in vento 2014

A few days ago, while I was enjoying a long weekend break at the Greek islands, my colleague Francesco gave two presentations at the 13th Conference of the Italian Association for Wind Engineering (in vento 2014) held in Genova.
http://www.invento2014.org

Francesco, ho has a PhD on Wind Engineering co-advised by Prof. Bontempi and Prof. Augusti of the Sapienza University of Rome, is broadly acknowledged for his contribution on the topic of Performance Based Wind Engineering (PBWE).

One of the presentations regarded the "Building occupants' comfort assessment in the PBWE framework", in collaboration with my good friend Pierluigi Olmati (now post-doc at the University of Surrey) and Prof. Franco Bontempi.
The study, that Francesco conceived, initiated after an original idea of the late Prof. Ciampoli, and was merely outlined last year on a paper I also contributed at the COMPDYN 2013 conference at the island of Kos.
http://www.dicat.unige.it/carassale/invento2014/Abstracts/29_Petrini-etal.pdf

Francesco presenting Building occupants' comfort assessment in the PBWE framework (courtesy of F. Bontempi)

The second presentation focused on the "Piezoelectric energy harvesting under air flow excitation", and was in collaboration with myself and Prof. Franco Bontempi. It regards the ESA-BIC (European Space Agency Business Incubator Center) project piezoVenergy by StroNGER. Francesco presented preliminary results from the Master Thesis of Sara Ferri, successfully defended last April.
http://www.dicat.unige.it/carassale/invento2014/Abstracts/28_Petrini-etal.pdf

Francesco presenting Piezoelectric energy harvesting under air flow excitation (courtesy of F. Bontempi)

In addition to the above presentations, Francesco also co-chaired a technical session on bridges.
 

Visitor

Today, Dr. Baabak Ashuri from Georgia Tech College of Architecture came visit our research group at the University.
Dr. Baabak Ashuri  is director of the Georgia Tech Economics of the Sustainable Built Environment (ESBE) Lab in the School of Building Construction. He specializes in Economic Decision Analysis, Strategic Risk Management, Investment Analysis under Uncertainty, Capital Budgeting, and Project Finance.
Dr Ashuri gave a presentation on his research interests and followed one by us. Together we tried to identify common research interests and opportunities.
Afterwards, we all shared lunch at our favorite restaurant (Bottiglieria ai tre scalini), where this group photo was taken.

 

Instructors*

Earlier today, my colleagues at StroNGER srl (www.stronger2012.com) and good friends Francesco Petrini and Chiara Crosti, gave a 4 hour seminar, part of a professional course for Registered Professional Engineers organized by the Engineering Chamber of Rome.
The course, develops for 12 hours in total, and is part of a continuing education for engineers.
Today's course focused on Earthquake Engineering and Fire Safety Engineering, two of the areas of excellence of Francesco and Chiara, and follows the first seminar given last week by Franco Bontempi and Stefania Arangio.

 

All four of them are excellent instructors and mentors, and, in my opinion, provided excellent insight on their topics of choice, on the more than 80 people that follow the seminar.
The seminar concludes with the final four hours next week (Thursday June 19) 

European Space Agency (ESA) Investment Readiness Programme (IRP), Lazio - June 5/6

Last week I participated in the European Space Agency (ESA) Investment Readiness Programme (IRP) Lazio in Rome, one of the 5 ESA IRPs to be held this year.

http://www.e-unlimited.com/events/view.aspx?events_pages_id=2851

 

My involvement in ESA - BIC Lazio is as an entrepreneur for the Space Technology Transfer project piezoTsensor with StroNGER S.r.l. (http://www.stronger2012.com).
 

ESA IRP aims to help early-stage entrepreneurs increase their likelihood of acquiring seed-level or venture capital funding.

Rick Salmon (http://ricksalmon.com) the program leader, worked with the participating entrepreneurs, representing 9 companies, to fine-tune our business models and sharpen our business propositions.

Rick Salmon providing feedback on 5' pitch presentations

The event was very intense, and focused on improving communication skills for presenting to investors. During the second day, I had the opportunity to present and receive expert feedback on a 5' PowerPoint pitch presentation. I also showed a 30'' promotional video for piezoTsensor, prepared ad-hoc with the help of a good friend who is a professional graphic designer.

30'' piezoTsensor promotional video

 

Introduction to structural optimization

Yesterday I gave an 1 hour presentation in a course for PhD students of the Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering. The 12h course, organized by Prof. Bontempi, has as an aim the introduction of optimization methods and application in a simple and appealing manner.

My presentation focused on an introduction of structural robustness, integrated with examples and applications. The presentation gave me the opportunity to present some of the research I carried out in the past with my good friends and colleagues Luisa Giuliani, Pierluigi Olmati and Francesca Brando, all of them PhDs in the Department, and all of them launched in successful International careers. The full presentation is available for download from the following link: http://www.slideshare.net/FrancoBontempi/kg-21-05-2014