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OSAS comorbidity and benefits from NINV differ between genders. This study aimed to assess NINV adaptation and use parameters, and their correlations with anthropometric measures, comorbidity, sleep quality and mood in a cohort of OSA patients. Reporting for their annual checkup, NINV patients were included in a 12-month observational study after completing: Beck Depression Scale (BDI), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), Cues to CPAP Use Questionnaire (CCUQ). Data were collected on BMI, Mallampati, smoking, comorbidity and NINV [type, setting, residual AHI, average daily, annual and >4h use %]. 263 patients (194 M), mean age 63.51 years (SD±9.95), mean BMI 32.92 (SD±6.17). Females were older (p Within females, moderate negative correlations were found between PSQI and % of yearly (r=-0.349) and >4h/day (r=-0.43) NINV use. Women with OSA show discriminating comorbidities, including anxiety and depression, that appear to selectively influence sleep quality and impinge on NINV adaptation and % of use.

In the present study an attempt is made to provide a general Monte Carlo approach for deriving flood frequency curves in ungauged basins in Sicily region (Italy). The proposed procedure consists of (i) a regional frequency analysis of extreme rainfall series, combined with Huff curves-based synthetic hyetographs, for design storms and (ii) a rainfall-runoff model, based on the Time-Area technique, to generate synthetic hydrographs. Validation of the procedure is carried out on four gauged river basins in Sicily region (Italy), where synthetic peak flow frequency curves, obtained by simulating 1000 flood events, are compared with observed values. Results of the application reveal that the proposed Monte Carlo approach is suitable to reproduce with reasonable accuracy the hydrologic response of the investigated basins. Given its relative simplicity, the developed procedure can be easily extended to poorly gauged or ungauged basins.

In this paper a procedure to derive synthetic flood design hydrographs (SFDH) using a bivariate representation of rainfall forcing (rainfall duration and intensity) via copulas, which describes and models the correlation between two variables independently of the marginal laws involved, coupled with a distributed rainfall–runoff model, is presented. Rainfall–runoff modelling (R–R modelling) for estimating the hydrological response at the outlet of a catchment was performed by using a conceptual fully distributed procedure based on the Soil Conservation Service – Curve Number method as an excess rainfall model and on a distributed unit hydrograph with climatic dependencies for the flow routing. Travel time computation, based on the distributed unit hydrograph definition, was performed by implementing a procedure based on flow paths, determined from a digital elevation model (DEM) and roughness parameters obtained from distributed geographical information. In order to estimate the primary return period of the SFDH, which provides the probability of occurrence of a hydrograph flood, peaks and flow volumes obtained through R–R modelling were treated statistically using copulas. Finally, the shapes of hydrographs have been generated on the basis of historically significant flood events, via cluster analysis. An application of the procedure described above has been carried out and results presented for the case study of the Imera catchment in Sicily, Italy.

In the framework of the H2020 INDIGO-DataCloud project, we have implemented an advanced solution for the automatic deployment of digital data repositories based on Invenio, the digital library framework developed by CERN. Exploiting cutting-edge technologies, such as Docker and Apache Mesos, and standard specifications to describe application architectures such as TOSCA, we are able to provide a service that simplifies the process of creating and managing repositories of various digital assets using cloud resources. An Invenio-based repository consists of a set of services (e.g. database, message queue, cache, workers and frontend) that need to be properly installed, configured and linked together. These operations, along with the provisioning of the resources and their monitoring and maintenance, can be challenging for individual researchers or small-to-moderate-sized research groups. To this purpose, the INDIGO-DataCloud platform provides advanced features for orchestrating the deployment of complex virtual infrastructures on distributed cloud environments: it is able to provision the required resources automatically over heterogeneous and/or hybrid cloud infrastructures and to configure them automatically ensuring dynamic elasticity and resilience. This approach has been successfully adapted to support the needs of the researchers and scholars in the domain of the Digital Arts and Humanities.

