The MODERN project ('Advanced SeisMic InterferOmetry MethoDs and TechnologiEs for EngineeRiNg Seismology') has officially started. Funded by the Italian Fund for Applied Sciences (FISA), the project is led by Professor Stefano Parolai from the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Geosciences (MIGE) at the University of Trieste.

MODERN aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and practical application in the field of seismic interferometry, developing innovative tools and real-time analysis technologies for industry professionals, small and medium-sized enterprises, and the broader industry. Key objectives include enhancing existing approaches, with a particular focus on real-time earthquake impact assessment and the monitoring of buildings and infrastructures, as well as designing ad hoc devices for more accessible and practical solutions.

The project brings together a network of distinguished partners, including the University of Catania, the University of Naples Federico II, the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS), the National Research Council (CNR-IMAA), and the companies Ad.eL s.r.l. and TME s.r.l.

The Main Hall of Building C11 was officially named after Giacomo Costa, a leading figure in the Trieste chemistry scene who passed away in 2015. Costa, who was born in Trieste in 1922 and graduated in Chemistry from Milan, was instrumental in the development of chemistry at the University of Trieste. He held a number of prestigious positions: he was Head of the Institute of Chemistry from 1963 to 1973 and, subsequently, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Science for about twenty years, from 1973 to 1991. His research activities focused on the metal-organic compounds of cobalt, known as ‘Costa's Models’, relevant to the study of Vitamin B12, which remains an active field of research at the University. 

Convinced of the importance of scientific rigour in addressing issues of public interest, he actively participated in technical roundtables on environmental and industrial issues in Trieste, making his expertise available to the community. He reached the pinnacle of his career in 2003 when he was awarded the ‘Amedeo Avogadro’ gold medal for scientific merit.

The naming ceremony saw the institutional greetings of Barbara Milani, Deputy Rector for International Relations and Mobility, Paolo Tecilla, Head of the Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Rinaldo Rui, the last Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Science. Following this, Giovanna Fronzoni paid tribute the figure of Professor Costa, while the commemorative plaque was unveiled by Giovanni Costa, Domenico's son and Associate Professor of Solid Earth Geophysics. The event concluded with a seminar by Yusuke Morisawa, Visiting Professor in occasion of the 100th Anniversary of UniTS and Associate Professor in the Department of Science and Engineering at Kindai University.

The University of Trieste, together with the Strategic Management of ASUGI, expresses its warmest wishes for a happy retirement to Prof. Roberto Luzzati. His extraordinary professional contribution represented a strong point for the University and for the local health services (ASUGI), enhancing its role on a national and international level. A leading figure on the medical scene, Prof. Luzzati has left an indelible mark on the management of infectious diseases over the last twenty years, distinguishing himself particularly during the COVID-19 emergency.

After obtaining two specialisations in Paediatrics and Infectious Diseases and completing his training at Boston University, Prof. Luzzati started working in Trieste in 2000 as Head of the Infectious Diseases Department at ASUGI. In 2005, he was appointed Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Trieste, contributing to the transformation of the Department into a jewel in the university’s crown.

His unwavering commitment led to the establishment of the School of Specialisation in Infectious and Tropical Diseases in 2022, creating expanded training opportunities for future generations of doctors. Since 2018, he has served as the Coordinator of the Integrated Master’s Degree in Medicine and Surgery, steering this vital program with dedication to advance health education at the University.

Prof. Luzzati was Director of the Department of Specialist Medicine from 2005 to 2022 and, since 2022, he has been leading the Department for Antibiotic Stewardship at ASUGI. Author of numerous publications in scientific journals of international standing, he has been able to combine academic rigour and humanity, forming a group of students ready to carry on his work with the same principles of empathy, respect for the patient and commitment to research.

The graduation ceremony for the first 22 graduates of the Bachelor’s Degree in Health Care was held at the Gorizia Campus. The event held great significance for the area, since these are the first fully trained healthcare assistants in Friuli Venezia Giulia, the forerunners for future generations of students who will follow the same path.

