7D BIM FOR SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT IN DESIGN PROCESSES: A CASE STUDY OF DESIGN OF ALTERNATIVES IN SEVERE CLIMATE AND HEAVY USE CONDITIONS

Introduction: The emerging of energy and environmental thread has fostered a new cultural design approach to Sustainable Architecture that aims to conceive and implement buildings with a low environmental impact. In this context the role of Building Information Modelling (BIM), as a support tool for sustainable integrated design, acquires great relevance. The purpose of this study is to investigate BIM potential in both addressing preliminary design choices and supporting complex analysis during the advanced design phase, within the whole sustainable design process. A technological rail building is assumed as a case study: the Operation Control Centre for the new Oman Railway, whose preliminary project was elaborated by the Italian engineering society Italferr s.p.a. Methods: The BIM approach is used to identify possible problems and deficiencies in the preliminary project, which may represent a good basis for a next design improvements proposal. The next phase consists in investigating and experimenting BIM tools potential in supporting the Conceptual Design, by using Autodesk® Revit® and IES VE® software suites, for the modelling and the energy analysis of different conceptual design solutions. Once the optimal building shape is established, the study focuses on the evaluation of sustainability effects brought by the structural building component, in particular for what concerns its materials environmental impact. Results and discussion: The analysis of the preliminary project shows the potential of BIM in the control of many performance parameters of a building in the design phase, revealing all the design problems associated to the lack of an integral multi-disciplinary approach during the initial phases of the process. The possibility of looking into a series of solutions in a quick and in-depth manner permits an accurate assessment of the most adequate form for a building based on the place in which it is set, thus joining current technological design methods to traditional bio-climatic methods, reinstating the strong and inevitable link between site and building

From Classical Four-Wave Mixing to Parametric Fluorescence in Silicon micro-ring resonators

Four-wave mixing can be stimulated or occur spontaneously. The first process is intrinsically much stronger, and well understood through classical nonlinear optics. The latter, also known as parametric fluorescence, can be explained only in the framework of a quantum theory of light. We experimentally demonstrate that, in a micro-ring resonator, there exists a simple relation between the efficiencies of these two processes, which is independent of the nonlinearity and size of the ring. In particular we show that the average power generated by parametric fluorescence can be immediately estimated from a classical FWM experiment. These results suggest that classical nonlinear characterization of a photonic integrated structure can provide accurate information on its nonlinear quantum properties.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Endocarditis of Native Valve due to Proteus mirabilis: Case Report and Literature Review

AbstractEndocarditis due to Proteus mirabilis is very uncommon and the optimal surgical and/or antibiotic treatment is not well defined. Guidelines from the AHA and ESC recommend prolonged courses of combined antibiotic therapy but information regarding the clinical presentation, the choice of treatment, the surgical management, and the duration of therapy can only be taken from clinical cases reported in literature. We describe a case of native valve endocarditis due to Proteus mirabilis, successfully treated with antibiotic therapy alone with a review of the relevant literature on this topic

The dusty environment of Quasars. Far-IR properties of Optical Quasars

We present the ISO far-IR photometry of a complete sub-sample of optically selected bright quasars belonging to two complete surveys selected through multicolour (U,B,V,R,I) techniques. The ISOPHOT camera on board of the ISO Satellite was used to target these quasars at wavelengths of 7.3, 11.5, 60, 100 and 160 micron. Almost two thirds of the objects were detected at least in one ISOPHOT band. The detection rate is independent of the source redshift, very likely due to the negative K-correction of the far-IR thermal emission. More than a half of the optically selected QSOs show significant emission between 4 and 100 micron in the quasar rest-frame. These fluxes have a very likely thermal origin, although in a few objects an additional contribution from a non-thermal component is plausible in the long wavelength bands. In a colour-colour diagram these objects span a wide range of properties from AGN-dominated to ULIRG-like. The far-IR composite spectrum of the quasar population presents a broad far-IR bump between 10 and 30 micron and a sharp drop at wavelengths greater than 100 micron in the quasar restframe. The amount of energy emitted in the far-IR, is on average a few times larger than that emitted in the blue and the ratio L(FIR)/L(B) increases with the bolometric luminosity. Objects with fainter blue magnitudes have larger ratios between the far-IR (wavelengths > 60 micron) fluxes and the blue band flux, which is attributed to extinction by dust around the central source. No relation between the blue absolute magnitude and the dust colour temperature is seen, suggesting that the dominant source of FIR energy could be linked to a concurrent starburst rather than to gravitational energy produced by the central engine.Comment: Astronomical Journal, in pres

Quasar clustering: evidence for an increase with redshift and implications for the nature of AGNs

