Publications

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) must share space with pedestrians, both in carriageway cases such as cars at pedestrian crossings and off-carriageway cases such as delivery vehicles navigating through crowds on pedestrianized high-streets. Unlike static obstacles, pedestrians are active agents with complex, interactive motions. Planning AV actions in the presence of pedestrians thus requires modelling of their probable future behavior as well as detecting and tracking them. This narrative review article is Part I of a pair, together surveying the current technology stack involved in this process, organising recent research into a hierarchical taxonomy ranging from low-level image detection to high-level psychology models, from the perspective of an AV designer. This self-contained Part I covers the lower levels of this stack, from sensing, through detection and recognition, up to tracking of pedestrians. Technologies at these levels are found to be mature and available as foundations for use in high-level systems, such as behavior modelling, prediction and interaction control.

In this work, the factors controlling the fresh state properties of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) are assessed and compared to Portland and binary cements, extending the scope of previous research by combining rheological measurements with setting time determination and the evaluation of plastic shrinkage by a novel method. Yield stress and elastic modulus are considered indicators for the structural build-up/breakdown process when stress is applied to the system. On the other hand, plastic shrinkage occurs from the mixing to the setting of fresh paste and plays an important role in governing microstructural changes due to settlement and evaporation. Evaluation of the rheological properties with time was appropriate to give an overview of the influence and behavior of different added materials. The elastic modulus of all binders (clinker, LC3, clinker- limestone, and clinker-calcined clay) was increased from mixing to 60 min of curing as follows: 5.27 × 103 to 9.50 × 105 Pa, 5.94 × 103 to 9.87 × 105 Pa, 6.89 × 103 to 5.62 × 105 Pa and 7.85 × 103 to 1.27 × 106 Pa, respectively. Moreover, during the first three hours of curing, LC3 exhibited a reduction of plastic shrinkage by more than a factor of 2 compared to clinker cement. The use of calcined clay with clinker increases the elastic modulus of the system due to the flocculation effect and increased water absorption, while a dilution effect is contributed due to deflocculation and a free-water increase in the system when a high fraction of limestone is present in the binary cement. The combination of limestone and calcined clay with clinker can induce additional chemical reactions, which control the early age properties, such as plastic shrinkage. The obtained results can contribute to optimizing the fresh state properties of ternary blends of OPC, calcined clay, and limestone through a knowledge-based approach.

Laura Riva and Carlo Punta have been added to the author group. The change of authorship is due to an error in the recognition of the role and importance of the work of synthesis and characterization of the materials object of the present study, which was not entirely recognized by the inclusion in the acknowledgements. A full recognition of the work performed is obtained by inclusion of the originally omitted authors in the authors’ list. Moreover, a recognition of these authors’ funding body was missing and has been included in the acknowledgement.

The quest for a new-generation concrete, designed to be compatible with the need of mitigating the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate, has prompted applied research to define a broad range of low-CO2 cement-based materials. While minimizing CO2 emissions is a goal of the utmost importance, research into sustainable building materials must also tackle the issue of raw material depletion (including limestone, clay and aggregate deposits, as well as water resources) in favor of secondary raw materials. One possible solution is that of minimizing the impact of quarrying by a circular economy approach that envisages the reuse of waste from stone extraction and processing. It is estimated that 200 Mt waste are produced by the stone industry worldwide each year. This includes slurries obtained from the quarrying, cutting and polishing of marble, which can be used as a source of calcium carbonate, alternative to primary limestone. This contribution illustrates the use of waste calcium carbonate, obtained from marble slurry (waste marble, WM), in sustainable cement materials alternative to Portland cement. The possibility of exploiting locally available resources is explored, and the effect of WM additions up to 50% by total mass on the macroscopic properties is investigated experimentally. It is shown that binders with adequate fresh and hardened state properties can be obtained by moderate additions of WM, which greatly enhances the environmental performance by reducing the amount of primary resources used in the mix. By reducing the amount of thermally treated clay in alkali-activated blends, the use of WM also results in a net decrease of the embodied energy.

The anticancer drug imatinib is often involved in therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) studies aimed at improving the treatment of several forms of leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). To further implement the TDM of imatinib in clinical practice, we developed a detection assay by using an ssDNA aptamer, which demonstrated excellent selectivity and was not affected by interference from the components of human plasma samples. The efficient binding of imatinib to the aptamer was demonstrated by means of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis, which allowed the development of a quantitative assay in the concentration range between 400 and 6000 ng mL-1 (0.7-10 μM), where a lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) of 400 ng mL-1 was achieved. The precision of the assay was found to be within 12.0%, whereas the accuracy was in a range between 97.1 and 101.5%. The sample preparation procedure displayed a recovery in the range of 48.8-52.8%. Solid validation data were collected according to the regulatory guidelines and the method was compared with standard analytical techniques, leading to the development of a feasible aptasensor for the TDM of patients administered with imatinib.

