Exercise therapy in Type 2 diabetes

Structured exercise is considered an important cornerstone to achieve good glycemic control and improve cardiovascular risk profile in Type 2 diabetes. Current clinical guidelines acknowledge the therapeutic strength of exercise intervention. This paper reviews the wide pathophysiological problems associated with Type 2 diabetes and discusses the benefits of exercise therapy on phenotype characteristics, glycemic control and cardiovascular risk profile in Type 2 diabetes patients. Based on the currently available literature, it is concluded that Type 2 diabetes patients should be stimulated to participate in specifically designed exercise intervention programs. More attention should be paid to cardiovascular and musculoskeletal deconditioning as well as motivational factors to improve long-term treatment adherence and clinical efficacy. More clinical research is warranted to establish the efficacy of exercise intervention in a more differentiated approach for Type 2 diabetes subpopulations within different stages of the disease and various levels of co-morbidity

Calculating Economic Flood Damage through Microscale Risk Maps and Data Generalization: A Pilot Study in Southern Italy

In recent decades, floods have caused significant loss of human life as well as interruptions in economic and social activities in affected areas. In order to identify effective flood mitigation measures and to suggest actions to be taken before and during flooding, microscale risk estimation methods are increasingly applied. In this context, an implemented methodology for microscale flood risk evaluation is presented, which considers direct and tangible damage as a function of hydrometric height and allows for quick estimates of the damage level caused by alluvial events. The method has been applied and tested on businesses and residential buildings of the town of Benevento (southern Italy), which has been hit by destructive floods several times in the past; the most recent flooding occurred in October 2015. The simplified methodology tries to overcome the limitation of the original method-the huge amounts of input data-by applying a simplified procedure in defining the data of the physical features of buildings (e.g., the number of floors, typology, and presence of a basement). Data collection for each building feature was initially carried out through careful field surveys (FAM, field analysis method) and subsequently obtained through generalization of data (DGM, data generalization method). The basic method (FAM) allows for estimating in great detail the potential losses for representative building categories in an urban context and involves a higher degree of resolution, but it is time-consuming; the simplified method (DGM) produces a damage value in a shorter time. By comparison, the two criteria show very similar results and minimal differences, making generalized data acquisition most efficient