During my PhD activities, I studied the introduction of carbon-based nanofillers in materials at different scales, while focusing primarily on fibres and fibrillar materials. Several production techniques were exploited. Little is known about the interaction of graphene with electrospun polymeric fibres. Manufacturing composite fibres is complex since fillers have lateral sizes nearing that of the embedding fibre. Indeed, graphene has a direct effect in both the assembly of the electrospun composite fibres and their mechanical performance. Moreover, the tensile behaviour of hollow micrometric electrospun fibres was compared with macroscopic hollow structures such as drinking straws. The acquired insights helped to explain the toughening mechanisms at the micro-scale and develop a model capable of predicting the stress-strain response of such structures. Among natural materials, wood has the most relevant structural applications even at large scales. Its main structural component is cellulose that has a high resistance and a low light absorption. Several structural modifications of wood derived materials were recently investigated in order to enhance the mechanical and optical properties of cellulose. These enhancements can take place after the internal structure is chemically modified with the removal of lignin and after a structural densification. Potentially, any type of wood-like materials, such as giant reed (that is a fast-growing and invasive species), can be turned into a strong structural composite. Such modifications lead to an open and interconnected internal structure that is the ideal scaffold for nanoparticle intercalation. Graphene oxide and silicon carbide nanoparticles were intercalated into densified reed. They produced an even stiffer, stronger and tougher composite compared to the best up-to-date process available. Moreover, its capabilities to resist fire and water-absorption were tested. Finally, the previous process was further developed on wood to achieve a combination of improved transparency and electrical conductivity. Graphene and carbon nanotubes were introduced into the structure of wood to foster conductivity and explore the viability of its application as a self-strain sensor.

Le nuove teorie della secolarizzazione evidenziano che l'esperienza religiosa non è scomparsa nelle società occidentali contemporanee, ma si manifesta in nuove condizioni e in forme diverse, le quali possono essere indagate in prospettiva sociologica. Questa ricerca si propone di indagare tali trasformazioni attraverso lo studio dell'emergere di questioni ultime religiose e spirituali nella comunicazione pubblica della scienza. Più precisamente è stata condotta un'analisi del discorso su libri scritti da scienziati e riguardanti i temi del gene e del cervello: l'analisi è stata condotta al fine di ricostruire come le questioni ultime sono sollevate ed argomentate dagli scienziati in quanto attori sociali. I risultati mostrano che la comunicazione pubblica della scienza affronta esplicitamente le questioni ultime come un oggetto di comune interesse sia della scienza che della religione. Inoltre, alcuni scienziati mostrano una significativa sensibilità nei confronti delle nuove forme di religiosità e di spiritualità che la letteratura esistente identifica come quelle emergenti. I risultati gettano luce sulla rilevanza sociale del ruolo che la comunicazione pubblica della scienza svolge nell'influenzare le nuove forme di spiritualità; ciò suggerisce anche una reciproca influenza tra scienza e religiosità meritevole di ulteriori approfondimenti. / Contemporary theories of religion and spirituality underline that religious experience has not disappeared in contemporary Western societies; rather it arises under new forms and conditions that can be studied from a sociological perspective. The research I present aims to investigate these transformations by focusing on the emerging of religious and spiritual ultimate questions in public communication of science. More precisely, a discourse analysis was conducted on books written by scientists and popularizing themes as the gene and the brain; the analysis was made in order to reconstruct how ultimate questions are raised and discussed by those scientists as social actors. The results show that public communication of science explicitly tackles ultimate questions as a common interest of both science and religion. Moreover, a few scientists show a remarkable sensitivity to the new forms of religiosity and spirituality that extant literature identifies as the emerging ones. The findings sheds light on the social relevance of public communication of science in shaping new forms of spirituality and this also suggests a mutual influence between science and religiosity worth of further investigation.