L’auteur montre l’existence d’une structure mnémique dans le Purgatoire, en s’intéressant à la distribution très précise de symboles chromatiques et lumineux, tout particulièrement le « smeraldo », le « purpureus », et la « lucerna ». En plus de la Bible, cette architecture symbolique trouve ses fondements théoriques dans la hiérarchie des vertus chez Macrobe et dans la doctrine des Dons du Saint Esprit chez saint Thomas d’Aquin., The author shows the existence of a mnemic structure in Purgatorio, focusing on the very precise distribution of colorful and bright symbols, especially the smeraldo, the purpureus, and the lucerna. Along with the Bible, this symbolic architecture finds its theoretical foundations in the hierarchy of virtues in Macrobius and in the doctrine of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit as according to St. Thomas Aquinas.

This work focuses on the design and development of flexible solid-state supercapacitors based on cotton textile electrodes with activated carbon (AC) and manganese oxide (MnO2) as negative and positive electrodes, respectively and a polymer/electrolyte membrane. The cotton textile was chosen as support because its low cost, flexibility and easily to be conformed. Because it is an insulator needs special treatments to become an electrically conductive material. To be accomplish this, a first carbon conductive layer was deposited on both sides of pristine cotton substrate starting from a slurry of acetylene black and carbon nanofibers and succesively a second active layer of both AC and MnO2 was further deposited on two different substrates to form the negative and positive composite electrodes, respectively. The negative electrode was composed by 80 wt. % AC; 10 wt % of carbon nanofibers (CNF); 10 wt % of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) binder and, the positive one by 70 wt% of MnO2, 10 wt % of carbon black (CB), 10 wt % of CNF, 10 wt % of PVDF. A flexible supercapacitor is ther eafter realized using two cotton electrodes coupled with an Aquivion® PFSA (Solvay) electrolyte membrane. The supercapacitor was then electrochemically characterized to determinate the specific capacitance, voltage range stability and cycling stability. For better investigate the durability of the developed supercapacitor, a new procedure combining galvanostatic charge/discharge cycles and floating conditions at 1.6 V has been designed and applied experimentaly. The SC as a whole was subjected at different electrochemical characterizations (CV, G-C/D, EIS), which were carried out to check the cell performances at starting conditions and at different cycle intervals until the test was deliberately interrupted. As a result, the capacitance of the SC, calculated from the G-CD profile at 0.2 Ag-1, increased from the initial value of 134 Fg-1 to 164 Fg-1 after 7800 charge/discharge cycles and 108h under maximum voltage of 1.6V. After which, the capacitance decreased to reach a enough stable value of 144 Fg-1 after 20 K cycles and 280h at 1.6 V (see Figure 1). The study also showed that initial CVs were perfectly rectangular, while the subsequent ones showed distortions and peaks that appeared during the progression of stability test. A remarkable 7% increase in specific capacity of the SC was achieved after 20 K cycles and 280 hours of floating at 1.6V, despite the very harsh conditions of long-term durability assessment.

The aim of this paper is to present a stochastic model to generate sub-hourly rainfall events at a given point. Historical events used as the input have been extracted by the sub-hourly rainfall series available for a defined rain gauge station based on a fixed inter-event time and selected if their average intensity was larger than a critical fixed one. The sub-hourly events generated by applying the proposed methodology are completely stochastic and their main characteristics, i.e., shape, duration and average intensity, have been derived as a function of the statistics of the historical events analyzed. In order to characterize the shape, dimensionless hyetographs have been derived. They have been statistically modelled by using the Beta cumulative distribution. Average intensity and duration of the historical events were first modelled separately by fitting several probability distributions and selecting the best one using the more common statistical criteria. Then, their correlation was modelled using the Frank&rsquo, s copula. In order to test the methodology, two sites in Sicily, Italy, where 10 min&rsquo, recorded rainfall data were available, were analyzed. Finally, comparison between the statistics of the simulated events and those of the measured data demonstrates the good performance of the model.