Among the keynote speeches, Fabio Barbone, coordinator of the degree course, emphasised the strategic importance of the choice of Gorizia as the location for this course: ‘The choice of Gorizia proves the centrality of this UniTS-UniUD inter-university degree course in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Health care assistants are figures that are in great demand in our region, for which they play an essential role.’

The Bachelor’s Degree in Health Care, inaugurated in the 2021/2022 academic year and active in Gorizia from the following year, has rapidly established itself as an ideal pathway for students interested in public health, epidemiology, health psychology and the promotion of healthy behaviour, responding to the growing demand for professionals in the field of prevention and the promotion of health. During the ceremony, Francesca Larese, lecturer and former coordinator of the course, recalled the challenges faced during the pandemic period: ‘The course started in the Covid era with great enthusiasm, now a cycle has been completed with graduates that are much needed in the Region. The challenges of prevention are many and urgent.'

The healthcare assistant is a key professional in prevention and the promotion of health, working in public and private settings. The main contexts of employment include prevention departments, community homes, addiction and mental health services, schools and care homes. the high demand for these figures in the area ensures that new graduates have an immediate entry into the world of work.

The ceremony was attended, among others, by Manlio Palei, Head of the Prevention Service of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Antonio Poggiana, Director of local health services (ASUGI), Chiara Gatta, Deputy Mayor of Gorizia, and Leonardo Alberto Sechi, Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Udine, confirming the importance of this course for the health and well-being of the regional community.

The Department of Humanities (DiSU) of UniTS has been invited by Princeton University to participate in a prestigious international research project aimed at creating repositories of all numismatic databases. The project, called NOMISMA, involves the collaboration of top-level institutions, including Dumbarton Oaks in Washington and the University of Oxford. The UniTS Nomismata platform has been recognised as being of exemplary value, able to contribute to the development of an innovative tool for the definition and analysis of Byzantine monetary typology.

The ultimate goal is therefore the creation of a digital, accessible and interactive platform that will enable scholars and enthusiasts to obtain up-to-date and detailed information at a glance, especially regarding the places of discovery and circulation of the centuries-old Byzantine issues. These sources will promote the understanding of economic history, relations between territories even outside the borders of the empire, the study of the functioning of the mints and above all the statistical calculation of the volume of the monetary stock coined in a well-defined historical period. The involvement of UniTS highlights the scientific value and importance of the work carried out by our university in the field of numismatic research, which is internationally recognised.

In particular, the contribution of UniTS / DiSU will be fundamental in updating and defining the dataset on the typology of Byzantine coins for the period from Anastasius I to the Byzantine emperor Phocas. The data will be digitised and integrated according to the standards defined by the UniTS Nomismata platform, dedicated to the chronological and geo-referencing of coin finds from the Byzantine era, developed by DiSU also as part of a PRIN grant that has Prof. Bruno Callegher, a former professor of Numismatics, as its leader, and Prof. Andrea Gariboldi as its reference person, Giorgio Donato and Jordan Piščanc as computer designers and developers, with the collaboration of researchers Kateryna Sorochan, Giulio Carraro and Cristiano Rossetti for research and data implementation.

Once again this year, the University of Trieste will participate in World Diabetes Day, which is celebrated on 14th November, by lighting its façade blue. The theme chosen for 2024 is ‘Diabetes and Wellbeing’, which emphasises the importance of a holistic approach to health that is not limited to glycaemic control, but also includes improving patients' physical and mental wellbeing. 

World Diabetes Day was established in 1991 by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in response to the rising number of diabetes cases worldwide. The choice of 14th November is not random: it is the anniversary of the birth of Fredrick Grant Banting, the Canadian physiologist who, together with his colleague Charles Best, discovered insulin in 1921, revolutionising the treatment of the disease. 

Diabetes is one of the major health emergencies of the 21st century. According to IDF estimates, in 2021, more than 530 million people between the ages of 20 and 79 years were living with diabetes globally, a figure that could rise to 783 million by 2045 if preventative action and awareness are not taken. In Europe, the number of people with diabetes exceeds 62 million, and is also growing among children and adolescents due to poor dietary habits and lack of physical activity. 

