S. Corti, F. Molteni - CINECA
T.N. Palmer - European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) Nature 1999, 398, pp. 799-802

A basic paradigm for the effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is of warming through the lower atmosphere, as a direct response to the radiative forcing due to increased infrared opacity. However, this paradigm is essentially 1-dimensional, and ignores the adjustment of the 3-dimensional dynamics of the climate system to the imposed forcing. Evidence is presented, based on an analysis of mid-tropospheric geopotential data, that changes in northern-hemispheric climate in recent decades can be explained by changes in the frequency of occurrence of preferred nonlinear naturally-occurring atmospheric circulation regimes. This behaviour can be simulated in low-order chaotic models. These results indicate that an over-simplistic interpretation of the "greenhouse effect" paradigm is misleading; recent hemispheric warming (even if anthropogenically forced) may be more directly related to the thermal structure of preferred patterns of natural intraseasonal variability, than to the forcing pattern itself. This scenario can account for the apparent disparity between trends in surface temperature and satellite radiance data, and suggests that climate prediction models must simulate the non-gaussian structure of the climate attractor.

A. Dominici - Ferrari Production Department S.p.A.
G Cantore - Dept. of Mechanical Engineering University of Modena.
L. Chinni - CINECA

This is numerical analysis by means of 3-D thermofluid-dynamic simulation codes of the front flame propagation within an engine combustion chamber. The study has been carried on in collaboration with Ferrari Production Dept and University of Modena. The simulation has been performed using the Los Alamos Kiva code. Kiva is a 3-D code for the complete cycles analysis of engine either spark ignited or diesel. Specific mods has been developed and integrated into the code during the study to dinamically reduced the size (height) of the voxel in which the front flame go through during its propagation. The aim of the research was to investigate the interaction between the flow motion and the combustion process because significant increases in the performance of spark ignited engines may be achieved by optimising the intake flow field. The code has been applied to the naturally aspired spark ignition V12 5.5 litres Ferrari F133A engine experimentally tested at different operation condition.

F. Fontana, P. Rivola - SACMI Cooperativa Meccanica S.c.r.l.
A. Grossi - Ingegneria e Software - IeS
P. G. Molari - Dept. of Mechanical Engineering University of Bologna
A. Guidazzoli, L. Calori, M. Voli - CINECA

This application has been funded by EC DGIII - Industry, RTD: Information Technology. High Performance Computing and Networking. TTN NOTSOMAD - Contract No. 24414 - Activity EP 26000.

This project, named FLUSI, that has been funded in the CINECA TTN action, aims to demonstrate that existing fluid dynamics techniques relying on HPCN capabilities are mature for their utilisation inside industries manufacturing 'traditional' equipment, like, in this case, the atomisers for the spray drying process for the production of ceramics. The project consists in the application of a fluid dynamic code to the simulation of the fluid flow and heat transfer in the process of atomisation, reduction of the water and reshaping of the particles constituting the casting slip, composed by mix of different powdered clays and other materials, which takes place before the phase of forming of the ceramic articles. Nowadays, manufactures of fluid flow machines design their equipment relying on the knowledge of a small number of cases practically tested. The parallel computing will allow to carry out an large number of simulation runs, with different sets of parameters, during the design of the mechanical component of the drying system, so to help the designer to enhance the performance of the new system and to shorten the time to production. The code employed is CFX. The sequences show the particle trace of the flow inside the atomiser.

A. Regis - Scholl S.p.A.
A. C. Garcia - IBV Spain
S. Corsini - Higftech S.r.l
C. Zannoni, A. Guidazzoli - CINECA

Analysis of the structural behaviour of a new insole material: a gel. The movie shows the displacement of the gel during a normal step. The IBV: Institute of Biomechanics of Valencia acquired, with 56 piezo-electric sensors distributed over the foot sole, the pressure acting on foot during normal gate. The pressure data have been acquired with 100 Hz frequency. 100 frames describe the all step. The pressure data represented an unstructured grid of points. They have, thus, been interpolated with the Delaunay algorithm to obtain an higher resolution pressure field. The contours of the insole have been acquired and a FE mesh has been made. The pressure field acting on each mesh element has been evaluated and the FE analysis have been performed. The displacement of the gel during a whole step have been evaluated through FE analysis.