Rainfall Monitoring, Modelling and Forecasting in Urban Environment. UrbanRain18: 11th International Workshop on Precipitation in Urban Areas. Conference Proceedings

This work evaluates the predictive power of the quasi-dynamic shallow landslide model QD-SLaM to simulate shallow landslide locations in a small-scale Mediterranean landscape, namely, the lower portion (2.6 km2) of the Giampilieri catchment, located in Sicily (Italy). The catchment was impacted by a sequence of high-intensity storms over the years 2007–2009, resulting in widespread landsliding, with a total landslide initiation area amounting to 2.6% of the basin area. The effect of high-resolution digital terrain models (DTMs) on the quality of model predictions is tested by considering four DTM resolutions: 2, 4, 10 and 20 m. Moreover, the impact of the dense forest road network on the model performance is evaluated by separately considering road-related landslides and natural landslides. The landslide model does not incorporate the description of road-related failures and is applied without calibration of the model parameters. The model predictive power is shown to be DTM-resolution dependent. Use of coarser resolution has a smoothing effect on terrain attributes, with local slope angles decreasing and contributing areas becoming larger. The percentage of watershed area represented by the model as unconditionally unstable (i.e. failing even without the addition of water from precipitation) ranges between 6.3% at 20 m DTM and 13.8% at 2 m DTM, showing an overestimation of the mapped landslide area. We consider this prediction as an indication for likely failing sites in future storms rather than areas proved stable during previous storms. When assessed over the sample of mapped non-road-related landslides, better model performances are reported for 4 and 10 m DTM resolution, thus highlighting the fact that higher DTM resolution does not necessarily mean better model performances. Model performances over road-related failures are lower than for the natural cases, and slightly increase with decreasing DTM resolution. These findings indicate that to realize the full potential of high-resolution topography, more extensive work is needed aiming more specifically to identify the extent of the artificial structures and their impact on shallow landsliding processes., Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 18 (6), ISSN:1027-5606, ISSN:1607-7938

Il presente lavoro si propone come lettura dei canti XVIII e XIX del Purgatorio, dove il centrale discorso di Virgilio sull’amore come fondamento dell’agire umano trova esemplificazione nella doppia forma dell’incontro con le anime accidiose e del sogno (la celebre «femmina balba»). Che sia in dialogo col maestro o nella descrizione dei purganti o per esperienza onirica, la scoperta della forza del desiderio è seguita, rassicurazione e monito insieme, dalla certezza che il libero arbitrio può trattenerci dalle azioni ree, riconducendo il potere appetitivo a quello conoscitivo e dunque trasformando il “moto” d’amore nella feconda stasi della riflessione. Fra gli espedienti che sortiscono l’effetto di porre il lettore sullo stesso piano del Viator, si segnalano l’impianto teatrale del discorso, fitto di stazioni narrative e tematiche, e lo stile ricco di figurazioni, allusivo a un impiego della facoltà immaginativa per un fine poetico che intende mostrarsi utile all’educazione umana e davvero “libero” dal giogo amoroso., ACME, Vol 67, No 1 (2014)

Recently, solid polymer electrolytes are largely considered as possible advanced materials for the development of flexible and safer solid-state supercapacitors. Here, we report the study of supercapacitor cells constructed with carbon xerogel electrodes and with solid polymer electrolyte based on sulfonated polyether ether ketone (sPEEK). The carbon xerogel is a pre-commercial carbon kindly furnished from CSIC-INCAR of Oviedo (Spain); whereas the sulfonated PEEK was synthesized in our lab by a well-experienced process based on heterogeneous sulfonation of the bare PEEK polymer with sulfuric acid. Various types of solid-state supercapacitor cells were realized by contacting face-to-face the SPEEK electrolyte membrane and the two 2 cm2 electrodes. The electrochemical characteristics of supercapacitors were investigated in a specific designed titanium cell provided of a reference electrode. A KI solution was used as an additive of electrolyte and impregnate in the positive electrode while the Na2SO4 was used to realize a cation exchange SPEEK membrane and to impregnate the negative electrode. The SPEEK membrane in the supercapacitors acted as an ion conductor and electronic insulator between the two carbon composite electrodes. Whereas, the KI salt added to the positive side of supercapacitor had the task of providing additional capacity through the I-/I3-redox reaction, to which possible hydrogen electro-sorption reaction occurred to the negative electrode of the carbon-carbon capacitor. These supercapacitors were electrochemical investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), DC galvanostatic charge/discharge and AC electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). As results, it were found that the solid-state supercapacitor based on Na-SPEEK membrane and with iodide species in the positive electrode exhibited higher specific capacitance (180 Fg-1) compared to these with the porous separator impregnated with 1M Na2SO4 (93 Fg-1), while the specific capacitance obtained with Na-SPEEK electrolyte membrane (83 Fg-1). The EIS analysis highlighted that the solid-state supercapacitor based on Na-SPEEK and KI showed very stable low resistance and full capacitance retention during a long stability test with 20000 cycles at 2 Ag-1 and more than 200 h in voltage holding condition at 1.6 Volt. The results of the remarkable electrochemical performance ( 200 Fg-1, 20 Wh kg-1) and excellent lifetime stability displayed from this configuration of supercapacitors is promising for the development of next-generation low cost, high-performance, solid-state and flexible energy storage devices.