In Italy, according to ISTAT data, more than 4 million people are affected by diabetes, equal to about 6% of the population. Type 2 diabetes, often associated with risk factors such as obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, accounts for 90 per cent of cases, while type 1 diabetes, of autoimmune origin, is less frequent but constantly increasing among young people. 

By lighting up its historic main building in blue, UniTS wants to remind people of the importance of collective action in the fight against diabetes and reaffirm its commitment to scientific research and public awareness.

The study, published in the prestigious journal Science Advances, presents a simple and innovative method for making new materials that combine the extraordinary properties displayed by single metal atoms with the strength, flexibility and versatility of graphene.

Graphene is a material consisting of a two-dimensional network of carbon discovered in 2004 that has had a huge impact on the scientific community, leading to its discoverers being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.

The proposed method consists of depositing metal atoms, such as cobalt, in a controlled manner during the formation of the graphene layer on a nickel surface. Some of these atoms are incorporated into the carbon network of graphene, creating a material with exceptional properties of strength, reactivity and stability even under critical conditions.

The new material can be detached from the substrate while retaining its original structure and is therefore potentially usable in applications in catalysis, spintronics and electronic devices.

The work presented is the result of an international collaboration between researchers from CNR-IOM (Materials Foundry), the University of Trieste, the University of Milan Bicocca and the University of Vienna.

Giovanni Comelli, UniTS: ‘The contribution of different and complementary skills was decisive in demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach, which is both simple and powerful at the same time.’

Cristina Africh (CNR-IOM): ‘It is still a preliminary result, but already very promising, the result of an original idea born in our laboratory that initially seemed unfeasible.’

Cristiana Di Valentin (University of Milan Bicocca): ‘We have applied this method to trap nickel and cobalt atoms, but our calculations say that the use could be extended to other metals for different applications.’

Jani Kotakoski (University of Vienna): ‘We have shown that this material survives even critical conditions, including the electrochemical environments used for fuel cell and battery applications.’

Published article

V. Chesnyak, D. Perilli, M. Panighel, A. Namar, A. Markevich, T. An Bui, A. Ugolotti, A. Farooq, M. Stredansky, C. Kofler, C. Cepek, G. Comelli, J. Kotakoski, C. Di Valentin, C. Africh. Scalable bottom-up synthesis of Co-Ni-doped graphene. Science Advances vol, issue (2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ado8956

Prof. Stefano Borgani, Professor of Cosmology at UniTS, received the prestigious ‘Prof. Luigi Tartufari’ International Prize from the Lincean Academy (Accademia dei Lincei).

The prize is awarded to scholars in the physics, mathematics, and natural sciences who have distinguished themselves through innovative research and relevant activities.

This is the motivation: ‘His research in the field of cosmology ranges from the study of the large-scale structure of the Universe to bind models of dark matter and dark energy, to the description of the formation and evolution of cosmic structures through the use of numerical simulations based on high performance computing methodologies. His studies on the cosmological application of galaxy clusters were among the first ever to highlight the role of such objects for precision cosmology and, at the same time, highlighted for the first time the need to fully understand the physical properties of galaxy clusters in order to fully exploit their potential for cosmological applications.’

‘We are living in the golden age of cosmology. The amount and quality of data we are getting, primarily from ESA's Euclid Space Telescope, promises to revolutionise our understanding of the Universe. Questions about the nature of energy and dark matter, and the physical laws that describe the birth and evolution of the Universe, may finally be answered. The Italian community, thanks to the participation of INAF and various Institutes and Universities, is playing a leading role in the Euclid Consortium. In Trieste in particular, a close collaboration has been established between researchers from our University, INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Trieste and SISSA, precisely on the analysis of Euclid data and their interpretation through simulations based on high-performance computing,’ said Borgani. ‘I am very honoured to receive this award from such a prestigious institution as the Lincean Academy. I like to think that this is a recognition not only for myself, but also for my close collaborators, with whom I have shared so many research adventures, as well as for the young researchers I have followed over the years and who have enriched my scientific life.’

UniTS students Francesco Benda, Claudia Depalma and Soraya Temporini are the winners of the 2024 edition of X - Culture. An exceptional result also made possible by the financial support that the Pietro Pittini Foundation has guaranteed since 2018.

