Road safety analysis of urban roads. Case study of an Italian municipality

Attention to the most vulnerable road users has grown rapidly over recent decades. The experience gained reveals an important number of fatalities due to accidents in urban branch roads. In this study, an analytical methodology for the calculation of urban branch road safety is proposed. The proposal relies on data collected during road safety inspections; therefore, it can be implemented even when historical data about traffic volume or accidents are not available. It permits us to identify geometric, physical, functional, and transport-related defects, and elements which are causal factors of road accidents, in order to assess the risk of death or serious injuries for users. Traffic volume, average speed, and expected consequences on vulnerable road users in case of an accident allow us to calculate both the level of danger of each homogeneous section which composes the road, and the hazard index of the overall branch. A case study is presented to implement the proposed methodology. The strategy proposed by the authors could have a significant impact on the risk management of urban roads, and could be used in decision-making processes to design safer roads and improve the safety of existing roads

Orality in the Gesta concilii Aquileiensis (AD 381)

In this paper, a methodological issue is considered concerning the corpus of texts bearing witness to “spoken Latin”. Within this corpus there are also some texts that have been neglected up until now, stemming from shorthand records of spoken utterances: all of them — either dialogal or monologal — share a conversational allure, that allows the singling out of both universal and historical features of spoken (late) Latin. One of these texts, the Gesta concilii Aquileiensis, is then examined: the shorthand report of a Church council summoned in AD 381, where a lively debate is recorded among bishops supporting opposite views — Catholic vs. Arian — of the divinity of Christ. The survey on the universal traits of orality surfacing in the Gesta focuses on the textual-pragmatic, the syntactic and the semantic levels. It leads to interesting results, concerning above all syntax (prominence of parataxis, and of descendent order of the phrasal constituents within the complex sentence, i.e. independent clause > dependent clause) and semantics (lack of lexical innovation; inclination for expressive words). Despite the undeniably formal — and sometimes even formulaic — character of the dialogue, I would argue that the Gesta allow us to listen as it were to the voices of a group of cultured bishops animatedly discussing subtle theological matters

Dyspnea: when the preliminary imaging is unconvincing

A 73-year-old man was admitted to the Emergency Room (ER) for dyspnea and cough from several months. In ER were performed blood sampling, chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and arterial blood gas. A thoracic ultrasound (US) revealed in the left side an abundant pleural effusion and a lung consolidation area of about 5 cm without air bronchogram. A thoracentesis showed the presence of hemorrhagic effusion. Chest computed tomography (CT) revealed micro-pulmonary embolism, abundant left pleural effusion with atelectasis of the lower ipsilateral lobe. Meanwhile the chest CT revised by the pulmonologist appeared suspicious for the presence of cancer, the cytological examination of pleural fluid revealed the presence of an adenocarcinoma. While the patient was waiting for the bronchoscopy he had a stroke and died in a few days. In conclusion, we believe that thoracic US has to be considered an extension of the physical examination, it is a bedside tool and it represents a valid diagnostic and therapeutic method. Therefore thoracic US, if closely linked to the physician's activity, can directly affect the decision-making process and management of the patient with dyspnea

La Biennale del Paesaggio Mediterraneo

The biennial exhibition of Mediterranean Landscape is an opportunity to understand the reasons of the new landscapes, to revise the interpretative models. It’s also a chance to wonder about new ways for sustainable development that could take up the legacy of a millenary civilization. The conference had the fixed aim to compare some contemporary thesis about the concept of landscape and to analyze the Mediterranean area in a historical, social, cultural and political perspective, offering the necessary stuffs for consideration and debate.

Conservare gli arredi moderni: il GIS per la documentazione e gli interventi

Il GIS si apre a nuovi scenari diventando in questa sede strumento per la gestione degli interventi di restauro e la manutenzione degli arredi storici dei Collegi Universitari a Urbino, progettati e realizzati da Giancarlo De Carlo. La loro conservazione, data la particolarità di questa architettura che negli anni della sua realizzazione era vista come innovativa e sperimentale e la fruizione continua da parte degli studenti, offre nuovi spunti nell’ambito della gestione dei restauri degli oggetti mobili e nell’ottica di una gestione seriale di diversi elementi. Un completo Geodatabase relazionale consente di organizzare contemporaneamente una grande quantità di dati sugli arredi e sulle strutture dei Collegi muovendosi in un progetto “a scalare”, localizzando l’oggetto all’interno di un più ampio contesto che può soingersi dalla sua struttura fino all’organizzazione stessa della città di Urbino. Tramite funzioni di Relate, le piante di estremo dettaglio di ogni Collegio, non georeferenziate per mantenere inalterate le proporzioni, sono suddivise in settori, blocchi e stanze, definiti da feature class poste in overlay, fino ai singoli arredi, oggetto di analisi, definiti in tutte le loro caratteristiche descrittive, di conservazione e degrado, sfruttando tutte le potenzialità del Geodatabase, attraverso domini e sottotipi, immagini in tabella, caratteristiche topologiche e così via. Il progetto in ArcGIS 10.3 è stato integrato con il software Conservation Digital Report C.D.R., specifico per la documentazione di conservazione e restauro degli oggetti, tramite funzione di hyperlink. Obiettivo fondamentale è stato strutturare un progetto di facile gestione quale strumento per la manutenzione e pianificazione degli interventi di restauro e per la manutenzione programmata