The results obtained from supercapacitors based on carbon electrodes and different types of electrolytes are reported. Two different electrolyte separators were used: a) a porous paper material impregnated with electrolyte solution and, b) a polymer ion exchange membrane. Furthermore electrolyte solutions of 1 M sodium sulphate and 1 M potassium iodide were also used. Four different supercapacitors were realized with these materials formed of carbon based electrodes and: 1)porous separator impregnated with 1 M Na2SO4 (CXPNS) 2)polymer exchange membrane (Na+) and electrodes impregnated with 1 M Na2SO4 solution (CXSNS) 3)solid polymer exchange membrane (Na+) with negative electrode impregnated with 1 M Na2SO4 and positive electrode with 1 M Na2SO4 and 1 M KI (1:1) (CXSNSKI) 4)solid polymer exchange membrane (Na+) with negative electrode impregnated of 1 M Na2SO4 and positive electrode of 1 M KI (CXSNS-KI) The carbon material was a carbon xerogel generously supplied by CSIC-INCAR of Oviedo (Spain); whereas the membrane was a sulfonated PEEK synthesized in our lab, exchanged with Na+. The supercapacitors were characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The objective of the research was to identify a supercapacitor of high specific capacitance and energy, able to operate at 1.6V, having high stability and slow self-discharge rate. The tests evidenced that the solid-state supercapacitor based on Na?SPEEK membrane and KI in positive electrode (CXSNS-KI) exhibited specific capacitance of 208 F?g-1, that was higher compared to that with the porous separator impregnated with 1M Na2SO4 and that with Na?SPEEK electrolyte membrane and electrodes impregnated with sodium sulphate solution (respectively 93 F?g-1 and 83 F?g-1). The solid-state redox supercapacitor showed also low resistance (ESR) and full capacitance retention during 20000 of charge-discharge cycles at 2 Ag-1 and further 500 h at the hold voltage of 1.6 V (floating test). This supercapacitor is considered very interesting for the high specific capacitance and specific energy (208 Fg-1, ? 20 Wh kg-1), high stability and slow self-discharge rate and is very promising for the development of next-generation low cost, high-performance and flexible energy storage devices.

This work is focused on the design and development of hybrid solid-state energy storage devices with high capacitive performance. In particular, the work includes, the preparation of carbon composite electrodes based on a carbon nanofibers (CNF) supported on a cotton fabric. The coating of CNF to the cotton cloth is obtained by the dip and dry method. On these so-obtained composite substrates, further layers of activated carbon (Norit A Supra Eur) and manganese oxide (MnO2) material have been subsequenlty deposited to enhance the electrochemical performances of negative and positive electrodes, respectively. The preparation of carbon-based active layers comprises the spreading on the negative CNF-substrate of a slurry containing the activated carbon (AC) material, graphite fibres and polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) in N,N dimethylacetamide (DMA). Whereas the positive electrode is prepared by spreading a slurry of MnO2, carbon black, graphite fibers, PVDF in DMA. A 1M Na2SO4 solution impregnated in the porous paper separator (Nippon Kodoshi Corportion, Japan) and a polymer electrolyte membrane (Nafion 115) have been employed as electrolytes. The different supercapacitors were electrochemically characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge/discharge (G–CD), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and long-term cycling stability tests. The hybrid carbon-based textile supercapacitors exhibited capacitance performance of 137 and 120 F/g with the porous separator and Nafion 115 membrane, respectively. Specially, the solid-state (Nafion membrane) hybrid device demonstrated very long stability in cycling (10000 cycles) and holding voltage condition at 1.6 V (more than 100 h). Besides, these textile-based capacitors also showed slow self-discharge., This work was partly financed by FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Programme - COMPETE and by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology (project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136). A. J. Paleo acknowledges the European COST Action CA15107- Multi-Functional Nano-Carbon Composite Materials Network (MultiComp) that conceded a Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) at CNR-ITAE of Messina., info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

