The Role of Design in the CE Transition of the Furniture Industry—The Case of the Italian Company Cassina

Abstract: The literature on circular economy has highlighted the need for more studies focused on investigating the journey of individual companies in the transition toward sustainable processes. This paper addresses this need by focusing on the furniture design industry, showing how the transition requires the re-organization of knowledge regarding materials, processes, technologies, and product quality. This assumption is demonstrated through the design research activity conducted in 2019–2020 as the first part of broader research by Cassina LAB, a collaboration between Cassina Research and Development Centre and POLI.design of Politecnico di Milano. Based on the analysis of the Italian furniture industry between constraints and opportunities, the aim of the research is to identify critical issues and propose sustainable and circular solutions, tailor-made for Cassina. Through this example, the paper contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it adds to the understanding of how companies are adopting the circular economy paradigm. Secondly, it contributes to defining tools to implement new forms of knowledge of materials and re-design processes to deliver products that are compatible with a circular economy model

Assessment of DNA Damage by RAPD in Paracentrotus lividus Embryos Exposed to Amniotic Fluid from Residents Living Close to Waste Landfill Sites

The aim of this study was to assess the genotoxic effects of environmental chemicals on residents living near landfills. The study was based on samples of amniotic fluid from women living in the intensely polluted areas around the Campania region of Italy compared to a nonexposed control group. We evaluated the genetic effects that this amniotic fluids collected in contaminated sites had on Paracentrotus lividus embryos. DNA damage was detected through changes in RAPD (Random Amplified Polymorphism DNA) profiles. The absence of the amplified DNA fragments indicated deletions in Paracentrotus lividus DNA exposed to the contaminated amniotic fluids when compared to equal exposure to uncontaminated fluids. These results show the ability of RAPD-PCR to detect and isolate DNA sequences representing genetic alterations induced in P. lividus embryos. Using this method, we identified two candidate target regions for DNA alterations in the genome of P. lividus. Our research indicates that RAPD-PCR in P. lividus embryo DNA can provide a molecular approach for studying DNA damage from pollutants that can impact human health. To our knowledge, this is the first time that assessment of DNA damage in P. lividus embryos has been tested using the RAPD strategy after exposure to amniotic fluid from residents near waste landfill sites

How to Perform Reproducible Experiments in the ELLIOT Recommendation Framework: Data Processing, Model Selection, and Performance Evaluation

Recommender Systems have shown to be an efective way to alleviate the over-choice problem and provide accurate and tailored recommendations. However, the impressive number of proposed recommendation algorithms, splitting strategies, evaluation protocols, metrics, and tasks, has made rigorous experimental evaluation particularly challenging. ELLIOT is a comprehensive recommendation framework that aims to run and reproduce an entire experimental pipeline by processing a simple confguration fle. The framework loads, flters, and splits the data considering a vast set of strategies. Then, it optimizes hyperparameters for several recommendation algorithms, selects the best models, compares them with the baselines, computes metrics spanning from accuracy to beyond-accuracy, bias, and fairness, and conducts statistical analysis. The aim is to provide researchers a tool to ease all the experimental evaluation phases (and make them reproducible), from data reading to results collection. ELLIOT is freely available on GitHub at https://github.com/sisinflab/ellio

Coupled dark matter-dark energy in light of near Universe observations

Cosmological analysis based on currently available observations are unable to rule out a sizeable coupling among the dark energy and dark matter fluids. We explore a variety of coupled dark matter-dark energy models, which satisfy cosmic microwave background constraints, in light of low redshift and near universe observations. We illustrate the phenomenology of different classes of dark coupling models, paying particular attention in distinguishing between effects that appear only on the expansion history and those that appear in the growth of structure. We find that while a broad class of dark coupling models are effectively models where general relativity (GR) is modified --and thus can be probed by a combination of tests for the expansion history and the growth of structure--, there is a class of dark coupling models where gravity is still GR, but the growth of perturbations is, in principle modified. While this effect is small in the specific models we have considered, one should bear in mind that an inconsistency between reconstructed expansion history and growth may not uniquely indicate deviations from GR. Our low redshift constraints arise from cosmic velocities, redshift space distortions and dark matter abundance in galaxy voids. We find that current data constrain the dimensionless coupling to be |xi|<0.2, but prospects from forthcoming data are for a significant improvement. Future, precise measurements of the Hubble constant, combined with high-precision constraints on the growth of structure, could provide the key to rule out dark coupling models which survive other tests. We shall exploit as well weak equivalence principle violation arguments, which have the potential to highly disfavour a broad family of coupled models.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures; changes to match published versio

Use of the directional atherectomy for the treatment of femoro-popliteal lesions in patients with critical lower limb ischemia

