Sustainable Urban Project. The role of public spaces in adapting cities to the effects of climate change

Contemporary urban planning is nowadays getting involved into thematic related with the slow and unceasing city transformations. This circumstance highlights the need for overcoming the sectoral approach to urban complexity, in favor of a more integrated one. The context to which reference is made is the urban area; the challenge is about the adaptation to the physical, social and economic transformations; the intervention tool to which the contribution refers is that of Urban Project. The authors focus is referred to the urban transformations induced by the effects of climate change, with specific reference to the increasingly frequent floods: highlighting their effects ,in terms of design, on public spaces, and analyzing some good practices that have managed to transform the calamitous event into an urban development engine. The paper proposes a critical reflection on two case studies, “Water Square” in Benthemplein and “Climate tiles” in Copenhagen that represent ways of intervening on public space, at different scale, the first one in the field of urban planning, the latter in the field of Urban Design, complementary approaches for an ecological reconversion of city areas compromised by the effects of climate change

Sea Level Rise and Coastal Impacts. Innovation and Improvement of the Local Urban Plan for a Climate-Proof Adaptation Strategy

In recent years, the territorial impacts connected to sea level rise have prompted a reflection on the responsibilities of policy makers in transposing these issues into urban agendas. The need also emerged to both broaden and update the skills of urban planners and to improve territorial governance tools, with the aim of developing feasible regeneration and resilience strategies to face climate change. In this paper, a methodology for the production of Flood Risk Maps is presented, as applied to the Municipality of Ravenna, Italy, by only considering the static component of inundation hazard, i.e., the projected Mean Sea Level Rise, as a first step towards increased preparedness. The resulting Flood Risk Maps represent, in fact, an innovation with respect to the current cognitive framework that supports local urban planning, by providing information on a potential risk that has so far been overlooked. The method combines sea level rise projections under the pessimistic RCP8.5 scenario with georeferenced territorial data, aiming to identify the physical consistency of the urban-structure components which are potentially at risk. For successive time horizons (2030, 2050 and 2100), our results show the progressive impairment and potential degradation of extensive urban areas that are disregarded in the urban planning regulations currently in force. This preliminary evaluation phase is aimed at prompting and supporting the necessary updating of the planning tools and regulations adopted by the public bodies responsible for territorial governance, by identifying priority areas for intervention, and helping define mitigation and adaptation actions

Electromagnetic Fields, Oxidative Stress, and Neurodegeneration

Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) originating both from both natural and manmade sources permeate our environment. As people are continuously exposed to EMFs in everyday life, it is a matter of great debate whether they can be harmful to human health. On the basis of two decades of epidemiological studies, an increased risk for childhood leukemia associated with Extremely Low Frequency fields has been consistently assessed, inducing the International Agency for Research on Cancer to insert them in the 2B section of carcinogens in 2001. EMFs interaction with biological systems may cause oxidative stress under certain circumstances. Since free radicals are essential for brain physiological processes and pathological degeneration, research focusing on the possible influence of the EMFs-driven oxidative stress is still in progress, especially in the light of recent studies suggesting that EMFs may contribute to the etiology of neurodegenerative disorders. This review synthesizes the emerging evidences about this topic, highlighting the wide data uncertainty that still characterizes the EMFs effect on oxidative stress modulation, as both pro-oxidant and neuroprotective effects have been documented. Care should be taken to avoid methodological limitations and to determine the patho-physiological relevance of any alteration found in EMFs-exposed biological system

L'erudizione nell'editoria tra sogno e realtà: Scipione Lapi e la sua "colossale impresa" (1893-1923)

ITALIANO: Il contributo prende in esame la «colossale impresa» di riedizione aggiornata e ampliata dei Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (RIS) di Ludovico Antonio Muratori voluta da Scipione Lapi che, fino alla morte (1903), ne curò la stampa nel suo Stabilimento tipografico di Città di Castello. L’impresa editoriale fu possibile grazie all’appoggio tecnico-scientifico di Vittorio Fiorini, che ne diresse il progetto predisponendo il piano generale, e all’autorevole patrocinio di Giosuè Carducci. La documentazione del fondo Vittorio Fiorini (1857-1926), conservato presso l’ISIME, viene presa qui come principale riferimento per ricostruire le tappe intercorse tra l’avvio del progetto (1893) e la cessione della direzione scientifica dell’opera (1923). / ENGLISH: This paper focuses on the «colossale impresa» of updated and expanded edition of Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (RIS) by Ludovico Antonio Muratori, wanted by Scipione Lapi who, until his death (1903), edited the press in his typographical Establishment located in Città di Castello. The publishing work was possible thanks to the technical and scientific support of Vittorio Fiorini, who directed the editorial project, and the authoritative sponsorship of Giosuè Carducci. The documentation belonging to the archive Vittorio Fiorini (1857-1926), kept at the ISIME, it’s taken here as the main reference to reconstruct the settlement patterns occurred between the start of the project (1893) and the end of the scientific direction of the work (1923)

