Proposta di riqualificazione urbana della zona di South Dagenham a Londra

The thesis concerns a redevelopment proposal for a site located within the Borough of Barking and Dagenham, in eastern London. The area has a growing urban environment and a peculiar industrial past, making it an interesting but problematic location for any redevelopment. At the same time, the prospected growth of the Borough conveys an urgent and radical urban intervention. The project aims to outline an overall plan for a largely unused area in the Borough, with the purpose of activating its potentials while reconnecting the urban context

Genome comparison and physiological characterization of eight Streptococcus thermophilus strains isolated from Italian dairy products

Eight Streptococcus thermophilus strains of dairy origin isolated in Italy were chosen to investigate autochthonous bacterial diversity in this important technological species. In the present study a comparative analysis of all the 17 S. thermophilus genomes publicly available was performed to identify the core and the variable genes, which vary among strains from 196 to 265. Additionally, correlation between the isolation site and the genetic distance was investigated at genomic level. Results highlight that the phylogenetic reconstruction differs from the geographical strain distribution. Moreover, strain M17PTZA496 has a genome of 2.15 Mbp, notably larger than that of the others, determined by lateral gene transfer (including phage-mediated incorporation) and duplication events. Important technological characters, such as growth kinetics, bacteriocin production, acidification kinetics and surface adhesion capability were studied in all the Italian strains. Results indicate a wide range of variability in adhesion properties that significantly clustered strains into four groups. Genomic differences among strains in relation to these characters were identified but a clear correlation between genotype and phenotype was not always found since most of the genomic modifications arise from single nucleotide polymorphisms. This research represents a step forward in the identification of strains-specific functions in Streptococcus thermophilus and it has also the potential to provide valuable information to predict strain specific behaviors in industrial processes

Landmine internal structure detection from ground penetrating radar images

Reliable landmine detection is still an unresolved problem. Demining operations are complex activities because of the large variety of existing landmine types, many different possible soil and terrain conditions, and environmental circumstances. Due to its ability of detecting both metallic and non-metallic objects, ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a promising method for detecting landmines that may allow faster and safer operations. As the performance of GPR is mainly governed by the target signature, the potential of discriminating target based on the presence of internal reflections could be a valuable advantage for identification and recognition process. This study demonstrates that from a set of high resolution GPR slices the internal design of the landmine can be properly imaged and characterised, confirming the applicability of the methodology and the validity of such an approach

Bistatic radar signature of buried landmines

With the proliferation of low-intensity conflict, landmines have proven to be one of the weapons of choice for both government and guerrilla forces around the world. Recent improvements to mine technology pose increasingly significant problems for demining operations, requiring the constant upgrading of countermine technologies. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is one of the most exhaustively researched topics in the detection of buried mines as it can be used to detect non-metallic and plastic mines. However, identification and recognition are still unsolved problems, due to the scattering similarity between mines and clutter objects. This study provides an experimental evaluation of the improvements that a bistatic approach could yield and what can be gained from investigating the angular dependencies of the landmine radar signature

Influence of internal structure on landmine radar signatures

Cheap and easy to use, landmines are among the favourite weapons in civil wars and wars of insurgency and are used by governments and guerrillas alike. These 'eternal sentinels' stand guard long after the conflicts have ended and kill and maim without mercy or discrimination. Therefore, there is a pressing need to remove these devices and to clear the contaminated land. As many landmines have low metal content they are difficult to detect using traditional techniques such as metal detectors, hence Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is an attractive tool in landmine clearance. Many investigations of landmine detection using GPR make use of surrogate landmine targets, since real landmines are difficult to obtain. This paper investigates the importance of the fidelity of such surrogates in terms of their external design, internal structure and explosive content

Updated review on the diagnosis and primary management of psychogenic nonepileptic seizure disorders

Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) are paroxystic and episodic events associated with motor, sensory, mental or autonomic manifestations, which resemble epileptic seizures (ES), but are not caused by epileptogenic activity. PNES affect between 20% and 30% of patients attending at epilepsy centers and constitute a serious mental health problem. PNES are often underdiagnosed, undertreated and mistaken with epilepsy. PNES are diagnosed after medical causes (epilepsy, syncope, stroke, etc.) have been ruled out, and psychological mechanisms are involved in their genesis and perpetuation. For psychiatry, there is not a single definition for PNES; the DSM-IV and ICD-10/11 describe the conversion and dissociative disorders, and the DSM-5 describes the functional neurological disorders. However, patients with PNES also have a high frequency of other comorbidities like depression, particularly trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. It has been postulated that PNES are essentially dissociations that operate as a defensive psychological mechanism that use the mind as a defense to deal with traumas. With the advent of VEEG in the 90s, the recognition of PNES has significantly increased, and several psychological treatments have been developed. In this manuscript, we carried out a state-of-the-art review, with the aim to provide a critical approach to the extensive literature about PNES, focusing on diagnostic aspects, the primary management, and the available treatments that have been shown to be effective for the improvement of PNES.Fil: Lanzillotti, Alejandra Inés. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Psicología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Sarudiansky, Mercedes. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Psicología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Lombardi, Nicolás Robertino. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Psicología; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Centro Universitario de Neurologia "dr. Jose Maria Ramos Mejia".; ArgentinaFil: Korman, Guido Pablo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Psicología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: D`alessio, Luciana. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Centro Universitario de Neurologia "dr. Jose Maria Ramos Mejia".; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; Argentin

