Erik Franco – Pagina 8 – Progress in Research

Polimi research on rare cardiomyopathy funded by telethon and cariplo

Posted on 20/04/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Fondazione Cariplo and Fondazione Telethon have awarded over 2,700,000 euros to 12 projects involving 19 researchers in basic research in the Lombardy Region. The aim of the initiative is to understand genetic aspects and molecular mechanisms that are still largely unknown or poorly understood, but potentially useful for fostering the development of new therapies for rare diseases.

Although the human genome has been fully sequenced, about one-third of human proteins have not yet been described. This portion of the genome still unexplored could help to clarify new physiological and pathological mechanisms and could represent a mine to discover new therapeutic pathways. In particular, the projects had to focus on the study of so-called Tdark targets, for which no information on structure, function and interaction with molecules and drugs is known.

The project that involves us is the “Study of the role of MLIP in LMNA-Cardiomyopathy in iPSC-based human 3D-cardiac models “, conducted by researchers Marco Rasponi, of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of the Politecnico di Milano, and Elisa Di Pasquale, of the CNR and IRCCS Humanitas Clinical Institute.

LMNA- Cardiomyopathy is a form of inherited cardiomyopathy caused by mutations in the Lamin A/C encoding gene, LMNA. It is characterized by left ventricular dilatation and systolic dysfunctions, usually associated with various conduction abnormalities and arrhythmias, which manifest with variable penetrance and expressivity, leading to diverse patterns of clinical phenotypes. Mechanisms behind such clinical variability are still largely unknown.

The project focuses on MLIP, a binding partner of Lamin A/C proteins, whose function in the heart is still largely unknown. Specifically, while deepening its physiological action in the heart, the goal is to determine whether MLIP plays a role in the pathogenesis of LMNA-cardiomyopathy (LMNA-CMP), as a “modifier” of disease, contributing to the clinical heterogeneity typical of the disease. 

From an experimental point of view, breakthrough technologies will be integrated, namely CRISPR/Cas9 system, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and organs-on chip (mHeart), to generate 3D human cardiac microtissue models, in which functional and molecular roles will be comprehensively investigated.

The project outputs will bring knowledge about the functional and molecular roles of MLIP in the onset and progression of LMNA-CMP, filling some gaps in the understanding of its clinical heterogeneity. In the long term, this increased knowledge could contribute to improve clinical management of patients.

The hidden role of food in urban conflicts in Central America

Posted on 07/04/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Extreme water events affect human security, starting from alimentation. In a research article published in the prestigious journal Nature Water researchers from Politecnico di Milano and University of California at Berkeley delve deeper into the complex nexus between droughts and conflicts in Central America.

For the decades from 1996 to 2016, researchers explored how water availability affected agricultural production and food security, and investigated the nexus between drought-induced food insecurity and the emergence of conflict in the region.

Cities in Central America are known for their high rates of homicides and urban violence linked to the proliferation of young street gangs known as maras. Moreover, the rural communities are threatened by the canícula, a dry season occurring in July and August, and its severe impacts on agriculture, which constitutes the main source of food supply and income.

For the first time, in our study we explicitly consider food security as a central mechanism in the chain linking drought-induced water shortage and conflict. We also analyze how the internal food trade can influence the level of food security from food-producing areas to food-consuming areas, such as cities.
Martina Sardo, PhD Student at Politecnico di Milano and lead author

The study offers insight into how climate and water availability can interact with human well-being and social unrest through food security. It also shows the importance of strengthening the resilience of rural communities in the developing world to prevent the rise of social tension.

Decreases in availability and access to water and food play a major role in conflict insurgences, while the stable conditions of peace are more influenced by favorable socio-economic conditions. Furthermore, conflicts in a given place can also be influenced by water scarcity conditions in distant places, which explains how the internal food trade can strengthen and spatially expand the water-food-conflict nexus.
Professor Maria Cristina Rulli, senior author of the article and coordinator of Glob3ScienCE

5A: innovative solutions for people with ASDs

Posted on 05/04/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Project 5A – Autonomie per l’Autismo, Attraverso realtà virtuale, realtà Aumentata e Agenti conversazionali (Autonomy for Autism Across virtual reality, Augmented reality and Conversational Agents) has come to an end.

After two years of intense and exciting work, it was possible to find out about and test the innovative solutions developed as part of this research project, which was set up to strengthen the autonomy of people with ASDs (Autistic Spectrum Disorders), promote their social inclusion and improve their quality of life.