I tribunali civili della Reverenda camera apostolica e la loro attività giudiziaria all’indomani della Restaurazione pontificia (1816-1831)

La ricerca prende in esame il sistema giudiziario civile della Reverenda camera apostolica negli anni della Restaurazione pontificia, sia dal punto di vista storico-istituzionale che da quello strettamente archivistico. L’ambito cronologico considerato va dal 1816 al 1831; un quindicennio nel corso del quale il settore giudiziario è al centro delle politiche riformistiche di Pio VII e di Leone XII per trovare definitiva soluzione con il pontificato di Gregorio XVI. Sono gli anni in cui, sulla base di quanto disposto dal motu proprio del 6 luglio 1816 di riforma della pubblica amministrazione e dei tribunali civili, e dal Codice di procedura civile del 22 novembre 1817, vengono istituiti e agiscono i tribunali dell’Uditore del Camerlengo, dell’Uditore del Tesoriere, della Piena camera, del Decano e Sottodecano e quello Collegiale camerale, oltre alle diverse presidenze e prefetture; magistrature che costituiscono l’apparato della giustizia civile camerale profondamente diverso rispetto all’Antico regime, durante il quale dominava il “Supremo Tribunale della Camera apostolica”

SO045A NATIONWIDE SURVEY ON RADIATION RISK OF CANCER FROM MEDICAL IMAGING IN END STAGE KIDNEY DISEASE AND IN TRANSPLANT PATIENTS

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Bioproduction of a Therapeutic Vaccine Against Human Papillomavirus in Tomato Hairy Root Cultures

Human papillomavirus (HPV) tumor disease is a critical public health problem worldwide, especially in the developing countries. The recognized pathogenic function of E5, E6, and E7 oncoproteins offers the opportunity to devise therapeutic vaccines based on engineered recombinant proteins. The potential of plants to manufacture engineered compounds for pharmaceutical purposes, from small to complex protein molecules, allows the expression of HPV antigens and, possibly, the regulation of immune functions to develop very specific therapies as a reinforcement to available nonspecific therapies and preventive vaccination also in developed countries. Among plant-based expression formats, hairy root cultures are a robust platform combining the benefits of eukaryotic plant-based bioreactors, with those typical of cell cultures. In this work, to devise an experimental therapeutic vaccine against HPV, hairy root cultures were used to express a harmless form of the HPV type 16 E7 protein (E7*) fused to SAPKQ, a noncytotoxic form of the saporin protein from Saponaria officinalis, that we had shown to improve E7-specific cell-mediated responses as a fusion E7*-SAPKQ DNA vaccine. Hairy root clones expressing the E7*-SAPKQ candidate vaccine were obtained upon infection of leaf explants of Solanum lycopersicum using a recombinant plant expression vector. Yield was approximately 35.5 μg/g of fresh weight. Mouse immunization with vaccine-containing crude extracts was performed together with immunological and biological tests to investigate immune responses and anticancer activity, respectively. Animals were primed with either E7*-SAPKQ DNA-based vaccine or E7*-SAPKQ root extract-based vaccine and boosted with the same (homologous schedule) or with the other vaccine preparation (heterologous schedule) in the context of TC-1 experimental mouse model of HPV-associated tumor. All the formulations exhibited an immunological response associated to anticancer activity. In particular, DNA as prime and hairy root extract as boost demonstrated the highest efficacy. This work, based on the development of low-cost technologies, highlights the suitability of hairy root cultures as possible biofactories of therapeutic HPV vaccines and underlines the importance of the synergic combination of treatment modalities for future developments in this field

Poland Syndrome with atypical malformations associated to a de novo 1.5 Mb Xp22.31 duplication

Poland's syndrome (PS; OMIM 173800) is a rare congenital syndrome which consists of absence or hypoplasia of the pectoralis muscle. Other features can be variably associated, including rib defects. On the affected side other features (such as of breast and nipple anomalies, lack of subcutaneous tissue and skin annexes, hand anomalies, visceral, and vertebral malformation) have been variably documented. To date, association of PS with central nervous system malformation has been rarely reported remaining poorly understood and characterized. We report a left-sided PS patient carrying a de novo 1.5 Mb Xp22.31 duplication diagnosed in addiction to strabismus, optic nerves and chiasm hypoplasia, corpus callosum abnormalities, ectopic neurohypophysis, pyelic ectasia, and neurodevelopmental delay. Since, to our knowledge, this features' association has not been previously reported, we argue that this case may contribute to further widening of the variability of PS phenotype

Clinical and Neurocognitive Outcome EvaluationIn locked-in Syndrome

We reported a case of Locked-in syndrome, who underwent a specific clinical and neuropsychological battery, assessing verbal memory, linguistic comprehension, perception, executive functioning..