G. Giovannini - AQUATER S.p.A.
L. Calori - CINECA

This video shows the diffusion in the atmosphere of pollutant emission from an industrial plant. The model has been initialised using a statistical meteorological forces in order to evaluate the emission distribution over a large geographical area. The model has been also validated for forecast application coupled with the output from an operational meteorological model. The visualisation implies data reduction technique proportional to the density of the emission distribution. As is showed in the video, the emission distribution are geo referenced in terms of lat.-long. co-ordinate. This does allow to visualise the output considering the DTM of the involved geographical area. Over the DTM a satellite image has been applied and techniques of landscape navigation are used to visualise the phenomena behaviour.

C. Lamberti, F. Fraticelli, R. Gori - Dept. of Electronics, Informatics and Systems University of Bologna
A. Sarti - CINECA

This method has been applied to a 3D echocardiographs image sequence measured by an endophageal probe of TOMTEC. We have analysed different sequences of clinical interest: the method is both accurate and robust in the estimation of the velocity field of the ventricular wall. Figure below shows the vector field on a section corresponding to the valvular plane in the end diastolic phase. The mitral valve motion is clearly visible during the relaxation of the left ventricle in the diastolic phase. From the point of view of the visualisation a volume equivalent mathematical filter to reduce the noise of the reconstruction has been developed and to that equivalent 3-D reconstruction the computed velocity fields are visualised. This application provide to the cardiologist the possibility to evaluate the blood flow pressure inside the heart to address some pathological anomalies.

C. Zannoni - CINECA
A. Cappello, R. Gori - Dept. of Electronics, Informatics and Systems University of Bologna
M. Viceconti - Laboratory for Biomaterials Technology of the Istituti Ortopedici Rizzoli
A. De Lollis - Cremascoli Ortho S.p.A.

This application has been funded by EC DGIII - Industry, RTD: Information Technology. High Performance Computing and Networking. TTN NOTSOMAD - Contract No. 24414 - Activity EP 27214.

PST Action supported by the EC in the frame of the NOTSOMAD TTN. Aim of the project is to transfer to Cremascoli Ortho (Hip joint prosthesis manufacturer) a set of software tool necessary for the design and validation of Custom made prostheses. The software tools allow to identify and isolate the single images from the CT film, extract the contours of the cortical bone tissue, reconstruct the 3D geometry of the femur and define the rough design of the prosthesis. A rough estimation of implant fatigue failure based on beam theory is generally necessary to decide the hazard assessment related to the custom implant which cannot undergo standard laboratory test for time (it is manufactured few days before the surgery) and cost reasons. Once the CMP has been designed a FE procedure to evaluate the hazard assessment of the implant which do not pass the beam theory based test have been set up and tested. The simulation requires 3 hours on the Origin 2000. The work described by this section forms an activity funded within the CINECA TTN named NOTSOMAD. The activity is of type best practice and has a duration of 16 months. When standard hip prostheses are not suitable for patients with an abnormal anatomical structure it is necessary to design the prosthetic implant according to the particular patient anatomy. These are called "Custom-made prostheses" (CMP). The patient is subjected to a pre-operative X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) of the leg. The CT images are then sent to the CMP manufacturer who reconstructs the host bone morphology and then design a CMP to fit it. The first aim of this project will be to re-engineer the CMP design process. The automation of the 3D reconstruction phase will eliminate error prone and time consuming manual activities thus reducing the product related cost, increasing the accuracy and improving the communication between designer and surgeon. Then, a Finite Element Method (FEM)-based endurance verification procedure will be integrated into the CMP design process to better fulfil the new EC requirements. The consortium will help Cremascoli Ortho to define which computational model is technically feasible and cost-effective in hosting these new applications: remote time sharing on super computers, acquisition of a single powerful system, configuration of a workstations cluster, or other resources. The end user Cremascoli Ortho expect from the project a 20% reduction of time-to-market and a reduction of the production costs induced by new EC rules on medical devices while increasing the whole reliability of custom-made prostheses.

