European Territorial Trends - Facts and Prospects for Cities and Regions Ed. 2017

This report analyses a set of territorial trends at continental and sub-national scale, looking at patterns and determinants of regional growth, while considering pan-European and national characteristics. Past and prospective demographic and economic trends are analysed to provide a picture of ‘what, where, when and how’ things happen in European cities and regions. Specific emphasis is placed on urban areas since acknowledged sources of both opportunities and challenges. The indicators used in the analysis herein presented are freely and openly accessible in the Territorial Dashboard of the Knowledge Centre for Territorial Policies at: http://urban.jrc.ec.europa.eu/t-board/index.htmlJRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

Destabilizing turbulence in pipe flow

Turbulence is the major cause of friction losses in transport processes and it is responsible for a drastic drag increase in flows over bounding surfaces. While much effort is invested into developing ways to control and reduce turbulence intensities, so far no methods exist to altogether eliminate turbulence if velocities are sufficiently large. We demonstrate for pipe flow that appropriate distortions to the velocity profile lead to a complete collapse of turbulence and subsequently friction losses are reduced by as much as 90%. Counterintuitively, the return to laminar motion is accomplished by initially increasing turbulence intensities or by transiently amplifying wall shear. Since neither the Reynolds number (Re) nor the shear stresses decrease (the latter often increase), these measures are not indicative of turbulence collapse. Instead an amplification mechanism, measuring the interaction between eddies and the mean shear is found to set a threshold below which turbulence is suppressed beyond recovery

The Future of Cities

This report is an initiative of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the science and knowledge service of the European Commission (EC), and supported by the Commission's Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). It highlights drivers shaping the urban future, identifying both the key challenges cities will have to address and the strengths they can capitalise on to proactively build their desired futures. The main aim of this report is to raise open questions and steer discussions on what the future of cities can, and should be, both within the science and policymaker communities. While addressing mainly European cities, examples from other world regions are also given since many challenges and solutions have a global relevance. The report is particularly novel in two ways. First, it was developed in an inclusive manner – close collaboration with the EC’s Community of Practice on Cities (CoP-CITIES) provided insights from the broader research community and city networks, including individual municipalities, as well as Commission services and international organisations. It was also extensively reviewed by an Editorial Board. Secondly, the report is supported by an online ‘living’ platform which will host future updates, including additional analyses, discussions, case studies, comments and interactive maps that go beyond the scope of the current version of the report. Steered by the JRC, the platform will offer a permanent virtual space to the research, practice and policymaking community for sharing and accumulating knowledge on the future of cities. This report is produced in the framework of the EC Knowledge Centre for Territorial Policies and is part of a wider series of flagship Science for Policy reports by the JRC, investigating future perspectives concerning Artificial Intelligence, the Future of Road Transport, Resilience, Cybersecurity and Fairness Interactive online platform : https://urban.jrc.ec.europa.eu/thefutureofcitiesJRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

A novel approach for reconstructing pressure from PIV velocity measurements

The purpose of this work is to develop an innovative procedure for reconstructing the pressure field from PIV velocity measurements of unsteady, incompressible flows. The proposed technique is based on a generalization of the Glowinski-Pironneau method for the uncoupled solution of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations written in primitive variables and exploits a finite element discretization of the measurement grid. By virtue of the underlying mathematical formulation, some of the drawbacks affecting the techniques proposed so far in the literature, such as the use of ad hoc boundary conditions for the pressure and the insufficient robustness with respect to measurement errors, are overcome. The method is first applied to an exact solution of the Navier–Stokes equations, showing second order convergence of the L∞ error for the pressure variable. The robustness of the method with respect to stochastic perturbations in the velocity field is then tested and the results compared with other techniques proposed in the literature. Finally, the proposed technique is applied to both a phase-averaged and time-resolved PIV database of the flow around a pitching airfoil employed to investigate the dynamic stall. The reconstructed pressure is compared with direct pressure measurements, showing very encouraging results