The 5A project involves the use of interactive applications usable anywhere and anytime via smartphones, tablets and wearable headsets, which integrate Immersive Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Conversational Agents and, by creating a continuum between training in the virtual world and experiences in the real world, help people with ASDs to understand the environmental and socio-organisational characteristics of everyday environments and to correctly perform the related activities. Benefits include not only improved abilities, but also emotional-psychological reinforcement and general well-being.

Research efforts focused on mobility in city spaces: the underground, trains, supermarkets, museums, libraries, hospitals, etc. The 5A Virtual Reality applications allow people to practise using public transport by ‘immersing’ themselves, using a headset, in a digital environment that simulates spaces and activities typically found when using trains and the underground. The 5A Augmented Reality applications support users while using public transport in the real world by generating, on tablets or smartphones, visual information that is superimposed over the view of the surroundings and helps people understand how to get around and what to do. Both applications involve a Conversational Agent which acts as a virtual companion and proactively converses with the user to guide them during both the simulation of public transport use and the real-world experience.

The 5A applications were co-designed by a multidisciplinary team consisting of engineers and interaction designers from Politecnico di Milano and autism specialists from the two clinical partners – Fondazione Sacra Famiglia and IRCCS E. Medea – Associazione La Nostra Famiglia.

The 5A project was carried out with the contribution of Fondazione TIM (Research call ‘Free to communicate. Smart Technologies and Innovation for Autism’) and the NRRP project MUSA (Multilayered Urban Sustainability Action/Spoke6 – Innovation for Sustainable and Inclusive Societies).

ORBIS: new forms of democratic participation

Posted on 04/04/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The consortium of the ORBIS project met for the first time in Milano.

Funded by the research programme Horizon Europe and co-led by the Department of Design & Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of the Politecnico di Milano, ORBIS aims at augmenting participation, co-creation, trust and transparency in deliberative democracy at all scales.

The project is coordinated by Francesca Rizzo with Grazia Concilio, and the team includes Ilaria Mariani, Anna Moro, Michelangelo Secchi, and involves 13 partners from 7 Countries: Université Côte d’Azur, CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies), Re-Imagine Europa, The Democracy & Culture Foundation, Novelcore, Uni Systems, Center for Social Innovation – CSI, Associazione Copernicani, Associazione Promozione Sociale – Rob de Matt, Region Of Western Greece, USI Università della Svizzera italiana, Knowledge Media Institute (The Open University).

ORBIS provides new ways to understand and facilitate the emergence of new participatory democracy models, together with the mechanisms to scale them and consolidate them at an institutional level.

Among its main objectives: a sound methodology for deliberative participation and co-creation at scale; novel AI-enhanced tools for deliberative participation across diverse settings; new evidence-based democratic models that emerge from the application of citizen deliberation processes; demonstrated measurable impact of such innovations in real-world settings.

KEEPER: nanomaterial-based key code to protect services and products

Posted on 03/04/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Today, counterfeit products seriously affect the global economy and can have a negative impact on safety, health and the environment due to the lower quality of their components. The severity of the problem is estimated to reach 3 billion US dollars by 2022, causing EU companies to lose 121 billion euros in sales and over 671,000 jobs.

KEEPER is a project aiming to provide a new technological solution to this challenge: it is the first system ever to combine a unique identification code with a virtually infinite number of combinations (over 10²⁴) to certify the product authenticity and an unprecedented level of security, ease of use and cost-effectiveness.

It is an innovative customisable solution based on two main resources: nano-engineered inks to be applied on documents or product packaging as adhesive tags or printed directly at specific points (3Tag), and a highly selective verification technique using a dedicated reader (3Check). The specificity of the inks, the coding sequence and the reading method make this technology extremely difficult or almost impossible to replicate through reverse engineering processes.

The KEEPER project, to which university and private partners from Italy, Poland and Austria are contributing, was recently funded with more than 2 million euros by the European Innovation Council (EIC) within the framework of the ‘EIC Transition’ call for proposals, which aims to support the improvement and the laboratory validation of new technologies developed within the framework of European subsidised projects and their introduction onto the market.

The European Innovation Council is Europe’s flagship programme for technological innovation. This is the first time that a project presented by Politecnico di Milano as a lead partner has accessed this type of support; overall, this EIC Transition call has funded 34 projects across Europe, of which six in Italy and only three with a university as coordinator,
Professor Carlo S. Casari, Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano, head of KEEPER and former holder of the ERC Consolidator Grant EspLORE, the ERC Proof of Concept Grants PROTECHT and PYPAINT.

