Keeping it modern, making it sustainable. Monitoring and energy retrofitting the Urbino University Colleges

This paper presents a research to balance building conservation, users’ comfort and energy efficiency of a masterpiece of XX century architecture. The Urbino University Colleges were designed by architect Giancarlo de Carlo and built since 1962 to 1983 beside the Renaissance city. They host more than 1,000 students within 5 dormitories and 62,000 m2 surface. Authors discuss some outcomes from the “Keeping it modern” research program financed by the Getty Foundation in 2016, which aims at providing the Colleges with a sustainable conservation plan. The goal is to lower heating and operational costs to allow funds in conservation activities. Specific issues regard: the striking dimensions of the complex, the constructive features (brickwork walls, exposed concrete structures, single-glazed windows) and the lack of data about the hygrothermal performances. The research thus includes a hygrothermal analysis, a proposal for the energy retrofitting, a building-HVAC model, a test on a pilot site. Authors have monitored surface temperatures, indoor air temperature and humidity for one year, even mapping their distribution through a digital psychrometer. Thermal imaging has been used to detect heat losses, thermal bridges and heat gains due to the solar radiation. Data have fed a building-HVAC model, which was a reference to design an appropriate strategy for retrofitting and improving the energy efficiency of the complex. Some solutions are being implemented on a pilot site. The building performances before and after retrofitting are compared. Results provide indications to merge conservation and sustainability of a XX century heritage building. In conclusion, the solid knowledge of each case confirms being required to support a retrofit proposal of a heritage building, moreover in case of a XX century building, as the cultural value of such a huge heritage is often disregarded to improve its energy performance

Energy efficiency and preservation of 20th century architecture

This paper follows the discussion on the energy efficiency of heritage buildings by dealing with the task of preserving 20th century buildings and making them more sustainable. It is confirmed that a thorough analysis of each case is needed, since the cultural value of modern heritage risks being overwhelmed by the effort to improve its energy efficiency. The Urbino University Colleges are a masterpiece of the 20th century. They were designed by architect Giancarlo de Carlo, built between 1962 and 1983 and still host 1000 students. A conservation plan was outlined in 2016 with the aim of developing the long-term and sustainable preservation of such a huge complex. A specific goal in terms of sustainability was lowering the heating costs to save funds for conservation activities. The efforts were thus to balance building conservation, energy efficiency and users’ comfort. A thermal analysis, an energy retrofit design, a test on a pilot site, a comparison between before and after, are the tools that have been used to achieve this objective. Results provide some operational indications to merge conservation and sustainability in a 20th century heritage building

Optimizing a portable biosensor system for bacterial detection in milk based mix for ice cream

One of the primary focuses of the food industry is providing products compliant with safety standards. The microbiological analysis helps in the identification of the presence of pathogen microorganisms in the food. The analysis with Agar Plate is the classic method. This approach guarantees a high accuracy, but it needs a long detection time (twenty-four to forty-eight hours), beyond high costs and skilled technician. In recent times have been proposed many different methods to have a faster response, and between them there is the impedance method. One of its features is that it is fast, in fact it requires between three to fourteen hours to obtain a reliable measurement. The system is accurate, and suitable to be executed automatically. To test this method has been used UHT Ice Cream Mix. A known volume of mix has been inoculated with increasing percentage of cultures of E. coli. The measurement of the impedance of the inoculated mix has been done by an electronic board designed for the application, and by applying a sinusoidal voltage to the test tube. The signal was digitally generated by the microprocessor, and supplied externally through a D.A. converter. The signal was then filtered to delete from its spectrum the high frequency components typical of the digitally generated signals. The data obtained from impedance instrument showed a reliable correspondence with those from the plate count. By working in less time compared to traditional methods, this tool is well suited for in-situ preliminary analysis in commercial and professional foodservice environment

Identification and Characterization of DM1 Patients by a New Diagnostic Certified Assay: Neuromuscular and Cardiac Assessments

The expansion of the specific trinucleotide sequence, [CTG], is the molecular pathological mechanism responsible for the clinical manifestations of DM1. Many studies have described different molecular genetic techniques to detect DM1, but as yet there is no data on the analytical performances of techniques used so far in this disease. We therefore developed and validated a molecular method, "Myotonic Dystrophy SB kit," to better characterize our DM1 population. 113 patients were examined: 20 DM1-positive, 11 DM1/DM2-negative, and13 DM1-negative/DM2-positive, who had a previous molecular diagnosis, while 69 were new cases. This assay correctly identified 113/113 patients, and all were confirmed by different homemade assays. Comparative analysis revealed that the sensitivity and the specificity of the new kit were very high (>99%). Same results were obtained using several extraction procedures and different concentrations of DNA. The distribution of pathologic alleles showed a prevalence of the "classical" form, while of the 96 nonexpanded alleles 19 different allelic types were observed. Cardiac and neuromuscular parameters were used to clinically characterize our patients and support the new genetic analysis. Our findings suggest that this assay appears to be a very robust and reliable molecular test, showing high reproducibility and giving an unambiguous interpretation of results