The evolution of quasar clustering is investigated with a new sample of 388 quasars with 0.3<z<=2.2, B<=20.5 and Mb<-23, selected over an area of 24.6 sq. deg. in the South Galactic Pole. Assuming a two-point correlation function of the form xi(r) = (r/r_o)^-1.8, we detect clustering with r_0=6.2 +/- 1.6 h^-1 comoving Mpc at an average redshift of z=1.3. We find a 2 sigma significant increase of the quasar clustering between z=0.95 and z=1.8, independent of the quasar absolute magnitude and inconsistent with recent evidence on the evolution of galaxy clustering. If other quasar samples are added (resulting in a total data-set of 737 quasars) the increase of the quasar clustering is still favoured although it becomes less significant. We find epsilon=-2.5. Evolutionary parameters epsilon>0.0 are excluded at a 0.3% probability level, to be compared with epsilon=0.8 found for galaxies. The observed clustering properties appear qualitatively consistent with a scenario of Omega=1 CDM in which a) the difference between the quasar and the galaxy clustering can be explained as a difference in the effective bias and redshift distributions, and b) the quasars, with a lifetime of t~10^8 yr, sparsely sample halos of mass greater than M_min~10^12-10^13 h^-1 M_sun. We discuss also the possibility that the observed change in the quasar clustering is due to an increase in the fraction of early-type galaxies as quasar hosts at high z.Comment: 8 pages including 2 eps figures, LaTeX (AAS v4.0), ApJ in pres

new perspective in the assessment of total intracellular magnesium

Magnesium (Mg) is essential for biological processes, but its cellular homeostasis has not been thoroughly elucidated, mainly because of the inadequacy of the available techniques to map intracellular Mg distribution. Recently, particular interest has been raised by a new family of fluorescent probes, diaza-18-crown-hydroxyquinoline (DCHQ), that shows remarkably high affinity and specificity for Mg, thus permitting the detection of the total intracellular Mg. The data obtained by fluori- metric and cytofluorimetric assays performed with DCHQ5 are in good agreement with atomic absorption spectroscopy, confirming that DCHQ5 probe allows both qualitative and quantitative determination of total intracellular Mg

The Asiago-ESO/RASS QSO Survey. III. Clustering analysis and its theoretical interpretation

This is the third paper of a series describing the Asiago-ESO/RASS QSO survey (AERQS), a project aimed at the construction of an all-sky statistically well-defined sample of relatively bright QSOs (B<15) at z<0.3. We present here the clustering analysis of the full spectroscopically identified database (392 AGN). The clustering signal at 0.02<z<0.22 is detected at a 3-4 sigma level and its amplitude is measured to be r_0=8.6\pm 2.0 h^{-1} Mpc (in a LambdaCDM model). The comparison with other classes of objects shows that low-redshift QSOs are clustered in a similar way to Radio Galaxies, EROs and early-type galaxies in general, although with a marginally smaller amplitude. The comparison with recent results from the 2QZ shows that the correlation function of QSOs is constant in redshift or marginally increasing toward low redshift. We discuss this behavior with physically motivated models, deriving interesting constraints on the typical mass of the dark matter halos hosting QSOs, M_DMH= 10^{12.7} h^{-1} M_sun (10^{12.0}-10^{13.5}h^{-1} M_sun at 1 sigma confidence level). Finally, we use the clustering data to infer the physical properties of local AGN, obtaining M_BH=2 10^8 h^{-1} M_sun (10^7-3 10^9 h^{-1} M_sun) for the mass of the active black holes, tau_{AGN}= 8 10^6 yr (2 10^{6}-5 10^{7} yr) for their life-time and eta = 0.14 for their efficiency (always for a LambdaCDM model).Comment: 37 pages, Astronomical Journal in press. Changes to match the referee comment

SIRT6 promotes metastasis and relapse in HER2-positive breast cancer

The histone deacetylase sirtuin 6 (SIRT6) has been endowed with anti-cancer capabilities in many tumor types. Here, we investigate the impact of SIRT6-overexpression (SIRT6-OE) in Delta16HER2 mice, which are a bona fide model of HER2-positive breast cancer. After an initial delay in the tumor onset, SIRT6-OE induces a more aggressive phenotype of Delta16HER2 tumors promoting the formation of higher number of tumor foci and metastases than controls. This phenotype of SIRT6-OE tumors is associated with cancer stem cell (CSC)-like features and tumor dormancy, and low senescence and oxidative DNA damage. Accordingly, a sub-set of HER2-positive breast cancer patients with concurrent SIRT6-OE has a significant poorer relapse-free survival (RFS) probability than patients with low expression of SIRT6. ChIP-seq, RNA-seq and RT-PCR experiments indicate that SIRT6-OE represses the expression of the T-box transcription factor 3 (Tbx3) by deacetylation of H3K9ac. Accordingly, loss-of-function mutations of TBX3 or low TBX3 expression levels are predictive of poor prognosis in HER2-positive breast cancer patients. Our work indicates that high levels of SIRT6 are indicative of poor prognosis and high risk of metastasis in HER2-positive breast cancer and suggests further investigation of TBX3 as a downstream target of SIRT6 and co-marker of poor-prognosis. Our results point to a breast cancer subtype-specific effect of SIRT6 and warrant future studies dissecting the mechanisms of SIRT6 regulation in different breast cancer subtypes