The cultural politic during the pontificate of Leo XII. Reuse, censorship and representation of sovereignty

La tesi si propone di analizzare la politica culturale a Roma durante il terzo decennio del XIX secolo, sotto il pontificato di Leone XII (Annibale della Genga, 1823-1829). I temi trattati sono il reimpiego degli antichi marmi superstiti dall'incensio della basilica di San Paolo fuori le mura per le prime ipotesi di ricostruzione; la riforma della cura del patrimonio palatino; la censura delle immagini; la rappresentazione della sovranità pontificia.The aim is to analyse the cultural politc in Rome during the third deca of the 19 century, during the pontificate of Leo XII (Annibale della Genga, 1823-1829). The topics are the reuse of ancient marbles in the first hypothesis of reconstruction of the basilica of St. Paul out the door; the reform of the furniture's management in the papal palaces; the censorship of images; the representation of papal sovereignty

CNR LARA project, Italy: Airborne laboratory for environmental research

The increasing interest for the environmental problems and the study of the impact on the environment due to antropic activity produced an enhancement of remote sensing applications. The Italian National Research Council (CNR) established a new laboratory for airborne hyperspectral imaging, the LARA Project (Laboratorio Aero per Ricerche Ambientali - Airborne Laboratory for Environmental Research), equipping its airborne laboratory, a CASA-212, mainly with the Daedalus AA5000 MIVIS (Multispectral Infrared and Visible Imaging Spectrometer) instrument. MIVIS's channels, spectral bandwidths, and locations are chosen to meet the needs of scientific research for advanced applications of remote sensing data. MIVIS can make significant contributions to solving problems in many diverse areas such as geologic exploration, land use studies, mineralogy, agricultural crop studies, energy loss analysis, pollution assessment, volcanology, forest fire management and others. The broad spectral range and the many discrete narrow channels of MIVIS provide a fine quantization of spectral information that permits accurate definition of absorption features from a variety of materials, allowing the extraction of chemical and physical information of our environment. The availability of such a hyperspectral imager, that will operate mainly in the Mediterranean area, at the present represents a unique opportunity for those who are involved in environmental studies and land-management to collect systematically large-scale and high spectral-spatial resolution data of this part of the world. Nevertheless, MIVIS deployments will touch other parts of the world, where a major interest from the international scientific community is present

Long-term trends in economic inequality: The case of the Florentine state, c. 1300-1800

This article provides an overview of economic inequality, particularly of wealth, in the Florentine state (Tuscany) from the early fourteenth to the late eighteenth century. Regional studies of this kind are rare, and this is only the second-ever attempt at covering such a long period. Consistent with recent research conducted on other European areas, during the early modern period we find clear indications of a tendency for economic inequality to grow continually, a finding that for Tuscany cannot be explained as the consequence of economic growth. Furthermore, the exceptionally old sources we use allow us to demonstrate that a phase of declining inequality, lasting about one century, was triggered by the Black Death from 1348 to 1349. This finding challenges earlier scholarship and significantly alters our understanding of the economic consequences of the Black Death

Using remote sensing to assess the relationship between crime and the urban layout

[EN] The link between place and crime is at the base of social ecology theories of crime that focus in the relationship of the characteristics of geographical areas and crime rates. The broken windows theory states that visible cues of physical and social disorder in a neighborhood can lead to an increase in more serious crime. The crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) planning approach seeks to deter criminal behavior by creating defensible spaces. Based on the premise that a settlement's appearance is a reflection of the society, we ask whether a neighborhood's design has a quantifiable imprint when seen from space using urban fabric descriptors computed from very high spatial-resolution imagery. We tested which land cover, structure and texture descriptors were significantly related to intra-urban homicide rates in Medellin, Colombia, while controlling for socioeconomic confounders. The percentage of impervious surfaces other than clay roofs, the fraction of clay roofs to impervious surfaces, two structure descriptors related to the homogeneity of the urban layout, and the uniformity texture descriptor were all statistically significant. Areas with higher homicide rates tended to have higher local variation and less general homogeneity; that is, the urban layouts were more crowded and cluttered, with small dwellings with different roofing materials located in close proximity to one another, and these regions often lacked other homogeneous surfaces such as open green spaces, wide roads, or large facilities. These results seem to be in agreement with the broken windows theory and CPTED in the sense that more heterogeneous and disordered urban layouts are associated with higher homicide rates.This research was made possible by funding from EAFIT University (EAFIT-435-000060) and the Medellin City Hall EnlazaMundos program. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and Hermilson Velazquez, Andr es Ramírez Hassan and Gustavo Canavire for their insightful observations and suggestions during the different stages of this projectPatiño Quinchía, JE.; Duque, JC.; Pardo Pascual, JE.; Ruiz Fernández, LÁ. (2014). Using remote sensing to assess the relationship between crime and the urban layout. Applied Geography. 55:48-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2014.08.016S48605