European Territorial Trends - Facts and Prospects for Cities and Regions

This report analyses a set of territorial trends at continental and sub-national scale, looking at patterns and determinants of regional growth, while considering pan-European and national characteristics. Past and prospective demographic and economic trends are analysed to provide a picture of ‘what, where, when and how’ things happen in European cities and regions. Specific emphasis is placed on urban areas since acknowledged sources of both opportunities and challenges. The indicators used in the analysis herein presented are freely and openly accessible in the Territorial Dashboard of the Knowledge Centre for Territorial Policies, https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/territorial-policie

La qualita' delle acque marine costiere in Toscana

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7 , Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Risk factors for progression to blast phase and outcome in 589 patients with myelofibrosis treated with ruxolitinib: Real-world data

The impact of ruxolitinib therapy on evolution to blast phase (BP) in patients with myelofibrosis (MF) is still uncertain. In 589 MF patients treated with ruxolitinib, we investigated incidence and risk factors for BP and we described outcome according to disease characteristics and treatment strategy. After a median follow-up from ruxolitinib start of 3 years (range 0.1-7.6), 65 (11%) patients transformed to BP during (93.8%) or after treatment. BP incidence rate was 3.7 per 100 patient-years, comparably in primary and secondary MF (PMF/SMF) but significantly lower in intermediate-1 risk patients (2.3 vs 5.6 per 100 patient-years in intermediate-2/high-risk patients, P <.001). In PMF and SMF cohorts, previous interferon therapy seemed to correlate with a lower probability of BP (HR 0.13, P =.001 and HR 0.22, P =.02, respectively). In SMF, also platelet count <150 7 109/l (HR 2.4, P =.03) and peripheral blasts 653% (HR 3.3, P =.004) were significantly associated with higher risk of BP. High-risk category according to dynamic International Prognostic Score System (DIPSS) and myelofibrosis secondary to PV and ET Collaboration Prognostic Model (MYSEC-PM predicted BP in patients with PMF and SMF, respectively. Median survival after BP was 0.2 (95% CI: 0.1-0.3) years. Therapy for BP included hypomethylating agents (12.3%), induction chemotherapy (9.2%), allogeneic transplant (6.2%) or supportive care (72.3%). Patients treated with supportive therapy had a median survival of 6 weeks, while 73% of the few transplanted patients were alive at a median follow-up of 2 years. Progression to BP occurs in a significant fraction of ruxolitinib-treated patients and is associated with DIPSS and MYSEC-PM risk in PMF and SMF, respectively

Risk factors for progression to blast phase and outcome in 589 patients with myelofibrosis treated with ruxolitinib: Real-world data

The impact of ruxolitinib therapy on evolution to blast phase (BP) in patients with myelofibrosis (MF) is still uncertain. In 589 MF patients treated with ruxolitinib, we investigated incidence and risk factors for BP and we described outcome according to disease characteristics and treatment strategy. After a median follow-up from ruxolitinib start of 3 years (range 0.1-7.6), 65 (11%) patients transformed to BP during (93.8%) or after treatment. BP incidence rate was 3.7 per 100 patient-years, comparably in primary and secondary MF (PMF/SMF) but significantly lower in intermediate-1 risk patients (2.3 vs 5.6 per 100 patient-years in intermediate-2/high-risk patients, P < .001). In PMF and SMF cohorts, previous interferon therapy seemed to correlate with a lower probability of BP (HR 0.13, P = .001 and HR 0.22, P = .02, respectively). In SMF, also platelet count <150 x 10(9)/l (HR 2.4, P = .03) and peripheral blasts >= 3% (HR 3.3, P = .004) were significantly associated with higher risk of BP. High-risk category according to dynamic International Prognostic Score System (DIPSS) and myelofibrosis secondary to PV and ET Collaboration Prognostic Model (MYSEC-PM predicted BP in patients with PMF and SMF, respectively. Median survival after BP was 0.2 (95% CI: 0.1-0.3) years. Therapy for BP included hypomethylating agents (12.3%), induction chemotherapy (9.2%), allogeneic transplant (6.2%) or supportive care (72.3%). Patients treated with supportive therapy had a median survival of 6 weeks, while 73% of the few transplanted patients were alive at a median follow-up of 2 years. Progression to BP occurs in a significant fraction of ruxolitinib-treated patients and is associated with DIPSS and MYSEC-PM risk in PMF and SMF, respectively