Acknowledgements
The first person that I would like to thank is Dr. Jorge dos Santos, thank you for having been not only a great supervisor but also a reference model and an inspiration for my work and for the future. The freedom and the possibilities to perform my research in the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht are unpayable satisfactions for a student and for this I have to thank also my university supervisors Prof. Agostino Lanciotti and Prof. Luigi Lazzeri for the opportunity that they gave me and for the patience demonstrate in this period.
I could not have done all the toughness experiments without the support of Kay Erdmann that used is great experience to help me and bear my exuberance during the tests. Thanks to all the colleagues of the WMP department for the time spent together and for the help received for my research.
During this one and an half year many people have helped me not only from a professional point of view but more important in my private life. I have to say thank to Dagmar Koschek for having been more than a friend, I would say my German mom, and having supported me and been my confident. A big thank goes to all the friends of the Guest House: Juliano, Chico, Camila, Emilia, Luis, Miguel, Goncalo, Sebastian, Pedro and many others, I will never forget the six month spent together, it has been one of the happiest periods of my life. Another special mention is for Jan that has been my supervisor, or advisor as he preferred to be defined, for the first 6 month and then became one of my best friends and helped me to forget, with the help of many beers, the burden of the thesis.
The roots are important for a person and to know where to go you have always to remember from where are you coming, for this reason I have to thank to all my “historical” friends in Pisa:
Alessio, Lorenzo, Gilbe, Luca, Francesco (detto il Mario), Enrico, Giorgio, Tiziano, Mattia and all the others that are not coming in my mind in this moment, for the great time that we have spent together and to be the cause of the time that I sacrifice to my university career for a higher cause that is the friendship.
I have to say thank you to all my family, I am so happy that we are so close one to the other and so old style because this is the real meaning of being a family. In a special way I have to say thank to my cousin Elio that has been a brother for me and even if we are far I know that I can count on him as he can count on me.
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Acknowledgements The last three persons that I have to thank are the most important in my life. Thanks dad and mom, I know that whatever you have done was for me and even if sometimes I did not want to recognise it, because I am stubborn like you dad, I own you everything. Thank you Damla (Dada) you are my light in the night, you enriched my life day after day and you gave me the strength in the moments when I lost the hope. I love you with all my hearth.
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