In the last years great efforts were devoted to improve the energy density and the stability of supercapacitors using low cost and environmentally friendly materials. Unfortunately, it was found that supercapacitors exclusively based on capacitive process with carbon-based electrodes and aqueous electrolytes showed limited energy density and stability. In fact, although supercapacitors based on carbon materials with very high specific surface area gave specific capacity exceeding 200 F/g in aqueous electrolyte, the stability became problematic when the potential was kept at 1.5V or higher for long time for the concomitant presence of side irreversible reactions. Recently, many researchers have focused their attention on alternative ways to improve capacitance and energy density consisting in introducing faradaic processes (i.e., with exchange of electrons at the interface electrode /electrolyte) on an electrode of device. Thus one electrode exhibited a higher capacitance and also the capacitance and the energy density of supercapacitor increased. In this work we have studied supercapacitors based on a carbon material coupled with different types of separators and electrolyte solutions to overcome the above limits. Preliminary studies were performed to confirm the limitation of the purely capacitive process to which followed studies that evidenced the positive effect of reversible redox reaction. Four different supercapacitors were realised and studied varying the type of separator (porous paper and sulfonated polyether-ether ketone membrane) and electrolyte solution (sodium sulphate and potassium iodide). A solution of potassium iodide, whether used at the positive electrode, where I-/I3- redox reaction occurred, produced a remarkable additional pseudocapacitance. A specific capacitance of 208 F/g at 1.6 V and stable performance after 20000 of charge/discharge cycles and subsequent 300h of floating condition at 1.6V were obtained from supercapacitor with sPEEK membrane and KI solution as well as a high value of energy density of 20 Wh/kg of capacitor was displayed.

This work is focused on the design and development of hybrid solid-state energy storage devices with high capacitive performance. In particular, the work includes, the preparation of carbon composite electrodes based on a carbon nanofibers (CNF) supported on a cotton fabric. The coating of CNF to the cotton cloth is obtained by the dip and dry method. On these so-obtained composite substrates, further layers of activated carbon (Norit A Supra Eur) and manganese oxide (MnO2) material have been subsequenlty deposited to enhance the electrochemical performances of negative and positive electrodes, respectively. The preparation of carbon-based active layers comprises the spreading on the negative CNF-substrate of a slurry containing the activated carbon (AC) material, graphite fibres and polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) in N,N dimethylacetamide (DMA). Whereas the positive electrode is prepared by spreading a slurry of MnO2, carbon black, graphite fibers, PVDF in DMA. A 1M Na2SO4 solution impregnated in the porous paper separator (Nippon Kodoshi Corportion, Japan) and a polymer electrolyte membrane (Nafion 115) have been employed as electrolytes. The different supercapacitors were electrochemically characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge/discharge (G-CD), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and long-term cycling stability tests. The hybrid carbon-based textile supercapacitors exhibited capacitance performance of 137 and 120 F/g with the porous separator and Nafion 115 membrane, respectively. Specially, the solid-state (Nafion membrane) hybrid device demonstrated very long stability in cycling (10000 cycles) and voltage holding conditions at 1.6 V (more than 100 h). Besides, these textile-based capacitors also showed slow self-discharge. Acknowledgments This work was partly financed by FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Programme - COMPETE and by national funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology (project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136). A. J. Paleo acknowledges the European COST Action CA15107- Multi-Functional Nano-Carbon Composite Materials Network (MultiComp) that conceded a Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) at CNR-ITAE of Messina.