ENCASE: European Network of Research Infrastructures for CO2 Transport and Injection

Posted on 27/03/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The ENCASE project, “A European Network of Research Infrastructures for CO2 Transport and Injection”, funded by the research programme Horizon Europe, has got started in Oslo.

The partnership which will carry out the project over the course of 3 and a half years, co-ordinated by the Norwegian research centre IFE, includes 20 partners (from 6 European countries), among which is the Politecnico di Milano, represented by Manuele Gatti (Principal Investigator), Stefano Consonni, Antonio Conversano and Nima Razmjoo.

We are proud to represent POLIMI in this consortium, in which we will collaborate with universities, research centres and companies of international standing and with considerable experience in the capture and storage of CO₂

The main aims of the project include: the scientific and technological advancement and improvement of 7 research infrastructures at the highest level in the international arena as regards the capture and storage of CO₂ (CCS); the development of new thermodynamic methods and models to support research in the field of CCS, the generation of new experimental data and the training of specialised personnel in the sector.

Starting from new experimental data made available in the project, POLIMI will develop models relating to thermophysical properties of CO2 mixtures, such as phase equilibria, density, specific heats, viscosity, etc.

In addition, POLIMI will provide scientific supervision for the experimental activities that will be carried out at the research infrastructure of the LEAP laboratory in Piacenza (also a project partner).

Finally, at the end of the project, POLIMI will organize a Summer School for researchers and PhD students on the topic of thermophysical properties of fluids for energy and CCS uses.

This research project will allow us to develop new knowledge in the CCS sector, which can be used both for application, with the transfer of research results to the industrial sphere, and for education, in order to train engineers and doctoral students in those technical-scientific skills that are becoming increasingly relevant to the needs of institutions and industry (not only of companies working in the field of CCS, but also of companies with a strong focus on innovation and energy transition).
Manuele Gatti, Department of Energy.

A study reveals one of the mysteries of Stonehenge

Posted on 24/03/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Stonehenge continues to attract the attention of scholars and researchers more than four millenia after its construction. Giulio Magli, professor at the Politecnico di Milano, and Juan Antonio Belmonte, professor at Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and Universidad de La Laguna in Tenerife, have published on Antiquity, authoritative journal of Archaeology, an innovative study which helps explain the monument original function: the theory that Stonehenge was used as a solar calendar is wrong. Its structure instead accounts for a symbolic interest of the builders to the solar cycle, most probably related to the connections between afterlife and winter solstice in Neolithic societies.

Archaeoastronomy, which often uses satellite images to study the orientation of archaelogical sites, has a key role in this interpretation, since Stonehenge exhibits an astronomical alignment to the sun which refers both to the summer solstice sunrise and to the winter solstice sunset.

In the paper, Magli and Belmonte refute the theory that the monument was used as a giant calendrical device, based on 365 days per year divided in 12 months, with the addition of a leap year every four. This calendar is identical to the Alexandrian one, introduced more than two millennia later, at the end of the first century BC as a combination of the Julian calendar and the Egyptian civil calendar. The authors show that this theory is based on a series of forced interpretations of the astronomical connections of the monument, as well as on debatable numerology and on unsupported analogies.

First of all, Magli and Belmonte refer to astronomy: they show that the slow movement of the sun at the horizon in the days close to solstices makes it impossible to control the correct working of the alleged calendar, as the device (remember: composed by huge stones) should be able to distinguish positions as accurate as a few arc minutes, that is, less than 1/10 of one degree.

Second, numerology. Attributing meanings to “numbers” in a monument is always a risky procedure. For example, in this case, a “key number” of the alleged calendar, 12, is not recognizable anywhere.

Finally, cultural paragons. A first elaboration of the 365 plus 1 day calendar is documented in Egypt only two millennia later than Stonehenge (and entered in use further centuries later). Besides, a transfer and elaboration of notions with Egypt occurred around 2600 BC has no archaeological basis.

The war in Ukraine may trigger land investment rush

Posted on 09/03/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

One year after the start of the war in Ukraine, researchers Maria Cristina Rulli of the Politecnico di Milano, Jampel Dell’Angelo of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Paolo D’Odorico of the University of California at Berkeley, publish in the prestigious Science journal an analysis the potential impact of the invasion on agriculture and rural livelihoods in developing countries.

