity of such an integrated model.     

Biomimetic Mg-substituted hydroxyapatite: from synthesis to in vivo behaviour

The incorporation of magnesium ions (in the range 5–10 mol% in respect to Ca) into the hydroxyapatite structure, which is of great interest for the developing of artificial bone, was performed using magnesium chloride, calcium hydroxide and phosphoric acid, as reactants. Among the synthesized powders, the synthetic HA powder containing 5.7% Mg substituting for calcium was selected, due to its better chemico-physical features, and transformed into granules of 400–600 μm, for biocompatibility tests (genotoxicity, carcinogenicity, toxicity, in vitro cytotoxicity and in vivo skin irritation-sensitization tests). In vivo tests were carried out on New Zealand White rabbits using the granulate as filling for a femoral bone defect: osteoconductivity and resorption were found to be enhanced compared to commercial stoichiometric HA granulate, taken as control.     

A hybrid plasmonic-photonic nanodevice for label-free detection of a few molecules

Noble metal nanowaveguides supporting plasmon polariton modes are able to localize the optical fields at nanometer level for high sensitivity biochemical sensing devices. Here we report on the design and fabrication of a novel photonic-plasmonic device which demonstrates label-free detection capabilities on single inorganic nanoparticles and on monolayers of organic compounds. In any case, we determine the Raman scattering signal enhancement and the device detection limits that reach a number of molecules between 10 and 250. The device can be straightforwardly integrated in a scanning probe apparatus with the possibility to match topographic and label-free spectroscopic information in a wide range of geometries.     

PULP: A Ultra-Low Power Parallel Accelerator for Energy-Efficient and Flexible Embedded Vision

Novel pervasive devices such as smart surveillance cameras and autonomous micro-UAVs could greatly benefit from the availability of a computing device supporting embedded computer vision at a very low power budget. To this end, we propose PULP (Parallel processing Ultra-Low Power platform), an architecture built on clusters of tightly-coupled OpenRISC ISA cores, with advanced techniques for fast performance and energy scalability that exploit the capabilities of the STMicroelectronics UTBB FD-SOI 28nm technology. We show that PULP performance can be scaled over a 1x-354x range, with a peak theoretical energy efficiency of 211 GOPS/W. We present performance results for several demanding kernels from the image processing and vision domain, with post-layout power modeling: a motion detection application that can run at an efficiency up to 192 GOPS/W (90 % of the theoretical peak); a ConvNet-based detector for smart surveillance that can be switched between 0.7 and 27fps operating modes, scaling energy consumption per frame between 1.2 and 12mJ on a 320 ×240 image; and FAST + Lucas-Kanade optical flow on a 128 ×128 image at the ultra-low energy budget of 14 μJ per frame at 60fps.     

Single-step digital backpropagation for nonlinearity mitigation

Nonlinearity mitigation based on the enhanced split-step Fourier method (ESSFM) for the implementation of low-complexity digital backpropagation (DBP) is investigated and experimentally demonstrated. After reviewing the main computational aspects of DBP and of the conventional split-step Fourier method (SSFM), the ESSFM for dual-polarization signals is introduced. Computational complexity, latency, and power consumption of DBP based on the SSFM and ESSFM algorithms are estimated and compared. Effective low-complexity nonlinearity mitigation in a 112 Gb/s polarization-multiplexed QPSK system is experimentally demonstrated by using a single-step DBP based on the ESSFM. The proposed DBP implementation requires only a single step of the ESSFM algorithm to achieve a transmission distance of 3200 km over a dispersion-unmanaged link. In comparison, a conventional DBP implementation requires 20 steps of the SSFM algorithm to achieve the same performance. An analysis of the computational complexity and structure of the two algorithms reveals that the overall complexity and power consumption of DBP are reduced by a factor of 16 with respect to a conventional implementation, while the computation time is reduced by a factor of 20. Similar complexity reductions can be obtained at longer distances if higher error probabilities are acceptable. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm enables a practical and effective implementation of DBP in real-time optical receivers, with only a moderate increase in the computational complexity, power consumption, and latency with respect to a simple feed-forward equalizer for bulk dispersion compensation.     

On the performance of advanced integrated microring filters for switching applications in next-generation elastic optical networks

We investigate the use of integrated advanced microring resonator-based sum-difference all-pass optical filters for switching applications in circuit-switched elastic optical networks. A practical design taking into account optical losses accordingly to typical reported values for strip waveguides in silicon-on-insulator technology is considered. By incorporating tuning elements (i.e., standard phase shifters), three different synthetized elliptic filters are emulated in the same physical structure showing the potential in terms of bandwidth configurability of the architecture. Practical filter design rules for standard silicon-on-insulator single-mode strip waveguides are also discussed. Beside possible advantages in terms of reduced fabrication costs, simulations performed on Nyquist PM-QPSK signals with different channel capacities over 50, 37.5 and 25 GHz frequency slots suggest that the proposed structure can achieve similar or better performance than commercial spectrum selective switch filters.     

Fully Solution‐Processed Conductive Films Based on Colloidal Copper Selenide Nanosheets for Flexible Electronics

A novel colloidal synthesis of copper selenide nanosheets (NSs) with lateral dimensions of up to 3 μm is developed. This material is used for the fabrication of flexible conductive films prepared via simple drop‐casting of the NS dispersions without any additional treatment. The electrical performance of these coatings is benchmarked against copper selenide spherical nanocrystals (SNCs) in order to demonstrate the advantage of 2D morphology of the NSs for flexible electronics. In this contest, Cu_2?xSe SNC films exhibit higher conductivity but lower reproducibility due to the formation of cracks leading to discontinuous films. Furthermore, the electrical properties of the films deposited on different flexible substrates following their bending, stretching and folding are studied. A comparison of Cu_2?xSe SNC and CuSe NS films reveals an increased stability of the CuSe NS films under mechanical stress applied to the samples and their improved long‐term stability in air.