This work is focused on the design and development of hybrid solid-state energy storage devices with high capacitive performance. In particular, the work includes, the preparation of carbon composite electrodes based on a carbon nanofibers (CNF) supported on a cotton fabric. The coating of CNF to the cotton cloth is obtained by the dip and dry method. On these so-obtained composite substrates, further layers of activated carbon (Norit A Supra Eur) and manganese oxide (MnO2) material have been subsequenlty deposited to enhance the electrochemical performances of negative and positive electrodes, respectively. The preparation of carbon-based active layers comprises the spreading on the negative CNF-substrate of a slurry containing the activated carbon (AC) material, graphite fibres and polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) in N,N dimethylacetamide (DMA). Whereas the positive electrode is prepared by spreading a slurry of MnO2, carbon black, graphite fibers, PVDF in DMA. A 1M Na2SO4 solution impregnated in the porous paper separator (Nippon Kodoshi Corportion, Japan) and a polymer electrolyte membrane (Nafion 115) have been employed as electrolytes. The different supercapacitors were electrochemically characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge/discharge (G–CD), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and long-term cycling stability tests. The hybrid carbon-based textile supercapacitors exhibited capacitance performance of 137 and 120 F/g with the porous separator and Nafion 115 membrane, respectively. Specially, the solid-state (Nafion membrane) hybrid device demonstrated very long stability in cycling (10000 cycles) and holding voltage condition at 1.6 V (more than 200 h). Besides, these textile-based capacitors also showed really slow self-discharge., info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

A prototype regional early warning system for the prediction of rainfall-induced shallow landslides in Sicily, Italy, is presented. The system is prepared in collaboration with the Regional Civil Protection Department of Sicily. Rainfall thresholds and soil moisture indexes are used for the definition of the predictive tool. In particular, soil moisture indexes derived in a continuous form are used to define a first alert phase. Then, rainfall thresholds, derived as a function of the soil moisture conditions at the beginning of the day, are employed for the subsequent activation of alarm phases. Daily soil moisture indexes, representative of the moisture condition of the catchment, were derived by using a parsimonious and simply to use approach based on the IHACRES model application in a modified form developed by the authors. It is a simple, spatially-lumped rainfall-streamflow model, based on the SCS-CN method and on the unit hydrograph approach that requires, as input data, only rainfall, streamflow and air temperature data (Brigandì and Aronica, 2015). It consists of two modules. In the first a non linear loss model, based on the SCS-CN method, was used to transform total rainfall into effective rainfall. In the second, a linear convolution of effective rainfall was performed using a total unit hydrograph with a configuration of one parallel channel and reservoir, thereby corresponding to 'quick' and 'slow' components of runoff. In the non linear model a wetness/soil moisture index, varying from 0 to 1, has derived to define daily soil moisture catchment conditions. A catalogue of 229 rainfall conditions that have resulted in 265 shallow landslides in Sicily in the period 2002-2012 (Gariano et al., 2015) is used to define rainfall thresholds at different exceeding probabilities and at different soil moisture conditions, for the prediction of slope failures and the activation of the first alert level is based on soil moisture condition analysis. The system can be applied at regional and sub-regional scale (e.g., considering one or more alert zones defined by Civil Protection Department), and can be validated and updated with recent data.

Solid-polymer electrolytes based on perfluorinated sulfonic acid (PFSA) are suitable materials to be used in the development of more compact, safer and flexible solid-state supercapacitors. For this reason we investigated two different polymer electrolytes and fabricated supercapacitors containing these materials in the electrodes and membranes. The two commercial electrolyte membranes were the Nafion 115 produced by DuPont and the Fumapem F-950 of FuMA-Tech GmbH. The polymers were also available in the form of electrolyte solutions. Thus, two electrodes were prepared by mixing an activated carbon (Norit A supra Eur) with a 5 wt% of Nafion solution by Aldrich, for the first one, and with a Fumion FLD1020 solution obtained from FuMA-Tech GmbH (Germany), for the second one. With these materials, electrodes and membranes, a series of four solid-polymer supercapacitors were assembled: 1)Electrode with Nafion/Nafion membrane/Electrode with Nafion (EN/N/EN) 2)Electrode with Nafion/Fumapem membrane / Electrode with Nafion (EN/F/EN) 3)Electrode with Fumion/Nafion membrane / Electrode with Fumion (EF/N/EF) 4)Electrode with Fumion/Fumapem membrane / Electrode with Fumion (EF/F/EF) The supercapacitors were realized in symmetric configuration, i.e., in which the two electrodes had the same loading of activated carbon material and the same kind of polymer electrolyte. The results of impedance analysis, cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge/discharge evidenced that the supercapacitor, EN/N/EN, with Nafion in the electrolyte membrane and as binder/ion conductor in the electrodes, exhibited the highest electrochemical performances. In particular, this solid-polymer supercapacitor showed a specific capacitance of 115 F g-1 (see also Fig. 1) and a low resistance of 0.31 ohm cm2. All the other investigated solid state supercapacitors showed slight higher resistances and lower electrochemical performances. The best Nafion based capacitor may offer great promise in the application of solid-flexible supercapacitors, especially considering the low electric series resistance (ESR =0.31 ohm cm2) achieved by this supercapacitor.