La specificità dell'acquisizione di contenuti attraverso le interfacce digitali condanna l'agente epistemico a un'interazione frammentata, insufficiente da un punto di vista computazionale, mnemonico e temporale, rispetto alla mole informazionale oggi accessibile attraverso una qualunque implementazione della relazione uomo-computer, e invalida l'applicabilità del modello standard di conoscenza, come credenza vera e giustificata, sconfessando il concetto di credenza razionalmente fondata, per formare la quale, sarebbe invece richiesto all'agente di poter disporre appunto di risorse concettuali, computazionali e temporali inaccessibili. La conseguenza è che l'agente, vincolato dalle limitazioni ontologiche tipiche dell'interazione con le interfacce culturali, si vede costretto a ripiegare su processi ambigui, arbitrari e spesso più casuali di quanto creda, di selezione e gestione delle informazioni che danno origine a veri e propri ibridi (alla Latour) epistemologici, fatti di sensazioni e output di programmi, credenze non fondate e bit di testimonianze indirette e di tutta una serie di relazioni umano-digitali che danno adito a rifuggire in una dimensione trascendente che trova nel sacro il suo più immediato ambito di attuazione. Tutto ciò premesso, il presente lavoro si occupa di costruire un nuovo paradigma epistemologico di conoscenza proposizionale ottenibile attraverso un'interfaccia digitale di acquisizione di contenuti, fondato sul nuovo concetto di Tracciatura Digitale, definito come un un processo di acquisizione digitale di un insieme di tracce, ossia meta-informazioni di natura testimoniale. Tale dispositivo, una volta riconosciuto come un processo di comunicazione di contenuti, si baserà sulla ricerca e selezione di meta-informazioni, cioè tracce, che consentiranno l'implementazione di approcci derivati dall'analisi decisionale in condizioni di razionalità limitata, approcci che, oltre ad essere quasi mai utilizzati in tale ambito, sono ontologicamente predisposti per una gestione dell'incertezza quale quella riscontrabile nell'istanziazione dell'ibrido informazionale e che, in determinate condizioni, potranno garantire l'agente sulla bontà epistemica del contenuto acquisito. / The specificity of the acquisition of content through digital interfaces condemns the epistemic agent to a fragmented interaction, with respect to the huge informational bulk today available through any standard implementation of the man-computer relationship, and invalidates the applicability of the standard model of knowledge as justified true belief, by repudiating the concept of rationally founded belief, to form which would instead require the agent to be able to have precisely the conceptual resources and computational time inaccessible. Thereby the agent, bound by the ontological limitations belong to cultural interfaces, is forced to fall back on ambiguous, arbitrary and often more casual than he takes into account, selection and management information process that produce real epistemological hybrids (by Latour) made of feelings, program outputs, unfounded beliefs, bits of indirect testimonies and of a series of human-digital relationships that give rise to escape in a transcendent dimension belonging to anthropological area of the sacred. Starting from this analysis the work deals with constructing a new epistemological paradigm of propositional knowledge obtained through a digital content acquisition, based on the new concept of Digital Tracings, defined as a process of digital capture of a set of tracks , ie meta-information of a testimonial kind. This device, once recognized as a communication process of digital contents, will be based on the research and selection of meta-information, ie tracks, which allow the implementation of approaches derived from analysis of decision-making under bounded rationality, which approaches, as well to be almost never used in this context, are ontologically prepared for dealing with uncertainty such as that came into the informational hybrid and that can provide the agent on the epistemic goodness of acquired content.