Femoro-popliteal PTA for the treatment of critical limb ischemia is frequently associated with unsatisfactory procedural success rates while directional atherectomy (DCA) has improved success rate since claudicant patients undergoing percutaneous treatment of femoro-popliteal obstructive disease. The aim of this prospective study is to evaluate the safety, efficacy and procedural success of DCA, at one year, in the percutaneous treatment of femoro-popliteal obstructive disease in patients with critical limb ischemia. Methods. From March 2012 to March 2013 18 consecutive patients with critical limb ischemia were treated with DCA (Turbohawk/Covidien-ev3 Endovascular Inc., North Plymouth, Minnesota, USA) for the treatment of femoro-popliteal obstructive disease. Patients were evaluated at 12 months. Results. Technical and procedural success was achieved in every patient. No in-hospital major adverse cardiovascular events occurred. Primary endpoint: freedom from any amputation was obtained in all patients. Secondary endpoints: clinical (Rutherford class improvement) and hemodynamic success (Ankle-brachial index improvement) was achieved in all patients. Conclusion. The use of DCA for the treatment of femoro-popliteal obstructive disease is a safe and effective therapeutic strategy for patients with critical limb ischemia. The data included in our study should be considered hypothesis-generating in order to design of a randomized trial comparison with conventional PTA

Elastodontic Therapy of Hyperdivergent Class II Patients Using AMCOP® Devices: A Retrospective Study

Background: The management of a hyperdivergent growth pattern is one of the most challenging in orthodontics and different treatments are advocated. The present study analyses the effectiveness of elastodontic therapy with AMCOP® devices in treating children with hyperdivergent class II malocclusion and the effect on the upper airway patency. Methods: The study group included 21 patients (10 males and 11 females, mean age 8.22 ± 1.17 years) with a hyperdivergent growth and a class II malocclusion treated with AMCOP® devices. Cephalometric analysis was performed before treatment (T0) and after treatment (T1). Results: After treatment, the cephalometric analysis revealed a correction of the class II malocclusion and a modification of the growth pattern with a divergence reduction. The improvement of the upper airway space was also observed. Conclusion: The elastodontic therapy effectively corrected hyperdivergent class II malocclusion in growing patients over a short period

Congenital hypothyroidism

Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) occurs in approximately 1:2,000 to 1:4,000 newborns. The clinical manifestations are often subtle or not present at birth. This likely is due to trans-placental passage of some maternal thyroid hormone, while many infants have some thyroid production of their own. Common symptoms include decreased activity and increased sleep, feeding difficulty, constipation, and prolonged jaundice. On examination, common signs include myxedematous facies, large fontanels, macroglossia, a distended abdomen with umbilical hernia, and hypotonia. CH is classified into permanent and transient forms, which in turn can be divided into primary, secondary, or peripheral etiologies. Thyroid dysgenesis accounts for 85% of permanent, primary CH, while inborn errors of thyroid hormone biosynthesis (dyshormonogeneses) account for 10-15% of cases. Secondary or central CH may occur with isolated TSH deficiency, but more commonly it is associated with congenital hypopitiutarism. Transient CH most commonly occurs in preterm infants born in areas of endemic iodine deficiency. In countries with newborn screening programs in place, infants with CH are diagnosed after detection by screening tests. The diagnosis should be confirmed by finding an elevated serum TSH and low T4 or free T4 level. Other diagnostic tests, such as thyroid radionuclide uptake and scan, thyroid sonography, or serum thyroglobulin determination may help pinpoint the underlying etiology, although treatment may be started without these tests. Levothyroxine is the treatment of choice; the recommended starting dose is 10 to 15 mcg/kg/day. The immediate goals of treatment are to rapidly raise the serum T4 above 130 nmol/L (10 ug/dL) and normalize serum TSH levels. Frequent laboratory monitoring in infancy is essential to ensure optimal neurocognitive outcome. Serum TSH and free T4 should be measured every 1-2 months in the first 6 months of life and every 3-4 months thereafter. In general, the prognosis of infants detected by screening and started on treatment early is excellent, with IQs similar to sibling or classmate controls. Studies show that a lower neurocognitive outcome may occur in those infants started at a later age (> 30 days of age), on lower l-thyroxine doses than currently recommended, and in those infants with more severe hypothyroidism

Planck 2015 results. XX. Constraints on inflation

We present the implications for cosmic inflation of the Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in both temperature and polarization based on the full Planck survey. The Planck full mission temperature data and a first release of polarization data on large angular scales measure the spectral index of curvature perturbations to be n s = 0.968 ± 0.006 and tightly constrain its scale dependence to dn s /dlnk = −0.003 ± 0.007 when combined with the Planck lensing likelihood. When the high-ℓ polarization data is included, the results are consistent and uncertainties are reduced. The upper bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio is r 0.002 <0.11 (95% CL), consistent with the B-mode polarization constraint r<0.12 (95% CL) obtained from a joint BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck analysis. These results imply that V(ϕ)∝ϕ 2 and natural inflation are now disfavoured compared to models predicting a smaller tensor-to-scalar ratio, such as R 2 inflation. Three independent methods reconstructing the primordial power spectrum are investigated. The Planck data are consistent with adiabatic primordial perturbations. We investigate inflationary models producing an anisotropic modulation of the primordial curvature power spectrum as well as generalized models of inflation not governed by a scalar field with a canonical kinetic term. The 2015 results are consistent with the 2013 analysis based on the nominal mission data