Publications by authors named "Paolo La Torraca"

Early diagnosis of interstitial lung diseases secondary to connective tissue diseases is critical for the treatment and survival of patients. The symptoms, like dry cough and dyspnea, appear late in the clinical history and are not specific, moreover, the current approach to confirm the diagnosis of interstitial lung disease is based on high resolution computer tomography. However, computer tomography involves x-ray exposure for patients and high costs for the Health System, therefore preventing its use for a massive screening campaign in elder people.

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This paper presents a circuit model of the thermoviscous acoustic wave propagation in waveguides with annular cross section. The model, validated against finite element method simulations of the input acoustic impedance, captures the annular waveguide behavior with good accuracy within a frequency bandwidth consistent with the lumped-element approximation. The cascading of multiple circuit models easily allows extending the bandwidth while preserving the same accuracy.

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Memristor-based neuromorphic systems have been proposed as a promising alternative to von Neumann computing architectures, which are currently challenged by the ever-increasing computational power required by modern artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. The design and optimization of memristive devices for specific AI applications is thus of paramount importance, but still extremely complex, as many different physical mechanisms and their interactions have to be accounted for, which are, in many cases, not fully understood. The high complexity of the physical mechanisms involved and their partial comprehension are currently hampering the development of memristive devices and preventing their optimization.

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In this work, we investigate the thermal and acoustic frequency responses of nanostructured thermoacoustic loudspeakers. An opposite frequency dependence of thermal and acoustic responses was found independently of the device substrate (Kapton and glass) and the nanometric active film (silver nanowires and nm-thick metal films). The experimental results are interpreted with the support of a comprehensive electro-thermo-acoustic model, allowing for the separation of the purely thermal effects from the proper thermoacoustic (TA) transduction.

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