The Impact of a Permeation Grouting Technique Quantitatively Assessed through a Process-Focused Life Cycle Assessment

Permeation grouting technique can be considered nowadays a well-established ground improvement strategy in urban built environments, where an accurate fine-tuning of its component can lead to tailored and efficient interventions. But how environmentally impacting is it? Using life cycle assessment analyses (LCA) and focusing on the construction phase, this research highlights the leverages that can improve the environmental performance of this geotechnical construction process. The alternative approaches in terms of materials and processes are identified, quantified and compared using the standard output of the LCA analysis and represent the ideal input for the three-step sustainability assessment method for geotechnical infrastructure developed by the author

A Sustainability-based Approach for Geotechnical Infrastructure

Urban growth needs large cities, and the current emphasis on landscape preservation makes using underground spaces both an opportunity and a significant necessity. However, underground construction techniques significantly impact the sustainability of the built environment, including infrastructure systems and their entire supply chains. Nowadays, there is a shortage of quantitative methodologies to assess and measure the sustainability of underground building processes that effectively integrate the three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic). Thus, this study aims to solve the abovementioned issues by explaining how to incorporate sustainability goals into geotechnical projects to address measure-driven strategies and eco-design-based solutions appropriately. This study illustrates a novel methodology based on the Life Cycle Thinking approach, with a particular emphasis on geotechnical ground improvement techniques. Specifically, the suggested method incorporates the concept of the EU Taxonomy, following the EU Green Deal, with the Envision framework to guide decision-makers toward a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable infrastructure design. In addition, incorporating a cradleto-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) into the suggested methodological approach will improve the quantitative estimation of the performance of construction processes. The definition of the proposed method will provide the guidelines to systematically assess the sustainability of geotechnical infrastructures to allow further the selection of an optimal solution to reduce their impact from an environmental, social, and economic point of view

Assessing the construct validity of the Italian version of the EQ-5D: preliminary results from a cross-sectional study in North Italy

BACKGROUND: Information on health related quality of life (HR-QOL) can be integrated with other classical health status indicators and be used to assist policy makers in resource allocation decisions. For this reason instruments such as the SF-12 and EQ-5D have been widely proposed as assessment tools to monitor changes in HR-QOL in general populations and very recently in general practice settings as well AIM: The primary goal of our study was to assess the construct validity of the Italian version of the EQ-5D in a general population of North Italy using socio-demographic factors and diagnostic sub-groups. Our secondary goal was to assess the concurrent validity of the EQ-5D and SF-12. METHODS: The SF-12, the EQ-5D plus an additional questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics, clinical conditions and symptoms were completed by 1,622 adults, randomly selected from the Registry of the Health Authorities of the city of Bologna, Italy. The primary care physician of each subject was contacted to report on the subject's health status. RESULTS: Our findings indicate that the Italian version of the EQ-5D is well accepted by the general population (91% response rate), has good reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.73), and shows evidence of construct validity. CONCLUSION: Our data provide a basis for further research to be conducted to assess the validity of the EQ-5D in Italy. In particular future studies should focus on assessing its ability to detect a clinically important change in health related quality of life over time (responsiveness)

Saving temporary exhibitions in virtual environments: The Digital Renaissance of Ulisse Aldrovandi – Acquisition and digitisation of cultural heritage objects

As per the objectives of Project CHANGES, particularly its thematic sub-project on the use of virtual technologies for museums and art collections, our goal was to obtain a digital twin of the temporary exhibition on Ulisse Aldrovandi called “The Other Renaissance”, and make it accessible to users online. After a preliminary study of the exhibition, focusing on acquisition constraints and related solutions, we proceeded with the digital twin creation by acquiring, processing, modelling, optimising, exporting, and metadating the exhibition. We made hybrid use of two acquisition techniques to create new digital cultural heritage objects and environments, and we used open technologies, formats, and protocols to make available the final digital product. Here, we describe the process of collecting and curating bibliographical exhibition (meta) data and the beginning of the digital twin creation to foster its findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. The creation of the digital twin is currently ongoing