"Delirium Day": A nationwide point prevalence study of delirium in older hospitalized patients using an easy standardized diagnostic tool

Background: To date, delirium prevalence in adult acute hospital populations has been estimated generally from pooled findings of single-center studies and/or among specific patient populations. Furthermore, the number of participants in these studies has not exceeded a few hundred. To overcome these limitations, we have determined, in a multicenter study, the prevalence of delirium over a single day among a large population of patients admitted to acute and rehabilitation hospital wards in Italy. Methods: This is a point prevalence study (called "Delirium Day") including 1867 older patients (aged 65 years or more) across 108 acute and 12 rehabilitation wards in Italian hospitals. Delirium was assessed on the same day in all patients using the 4AT, a validated and briefly administered tool which does not require training. We also collected data regarding motoric subtypes of delirium, functional and nutritional status, dementia, comorbidity, medications, feeding tubes, peripheral venous and urinary catheters, and physical restraints. Results: The mean sample age was 82.0 \ub1 7.5 years (58 % female). Overall, 429 patients (22.9 %) had delirium. Hypoactive was the commonest subtype (132/344 patients, 38.5 %), followed by mixed, hyperactive, and nonmotoric delirium. The prevalence was highest in Neurology (28.5 %) and Geriatrics (24.7 %), lowest in Rehabilitation (14.0 %), and intermediate in Orthopedic (20.6 %) and Internal Medicine wards (21.4 %). In a multivariable logistic regression, age (odds ratio [OR] 1.03, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 1.01-1.05), Activities of Daily Living dependence (OR 1.19, 95 % CI 1.12-1.27), dementia (OR 3.25, 95 % CI 2.41-4.38), malnutrition (OR 2.01, 95 % CI 1.29-3.14), and use of antipsychotics (OR 2.03, 95 % CI 1.45-2.82), feeding tubes (OR 2.51, 95 % CI 1.11-5.66), peripheral venous catheters (OR 1.41, 95 % CI 1.06-1.87), urinary catheters (OR 1.73, 95 % CI 1.30-2.29), and physical restraints (OR 1.84, 95 % CI 1.40-2.40) were associated with delirium. Admission to Neurology wards was also associated with delirium (OR 2.00, 95 % CI 1.29-3.14), while admission to other settings was not. Conclusions: Delirium occurred in more than one out of five patients in acute and rehabilitation hospital wards. Prevalence was highest in Neurology and lowest in Rehabilitation divisions. The "Delirium Day" project might become a useful method to assess delirium across hospital settings and a benchmarking platform for future surveys

Analisi su aree urbanizzate mediante tecniche MIVIS. Applicazione a Pomezia (RM)

This paper is aimed at investigating a portion of the territory of the Municipality of Pomezia (Rome) by means of remotely sensed data. The airborne MIVIS (Multispectral Infrared and Visible Imaging Spectrometer) imagery was acquired from an altitude of 1500 m. The high spectral and good spatial resolution of the MIVIS sensor allowed to provide important information helping us study and better understand complex and diversified situations, such as anthropized areas. The site taken into consideration for this study belongs to the city of Pomezia. Founded more than 70 years ago as rural suburb, Pomezia has become an important industrial district of Lazio Region thanks to its location near Rome and to the fund for the development of Southern Italy. This led to a massive industrialization up to the 90s, a period when industrial activities and urban areas evolved very rapidly, in part without a urban planning, followed by a progressive de-industrialization process which is still under way. MIVIS data processing technique, through the classification of objects and materials within urban areas, allowed us to discriminate, with a good level of detail, the distribution of the different spectral classes. Moreover, from a first reading of the View Statistics Files, we can deduce considerations on the evolution of the territory, emphasizing some important environmental aspects, such as the diffuse waterproofing of soils. In fact, we can notice a situation of messy urban and industrial areas growth with high percentages of waterproofed surfaces, impossible or difficult to reverse. This is a serious environmental issue which led to the loss of vegetation surfaces, increasing negative effects both on the biodiversity and landscape quality which bring about the dissipation of valuable resources that will represent a serious concern for the environment