Strategic environmental assessment implementation of transport and mobility plans. The case of italian regions and provinces

Transport and mobility plans imply strategies and actions that affect the environment. The European Union has introduced in 2001 the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) to take into account and mitigate adverse environmental effects in planning and decision-making. SEA limited implementation has attracted the interest of many scholars that have sought methods able to assess the quality of SEA processes by identifying vices and virtues in practice. In this paper, we measure the quality of eight SEAs for transport and mobility plans of regional and provincial administrations of Italy. Results show that the overall quality level of SEA reports is only barely sufficient, Abruzzo is among the virtuous and Piedmont among the critical administrations. We also stress that the determination of impact significance has received the worse quality score. We finally compare our results to other Italian and British homologous cases finding interesting and generally confirmative evidence

CFD modelling of pressurized gas releases: sensitivity analysis of driving parameters

The consequences analysis is a crucial aspect of the Risk Assessment, especially for Oil & Gas structures, where hundreds of accidental scenarios must be simulated. This work investigates the accidental release of high-pressure flammable gas in a congested offshore environment considering multi-physics and multi-scale nature of the phenomenon. Initially, the flow results supersonic with compressible effects and then it evolves in a subsonic dispersion. To handle this change of physics, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) two steps approach is developed at the SEADOG laboratory in Politecnico di Torino. This approach imposes two simulations: the first one considers the compressible phenomena in a small domain called Source Box (SB), the second one considers the gas dispersion in the platform. The advantage is to use the results of the first simulation as an input for several dispersion simulations. The aim is to compile a library of plausible SB and to evaluate the consequences of an accidental scenario selecting the proper SB for the dispersion simulation, allowing a timesaving. This work is focused on the optimization of the number of SB to construct a SB library. The objective of this work is to achieve a sensitivity analysis on the input parameters (release pressure, hole diameter, distance and dimension of an obstacle inside the SB) in order to optimize the number of SB to be simulated reducing the computational effort

Assessing road network resilience: An accessibility comparative analysis

Abstract In this study, we measure the resilience of the road networks in two Mediterranean regions: Valencia (Spain) and Sardinia (Italy). We apply a framework that is able to monitor the deterioration in territorial accessibility of the two systems in response to the cumulative elimination of sections. Road sections are removed according to different elimination types: random order, deterministic order of criticality, and deterministic order in areas at high risk of flooding. The results show that the Sardinian network is more resilient than the Valencian network, despite its poorer quality. We demonstrate that the framework can integrate climate change considerations in the resilience assessment. As the framework identifies the most critical sections, the method can be adopted as a support system by transport planners and policy makers

Metabolic reprogramming identifies the most aggressive lesions at early phases of hepatic carcinogenesis

Metabolic changes are associated with cancer, but whether they are just bystander effects of deregulated oncogenic signaling pathways or characterize early phases of tumorigenesis remains unclear. Here we show in a rat model of hepatocarcinogenesis that early preneoplastic foci and nodules that progress towards hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are characterized both by inhibition of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and by enhanced glucose utilization to fuel the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP). These changes respectively require increased expression of the mitochondrial chaperone TRAP1 and of the transcription factor NRF2 that induces the expression of the rate-limiting PPP enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), following miR-1 inhibition. Such metabolic rewiring exclusively identifies a subset of aggressive cytokeratin-19 positive preneoplastic hepatocytes and not slowly growing lesions. No such metabolic changes were observed during non-neoplastic liver regeneration occurring after two/third partial hepatectomy. TRAP1 silencing inhibited the colony forming ability of HCC cells while NRF2 silencing decreased G6PD expression and concomitantly increased miR-1; conversely, transfection with miR-1 mimic abolished G6PD expression. Finally, in human HCC patients increased G6PD expression levels correlates with grading, metastasis and poor prognosis. Our results demonstrate that the metabolic deregulation orchestrated by TRAP1 and NRF2 is an early event restricted to the more aggressive preneoplastic lesions

Early increase in cyclin-D1 expression and accelerated entry of mouse hepatocytes into S phase after administration of the mitogen 1,4-bis[2-(3,5-dichloropyridyloxy)] benzene

We have previously demonstrated that hepatocyte proliferation induced by the mitogen 1,4-bis[2-(3,5-dichloropyridyloxyl)] benzene (TCPOBOP) is independent of changes in cytokines, immediate early genes, and transcription factors that are considered to be necessary for regeneration of the liver after partial hepatectomy (PH) or necrosis. To further investigate the differences between mitogen-induced mouse hepatocyte proliferation and liver regeneration after PH, we have measured the expression of cyclin D1, cyclin D3, cyclin E, and cyclin A and of the cyclin-dependent kinases CDK2, CDK4, and CDK6. The involvement of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p21 and p27 and of the oncosuppressor gene p53 was also examined at different times after stimulation of hepatocyte proliferation. Results showed that a single administration of TCPOBOP caused a very rapid increase in the levels of cyclin D1, a G1 protein, when compared with two thirds PH (8 hours versus 30 hours). The early increase in cyclin D1 protein levels was associated with a faster onset of increased expression of S-phase-associated cyclin A. (24 hours versus 36 hours with PH mice). Accordingly, measurement of bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation revealed that, although approximately 8% of hepatocytes were BrdU-positive as early as 24 hours after TCPOBOP, no significant changes in BrdU incorporation were observed at the same time point after two thirds PH. The expression of other proteins involved in cell cycle control, such as cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK4, CDK2, CDK6), was also analyzed. Results showed that expression of CDK2 was induced. much more rapidly in TCPOBOP-treated mice (2 hours) than in mice subjected to PH (36 hours), A different pattern of expression in the two models of hepatocyte proliferation, although less dramatic, was also observed for CDK4 and CDK6. Expression of the CDK inhibitors p21 and p27 and the oncosuppressor gene p53 variably increased after two thirds PH, whereas basically no change in protein levels was found in TCPOBOP-treated mice. The results demonstrate that profound differences in many cell cycle-regulatory proteins exist between direct hyperplasia and compensatory regeneration. Cyclin D1 induction is one of the earlier events in hepatocyte proliferation induced by the primary mitogen TCPOBOP and suggests that a direct effect of the mitogen on this cyclin may be responsible for the rapid onset of DNA synthesis observed in TCPOBOP-induced hyperplasia

