Tools for quality assurance and assessment of Agricultural Engineering programmes, TUNING subject-area lines and disappearing/rare knowledge in Italy

The quality assurance process applied by Italian State University institutions, in order to achieve some level of internal quality control or assessment for the offered study programmes, is established in the funding criteria of the Ordinary Financing Fund (FFO), decided by the National Committee for the Evaluation of the University System (CNVSU). In most Italian Universities the quality assurance and assessment procedure of the study programmes starts with a report, written by a specific committee, that carries out an internal assessment, by which the strong and weak points of the study programme and the related causes are focused. The quality assurance and assessment procedure appoints three autonomous and independent assessors, who have the task of carrying out an external assessment of the degree study programmes and publishing an evaluation report. In Italian Universities the Faculty Assembly holds the tasks of: setting the education and research objectives and evaluating the success in satisfying them; providing, monitoring and enhancing the intellectual and material resources; demonstrating high standards to external assessors and taking into account their reports; co-operating with representatives of professional bodies for carrying out the examination for accessing the professional activity; planning new programme specifications; monitoring student career progression. The Degree Study Programme Assembly holds the task of approving the study programmes of individual students. Moreover, in Italy the Ministry of Education, University and Research, the region administration and the University academic bodies hold the responsibility of: overseeing academic quality and standards; managing the University education and research strategy; overseeing the development and management of quality assurance procedures; approving Faculty recommendations related to the proposal of new study programmes and/or the discontinuation of existing ones. In Italy the Standard Assessment procedure for students is based on the following principles: students can take an examination for a specific course as many times as they wish; examiners and assessors are appointed by the Faculty Dean, while a specific committee is responsible for University examinations; students are finally examined for their thesis by a Faculty committee. Italian Universities offer a Code of Practice for education and research, which is included in several laws and decrees, that set out the guidelines which must be followed in managing a study programme and designing the related courses. In Italy the typical degree profiles in Agricultural/Biosystems Engineering, for the three study levels, are offered by five University Faculties of Agriculture. As regards the status of rare/disappearing knowledge in Agricultural/Biosystems Engineering studies in Italy, it is needed to focus especially on the following subjects: historical farm buildings and new purposes; agritourism; agricultural museums. In Italy several actions try to protect and revitalise the historical farm buildings and, therefore, create jobs and profit for the local community. The destiny of Italian old buildings mainly depends on the implementation of integrated rural development plans, taking into account the landscaping and environmental functions of farms. Converting historical farm buildings or houses into B&B lodges, farm hotels and restaurants generates a new farm activity called agritourism. In Italy, where more than 1600 farm resorts are available, incentives provided for agritourism have been successful in preventing the depopulation of the countryside. A historical farm building can be converted into an agricultural museum. More than 500 agricultural museums are available throughout Italy

Molecular characterization of human gastric mucosa by HR-MAS Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

The present study was aimed at identifying themolecular profile characteristic of the healthy humangastric mucosa.Ex vivo HR-MAS magnetic resonance spectroscopy performed at 9.4 Tesla (400.13 MHz for 1H) on gastric specimens collected during endoscopy, permits the identification of more than forty species giving a detailed picture of the biochemical pattern of the gastric tissues. These preliminary data will be used for a comparison with gastric preneoplastic and neoplastic situations. Moreover, the full knowledge of the biochemical pattern of the healthy gastrictissues is the necessary presupposition for the application of magnetic resonance spectroscopy directly in vivo

Ex vivo HR-MAS Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy of human gastric adenocarcinomas: A comparison with healthy gastric mucosa

The present study reports the characteristics of the biochemical profile of human gastric adenocarcinoma in comparison with that of healthy gastric mucosa, using ex vivo HR-MAS Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Healthy human mucosa is mainly characterized by the presence of small metabolites (more than 50 identified) and macromolecules, whereas the adenocarcinoma spectra are dominated by the presence of signals due to triglycerides, whose content on the contrary is very low in healthy gastric mucosa. The use of spin-echo experiments enable us to detect some metabolites in the unhealthy tissues and to determine their variation with respect to the healthy ones. We have observed that the Cho:ChoCC ratio changes from 20:80 in the healthy tissues to 80:20 in the neoplastic gastric mucosa

Comparison of Data with Multiple Degrees of Freedom Utilizing the Feature Selective Validation (FSV) Method

This research is the product of a collaboration between: 1. Harbin Institute of Technology, China 2. De Montfort University, UK 3. University of L'Aquila, Italy “© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other worksThe feature selective validation method has been shown to provide results that are in broad agreement with the visual assessment of a group of engineers for line, 1-D, data. An implementation using 2-D Fourier transforms and derivatives have been available for some years, but verification of the performance has been difficult to obtain. Further, that approach does not naturally scale well for 3-D and higher degrees of freedom, particularly if there are sizable differences in the number of points in the different directions. This paper describes an approach based on repeated 1-D FSV analyses that overcomes those challenges. The ability of the 2-D case to mirror user perceptions is demonstrated using the LIVE database. Its extension to n-dimensions is also described and includes a suggestion for weighting the algorithm based on the number of data points in a given “direction.

