The aim of this paper is to investigate whether and how multiple-criteria decision analysis, based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach, may support the participatory process of the ...public in the whole transportation planning process, especially in strategic planning and at the initial stages during which planning options are drawn up and the public are rarely involved. The AHP makes it possible to consider the multiple objectives of decision makers and allows public engagement to be deliberative, participatory, dynamic and flexible, which is independent of planning options. The method was specified and calibrated starting from a specific stated preferences survey, and its parameters were calibrated with respect to two scenarios: without any transport options and with real transport options. Different criteria (accessibility, travel safety, comfort, environment, landscape), subcriteria and corresponding indicators (qualitative, quantitative and dichotomous) were considered, and reciprocal weights were calibrated. Finally, a real planning scenario was implemented. Calibration results gave interesting insights into the public desires and expectations, made it possible to rank the different chosen criteria and sub-criteria and to understand the biases between preferences stated with or without transport options. The method can be easily updated and can be easily transferred to any case study.
•AHP is a flexible and powerful tool for understanding and quantifying Public preferences.•Accessibility, safety and environmental proved to be the most significant criteria.•Waiting time and monetary cost are the most significant accessibility sub-criteria.•The Public puts great importance on the infrastructural component of travel safety.•The Public prefers low congestion and reliable services to ATIS services.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Sharp bisimulation is a refinement of branching bisimulation, parameterized by a subset of the system’s actions, called strong actions. This parameterization allows the sharp bisimulation to be ...tailored by the property under verification, whichever property of the modal
μ
-calculus is considered, while potentially reducing more than strong bisimulation. Sharp bisimulation equivalence is a congruence for process algebraic operators such as parallel composition, hide, cut, and rename, and hence can be used in a compositional verification setting. In this paper, we prove that sharp bisimulation equivalence is also a congruence for action priority operators under some conditions on strong actions. We compare sharp bisimulation with orthogonal bisimulation, whose equivalence is also a congruence for action priority. We show that, if the internal action
τ
neither gives priority to nor takes priority over other actions, then the quotient of a system with respect to sharp bisimulation equivalence (called sharp minimization) cannot be larger than the quotient of the same system with respect to orthogonal bisimulation equivalence. We then describe a signature-based partition refinement algorithm for sharp minimization, implemented in the BCG_MIN and BCG_CMP tools of the CADP software toolbox. This algorithm can be adapted to implement orthogonal minimization. We show on a crafted example that using compositional sharp minimization may yield state space reductions that outperform compositional orthogonal minimization by several orders of magnitude. Finally, we illustrate the use of sharp minimization and priority to verify a bully leader election algorithm.
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FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Even if the first published article on a porous silicon (PSi)-based biosensor dates back to more than twenty years ago, this technology still attracts great attention from many research groups around ...the world. In this brief review, the pros and cons of porous silicon-based optical biosensors will be highlighted on the basis of some recent results and published papers on this subject. The aim of the paper is to give a straightforward introduction to PhD students and young researchers on this subject, which is particularly full of educative content, since it is highly multidisciplinary. Fabrication of PSi-based optical biosensors requires competencies related to many different scientific topics ranging from material science, physics and optics to healthcare and environmental monitoring through surface chemistry and more.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
We describe an innovative experimental and computational approach to control the expression of a protein in a population of yeast cells. We designed a simple control algorithm to automatically ...regulate the administration of inducer molecules to the cells by comparing the actual protein expression level in the cell population with the desired expression level. We then built an automated platform based on a microfluidic device, a time-lapse microscopy apparatus, and a set of motorized syringes, all controlled by a computer. We tested the platform to force yeast cells to express a desired fixed, or time-varying, amount of a reporter protein over thousands of minutes. The computer automatically switched the type of sugar administered to the cells, its concentration and its duration, according to the control algorithm. Our approach can be used to control expression of any protein, fused to a fluorescent reporter, provided that an external molecule known to (indirectly) affect its promoter activity is available.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This review summarizes the leading advancements in porous silicon (PSi) optical-biosensors, achieved over the past five years. The cost-effective fabrication process, the high internal surface area, ...the tunable pore size, and the photonic properties made the PSi an appealing transducing substrate for biosensing purposes, with applications in different research fields. Different optical PSi biosensors are reviewed and classified into four classes, based on the different biorecognition elements immobilized on the surface of the transducing material. The PL signal modulation and the effective refractive index changes of the porous matrix are the main optical transduction mechanisms discussed herein. The approaches that are commonly employed to chemically stabilize and functionalize the PSi surface are described.