Adolescents’ Opinions on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: Hints toward Enhancing Pandemic Preparedness in the Future

To understand and assess vaccine reluctance, it is necessary to evaluate people’s perceptions and grasp potential reasons for generic apprehension. In our analysis, we focus on adolescents’ impressions towards anti-vaxxer behavior. The aim of the study is to figure out students’ opinions about vaccine reluctance, connecting possible explanations that motivate anti-vaxxer decisions with common specific personality traits. We further investigate people’s forecasts concerning the evolution of the pandemic. Between 2021 and 2022, we conducted a randomized survey experiment on a sample of high school individuals (N=395 ) living in different Italian regions. At that time, the vaccination campaign had already been promoted for nearly one year. From the analysis, it emerges that vaccinated people (92%), especially males, tend to be more pessimistic and attribute a higher level of generic distrust in science to anti-vaxxers. The results show that family background (mother’s education) represents the most influential regressor: individuals coming from less educated families are less prone to attribute generic distrust and distrust of vaccines as principal reasons for vaccine reluctance. Similarly, those who rarely use social media develop a minor tendency to believe in a generic pessimism of anti-vaxxers. However, concerning the future of the pandemic, they are less likely to be optimistic toward vaccines. Overall, our findings shed light on adolescents’ perceptions regarding the factors that influence vaccine hesitancy and highlight the need for targeted communication strategies to improve vaccination rates

Multi-perspective high range resolution profiles of landmines

Landmine clearance is a severe and unresolved humanitarian issue. The development of low-cost, smaller, faster and lighter Ground Penetrating Radars (GPR), which can be mounted on unmanned platforms, will allow faster and safer 24/7 operations. This technology will make it possible to survey affected areas with more flexible trajectories and these will provide measurements of landmine signatures from many different aspect angles. As a result, multi-perspective information over wide angular windows and the behaviour of the signature as a function of the angle of illumination can be exploited. Landmine signatures are expected to present features that are less sensitive to the angle of illumination with respect to those of common cluttered objects, and this can lead to an improvement in detection and discrimination performance. In this paper, we present the results of an experimental trial carried out to collect the High Range Resolution Profiles (HRRPs) of two landmines, the SB-33 and the VS-50, off the ground. An analysis of the auto-correlation function of each range bin as a function of the aspect angle is presented together with that of the cross-correlation between profiles collected from different aspect angles

Characterisation of the internal structure of landmines using ground penetrating radar

One of the principal limitations of employing Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) for landmine detection is the presence of clutter, i.e. reflections from the surrounding environment which might interfere with the landmine echoes. Clutter presents similar scattering characteristics of typical targets and may significantly raise the detection threshold of the system. A capability to characterise the internal structure of a buried target might provide key unique information to develop advanced landmine-clutter discrimination algorithms, considering that the presence of internal scattering components can be univocally associated to man-made targets. In this paper, the possibility of identifying and characterising these contributions from the GPR signature of a landmine is numerically assessed and experimentally validated. The simulated response from a landmine-like target shows that the presence of the internal structure generates additional reflection peaks, as a consequence of the layered structure of the object, and the field trials corroborate that it is possible to identify these scattering components and delineate their spatial distribution

Comparative evaluation of cheese whey microbial composition from four Italian cheese factories by viable counts and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing

The microbiota of cheese whey from four dairy companies located in the North-East of Italy was evaluated during winter and spring using both culture-dependent and culture-independent methods. Although no significant differences were observed (p > 0.05) for any of the six microbial categories analysed by plate counting among the dairy companies, significant differences at the family and genus level were revealed by linear discriminant analysis (LDA). In particular, variations in the abundance of the families Pseudomonadaceae and Enterobacteriaceae, as well as of the genus Acinetobacter were observed and positively correlated with plate count results (p < 0.05). The combined use of culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches gave a better description of the hygienic conditions and food safety aspects and could therefore be suggested as a useful integrated approach. \ua9 2020 Elsevier Lt