We introduce a new class of finite differences schemes to approximate one dimensional dissipative semilinear hyperbolic systems with a BGK structure. Using precise analytical time-decay estimates of the local truncation error, it is possible to design schemes, based on the standard upwind approximation, which are increasingly accurate for large times when approximating small perturbations of constant asymptotic states. Numerical tests show their better performances with respect to those of other schemes.

MONTE SANNACE. Le tombe dipinte dei Peucezi: le indagini su questa collina della provincia di Bari hanno restituito l'esempio meglio conservato di una città della Puglia preromana, ma per capire il livello di civiltà e i rapporti culturali delle genti peucezie che vi si insediarono rivestono particolare importanza le pitture di alcune tombe monumentali appartenute alle élites aristocratiche del luogo.

In this paper, we present an analytical study, in the one space dimensional case, of the fluid dynamics system proposed in [3] to model the formation of biofilms. After showing the hyperbolicity of the system, we show that, in an open neighborhood of the physical parameters, the system is totally dissipative near its unique non-vanishing equilibrium point. Using this property, we are able to prove existence and uniqueness of global smooth solutions to the Cauchy problem on the whole line for small perturbations of this equilibrium point and the solutions are shown to converge exponentially in time at the equilibrium state.

Numerical resolution of two-stream kinetic models in a strong aggregative setting is considered. To illustrate our approach, we consider a one-dimensional kinetic model for chemotaxis in hydrodynamic scaling and the high field limit of the Vlasov-Poisson-Fokker-Planck system. A difficulty is that, in this aggregative setting, weak solutions of the limiting model blow up in finite time, and therefore the scheme should be able to handle Dirac measures. It is overcome thanks to a careful discretization of the macroscopic velocity resulting of Vol'pert calculus: accordingly, a new well-balanced and asymptotic preserving numerical scheme is provided. Numerical simulations confirm a good behavior of solutions.

The study of energetic free-surface flows is challenging because of the large range of interface scales involved due to multiple fragmentations and reconnections of the air-water interface with the formation of drops and bubbles. Because of their complexity the investigation of such phenomena through numerical simulation largely increased during recent years. Actually, in the last decades different numerical models have been developed to study these flows, especially in the context of particle methods. In the latter a single-phase approximation is usually adopted to reduce the computational costs and the model complexity. While it is well known that the role of air largely affects the local flow evolution, it is still not clear whether this single-phase approximation is able to predict global flow features like the evolution of the global mechanical energy dissipation. The present work is dedicated to this topic through the study of a selected problem simulated with both single-phase and two-phase models. It is shown that, interestingly, even though flow evolutions are different, energy evolutions can be similar when including or not the presence of air. This is remarkable since, in the problem considered, with the two-phase model about half of the energy is lost in the air phase while in the one-phase model the energy is mainly dissipated by cavity collapses.

An algorithm for coupling a classical Finite Volume (FV) approach, that discretize the Navier-Stokes equations on a block structured Eulerian grid, with the weakly-compressible SPH is presented. The coupling procedure aims at applying each solver in the region where its intrinsic characteristics can beexploited in the most efficient and accurate way: the FV solver is used to resolve the bulk flow and the wall regions, whereas the SPH solver is implemented in the free surface region to capture details of the front evolution. In order to avoid the difficulties connected with inhomogeneous domain decomposition, in both SPH and FV regions a weakly compressible flow model was firstly tested. However, the coupling procedure has beenimplemented in order to allow the adoption of different time steps between the two solvers. Thanks to this feature, it will be shown that the proposed technique is also able to reproduce an inhomogeneous coupling. Indeed, the FV solver, because of the space discretization adopted and the implicit time integration, naturally tends to an incompressible discrete solver, wherever the time step is much larger of what required to capture compressibility effects. The different coupling strategies as well as convergence studies have been carried out in the 2D framework.The reported results clearly prove that the combined use of the two solvers is convenient from the point of view of both accuracy and computing time.

The starting transient of highly under-expanded supersonic jets is studied by means of very high resolution weighted essentially non oscillatory finite volume schemes, coupled with a positivity-preserving scheme in order to ensure positivity of pressure and density for high compression/expansion ratio. Numerical behaviour of the schemes is investigated in terms of grid resolution, formal accuracy and different approximated Riemann solvers. The transient flow field is also discussed.

This paper presents a comparative study between a large number of different existing sequential quadrature schemes suitable for Robust Design Optimization (RDO), with the inclusion of two partly original approaches. Efficiency of the different integration strategies is evaluated in terms of accuracy and computational effort: main goal of this paper is the identification of an integration strategy able to provide the integral value with a prescribed accuracy using a limited number of function samples. Identification of the different qualities of the various integration schemes is obtained utilizing both algebraic and practical test cases. Differences in the computational effort needed by the different schemes is evidenced, and the implications on their application to practical RDO problems is highlighted.

A critical issue in image restoration is noise removal, whose state-of-art algorithm, NonLocal Means, is highly demanding in terms of computational time. Aim of the present paper is to boost its performance by an efficient algorithm tailored to GPU hardware architectures. This algorithm adapts itself to several variants of the methodologies in terms of different strategies for estimating the involved filtering parameter, type of noise affecting data, multicomponent signals, spatial dimension of the images. Numerical experiments on brain Magnetic Resonance images are provided.

We describe the new precedence system which will be used in the ORM v8 to decide on the initial guess profiles

We present the first results of the new ORM v8, and analyse the effect of the modelling of the horizontal atmospheric variability of the AX-DX differences.