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•Internal approach algorithms significantly outperform external approach ones.•Internal algorithm efficiency is not affected by travel demand model parameters.•Restarting technique significantly ...increases the MSA efficiency.•Smoothing technique together with restarting technique let MSA-CA outperform MSA-FA.•Non-separable and asymmetric arc cost functions do not much affect algorithms efficiency.
Recently, it has been pointed out that transport models should reflect all significant traveler choice behavior. In particular, trip generation, trip distribution, modal split as well as route choice should be modeled in a consistent process based on the equilibrium between transport supply and travel demand. In this paper a general fixed-point approach that allows dealing with multi-user stochastic equilibrium assignment with variable demand is presented. The main focus was on investigating the effectiveness of internal and external approaches and of different algorithmic specifications based on the method of successive averages within the internal approach. The vector demand function was assumed non-separable, non-symmetric cost functions were adopted and implementation issues, such updating step and convergence criterion, were investigated. In particular the aim was threefold: (i) compare the internal and the external approaches; (ii) investigate the effectiveness of different algorithmic specifications to solve the variable demand equilibrium assignment problem through the internal approach; (iii) investigate the incidence of the number of the links with non-separable and/or asymmetrical cost functions. The proposed analyses were carried out with respect to two real-scale urban networks regarding medium-size urban contexts in Italy.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Estimation of age of majority has important applications in the forensic daily practice because of the increasing demand for age estimates of unaccompanied minors. Diagnostic accuracy of I
3M
to ...assess legal adult age of 18 years has been already tested in several specific population samples. The aim of this work was to compare the available data about sensitivity and specificity of the third molar maturity index (I
3M
) from five different regional groups’ radiographic samples to study possible ethnical difference. For this purpose, a sample of 6157 orthopantomograms (OPGs), coming from 15 countries, was analysed. Data about sensitivity and specificity were pooled using a bivariate modelling approach. The one-way MANOVA analysis was applied to assess the likelihood that sensitivity and specificity of the five regional groups are sampled from the same population. The result of the one-way MANOVA showed that both sensitivity and specificity did not depend from the regional groups. The obtained sensitivity was 84% (95% CI: 82% and 85%), and its specificity was 94% (95% CI: 93% and 95%). Based on these results, the I
3M
was a useful statistical tool to identify whether a subject has reached the legal age of 18 years old, regardless of his or her ethnicity.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, PRFLJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
The Palatal Rugae are considered a useful human identification marker for both orthodontists and forensic personnel. The principal aim of the present study was to evaluate the stability of palatal ...rugae with a 3D-3D superimposition procedure following Slow Maxillary Expansion (SME), in order to assess whether they kept their uniqueness and validity for human identification, even after a specific dental treatment. For this purpose, a sample of 27 digital dental models - belonging to growing patients (13 males and 14 females), aged between 8.5 and 15 years, who underwent SME therapy - was retrospectively studied and compared with a control group of 27 untreated subjects - (13 males and 14 females). Digital dental models were obtained pre-treatment and at device removal; both were processed by means of an intraoral scanner. A superimposition procedure was thus performed to reach the minimum point-to-point distance between two models of palatal rugae. Intra- and inter-observer differences were statistically analyzed by paired Wilcoxon test and Intra-class Correlation coefficient (ICC), showing values larger than 0.93. There was no difference in Root-Mean-Square (RMS) values between untreated control subjects and subjects treated with Leaf Expander (p = 0.062). A RMS value of 0.43 was the threshold to distinguish the pooled group ("Untreated" and "Leaf") from any mismatch. According to the obtained results, this study failed to reject the null hypothesis and presented no differences between the RMS values of the Test group and the RMS values of the untreated control group. This work highlighted the usefulness of 3D superimposition procedure for purposes of human identification, in subjects undergoing dental treatment. However, keeping in sight the forensic use of this technique as a helpful probation element in court, further studies should be performed to confirm these findings.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Regenerative medicine is the branch of medicine that effectively uses stem cell therapy and tissue engineering strategies to guide the healing or replacement of damaged tissues or organs. A crucial ...element is undoubtedly the biomaterial that guides biological events to restore tissue continuity. The polymers, natural or synthetic, find wide application thanks to their great adaptability. In fact, they can be used as principal components, coatings or vehicles to functionalize several biomaterials. There are many leading centers for the research and development of biomaterials in Italy. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the current state of the art on polymer research for regenerative medicine purposes. The last five years of scientific production of the main Italian research centers has been screened to analyze the current advancement in tissue engineering in order to highlight inputs for the development of novel biomaterials and strategies.
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