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Edible electronics is a growing field that aims to produce digestible devices using only food ingredients and additives, thus addressing many of the shortcomings of ingestible electronic devices. Edible electronic devices will have major implications for gastrointestinal tract monitoring, therapeutics, as well as rapid food quality monitoring. Recent research has demonstrated the feasibility of edible circuits and sensors, but to realize fully edible electronic devices edible power sources are required, of which there have been very few examples. Drawing inspiration from living organisms, which use redox cofactors to power biochemical machines, a rechargeable edible battery formed from materials eaten in everyday life is developed. The battery is realized by immobilizing riboflavin and quercetin, common food ingredients and dietary supplements, on activated carbon, a widespread food additive. Riboflavin is used as the anode, while quercetin is used as the cathode. By encapsulating the electrodes in beeswax, a fully edible battery is fabricated capable of supplying power to small electronic devices. The proof-of-concept battery cell operated at 0.65 V, sustaining a current of 48 mu A for 12 min. The presented proof-of-concept will open the doors to new edible electronic applications, enabling safer and easier medical diagnostics, treatments, and unexplored ways to monitor food quality.

To effectively use an abstract (PDDL) planning domain to achieve goals in an unknown environment, an agent must instantiate such a domain with the objects of the environment and their properties. If the agent has an egocentric and partial view of the environment, it needs to act, sense, and abstract the perceived data in the planning domain. Furthermore, the agent needs to compile the plans computed by a symbolic planner into low level actions executable by its actuators. This paper proposes a framework that aims to accomplish the aforementioned perspective and allows an agent to perform different tasks. For this purpose, we integrate machine learning models to abstract the sensory data, symbolic planning for goal achievement and path planning for navigation. We evaluate the proposed method in accurate simulated environments, where the sensors are RGB-D on-board camera, GPS and compass.

The aim of this PhD project is to test the potential of dental morphological analysis for the purposes of funerary and social archaeology. Dental nonmetric (or discrete) traits are non-pathological anatomical variants that can occur, with a certain degree of expression, in an individual. Since these phenotypic traits are assumed as having a strong genetic origin, they can be scored to obtain data about geographic provenance, ancestry and variability of a given population. Observations were thus carried out on human skeletal samples from east Lombardy, following the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System (ASUDAS). The largest samples under study were derived from two ancient sites: the necropolis of Montichiari Monte San Zeno (Brescia) and the necropolis of Fara Olivana (Bergamo), both dating to Early Middle Ages (6-7th century). A total of 152 individuals and 2016 teeth from these sites were examined, and more than 50 discrete dental traits were scored during the observation. Results show that dental morphology variation can provide us with crucial information about several aspects of past societies, such as: Control on cemeteries by kinship groups: presence/absence of particular set of discrete dental traits can suggest blood ties between individuals buried in the same necropolis. In the cemetery of Montichiari Monte San Zeno, seven individuals showing a rare trait, the two-rooted lower canine, were inhumed along a single line of burials, over more than one generation, expanding from west to east. There is hence a high probability that these seven individuals belonged to a single kinship group, able to keep control on the access to and the destination of a family funerary space over a long time. Biological distance between past populations: frequencies of dental discrete traits are known for several ancient European human groups, dating from Palaeolithic to Middle Age. These frequencies can be used to calculate the mean measure of divergence (MMD) between different samples, a value corresponding to their relative biological (genetic) distance. As instance, the low MMD value between the samples from Fara Olivana and Dorestad de Heul (Netherland) - the latter derived from a 6-7th necropolis of ancient Frisons - indicates high dental phenotypic similarity between these two populations, which can maybe be explained by the distant common Germanic origin or by genetic admixture. Post-marital residence patterns: variation in nonmetric dental traits has been examined among the groups of males and females from the cemeteries under study. The sex with the higher within-group variance is considered the more 'mobile' sex (assuming the variance as reflecting the heterogeneous phenotypic/genetic features of the 'outsiders'). In the sample from Fara Olivana female individuals show a higher within-group variance, which means that women are more mobile than men. This seems consistent with a patrilocal community, where men show stronger connections to the site, acquiring new women from outside communities, mostly by marriage. In fact, at Fara Olivana men are buried with weapons (swords, scramasax, spears, shields), indicating a cohesive community dedicated to the military control of the surroundings. Males from the necropolis of Montichiari, at the opposite, are more variable than females, thus indicating different residence patterns. This can be due to the particular role of the men from Montichiari, involved in land management and administration, maybe colons of mixed Germanic-Roman origin, derived from different places and established in the villages around Montichiari because of their specific task.

Archaeological fieldwork at the Etruscan settlement of Forcello (Bagnolo San Vito, Mantova) has been carried out since 1983; excavations led to the discovery of structures and floor levels assigned to nine frequentation phases, dated from 540 to 380-375 BC. This paper offers an overview of the most recent findings, as the Attic ceramic fragments from the aristocratic dwelling called “Casa dei Velna”, whose decoration can be attributed to the Orchard Painter., Indagini archeologiche presso l’abitato etrusco del Forcello (Bagnolo San Vito, Mantova), condotte a partire dal 1983, hanno portato alla scoperta di strutture e piani d’uso pertinenti a nove fasi di frequentazione, datate tra 540 e 380-375 a.C. Questo articolo offre una panoramica dei ritrovamenti più recenti, quali i frammenti di ceramica attica provenienti dall’abitazione aristocratica detta “Casa dei Velna”, la cui decorazione è attribuibile al Pittore del Frutteto (Orchard Painter).

In the present study, we have produced a sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) hydrogel from a bacterial cellulose etherification reaction with chloroacetic acid in an alkaline medium. Bacterial cellulose (BC) was synthesized via economical and environmentally friendly methods using the Gluconacetobacter xylinus bacterium. After purification, freeze-drying, and milling, BC microparticles were dispersed in NaOH solution for different time periods before the etherification reaction. This has allowed the understanding of the alkalinization effect on BC modification. All synthesized CMC were soluble in water, and FTIR and XRD analyses confirmed the etherification reaction. The bath of BC in NaOH solution affects both molecular weight and degree of substitution. SEM analysis revealed the change of BC microstructure from fibrous-like to a smooth, uniform structure. The CMC-0 h allowed the production of crosslinked hydrogel after dehydrothermal treatment. Such hydrogel has been characterized rheologically and has shown a water absorption of 35 times its original weight. The optimization of the CMC produced from BC could pave the way for the production of ultrapure hydrogel to be applied in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.

Alginate micro beads containing Lactobacillus kefiri (the principal bacteria present in the kefir probiotic drink) were produced by a novel technique based on dual aerosols spaying of alginate based solution and CaCl2 as cross linking agent. Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) has been also added to the alginate in order to change the physic-chemical properties (viscosity and permeability) of the microbeads. Calcium alginate and CMC are biopolymers that can be used for developing oral drug-delivery systems. These biopolymers have been reported to show a pH-dependent swelling behaviour. Calcium alginate and CMC have also been known to possess an excellent mucoadhesive property. The loaded microbeads have been characterized in terms of morphology, chemical composition and stability in different conditions mimicking the gastric environment. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of a continuous fabrication of alginate microbeads in a range of 50–70 μm size, encapsulating L. kefiri as active ingredient. The technique involves the use of a double aerosols of alginate based solution and CaCl2 as crosslinking agent. Moreover, the encapsulation process was proved to be effective and not detrimental to bacteria viability. At the same time, it was verified the protective efficacy of the microcapsules against the gastric environment using both SGF pH 1.2 (fasted state) and pH 2.2 (feed state).