In the present paper, the analysis of the turning capability of the naval supply vessel presented in Part I (Broglia et al., 2015) is continued with different stern appendages, namely twin rudder and centreline skeg. The main purpose of the analysis is to assess the capability of an in-house CFD tool in capturing the different manoeuvring characteristics of the ship hulls; the test case is challenging, as the difference be- tween the two configurations lies in the complex flow structure related to rudder-propeller interactions. Moreover, although the twin rudder solution slightly improves the poor course keeping ability of the original vessel, the course stability remains poor and, consequently, large lateral motions and drift angle have to be expected during the manoeuvre. The manoeuvring capabilities of the new configuration are discussed and compared with the single rudder configuration, focusing on the nature of the hydrodynamic forces and moments acting on the main hull and appendages during the transient and stabilized phases of the manoeuvre. Emphasis will be also given to the different contributions of the propulsion system in the twin rudder configuration, that results from the different rudder-propeller interaction

Graphics processing units (GPUs) are increasingly common on desktops, servers, and embedded platforms. In this article, we report on new security issues related to CUDA, which is the most widespread platform for GPU computing. In particular, details and proofs-of-concept are provided about novel vulnerabilities to which CUDA architectures are subject. We show how such vulnerabilities can be exploited to cause severe information leakage. As a case study, we experimentally show how to exploit one of these vulnerabilities on a GPU implementation of the AES encryption algorithm. Finally, we also suggest software patches and alternative approaches to tackle the presented vulnerabilities.

Offloading computing to distributed and possibly mobile nodes is increas- ingly popular thanks to the convenience and availability of cloud resources. How- ever, trusted mobile computing is not presently viable due to a number of issues in both the mobile platform architectures and in the cloud service implementations. The complexity of such systems potentially exposes them to malicious and/or self- ish behavior. This chapter describes the state-of-the-art research on theoretical ad- vancements and practical implementations of trusted computing on a mobile cloud. Further, mobile distributed cloud computing security and reliability issues are intro- duced. Discussed solutions feature different levels of resiliency against malicious and misbehaving nodes.

We analyze the stability of the zero solution to Volterra equations on time scales with respect to two classes of bounded perturbations. We obtain sufficient conditions on the kernel which include some known results for continuous and for discrete equations. In order to check the applicability of these conditions, we apply the theory to a test example.

The availability of accurate rainfall data with high spatial resolution, especially in vast watersheds with low density of ground-measurements, is critical for planning and management of water resources and can increase the quality of the hydrological modeling predictions. In this study, we used two classical methods: the optimal interpolation and the successive correction method (SCM), for merging ground-measurements and satellite rainfall estimates. Cressman and Barnes schemes have been used in the SCM in order to define the error covariance matrices. The correction of bias in satellite rainfall data has been assessed by using four different algorithms: (1) the mean bias correction, (2) the regression equation, (3) the distribution transformation, and (4) the spatial transformation. The satellite rainfall data were provided by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, over the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. Performances of the two merging data techniques are compared, qualitatively, by visual inspection and quantitatively, by a statistical analysis, collected from January 1999 to December 2010. The computation of the statistical indices shows that the SCM, with the Cressman scheme, provides slightly better results.

This paper studies the problem of the assimilation of precipitable water vapor (PWV), estimated by synthetic aperture radar interferometry, using the Weather Research and Forecast Data Assimilation model 3-D variational data assimilation system. The experiment is designed to assess the impact of the PWV assimilation on the hydrometers and the rainfall predictions during 12 h after the assimilation time. A methodology to obtain calibrated maps of PWV and estimated their precision is also presented. The forecasts are compared with GPS estimates of PWV and with rainfall observations from a meteorological radar. Results show that after data assimilation, there is a correction of the bias in the PWV prediction and an improvement in the prediction of the weak to moderate rainfall up to 9 h after the assimilation time.

A new methodology for the mapping of intertidal terrain morphology is presented. It is based on the use of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images and the temporal correlation between the SAR backscatter intensity and the water level on the intertidal zone. The proposed methodology does not require manual editing, providing a set of geolocated pixels that can be used to generate a digital elevation model of the intertidal zone. The methodology is validated using TerraSAR-X SAR images acquired over Tagus estuary. This methodology can be useful for the regular updating of intertidal bathymetric models useful for both flood hazard mitigation and morphodynamics modeling.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) tomography provides 3-D reconstructions of atmosphere wet refractivity, related to water vapor. A simulated analysis of the integration of Global Positioning System and future Galileo data is presented. Atmospheric refractivity is derived from radiosonde data acquired over the Lisbon area. The impact of Galileo data on the tomographic reconstruction is assessed. Furthermore, horizontal anomalies are added to a reference vertical profile of atmospheric refractivity to reproduce low-level dry or wet air intrusions, a phenomenon commonly observed in meteorological data acquired by both radiosonde and satellites. The dependence of tomographic solution on the GNSS network density is also analyzed. Better reconstruction capabilities in the lower layers are observed when increasing the network density.

We study the effects of a controlled gas flow on the dynamics of electrified jets in the electrospinning process. The main idea is to model the air drag effects of the gas flow by using a nonlinear Langevin-like approach. The model is employed to investigate the dynamics of electrified polymer jets at different conditions of air drag force, showing that a controlled gas counterflow can lead to a decrease of the average diameter of electrospun fibers, and potentially to an improvement of the quality of electrospun products. We probe the influence of air drag effects on the bending instabilities of the jet and on its angular fluctuations during the process. The insights provided by this study might prove useful for the design of future electrospinning experiments and polymer nanofiber materials.