Skeletal tissue has a good ability to self-regenerate after injury through the processes of bone healing. However, bone can suffer from a wide range of pathologies, cancers or congenital defects which lead to loss of bone mass and density. Current progresses in tissue engineering have shown great potential for creating biological alternatives and new perspectives for the treatment of bone damage and defects. In this approach, scaffolding plays a pivotal role. In particular, the principles of biomimesis have to be followed and the scaffolds have to be designed to this purpose. Furthermore, these tissue engineered systems have not only to support and guide the new tissue formation, but they have to induce a complete tissue functionality. The aim of this research work was the application of these advanced principles to produce and evaluate scaffolds for bone regeneration. Starting from the idea to mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM), template that characterizes the early step of the bone healing process, we design scaffolds for the evaluation of biological outputs considering the initial ECM produced by cells. We used two polymers, naturally (silk fibroin) or synthetically (poly-d,l-lactic acid) derived, and we modulated scaffold geometry (random vs ordered pore distribution), pore size and chemical composition, combining spongy and fibrous structures. The scaffolds were indeed considered as models, to investigate if they control cell production of type I collagen, principle component of the natural template for the final mineralization. Moreover, due to the key role of vessel formation in tissue engineering and the correlation between osteoblasts and endothelial cells, the influence of the scaffolds on angiogenesis and vascularisation was assessed. The innovation of this study consists in the evaluation shift from the final healing stage to the earlier stages. In fact, the results emphasize the possibility to correlate the scaffold morphology to type I collagen assembly, which in turn affects the final mineralization process, allowing to evaluate the tissue produced by osteoblasts from the first steps of bone formation. Moreover, we were able to control some cell behaviours changing construct properties. In a future research, a segmental bone defect models should be considered to better characterize the role of scaffold features during bone healing process and to determine if it would be better to use scaffolds which favour angiogenesis or mineralization to speed up a physiological bone regeneration process.

Functional multi-purpose contact lenses have recently attracted attention as suitable means to exploit the characteristics of the eye to diagnose diseases and for drug delivery. Such enrichment of the normal contact lenses are mainly achieved by the integration of different components like micro sensors and microelectronics onto the contact lens substrate. The surface of our eye is an interesting chemical interface, which acts like a window into the human body. For example, intraocular pressure is a surrogate marker of cardiovascular health. Just like the blood, the eye tear contains many health parameters which could be used to diagnose various illness. Therefore, a contact lens with integrated biosensors shall provide health professionals with a new tool for research studies and for diagnosing diseases in a novel way without traditional lab works. Motivated by this fact, this thesis deals with the integration of biosensors on contact lens to sense the eye tear film solution. The contact lens is made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and the sensor is bare gold electrodes patterned using micro fabrication technology. However there are several challenges that need to be addressed before reaching the final functional contact lens with incorporated micro devices and micro sensors for biomedical applications. One such challenge is related to the metallization on polymer substrates. The results are presented in the direction of realizing robust metal patterns on polymer substrates. Comparison study of various metallization techniques on different polymer substrates like PDMS, PET(Polyethylene terephthalate) to name a few and different metals patterned like Ag, Au to name a few are presented and thus emphasizing the reasons for the selection of polymer and micro fabrication technique used for the final device. Surface characterization of the patterned metal is performed using various techniques and the analyzed data are presented. Specific steps and solutions to issues like crack formation and adhesion of the metal on the polymer substrates are also discussed. An electrochemical sensor for the diagnosis of Keratoconjuctivitis sicca or dry eye syndrome (DES) is presented. Aqueous layer in the tear film plays an important role in maintaining the moisture inside the eye. This layer consists of proteins, carbohydrates, oxygen and some inorganic salts. It has been shown that in dry eye patients, the salt content in the tear film is higher compared to that of a healthy person. So to diagnose dry eye syndrome, we developed an impedimetric sensor to measure the resistance of the eye tear solution and we conduct associated experiments to analyze the performance. An inverse relationship between solution resistance and saline concentration in a log10vslog10 plot was confirmed. The fabricated sensors were tested for reproducibility of the results and the DES severity scale falls well inside the detection limit of the sensor. The work is wrapped up by the proof of concept experiments performed for the wireless transmission of the data from the sensor using resonance RLC circuit.

Throughout the twentieth century statistical methods have increasingly become part of experimental research. In particular, statistics has made quantification processes meaningful in the soft sciences, which had traditionally relied on activities such as collecting and describing diversity rather than timing variation. The thesis explores this change in relation to agriculture and biology, focusing on analysis of variance and experimental design, the statistical methods developed by the mathematician and geneticist Ronald Aylmer Fisher during the 1920s. The role that Fisher’s methods acquired as tools of scientific research, side by side with the laboratory equipment and the field practices adopted by research workers, is here investigated bottom-up, beginning with the computing instruments and the information technologies that were the tools of the trade for statisticians. Four case studies show under several perspectives the interaction of statistics, computing and information technologies, giving on the one hand an overview of the main tools – mechanical calculators, statistical tables, punched and index cards, standardised forms, digital computers – adopted in the period, and on the other pointing out how these tools complemented each other and were instrumental for the development and dissemination of analysis of variance and experimental design. The period considered is the half-century from the early 1920s to the late 1960s, the institutions investigated are Rothamsted Experimental Station and the Galton Laboratory, and the statisticians examined are Ronald Fisher and Frank Yates.