How the Heart Was Involved in COVID-19 during the First Pandemic Phase: A Review

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first observed in Wuhan, Hubei Province (China) in December 2019, resulting in an acute respiratory syndrome. Only later was COVID-19 considered a public health emergency of international concern and, on 11 March 2020, the WHO classified it as pandemic. Despite being a respiratory virus, the clinical manifestations are also characterized by cardiological involvement, especially in patients suffering from previous comorbidities such as hypertension and diabetes mellitus, its complications being potentially serious or fatal. Despite the efforts made by the scientific community to identify pathophysiological mechanisms, they still remain unclear. A fundamental role is played by the angiotensin 2 converting enzyme, known for its effects at the cardiovascular level and for its involvement in COVID-19 pathogenesis. The goal of this paper was to highlight the mechanisms and knowledge related to cardiovascular involvement during the first pandemic phase, as well as to emphasize the main cardiological complications in infected patients

Sea guidelines: a comparative analysis: first outcomes

The European Directive 2001/42/EC (Directive) has introduced the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), a procedure for assessing the effects of certain plans and programs on the environment. The Directive has been transposed in different ways and times within Europe: member states have frequently drawn up guidelines to facilitate SEA implementation, by adopting different approaches. So far a few studies have been performed to analyze SEA guidelines. In this paper we aim to analyze key elements of SEA guidelines released by seven European countries in order to evaluate the effectiveness of those documents and SEA implementation. We have found that no SEA guidelines satisfy all key elements we have identified. Based on the latter finding, this work is introductory to a further analysis which aims to characterize SEA guidelines and define a proposal of SEA guidelines for landscape planning in the Italian region of Sardinia.</br

Induction of autophagy promotes the growth of early preneoplastic rat liver nodules

Although inhibition of autophagy has been implicated in the onset and progression of cancer cells, it is still unclear whether its dysregulation at early stages of tumorigenesis plays an oncogenic or a tumor suppressor role. To address this question, we employed the Resistant-Hepatocyte rat model to study the very early stages of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development. We detected a different autophagyrelated gene expression and changes in the ultrastructural profile comparing the most aggressive preneoplastic lesions, namely those positive for the putative progenitor cell marker cytokeratin-19 (KRT-19) with the negative ones. The ultrastructural and immunohistochemical analyses of KRT-19-positive preneoplastic hepatocytes showed the presence of autophagic vacuoles which was associated with p62, Ambra1 and Beclin1 protein accumulation suggesting that a differential modulation of autophagy occurs at early stages of the oncogenesis in KRT-19-positive vs negative lesions. We observed an overall decrease of the autophagy-related genes transcripts and a strong up-regulation of miR-224 in the KRT-19-positive nodules. Interestingly, the treatment with the autophagy inducer, Amiodarone, caused a marked increase in the proliferation of KRT-19 positive preneoplastic lesions associated with a strong increase of their size; by contrast, Chloroquine, an inhibitor of the autophagic process, led to their reduction. These results show that autophagy modulation is a very early event in hepatocarcinogenesis and is restricted to a hepatocytes subset in the most aggressive preneoplastic lesions. Our findings highlight the induction of autophagy as a permissive condition favouring cancer progression indicating in its inhibition a therapeutic goal to interfere with the development of HC

Green infrastructure planning based on ecosystem services multicriteria evaluation: the case of the metropolitan wine landscapes of Bordeaux

Excessive anthropogenic activities affect landscape patterns and trigger a decrease of natural capital and the level of quality of life. Green infrastructures (GIs) are commonly accepted by scholars as solutions for restoring degraded areas and providing a variety of ecosystem services (ESs). The other way around, the capacity to deliver ESs can be assumed as a relevant starting point for GIs analysis and planning. The assessment of ESs needs extensive investigation and applications, to provide planners, policy makers, and institutional stakeholders with an adequate evaluation tool. The multi-facet nature of ESs assessment implies the use of complex tools able to consider many concerns. In this regard, multicriteria analysis (MCA) is a very popular tool due to its capacity to intertwine a variety of issues in a rigorous way and to support participatory and transparent decision making in the public domain. In this study, we aim at contributing to the integration of GI design into spatial planning starting from the assessment of the net benefit delivered to local society by a GI in the metropolitan area of Bordeaux (France). We assessed the net benefit by confronting the ESs deliverable by the GI and the cost sustained for its construction and maintenance. We applied an MCA-based method to the selection of the most efficient alternative out of three GI paths. We demonstrate that our method is useful for the assessment of cultural and regulating ESs, comparing the GI design alternatives, and considering the preference model of the stakeholders within GI planning and design