Gliding is generally one of the most efficient modes of flight in natural fliers that can be further emphasized in the aircraft industry to reduce emissions and facilitate endured flights. Natural wings being fundamentally responsible for this phenomenon are developed over millions of years of evolution. Artificial wings, on the other hand, are limited to the human-proposed conceptual design phase often leading to sub-optimal results. However, the novel Generative Design (GD) method claims to produce mechanically improved solutions based on robust and rigorous models of design conditions and performance criteria. This study investigates the potential applications of this Computer-Associated Design (CAsD) technology to generate novel micro aerial vehicle wing concepts that are structurally more stable and efficient. Multiple performance-driven solutions (wings) with high-level goals are generated by an infinite scale cloud computing solution executing a machine learning-based GD algorithm. Ultimately, the highest performing CAsD concepts are numerically analysed, fabricated, and mechanically tested according to our previous study, and the results are compared to the literature for qualitative as well as quantitative analysis and validations. It was concluded that the GD-based tandem wings’ (forewing and hindwing) ability to withstand fracture failure without compromising structural rigidity was optimized by 78% compared to its peer models. However, the weight was slightly increased by 11% with 14% drop in stiffness when compared to our models from previous study.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) must share space with pedestrians, both in carriageway cases such as cars at pedestrian crossings and off-carriageway cases such as delivery vehicles navigating through crowds on pedestrianized high-streets. Unlike static obstacles, pedestrians are active agents with complex, interactive motions. Planning AV actions in the presence of pedestrians thus requires modelling of their probable future behavior as well as detecting and tracking them. This narrative review article is Part I of a pair, together surveying the current technology stack involved in this process, organising recent research into a hierarchical taxonomy ranging from low-level image detection to high-level psychology models, from the perspective of an AV designer. This self-contained Part I covers the lower levels of this stack, from sensing, through detection and recognition, up to tracking of pedestrians. Technologies at these levels are found to be mature and available as foundations for use in high-level systems, such as behavior modelling, prediction and interaction control.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) must share space with pedestrians, both in carriageway cases such as cars at pedestrian crossings and off-carriageway cases such as delivery vehicles navigating through crowds on pedestrianized high-streets. Unlike static obstacles, pedestrians are active agents with complex, interactive motions. Planning AV actions in the presence of pedestrians thus requires modelling of their probable future behavior as well as detecting and tracking them. This narrative review article is Part II of a pair, together surveying the current technology stack involved in this process, organising recent research into a hierarchical taxonomy ranging from low-level image detection to high-level psychological models, from the perspective of an AV designer. This self-contained Part II covers the higher levels of this stack, consisting of models of pedestrian behavior, from prediction of individual pedestrians’ likely destinations and paths, to game-theoretic models of interactions between pedestrians and autonomous vehicles. This survey clearly shows that, although there are good models for optimal walking behavior, high-level psychological and social modelling of pedestrian behavior still remains an open research question that requires many conceptual issues to be clarified. Early work has been done on descriptive and qualitative models of behavior, but much work is still needed to translate them into quantitative algorithms for practical AV control.

This paper reports on the effect of cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) on the fresh-state properties of alkali activated ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS). Surface functionalized (oxidized) CNFs were added to alkali activated GGBS water suspensions (hydraulic pastes). The rheological behaviour of the pastes was compared with OPC and interpreted based on the CNF-mineral surface interaction, and on the CNF-water interaction and swelling. The water dispersion of CNFs with different surface functionalization degrees resulted in gels of different viscosity and yield stress, due to their different hydrophilicity and water adsorption properties. On increasing the CNFs surface oxidation degree, the viscosity of the CNF water dispersion decreases and the CNF water adsorption increases, while the viscosity of fresh pastes increases because of the reduced amount of available mixing water. In the hardened state, the hydraulic pastes show differences in mechanical strength related to the type and the amount of CNF influencing the porosity of the matrix as evidenced by the microstructural investigation performed by X-ray microtomography. The presence of higher amounts of CNFs induces the formation of porous agglomerates that may act as stress concentrators due to the swelling ability of nanofibrils.

Boron efficiently absorbs neutrons due to its large cross section. Thus, boron containing materials are an effective shield to neutrons and are commonly used as containment barriers in nuclear reactors. The most economical way to include boron into shielding structures is to prepare B-rich mortars or concretes, to be used as structural elements or as plastering. However, colemanite [Ca(B3O4(OH)3)(H2O)], the most abundant B-containing mineral, is sufficiently soluble to release enough borate ions in solution to indefinitely stop Portland cement hydration. Here we present the formulation of hydraulically active binders containing 50% of colemanite. They are based on blends of calcium aluminate cements and blastfurnace slag. The main hydration product in the absence of colemanite is strätlingite along with other AFm phases. MgO causes an increasing hydrotalcite precipitation, and fly ashes further increase strätlingite content. The presence of colemanite causes the precipitation of B-ettringite, where B(OH)4¯ ions substitute for sulphate ions. These binders set in one day and harden in 4 days. The addition of hydrated lime in the formulations brings about the additional precipitation of B-containing AFm phases, where the trigonal HBO32- ion constitutes the interlayer between positive [Ca2Al(OH)6]+ sheets. These binders set in few hours and harden in one day.