The Social, Political, and Environmental Dimensions in Designing Urban Public Space from a Water Management Perspective: Testing European Experiences

Urban areas are increasingly experiencing extreme weather events, especially related to water (e.g., droughts, heatwaves, floods), which are devastatingly impacting infrastructure and human lives. Compact cities, conceived to create more robust, effective, and sustainable environments, are under pressure to increase their resilience by co-producing adaptive strategies mainly focused on the urban public space. However, public space design tends to face environmental challenges without sufficiently exploring their intersection with social issues (citizens living conditions and vulnerability) and political structures (governance). This contribution delves into how urban public space interventions are (not) moving towards achieving urban resilience in an integrated way instead of sectoral. A triple-loop approach has been developed and tested in ten urban public spaces in European compact cities in the last 25 years. The results report how most projects reinforce the social dimension by promoting citizen well-being through new quality standards in public spaces, excluding some citizenry’s vulnerable segments (immigrants, women, and disabled). The political dimension reinforces hard adaptation measures to manage water resources, although increasing attention is put on nature-based solutions, and most projects ensure participation processes. Finally, the environmental dimension is the most transversal by increasing land conversion, ensuring flooding mitigation, and enhancing adaptive capacity

The Social, Political, and Environmental Dimensions in Designing Urban Public Space from a Water Management Perspective : Testing European Experiences

Urban areas are increasingly experiencing extreme weather events, especially related to water (e.g., droughts, heatwaves, floods), which are devastatingly impacting infrastructure and human lives. Compact cities, conceived to create more robust, effective, and sustainable environments, are under pressure to increase their resilience by co-producing adaptive strategies mainly focused on the urban public space. However, public space design tends to face environmental challenges without sufficiently exploring their intersection with social issues (citizens living conditions and vulnerability) and political structures (governance). This contribution delves into how urban public space interventions are (not) moving towards achieving urban resilience in an integrated way instead of sectoral. A triple-loop approach has been developed and tested in ten urban public spaces in European compact cities in the last 25 years. The results report how most projects reinforce the social dimension by promoting citizen well-being through new quality standards in public spaces, excluding some citizenry's vulnerable segments (immigrants, women, and disabled). The political dimension reinforces hard adaptation measures to manage water resources, although increasing attention is put on nature-based solutions, and most projects ensure participation processes. Finally, the environmental dimension is the most transversal by increasing land conversion, ensuring flooding mitigation, and enhancing adaptive capacity

OPTIMAL MANAGEMENT OF FLEXIBILITY SERVICES IN LV DISTRIBUTION GRIDS

With the increase of intermittent and not programmable generation from clean resources and of new demand tech-nologies characterized by high coincident peaks (like heat pumps, induction cookers, etc.) the management of avail-able flexibility in distribution grids to provide network ser-vices has become very important. The paper proposes an optimization model to manage the flexibility in the LV net-work to both solve local network problems and aggregate the available flexibility for use at higher levels while sat-isfying LV network constraints. The model is a tool for the LV DSOs to optimally manage the flexibilities and its fea-tures are illustrated on the IEEE 123 test feeder

Activated T cells sustain myeloid-derived suppressor cell-mediated immune suppression

The expansion of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), a suppressive population able to hamper the immune response against cancer, correlates with tumor progression and overall survival in several cancer types. We have previously shown that MDSCs can be induced in vitro from precursors present in the bone marrow and observed that these cells are able to actively proliferate in the presence of activated T cells, whose activation level is critical to drive the suppressive activity of MDSCs. Here we investigated at molecular level the mechanisms involved in the interplay between MDSCs and activated T cells. We found that activated T cells secrete IL-10 following interaction with MDSCs which, in turn, activates STAT3 phosphorylation on MDSCs then leading to B7-H1 expression. We also demonstrated that B7-H1+ MDSCs are responsible for immune suppression through a mechanism involving ARG-1 and IDO expression. Finally, we show that the expression of ligands B7-H1 and MHC class II both on in vitro-induced MDSCs and on MDSCs in the tumor microenvironment of cancer patients is paralleled by an increased expression of their respective receptors PD-1 and LAG-3 on T cells, two inhibitory molecules associated with T cell dysfunction. These findings highlight key molecules and interactions responsible for the extensive cross-talk between MDSCs and activated T cells that are at the basis of immune suppression

ICC project 2009_2010 Italian-Chinese Curriculum

Libro che raccoglie saggi sulla composizione urbana per il progetto di trasformazione di aree dismesse. Alla fine sono raccolti i progetti degli studenti della Università di Pavia e della Tongji University di Shanghai di riuso di un area militare a Pavia

Nuove forme urbane per un uso non distruttivo del suolo

Abstract: La consapevolezza del bisogno di uno stile di vita più sostenibile, che sta caratterizzando l’inizio del nuovo millennio, riporta al centro del dibattito sul progetto urbano il significato dello spazio aperto. Il sogno modernista del piano libero per il verde e per i veicoli e l’eccessiva fiducia nella tecnologia come strumento di controllo della vita e della trasformazione del territorio, lasciano oggi il passo a nuove visioni in cui l’uomo tende a recuperare un rapporto interrotto con il suolo e la natura. Attraverso l’analisi dei casi internazionali più significativi e lo studio dei nuovi progetti che preparano Milano all’Expo 2015, si propongono nuovi approcci progettuali che permettano all’uomo di rimpossessarsi del suolo della città e di raggiungere, attraverso la ricerca di una nuova forma dell’abitare contemporaneo, una nuova qualità urbana

Architectural Guide. Milan

From the 1920s onwards, Milan has become a laboratory of architecture due to architects such as Giuseppe Terragni, Gio Ponti and Giuseppe Pagano. Magazines such as Domus and Casabella were founded in the 1920s which influenced international debate throughout the 20th century. A new trend arose following the reconstruction of the city due to damages incurred during World War II: the city is now able to combine modernity with its existing context through the works of BBPR, Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Ignazio Gardella and Franco Albini. These architects introduced the renowned design which is nowadays identifi ed with Milan. In the last decade, an outstanding urban development took place owing to areas which feature the work of internationally renowned architects, including David Chipperfield, Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind, as well as Italian architects such as Cino Zucchi and Stefano Boeri. Owing to its ambitious projects, Milan has transformed from an industrial city to a global capital of culture, fashion and leisure. This guide proposes thematic itineraries for discovering one of the most architecturally exciting European cities