Темы курсовых и дипломных работ

I risultati dell'edizione del 2016 della rilevazione triennale della soddisfazione degli utilizzatori delle Biblioteche dei Campus della Romagna

The Impact of a Permeation Grouting Technique Quantitatively Assessed Through a Process-Focused Life Cycle Assessment

Permeation grouting treatments can be considered a well-established ground improvement strategy in urban built environments, where an accurate fine-tuning of its components can lead to tailored and efficient interventions. However, how to improve its overall environmental impact remains an open question. Using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach emphasizing the construction phase, this research highlights the leverages that can improve the environmental performance of this geotechnical construction process. The alternative approaches in terms of materials and processes are identified, quantified, and compared using the standard output of the LCA analysis and represent the ideal input for the three-phased sustainability assessment method for geotechnical infrastructure developed by the authors

Interaction Proteomics Identifies ERbeta Association with Chromatin Repressive Complexes to Inhibit Cholesterol Biosynthesis and Exert An Oncosuppressive Role in Triple-negative Breast Cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by poor response to therapy and low overall patient survival. Recently, Estrogen Receptor beta (ERβ) has been found to be expressed in a fraction of TNBCs where, due to its oncosuppressive actions on the genome, it represents a potential therapeutic target, provided a better understanding of its actions in these tumors becomes available. To this end, the cell lines Hs 578T, MDA-MB-468 and HCC1806, representing the claudin-low, basal-like 1 and 2 TNBC molecular subtypes respectively, were engineered to express ERβ under the control of a Tetracycline-inducible promoter and used to investigate the effects of this transcription factor on gene activity. The antiproliferative effects of ERβ in these cells were confirmed by multiple functional approaches, including transcriptome profiling and global mapping of receptor binding sites in the genome, that revealed direct negative regulation by ERβ of genes, encoding for key components of cellular pathways associated to TNBC aggressiveness representing novel therapeutic targets such as angiogenesis, invasion, metastasis and cholesterol biosynthesis. Supporting these results, interaction proteomics by immunoprecipitation coupled to nano LC-MS/MS mass spectrometry revealed ERβ association with several potential nuclear protein partners, including key components of regulatory complexes known to control chromatin remodelling, transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene regulation and RNA splicing. Among these, ERβ association with the Polycomb Repressor Complexes 1 and 2 (PRC1/2), known for their central role in gene regulation in cancer cells, was confirmed in all three TNBC subtypes investigated, suggesting its occurrence independently from the cellular context. These results demonstrate a significant impact of ERβ in TNBC genome activity mediated by its cooperation with regulatory multiprotein chromatin remodelling complexes, providing novel ground to devise new strategies for the treatment of these diseases based on ligands affecting the activity of this nuclear receptor or some of its protein partners

Small Non-Coding RNA Profiling Identifies miR-181a-5p as a Mediator of Estrogen Receptor Beta-Induced Inhibition of Cholesterol Biosynthesis in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly heterogeneous disease, representing the most aggressive breast cancer (BC) subtype with limited treatment options due to a lack of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα), progesterone receptor (PR), and Erb-B2 receptor tyrosine kinase 2 (HER2/neu) expression. Estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) is present in a fraction of TNBC patients, where its expression correlates with improved patient outcomes, supported by the fact that it exerts oncosuppressive effects in TNBC cell models in vitro. ERβ is involved in microRNA-mediated regulation of gene expression in hormone-responsive BC cells and could mediate its actions through small noncoding RNAs (sncRNAs) in TNBCs also. To verify this possibility, smallRNA sequencing was performed on three ERβ-expressing cell lines from different TNBC molecular subtypes. Several sncRNAs resulted modulated by ERβ, with a subset being regulated in a tumor subtype-independent manner. Interestingly, sncRNA profiling of 12 ERβ+and 32 ERβ- primary TNBC biopsies identified 7 microRNAs, 1 PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA), and 1 transfer RNA (tRNA) differentially expressed in ERβ+ compared to ERβ- tumors and cell lines. Among them, miR-181a-5p was found to be overexpressed in ERβ+ tumors and predicted target key components of the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway previously found to be inhibited by ERβ in TNBC cells