II Carbone del Sulcis: possibilità di utilizzazione

Il notevole interesse che si sta ridestando in Italia intorno al carbone è stato suscitato dalla crisi di un modello di sviluppo industriale basato quasi esclusivamente sul petrolio. La rivoluzione del mercato del petrolio del 1973 con conseguente rialzo del prezzo del greggio di ca. dieci volte negli ultimi sette anni ha messo davanti ad una pressante necessità di riconversione soprattutto quei paesi come l'Italia, quasi totalmente dipendenti da altri paesi per questa materia prima. La liquefazione del carbone a combustibile mediante idrogenazione è un processo cha ha raggiunto un considerevole livello tecnologico. Tuttavia, per la realizzazione anche su piccola scala di questo processo molti problemi sono da affrontare: la rappresentatività dei campioni di carbone provenienti dalle varie miniere del Sulcis, l'imprevedibilità del costo effettivo di questo carbone, l'approvvigionamento e il costo dell'idrogeno. Per questo, è evidente che una utilizzazione del carbone del Sulcis di questo tipo ha senso solo se effettuata nelle immediate vicinanze delle miniere sia delle centrali elettriche o degli eventuali utilizzatori degli olii prodotti

Designing Sustainable Clothing Systems

The Fashion System is at the center of the international debate as one of the most polluting and most impactful industries on the environment. In the last decade the fashion industry has changed, and is still modifying, its approach, aware of the fact that the attention to the environment can no longer be considered a trend: the entire system needs to find and adopt a methodological approach to the project and to the production of goods and services. Today all the stakeholders on the supply chain follow a path from upstream to downstream: from the treatment of pollution, to the intervention on the production processes that generate a product, to the redesign of products and/or services to reach the discussion and reorientation of social behavior. This path shows the need to intervene in design terms and that the growth in responsibility and role of design, requiring reference scenarios, knowledge and new tools. The book defines the features and scenarios of sustainable development, as well as the evolution of sustainability in research and practice of fashion design, addressing the strategies for the design and development of environmentally sustainable products. The authors describe the Life Cycle Design approach and the strategies and guidelines for integrating environmental requirements into product design for sustainable fashion. They present the so-called Systems of Sustainable Products-Services, namely the most promising scenarios and models to make design for sustainable fashion economically convenient. Finally, they provide a method and related tools to support design for sustainable fashion in the evaluation of the environmental impact of products, with particular emphasis on the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment). The text is enriched by a full-bodied review of interviews and case studies, with the dual purpose of making the design options clear and of highlighting their specificity for the different design contexts

Large-scale photonic natural language processing

Modern machine-learning applications require huge artificial networks demanding computational power and memory. Light-based platforms promise ultrafast and energy-efficient hardware, which may help realize next -generation data processing devices. However, current photonic networks are limited by the number of input-output nodes that can be processed in a single shot. This restricted network capacity prevents their application to relevant large-scale problems such as natural language processing. Here, we realize a photonic processor for supervised learning with a capacity exceeding 1.5 x 1010 optical nodes, more than one order of magnitude larger than any previous implementation, which enables photonic large-scale text encoding and classification. By exploiting the full three-dimensional structure of the optical field propagating in free space, we overcome the interpolation threshold and reach the over-parameterized region of machine learning, a condition that allows high-performance sentiment analysis with a minimal fraction of training points. Our results provide a novel sol-ution to scale up light-driven computing and open the route to photonic natural language processin

Cognitive dysfunction improves in systemic lupus erythematosus: Results of a 10 years prospective study

Objective Cognitive impairment (CI) has been described in 3–80% of Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients but only short-term studies evaluated its over-time changes, suggesting that CI is usually a stable finding. We aimed at evaluating the changes of SLE-related CI in a 10-years prospective single center cohort study. Methods We evaluated 43 patients (M/F 5/38; mean age = 45.7±10.1 years; mean disease duration = 230.8±74.3 months) at baseline (T0) and after 10 years (T1). A test battery designed to detect fronto-subcortical dysfunction across five domains (memory, attention, abstract reasoning, executive and visuospatial function) was administered. A global cognitive dysfunction score (GCD) was obtained and associated with clinical and laboratory features. Results Prevalence of CI was 20.9% at T0 and 13.9% at T1 (P = NS). This impairment was prevalently mild at T0 (55.5%) and mild or moderate at T1 (36.3% for both degrees). After 10 years, CI improved in 50% of patients, while 10% worsened. Impaired memory (P = 0.02), executive functions (P = 0.02) and abstract reasoning (P = 0.03) were associated with dyslipidemia at T0. Worsening of visuospatial functions was significantly associated with dyslipidemia and Lupus Anticoagulant (P = 0.04 for both parameters). Finally, GCD significantly correlated with chronic damage measured by SLICC/damage index at T0 (r = 0.3; P = 0.04) and T1 (r = 0.3; P = 0.03). Conclusions For the first time, we assessed CI changes over 10-years in SLE. CI improved in the majority of the patients. Furthermore, we observed an improvement of the overall cognitive functions. These results could suggest that an appropriate management of the disease during the follow-up could be able to control SLE-related CI

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus with and without Anti-dsDNA Antibodies: Analysis from a Large Monocentric Cohort

Objectives. The anti-dsDNA antibodies are a marker for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and 70–98% of patients test positive. We evaluated the demographic, clinical, laboratory, and therapeutical features of a monocentric SLE cohort according to the antidsDNA status. Methods. We identified three groups: anti-dsDNA + (persistent positivity); anti-dsDNA ± (initial positivity and subsequent negativity during disease course); anti-dsDNA − (persistent negativity). Disease activity was assessed by the European Consensus Lupus Activity Measurement (ECLAM). Results. We evaluated 393 patients (anti-dsDNA +: 62.3%; anti-dsDNA ±: 13.3%; anti-dsDNA −: 24.4%). The renal involvement was signifiantly more frequent in anti-dsDNA + (30.2%), compared with antidsDNA ± and anti-dsDNA − (21.1% and 18.7%, resp.; = 0.001). Serositis resulted signifiantly more frequent in anti-dsDNA − (82.3%) compared to anti-dsDNA + and anti-dsDNA ± (20.8% and 13.4%, resp.; < 0.0001). Th reduction of C4 serum levels was identified significantly more frequently in anti-dsDNA + and anti-dsDNA ± (40.0% and 44.2%, resp.) compared with antidsDNA − (21.8%, = 0.005). We did not identify significant differences in the mean ECLAM values before and after modifiation of anti-dsDNA status ( = 0.7). Conclusion. Anti-dsDNA status influences the clinical and immunological features of SLE patients. Nonetheless, it does not appear to affect disease activity

Programmazione integrata e politiche territoriali: profili concettuali, esplorazioni progettuali

Contributi di ricerca ; n.244/2011- Indice #5- La dimensione locale dello sviluppo e della competitività #7- Stato-rete e territorializzazione delle politiche #11- Il quadro europeo #15- La proposta piemontese: verso nuove forme di governo dell'economia, dell'ambiente e del territorio #21- Territori di progetto #29- Scenari di politica territoriale: ambiti di integrazione territoriale e programmi territoriali integrati #33- Ipotesi strategiche #39- Conclusioni : i necessari approfondimenti #55- Bibliografia #57- Allegato statistico cartografico #5