Hygienic requirements of urban living environment in the Russian Federation and in Italy: a comparison

Introduzione/scopo. La pianificazione urbana tende a contenere e regolamentare la crescita urbana consentendo uno sviluppo sostenibile a livello ambientale, sociale e sanitario. Nel presente lavoro gli autori hanno confrontato i quadri normativi della Federazione Russ e dell’Italia ponendo particolare attenzione agli aspetti urbani degli spazi abitativi. Metodo. Considerando la ponderosa produzione normativa nei due paesi, il lavoro ha preso in esame le normative a livello nazionale per l’Italia e federale per la Russia, tenendo principalmente conto dei seguenti aspetti: strumenti di pianificazione urbana e protezione ambientale e sanitaria degli spazi abitativi. Risultati. I problemi relativi alla sicurezza igienico-sanitaria dell’ambiente di vita in Russia sono essenzialmente riconducibili a due sistemi normativi (SNiP e SanPiN), mentre in Italia rientrano nel D.M. 05/07/1975. I principi fondamentali della pianificazione urbana in Russia sono dettati da una norma federale, mentre in Italia sono recepiti nel Piano Regolatore Generale (PRG) comunale e nei diversi regolamenti locali, dove si riasriassume tutta la normativa sovraordinata. Gli aspetti legati alla qualità ambientale, infine, in entrambi i paesi sono disciplinati da varie leggi specifiche (federali e statali); un articolato sistema di norme che tengono conto dei potenziali impatti sulla salute e sull’ambiente Conclusioni. Gli autori ritengono che dovrebbero essere sviluppati, specialmente in Italia che si trova nettamente più indietro da questo punto di vista, strumenti normativi chiari e aggiornati aventi per oggetto l’igiene degli edifici e degli ambienti urbani, basati sulle più recenti acquisizioni di letteratura scientifica internazionale nell’intento di garantire i più alti standard in materia di tutela della Salute Pubblica.Aim. Urban planning tries to contain and regulate the uncontrolled growth of cities, encouraging their sustainable development at environmental, social and health levels. In the present work, the authors compare the regulatory frameworks of the Russian Federation and of Italy, with particular attention paid to the urban aspects of living spaces. Method. Considering the extant normative production in the two countries, the authors examine national legislation for Italy and federal legislation for Russia, mainly taking into account the following aspects: urban planning tools and environmental and sanitary protection of living spaces. Results. Hygienic-sanitary requirements regarding living environment in Russia are essentially expressed by two regulatory systems (SNiP and SanPiN), while in Italy they are regulated by the D.M. 07/05/1975. The main principles of urban planning in Russia are expressed by federal standards, while in Italy they are incorporated in the Municipal General Plan (PRG) and in the various local regulations, where all the superordinate regulations are summarized. Finally, aspects related to environmental quality in both countries are governed by various specific laws (federal and state); a complex system of rules that take into account potential impacts on health and the environment. Conclusions. The authors reckon that clear and updated regulatory tools should be developed, especially in Italy that lags behind, regarding the building and urban hygiene, relying on the most recent acquisitions of international scientific literature in order to guarantee the highest standards in Public Health safeguard

Thermal monopoles and selfdual dyons in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

We perform a numerical study of the excess of non-abelian gauge invariant gluonic action around thermal abelian monopoles which populate the deconfined phase of Yang-Mills theories. Our results show that the excess of magnetic action is close to that of the electric one, so that thermal abelian monopoles may be associated with physical objects carrying both electric and magnetic charge, i.e. dyons. Thus, the quark gluon plasma is likely to be populated by selfdual dyons, which may manifest themselves in the heavy-ion collisions via the chiral magnetic effect. Thermodynamically, thermal monopoles provide a negative contribution to the pressure of the system.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX 4.