In previous global food supply crises, spikes in food and energy prices were followed by new waves of transnational land investment and land grabbing.

The authors provide a detailed analysis of the factors that have been identified as drivers or precursors of the “land races” occurred in the 21st century – such as the food supply crisis in periods of increased demand for agricultural products, the demand for renewable energy or the need for diversification of financial investments – to draw a parallel with current conditions.

After 2008, in the aftermath of the global financial and food crisis, there was a notable increase in land investments with large-scale land acquisitions.

explains Maria Cristina Rulli, Professor of Hydrology at our university.

Large-scale land acquisitions often target forest land that is subsequently ‘developed’ through logging, leading to habitat destruction, increased greenhouse gas emissions and loss of access to ancestral land by local people who historically relied on these forests for firewood, food or shelter.

The analysis reflects on the policy implications of the agrarian transition associated with this new wave of land acquisitions, reminding us that the policy frameworks currently in place have historically been ineffective in preventing the previous land rush and its detrimental impacts on livelihoods and the environment.

Read the study online

Research by Politecnico protagonist of DART impactor launch

Posted on 07/03/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Divert the trajectory of an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth by means of a controlled impact at full speed with a space probe. This was the challenge of the DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) by NASA, successfully completed on 26^th September 2022, in which the Politecnico was directly involved as part of the scientific team.

The first scientific results on the DART Mission have been published in the journal Nature in three different articles, co-authored by the researcher Fabio Ferrari from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at the Politecnico.

The article ‘Successful Kinetic Impact into an Asteroid for Planetary Defense’ describes the successful test of kinetic impact technology on the asteroid Dimorphos, demonstrating that it is an effective technique for planetary defence against possible asteroid threats.

The study ‘Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimorphos’ describes the observations made using the Hubble Space Telescope on the material ejected by the impact of DART with the asteroid Dimorphos.

Finally, the effectiveness of the kinetic impact of a satellite in avoiding a potential collision with the Earth is demonstrated in ‘Momentum Transfer from the DART mission Kinetic Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos’ co-authored by the professor of Flight Mechanics at the Politecnico, Michèle Lavagna.

DART is a historic moment for space exploration: it is not only the first planetary defence test, but it is also the first time we visit a binary asteroid (a system where two asteroids orbit around a common centre of gravity) and where we have the opportunity to observe how an asteroid can react to an external stress. This has allowed us – and will allow us again in the coming months – to study the structure and evolutionary history of these celestial bodies, so close to us but still barely known.
Fabio Ferrari

Read the three articles

Successful Kinetic Impact into an Asteroid for Planetary Defense

Momentum Transfer from DART Mission Kinetic Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos

Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimorphos

Creating trustworthy digital twins thanks to AUTO-TWIN

Posted on 06/03/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The AUTO-TWIN project (“Data-driven method based on a process mining approach for Automated Digital Twin generation, operations, and maintenance in circular value chains”) has officially kicked off. It won the recent Horizon Europe call “Digital tools to support the engineering of a Circular Economy”.

The AUTO-TWIN project aims to revolutionize the current system engineering model by introducing a new automated process-aware discovery method to create trustworthy digital twins. The project is aimed at supporting circular economies and will showcase its solutions in three distinct value chains: battery refabrication, plastic recycling, and medical device sterilization.

AUTO-TWIN represents a new and innovative method for creating digital twins, digital replicas of physical systems, by adopting an International Data Space (IDS) based common data space to automate the digital twin creation process, making it more cost-effective and efficient. The project also integrates advanced hardware technologies into the digital thread to create smart Green Gateways, enabling companies to make data and digital twin-based green decisions.

The Team of researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering will utilize their expertise in process mining for manufacturing systems to create algorithms for enhancing the digital twin’s component models and to create functional modules for converting graph models into discrete event simulation models and for validating results in real-time. A significant contribution will also be related to the improvement of the knowledge graph model using conformance checking results and to develop multi-criteria optimization methods.

Professor Andrea Matta will take the lead in managing the project, making sure it is completed on time and within budget. A strong consortium of 11 beneficiaries from Italy, Lithuania, Greece, Spain, Israel, and Turkey and 2 associated partners from Switzerland will work together for this three-year project and the 7.3 million€ total funding will provide our researchers the instruments to tackle some of the most critical challenges the world is facing in the upcoming years.