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The life cycle of an industrial product goes through several stages, from the initial idea to the finished product, and on to the purchase and recycling. Virtual reality environments (VRE) allow the user to interact with a digital representation of a product, and so can be used to perform aesthetical, ergonomic, functional tests as well to support customer decisions in the selling process; mainly for customized products. In this contribution, ITIA-CNR presents two important applications in the shoes context: VRShoe and MagicMirror. VRShoe is a VRE for designing shoe aesthetics. MagicMirror, currently under development, is an augmented reality (AR) system for supporting the decision-making processes of customer customized shoes.

We have reported previously that a mixture of conjugated estrogens which is effective in shortening the prolonged bleeding time in uremic patients is also effective on bleeding time in a rat model of uremia. With the present study we took advantage from such a rat model of chronic uremia and decided to identify the component(s) of the conjugated estrogen mixture responsible for shortening the bleeding time. Moreover, we wanted to clarify whether estrogen effect on primary hemostasis is due to a receptor mechanism and can be neutralized by specific estrogen receptor antagonists such as tamoxifen or clomiphene. Both estrone sulfate and 17 beta-estradiol, but not equilin, were effective in shortening the prolonged bleeding time of uremic rats. 17 beta-Estradiol was the most active component of the mixture, reproducing the time course of bleeding time shortening of the entire mixture (effect lasting 48 hr). The effect of estrone sulfate injection lasted only 24 hr. Tamoxifen and clomiphene pretreatment prevented the shortening of bleeding time induced by conjugated estrogen mixture and its active components. These findings indicate that 17 beta-estradiol is the key compound of the conjugated estrogen mixture effective on bleeding time shortening and that the effect of estrogens on primary hemostasis is mediated by a receptor mechanism.

Electrical resistivity measurements were carried out on polycrystalline YBa2Cu3O7-xat temperatures 300 < T < 1023 K and oxygen partial pressures 5 ·10-7≤ po2≤ 1 atm. The samples, equilibrated in the range from 5 ·10-4to 1 atm, show metallic behaviour, the one equilibrated at po2= 2 ·10-5shows a transition between metallic and semiconducting behaviour at 920 K, and that equilibrated at po2= 5 ·10-7shows semiconducting behaviour: for the latter the relevant resistivity is due to the oxygen-ion migration. The isotherms log σ vs. log po2(in the temperature range from 723 to 1023 K) show slopes of about 1/6 at 723 K (orthorhombic phase) and about 1/2 at 1023 K (tetragonal phase). These results are discussed in terms of appropriate defect models.

The electrical behaviour of La2-xSrxCuO4-ysolid solutions (with x = 0, x = 0.025, x = 0.05, and x = 0.15) at temperatures between 10 and 900 K and under different oxygen partial pressure pO2= 1 ÷ 10-6atm) has been investigated. The samples prepared and measured under an O2flux (i.e., with y = 0) show a superconducting transition with Tc= 46, 29. 37 K for x = 0. 0.05 and 0.15, respectively. The samples with x = 0.025, y = 0, and x = 0, y ≠ 0 exhibit no sign of superconductivity. In the temperature range 100-900 K. La2CuO4is semiconducting, whereas the electrical resistivity is independent of temperature for the x =0.025 sample, and the x = 0.05 and x = 0.15 are metallic.