Recently, solid polymer electrolytes are intensely investigated as suitable materials to be used in the development of flexible, compact and safer solid-state supercapacitors. Here, we report a study supercapacitors composed of electrodes based on a carbon xerogel of high surface area (e.g. 3000 m2g-1) and a solid polymer electrolyte based on sulfonated polyether ether ketone (sPEEK). The carbon xerogel is a pre-commercial carbon kindly furnished from CSIC-INCAR of Oviedo (Spain); whereas the sulfonated PEEK and the membrane electrolyte were prepared in our lab by a well-experienced process using H2SO4 as the sulfonating agent of the bare PEEK polymer. A series of solid-state flexible supercapacitors were realized by contacting face-to-face the SPEEK membrane/electrolyte or a porous paper separator and the two 2 cm2 electrodes. The electrochemical characteristics of supercapacitors were investigated in a specific designed titanium cell in which a neutral aqueous electrolyte solution of Na2SO4/kI is used. The KI solution was here used to impregnate the positive electrode while the Na2SO4 was employed to make the Na-SPEEK electrolyte membrane. The latter in these supercapacitors acted as ionic conductor and electronic insulator between two composite electrodes. The KI salt added to aqueous electrolyte (1M Na2SO4) is confined to the positive side of supercapacitor supplying additional capacitance through the redox reaction I-/I3-, while a hydrogen electro-sorption occurs in the negative electrode of the carbon-carbon capacitor. These developed redox supercapacitors were electrochemical investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), DC galvanostatic charge/discharge and AC electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). As results, it were found that the solid-state supercapacitor with Na-SPEEK membrane and Na2SO4-KI solution in positive electrode exhibited higher specific capacitance (123 Fg-1) compared to that with the reference porous separator in 1M Na2SO4 (103 Fg-1), while the specific capacitance obtained with Na-SPEEK electrolyte reached 83 Fg-1. The EIS analysis highlighted that the solid-state supercapacitors based on Na-SPEEK and Na2SO4-KI showed very stable resistance and full capacitance retention during the cycling life test (20000 cycles at 2 Ag-1), while the reference aqueous capacitors exhibited a slight increases of ionic resistance with cycling life. Because the remarkable electrochemical performance and excellent cycle life displayed from the investigated supercapacitor in solid-state configuration, these materials may be considered promising for the development of next-generation low cost, high-performance, solid-state and flexible energy storage devices.

Le attività svolte dal CNR-ITAE per il progetto PON01_01366 "Nuovo processo a basso impatto ambientale ed a ridotto rischio operativo per il recupero ed il riciclo dei materiali costituenti le batterie al piombo" riportate in questo rapporto finale fanno parte dell'obiettivo realizzativo OR.3: "Costruzione di nuove batterie: analisi dei nuovi materiali e valutazione delle nuove tecnologie", e sono finalizzate alla realizzazione di elettrodi su piccola scala con i materiali rigenerati per lo studio delle proprietà elettrochimiche in cella singola. Per questo sono state determinate le capacità specifiche dei materiali indagati in diversi regimi di scarica, C20, C5 e 1C e le durate in prove di carica-scarica in cicli continui (Cycling). Inoltre sono stati studiati anche miscele di materiali ottenute mescolando il materiale rigenerato con materiale commerciale fresco. Misure di assorbimento di acido sono state anche eseguite sui materiali rigenerati. Tutti i risultati sono stati forniti a STC come pure le varie procedure di preparazione degli elettrodi allo scopo di dare un contributo alla messa a punto da parte di STC di un processo di produzione di elettrodi per batterie con i materiali riciclati.

