Imitation learning in multi-sensor self-aware autonomous systems

Dealing with maintenance disruption management in highway network and infrastructure

Disruptions in transportation networks are causing delays and driving up costs for daily commutes and goods delivery. Particularly, infrastructure degradation poses significant risks, with aging highways, bridges, and pavements prone to interruptions that intensify congestion and delays. To mitigate these vulnerabilities, this study addresses the need for effective maintenance approaches that strengthen highway reliability and minimize its traffic impacts across the network. The focus of thi...

Sustainable Solutions for Freight Transport Optimization

In the face of a growing global climate crisis, the transportation sector has come under intense scrutiny for its substantial contribution to environmental degradation. As one of the leading sources of pollution, the freight transport industry is at a critical juncture where the need for sustainable practices has never been more urgent. While multimodal transport systems—combining road, rail, maritime, and air—offer significant benefits in terms of flexibility and efficiency, they also presen...

Tracing Sources and Pathways of Trace Elements in Polar Regions by Isotopic Analysis

This PhD thesis focuses on the development, optimization and validation of robust analytical methods for accurate and precise isotopic analysis of Pb, Sr, Hg and Cd and their subsequent environmental application in extreme environments such as Antarctica and the Arctic. This work has been carried out in the contex of the National Antarctic Research Programme (PNRA). The primary objective is to trace the sources of heavy metals and assess their environmental impact using advanced inductively c...

Manipulation of the emission of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals employing photonic structures

MODELING AND CONTROL STRATEGIES FOR AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND TRUCK PLATOONS IN MIXED TRAFFIC SCENARIOS

Since the dawn of civilization, people started to move around and transport goods. The more in time we move forward, the more we find bigger cities and therefore bigger economies, and that is thanks to human creativity and inventions, all the way from the wheel to the transportation industry nowadays. Technology advanced and a person's well-being and comfort became more and more important. Unfortunately, the infrastructure and the environment could not keep up with all these advancements; pro...

Modulating Light-Matter Interactions by Quantum Engineering of 2D Materials for Optoelectronics Devices

Fragmentation and Jet Substructure in Heavy Flavour Processes

Heavy flavours, i.e. quarks with masses larger than the mass of the proton, play a fundamental role in advancing our understanding of the Standard Model as they provide unique insights on electroweak symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism. This PhD thesis focuses on the bottom and charm quarks, considering two key aspects of heavy flavour physics. In the first part, we analyze the energy spectrum of heavy flavours in the regime where the emitted colour radiation becomes soft and collinear....

Comparing Nanozymes Catalytic Activity and Applications

Nanozymes (NZs), nanomaterials with intrinsic catalytic properties able to mimic natural enzymes, are gaining increasing interest among the scientific community in virtue of their properties that make them valuable alternative to natural enzymes in several fields from biosensing to nanomedicine. The field is rapidly evolving, with ongoing discoveries of new nanomaterials able to mimic more and more diverse enzymatic activities. However, most of the articles focus on specific application, ofte...