Questo lavoro verte sulla ricostruzione del pensiero dell’antropologo e psicoanalista Georges Devereux (1908-1985), attraverso un approccio storico-biografico e all’interno di una prospettiva che si discosta da quella tradizionale in cui Devereux è considerato il “padre dell’etnopsichiatria”. Intento principale della tesi è presentare un inedito Devereux epistemologo delle scienze dell’uomo, ricostruendo le tappe del suo percorso scientifico e rintracciando radici e storia dei principali concetti del suo sistema teorico nel contesto storico-culturale nonché nel quadro epistemologico in cui hanno preso forma. Le fonti principali di questa ricostruzione sono i materiali d’archivio del cospicuo Fondo Devereux, custodito all’Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC), nonché i dossier conservati all’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Seguendo la ricerca di Devereux in fieri, attraverso le carte d’archivio, scritti inediti e scritti più o meno celebri, questo lavoro propone, in sostanza, di leggere dietro la nascita di questa “nuova scienza” (l’etnopsicoanalisi), il tentativo di fondare una nuova epistemologia e un nuovo metodo di osservazione per i saperi sull’uomo. Instaurando un dialogo tra fisica quantistica, antropologia e psicoanalisi – a partire dai concetti di complementarità e controtransfert – Devereux suggerisce, infatti, un nuovo approccio allo studio dell’uomo che, rifuggendo da riduzionismi o determinismi, sia il più possibile esaustivo e, prendendo in carico la soggettività del ricercatore, sia più efficace e realistico. La complessità e l’importanza del suo contributo teorico senza dubbio travalicano i confini dell’etnopsichiatria, perlomeno come oggi la intendiamo, e il percorso di Devereux, nella sua pluridisciplinarità e internazionalità, offre uno sguardo sul panorama intellettuale del ventesimo secolo che ha visto la nascita delle principali branche delle scienze umane, il loro sviluppo in tradizioni differenti, la progressiva specializzazione e frammentazione, ma anche tentativi, tenaci e difficili, di un dialogo. / This work focuses on the reconstruction of the thought of the anthropologist and psychoanalyst Georges Devereux (1908-1985), through a historical-biographical approach and within a perspective that differs from the traditional one according to which Devereux is considered the “father of Ethnopsychiatry”. The main aim of the thesis is to present an unprecedented Devereux “epistemologist of the human sciences”, by reconstructing the steps of his scientific path, the roots and the history of the main concepts of his theoretical system within both the historical-cultural context and the epistemological framework where they took shape. The main sources for this work are the archive material of the Devereux Fund, held by the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC), and the dossiers held by the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Following the Devereux’s research in fieri – through archive material, unpublished writings, famous works and less known ones – this work basically proposes to read, behind the origin of this “new science” (Ethnopsychoanalysis), the attempt to found a new epistemology and a new method of observation for human sciences. By establishing a dialogue between Quantum Physics, Anthropology and Psychoanalysis – starting from the concepts of complementarity and countertransference – Devereux suggests, indeed, a new approach for human studies which can be as comprehensive as possible, more effective and realistic. With no doubt, the complexity and the importance of his theoretical contribution go beyond the boundaries of Ethnopsychiatry, at least as we intend it today, and his multidisciplinary and international path offers an insight on the intellectual background of the 20th century, which witnessed the birth of the main branches of human sciences, their development in different traditions, their progressive specialization and fragmentation, but also constant and serious efforts for a dialogue

La mia tesi di dottorato è una raccolta di tre articoli che considerano l'efficienza di strumenti diversi di tassazione in presenza di imperfezioni nei mercati dei fattori e nei processi produttivi. / My dissertation is a collection of three essays that consider the efficiency of different tax instruments in the presence of imperfections in the factor markets and in production processes.

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