Thermal and Acoustic Properties of Aerogels: Preliminary Investigation of the Influence of Granule Size

8th International Conference on Sustainability in Energy and Buildings, SEB 2016 The influence of granules size in silica aerogels is experimentally investigated in terms of thermal and acoustic performance characteristics. The transmission loss (TL) is measured at normal incidence in a traditional impedance tube, whereas the thermal conductivity (?) is evaluated using a Hot Plate apparatus, setting up an appropriate methodology, due to the nature of the sample. The results reveal that the small granules (granules size in the 0.01-1.2 mm range), which have the highest density, have the best performance both in terms of thermal and acoustic properties. Depending on the granules size, ? varies in 19-22 mW/mK range at 10°C, whereas a TL equal to 13 dB at about 6400 Hz for 20 mm thickness is obtained for small granules. © 2017 The Authors

Error Estimate and Fairness in Resource Allocation with Inaccurate Information Sharing

International audienceIn resource allocation systems, inaccurate information sharing situations are such that users can be aware, up to a small error, about the other users' demands and the available global resource (which can be insufficient to meet the overall demand). Consequently, given an allocation rule, users can predict an allocation that will not necessarily coincide with the actual one. In this work, we provide an estimation of the error for a number of allocation rules and compare their robustness in inaccurate information sharing settings

Traditional and modern pigments in Gino Severini's Swiss murals

Between 1924 and 1947, Gino Severini decorated five churches in the Romand region of Switzerland with monumental religious wall paintings. This mural art played an important role in the Italian artist's career despite being mostly unknown and not easily found. The painting methods and materials of these modern Swiss murals were characterized by combining historical and archival research with onsite visual and scientific examination. Most pigments were identified with noninvasive methods integrating mapping techniques (i.e., technical photography and digital microscopy) with point analysis (x-ray fluorescence and reflection FT-IR spectroscopy). The results of these portable techniques were completed with SEM-EDS, μFT-IR FPA imaging, and μRaman analyses on micro-samples which provided stratigraphic and compositional information to complement the noninvasive results. Overall, the data obtained show that Severini used both traditional pigments (e.g., Sangiovanni white and ochres/earths of various color) and modern ones, such as cadmium-based pigments, with different painting techniques (e.g., zinc white was applied exclusively a secco). Apart from cerulean blue (cobalt stannate) and Naples yellow (lead antimonate) found only in two locations, the same set of pigments was documented in all of Severini's Swiss murals. The characterization of the artist's palette is important to understand the technical painting process followed by Severini, his interest on new painting materials available on the market and, at the same time, loyalty towards traditional painting methods, such as painting a fresco

L’epitafio di Iulia Benenata. Lucrezio, Virgilio e il destino oltremondano di una cristiana

L’epitafio di Iulia Benenata (CLEAfr 60; fine III-inizio IV secolo), rinvenuto a Makthar, è constituito da sette esametri seguiti da un post-scriptum. Si esaminano i versi che, ricchi di echi lucreziani e virgiliani, riflettono un’immagine pagana dell’oltretomba, e sembrano far rivivere nell’anima virtuosa, che contempla senza timore (secure) l’abisso infernale, la figura del saggio lucreziano, immune dal timore della morte. Inoltre, si propongono alcuni argomenti che, considerando il monumento nel suo complesso – il post-scriptum contiene una formula cristiana –, suggeriscono che la defunta potrebbe invece essere stata cristiana: in particolare, si propone di leggere il sopracitato motivo dello sguardo che l’anima dal cielo rivolge verso l’inferno alla luce della parabola evangelica di Lazzaro e del ricco epulone.The epitaph of Iulia Benenata (CLEAfr 60; end of 3rd- beginning of 4th cent.), from Makthar, consists of seven hexametres, followed by a post-scriptum. In this paper the verses are examined, where, through Lucretian and Virgilian echoes, afterlife is depicted in pagan terms and the virtuous soul, that stares at hell peacefully (secure), is portrayed as a kind of Lucretian sapiens, free from the fear of death. Moreover, some further data are presented, in order to suggest that the woman might have been a Christian: in particular, the theme of the soul’s staring at hell might be read in light of the Gospel parable of Lazarus and the rich man