Smooth optimal control with Floquet theory

This paper describes an approach to construct temporally shaped control pulses that drive a quantum system towards desired properties. A parametrization in terms of periodic functions with pre-defined frequencies permits to realize a smooth, typically simple shape of the pulses; their optimization can be performed based on a variational analysis with Floquet theory. As we show with selected specific examples, this approach permits to control the dynamics of interacting spins, such that gate operations and entanglement dynamics can be implemented with very high accuracy

Degrees of controllability for quantum systems and applications to atomic systems

Precise definitions for different degrees of controllability for quantum systems are given, and necessary and sufficient conditions are discussed. The results are applied to determine the degree of controllability for various atomic systems with degenerate energy levels and transition frequencies.Comment: 20 pages, IoP LaTeX, revised and expanded versio

KCa3.1 inhibition switches the phenotype of glioma-infiltrating microglia/macrophages

Among the strategies adopted by glioma to successfully invade the brain parenchyma is turning the infiltrating microglia/macrophages (M/MΦ) into allies, by shifting them toward an anti-inflammatory, pro-tumor phenotype. Both glioma and infiltrating M/MΦ cells express the Ca(2+)-activated K(+) channel (KCa3.1), and the inhibition of KCa3.1 activity on glioma cells reduces tumor infiltration in the healthy brain parenchyma. We wondered whether KCa3.1 inhibition could prevent the acquisition of a pro-tumor phenotype by M/MΦ cells, thus contributing to reduce glioma development. With this aim, we studied microglia cultured in glioma-conditioned medium or treated with IL-4, as well as M/MΦ cells acutely isolated from glioma-bearing mice and from human glioma biopsies. Under these different conditions, M/MΦ were always polarized toward an anti-inflammatory state, and preventing KCa3.1 activation by 1-[(2-Chlorophenyl)diphenylmethyl]-1H-pyrazole (TRAM-34), we observed a switch toward a pro-inflammatory, antitumor phenotype. We identified FAK and PI3K/AKT as the molecular mechanisms involved in this phenotype switch, activated in sequence after KCa3.1. Anti-inflammatory M/MΦ have higher expression levels of KCa3.1 mRNA (kcnn4) that are reduced by KCa3.1 inhibition. In line with these findings, TRAM-34 treatment, in vivo, significantly reduced the size of tumors in glioma-bearing mice. Our data indicate that KCa3.1 channels are involved in the inhibitory effects exerted by the glioma microenvironment on infiltrating M/MΦ, suggesting a possible role as therapeutic targets in glioma

Fluid dynamic analysis of a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube

Fluid dynamic analysis of a commercial, counter-flow Ranque-Hilsch Vortex Tube (RHVT), Exair 25 scfm, has been performed in this work both experimentally and numerically; in particular RHVT cooling power and temperature separation performances have been tested in both direct cooling employment (jet impingement) and indirect cooling employment (supplying cold plates). Experimental techniques, used in this work, revealed several difficulties to produce detailed information about velocity and temperature fields inside the tube and at both the exits. Hence numerical simulation of the flow inside the tube has been conducted using the commercial CFD code FLUENT 6.3.26. Compressible, turbulent, high swirling flow inside RHVT has been simulated by using both RANS and LES approaches. In particular several turbulence closures have been used in the RANS simulations and results have been compared with LES ones. Large Eddy Simulations have been performed by using Smagorinsky sub-grid model

Constructive control of quantum systems using factorization of unitary operators

We demonstrate how structured decompositions of unitary operators can be employed to derive control schemes for finite-level quantum systems that require only sequences of simple control pulses such as square wave pulses with finite rise and decay times or Gaussian wavepackets. To illustrate the technique it is applied to find control schemes to achieve population transfers for pure-state systems, complete inversions of the ensemble populations for mixed-state systems, create arbitrary superposition states and optimize the ensemble average of dynamic observables.Comment: 28 pages, IoP LaTeX, principal author has moved to Cambridge University ([email protected]

Walkable urban environments: An ergonomic approach of evaluation

Background. The salutogenicity of urban environments is significantly affected by their ergonomics, i.e., by the quality of the interactions between citizens and the elements of the built environment. Measuring and modelling urban ergonomics is thus a key issue to provide urban policy makers with planning solutions to increase the well-being, usability and safety of the urban environment. However, this is a difficult task due to the complexity of the interrelations between the urban environment and human activities. The paper contributes to the definition of a generalized model of urban ergonomics and salutogenicity, focusing on walkability, by discussing the relevant parameters from the large and variegated sets proposed in the literature, by discussing the emerging model structure from a data mining process, by considering the background of the relevant functional dependency already established in the literature, and by providing evidence of the solutions’ effectiveness. The methodology is developed for a case study in central Italy, with a focus on the mobility issue, which is a catalyst to generate more salutogenic and sustainable behaviors