X-Culture is an international competition, coordinated for UniTS by Prof. Donata Vianelli, in which the students' business-plan development skills are put to the test, as well as their commitment to consistently carrying out the steps of the competition.

After passing an initial test, the students are placed in virtual teams of 6-8 students from universities in different countries.

In 2024, a total of 5,377 students from 131 universities in 70 countries on six continents participated in the project. They worked in 1,289 global virtual teams. The best 50 students from the teams ranked in the top 10% in the initial phase of the project were admitted to the international finals. The latter were again divided into multicultural teams to prepare for the international finals held at the University of St. Louis (USA).

This year, two teams were equal winners, with three UniTS students from the Department of Economics, Business, Mathematics and Statistics (2 in one team and 1 in the other): Claudia Depalma and Francesco Benda, attending the Master's Degree in Marketing and Management, and Soraya Temporini, a third-year student in the Bachelor's Degree in Business & Management (taught in English).

Here is a description of the two winning Business Plans:

International team of Francesco Benda

The project focused on the impact of the World Congress of Dermatology 2031 in Cape Town, offering an innovative solution to transform the city into a dermatology hub for advanced research. Its excellence lies in its integrated approach between economic growth, sustainable innovation, promotion of technological advances in the field of dermatology and community involvement. It aims to enhance local resources, promote medical tourism and improve international collaborations, ensuring long-term economic and scientific benefits for Cape Town.

International team of Claudia Depalma and Soraya Temporini

The project aims to make Dublin a global dermatology hub, with a real social impact for the city. They came up with specific activities for the hypothetical client's event and permanent initiatives, such as skin scanners in the most frequented spots. The #LoveYourSkinDublin campaign promotes inclusion and normalisation of skin diseases. Thanks to a cost-cutting strategy, services will be free of charge, making dermatological examinations more accessible and incentivising innovation.

At X - Culture, the evaluation of the best business plans is based not only on the quality of the content (market analysis, marketing and communication, operational processes, logistics, human resources) but also on the innovativeness of the ideas and solutions proposed and on clarity of presentation.

Trieste, November 6, 2024 – A new generation of plastic microsatellites, modular like interlocking structures, integrating electrical connections between the various operational boards inside, thus making them lighter, more spacious, and more efficient: this is the goal of the RISE (Resilient Integrated Structural Elements) project from the University of Trieste and the company PICOSATS.

Since (NET) 6th of November, the International Space Station has hosted a very special prototype designed by UniTS researchers and the university's spin-off company, PICOSATS.

It is a cube made of plastic material with conductive tracks (circuits) running through it, which connect the operational boards mounted on the sides of the object. The electrical component, essential for the satellite’s operation, is thus integrated into the structure, making it much more robust, cheaper, and easier to produce compared to the older generation.

The microsatellite structure, made of 3D-printed plastic and hollow inside, finally allows for the modular management of its geometry, as if assembling modular building blocks... but extremely high-tech!

‘During the four months in which we will test our idea, we will find out if the device can function in microgravity and withstand the stresses from the launch of SpaceX's CRS-31 mission aboard the Falcon 9 rocket,’ explains Stefano Seriani, professor of Robotics at UniTS and scientific coordinator of RISE. ‘If so, we will have laid the groundwork for a real revolution in the microsatellite market.’

These space objects lend themselves to extremely versatile applications, ranging from Earth observation to telecommunications, to astrophysics and planetary exploration.

The RISE project took its first steps in 2018 when the founding team won the challenge sponsored by ICE Cubes within the ‘Space Exploration Masters’ competition organised by the European Space Agency (ESA), placing second in the ESA & Commercial Partners challenge.

The project thus secured a ‘ticket’ to the International Space Station provided by Space Applications Services, a Belgian aerospace company..

Now, in the year of the University of Trieste’s 100th anniversary, it has become a reality, thanks also to the contribution of ASI, the Italian Space Agency, which financed its development.

‘We wanted to bring this important anniversary into space,’ concludes Seriani. ‘Inside the cube, we included the UniTS 100th anniversary logo which, together with the PICOSATS logo, will float in microgravity, sending very special greetings to our ground command centre.’