C. Marchetti, C. Bianchi - Maxillo-Facial Dept. - Bellaria Hospital, Bologna / Maxillo-Facial Division, Bufalini Hospital, Cesena
A. Sarti - CINECA
R. Gori, C. Lamberti - Dept. of Electronics, Informatics and Systems University of Bologna

Craniofacial surgery is a surgical branch regarding study and treatment of any kind of disease (malformations, trauma and tumours) affecting the face. Peculiar to this surgery is that any surgical procedures has non only functional but even esthetical implication such important for all patients' life. Anatomical and functional complexity of the face and skull, characterised by the presence of the eyes, ear, nose, mouth, facial nerve ad the proximity of very important organs as the brain and the respiratory system, make this area extremely hazardous for any skilled surgeons and a very dangerous minefield for residents, fellows and any surgeon in training. Moreover cadaver anatomical dissection which in the past was the best way to learn surgery today is extremely difficult to be performed in the face; for these scientific and teaching reasons has been planned a research project of cranio­facial surgery simulation from 3D CT images. Generally the goal of computer­based surgery simulation is to enable a surgeon to experiment with different surgical procedures in an artificial environment, that leads to the following purpose statements:
1.to realise a real surgery simulation tool to predict the outcome of cranio­facial surgery which consider the real soft-tissue movements for each kind of surgery (osteotomies, graft, implants, etc) using embedded boundary condition models which allow to simulate the cranio­facial surgery directly on the grid of the 3D CT images of the patient.
2.to create a multimedia teaching tool.

R. Gori - Dept. of Electronics, Informatics and Systems University of Bologna
Guidazzoli, L. Calori, A. Sarti - CINECA
M. Forte - Cultural Artistic Work Institute - CNR

This is a multidisciplinary work done by Egyptologists, computational archaeology, bio engineers, anthropologists. The aim of this research program is to reconstruct and visualise external and internal structures of mummy heads in order to study their morphology as three dimensional virtual models. Starting from digitised CT scans it's possible to point out anatomical data observing internal and external features and to reach digitally the original appearance of the face. This case study is related to a skull of a mummy at the Museum of Archaeology in Florence. The datation is unknown and even the place of origin. The head is in a good conservation state: different analysis have been performed: nutritional habits, C14 datation, chemical conservation process. The visualisation has contributed to improve the understanding initially the conservation process, then some other topics like anthropological aspect (age of the subject, its ethnical origin), paleo-pathological one (state of health, state of teeth) and also style of life (kind of foods, presence of traumatic signs).

L. Calori, A. Guidazzoli, A. Sarti - CINECA
http://www.cineca.it/HPSystems/Vis.I.T/Researches/Senna/index.html

The images of the lethal accident of Ayrton Senna have been processed at CINECA, technical assistant of the State Prosecutor attorney during the court case foreseen on February, 20th 97at Imola. At the Laboratory of Scientific Visualisation (VIS.I.T.) of CINECA a multi-media software (the so-called Enhanced Multi Sequence Viewer) has been produced that allows a synchronised voyage through the large amount of images and data, related to the dynamics of the car accident of the Brazilian F1 pilot on May, 1st of 1994 at Imola. The staff of CINECA nominated technical assistant of the State Prosecutor, has processed the obtained data (images sequences of the car-cameras of the pilots Senna and Schumacher, images of the RAI TV-cameras taken at the Tamburello curve). All the images have been digitised and processed, and have been put together in one single screen, together with the telemetry data tracked by the black box in the car of Senna (number of rounds per minute, speed, state of the wheels, temperature, etc.). At every moment, the software thus provides a frame by frame dynamical progress of the sequences. In a 381 page report published on June 15 1998 (six months after the Senna manslaughter trial verdict) judge has cited the cause of Ayrton Senna's fatal crash to be the breaking of the 'modified' steering column fitted to his Williams-Renault FW16B. Judge stated that without that condition Ayrton Senna's car would not have left the track at the Tamburello bend. In English speaking countries media reports of the Ayrton Senna trial sessions were strangely lacking. Ever since the tragedy on May 1 1994 many people wanted to know the truth about the incident: What really happened? Was 'just a racing accident' or did (as some pitiful individuals would have had us believe) 'Ayrton Senna contribute to his own death through his own inadequacies'?

see also