Le attività svolte dal CNR-ITAE per il progetto PON01_01366 "Nuovo processo a basso impatto ambientale ed a ridotto rischio operativo per il recupero ed il riciclo dei materiali costituenti le batterie al piombo" riportate in questo rapporto e facenti parte dell'obiettivo realizzativo OR.1, sono finalizzate a valutare le caratteristiche fisiche, chimico-fisiche ed elettrochimiche dei materiali, a base di ossido di piombo, rigenerati allo scopo di essere riutilizzati per la realizzazione di batterie piombo-acide nuove. I materiali analizzati sono stati forniti dal partner STC s.r.l. che ha curato il processo di rigenerazione del pastello esausto. Sono state analizzati circa 20 campioni di polvere piombifera così come sono stati ottenuti dal processo di rigenerazione di volta in volta testato da STC o miscelati con polvere piombifera commerciale fresca. Le analisi dovevano servire a verificare quanto i materiali rigenerati fossero simili a quelli utilizzati dalle imprese commerciali nel produrre batterie nuove e se eventualmente potevano essere apportate modifiche al processo di rigenerazione alla luce dei risultati ottenuti al CNR per migliorare le proprietà del materiale.

Le immunità parlamentari (pp. 14-39) - La Camera Federale (pp. 41-75)- La Forma di Governo (pp.79 - 123)

In this paper a procedure to derive Flood Design Hydrographs (FDH) using a bivariate representation of rainfall forcing (rainfall duration and intensity) using copulas, which describe and model the correlation between these two variables independently of the marginal laws involved, coupled with a distributed rainfall-runoff model is presented. Rainfall-runoff modelling for estimating the hydrological response at the outlet of a watershed used a conceptual fully distributed procedure based on the soil conservation service – curve number method as excess rainfall model and a distributed unit hydrograph with climatic dependencies for the flow routing. Travel time computation, based on the definition of a distributed unit hydrograph, has been performed, implementing a procedure using flow paths determined from a digital elevation model (DEM) and roughness parameters obtained from distributed geographical information. In order to estimate the return period of the FDH which give the probability of occurrence of a hydrograph flood peaks and flow volumes obtained through R-R modeling has been statistically treated via copulas. The shape of hydrograph has been generated on the basis of a modeled flood events, via cluster analysis. The procedure described above was applied to a case study of Imera catchment in Sicily, Italy. The methodology allows a reliable and estimation of the Design Flood Hydrograph and can be used for all the flood risk applications, i.e. evaluation, management, mitigation, etc.

This work evaluates the predictive power of the quasi-dynamic shallow landslide model QD-SLaM to simulate shallow landslide locations in a small-scale Mediterranean landscape: the Giampilieri catchment located in Sicily (Italy). The catchment was impacted by a sequence of high-intensity storms over the years 2007–2009. The effect of high resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) on the quality of model predictions is tested by considering four DTM resolutions: 2 m, 4 m, 10 m and 20 m. Moreover, the impact of the dense forest road network on the model performance is evaluated by considering separately road-related landslides and natural landslides. The landslide model does not incorporate the description of road-related failures. The model predictive power is shown to be DTM-resolution dependent. When assessed over the sample of mapped natural landslides, better model performances are reported for 4 m and 10 m DTM resolution, thus highlighting the fact that higher DTM resolution does not necessarily mean better model performances. Model performances over road-related failures are, as expected, lower than for the other cases. These findings show that shallow landslide predictive power can benefit from increasing DTM resolution only when the model is able to describe the physical processes emerging at the smaller spatial scales resolved by the digital topography. Model results show also that the combined use of high DTM resolution and a model capable to deal with road-related processes may lead to substantially better performances in landscapes where forest roads are a significant factor of slope stability.