Preservation of positional identity in fetus-derived neural stem (NS) cells from different mouse central nervous system compartments

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Down-sampled and Under-sampled Data sets in Feature Selective Validation (FSV)

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Feature Selective Validation (FSV) is a heuristic method for quantifying the (dis)similarity of two data sets. The computational burden of obtaining the FSV values might be unnecessarily high if data sets with large numbers of points are used. While this may not be an important issue per se it is an important issue for future developments in FSV such as real-time processing or where multi-dimensional FSV is needed. Coupled with the issue of data set size, is the issue of data sets having ‘missing’ values. This may come about because of a practical difficulty or because of noise or other confounding factors making some data points unreliable. These issues relate to the question “what is the effect on FSV quantification of reducing or removing data points from a comparison – i.e. down- or under-sampling data?” This paper uses three strategies to achieve this from known data sets. This paper demonstrates, through a representative sample of 16 pairs of data sets, that FSV is robust to changes providing a minimum data set size of approximately 200 points is maintained. It is robust also for up to approximately 10% ‘missing’ data, providing this does not result in a continuous region of missed data

Castel di Sangro-Scontrone field camp – structural and applied geomorphology

The Geomorphological Field Camp 2014 in the Castel di Sangro-Scontrone area is the result of geological and geomorphological teaching field work activities carried out in Central Italy by a group of 23 students attending the Structural Geomorphology and Applied Geomorphology courses (Master's Degree in Geological Science and Technology of the Università degli Studi ‘G. d'Annunzio’ Chieti-Pescara, Italy, Department of Engineering and Geology). The Field Camp 2014 was organized in May 2014, following regular classes held during the fall term. General activities for the field camp were developed over four main stages: (1) preliminary analysis of the regional geological and geomorphological setting of the area; (2) preliminary activities for the analysis of the local area (orography, hydrography and photogeology investigations, and geographical information system processing); (3) field work, focused on the analysis of a specific issue concerning structural geomorphology or applied geomorphology (e.g. landscape evolution, river channel change, landslide distribution, and flood hazard); and (4) post-field work production of the map. Finally, the fundamental role of field work in the analysis of landscape and in land management was outlined: indeed, the overall field camp enhanced the crucial role of field-based learning for young geomorphologists in order to acquire a strong sensitivity to geomorphological processes and landscape evolution

The contribution of Real Madrid’s first five European Cups to the emergence of a common football space

Real Madrid won the first five editions of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (now formally known as the UEFA Champions League, and to which we will refer hereon as the European Cup) between 1956 and 1960, contributing decisively to the competition’s consolidation. The tournament’s history started towards the end of 1954, when a journalist of the French sports daily L’Équipe, Gabriel Hanot, published an article arguing the need to organise a competition that could bring together the champions of every European league. However, this was not an original proposal. Thirty years before Hanot’s article proposals for such a football competition were circulated among the game’s ruling elite. Unfortunately, at that time the lack of a good transport infrastructure to travel through Europe discouraged the proposers which, instead, turned their attention to regional supranational competitions, such as the Mitropa Cup or the Latin Cup. The first five editions of the European Cup witnessed as many victories of Real Madrid, thus forging an indissoluble bond between the competition and the Spanish club. These five European titles did not only cement the supremacy of Real Madrid on the pitch as a great football team, but they also contributed to the consolidation of the European Cup itself in the public’s imaginary. We also argue that given the expectations raised by Real Madrid’s triumphs across Europe those matches might have contributed as well to the emergence of a European football space. Since 1955 Real Madrid occupied an ever increasing space in the press across Europe. Real Madrid was then considered as the best expression of modernity in football. This chapter aims to analyse the meaning of these five European Cup titles for the emergence and definition of a nascent European football space. We, of course, also question whether such a common space can be found. The chapter explores in depth the reasons behind Real Madrid’s enthusiasm with the new European competition. We also examine the social impact that Real Madrid’s hegemony in the European Cup had in the context of Spain’s international isolation during General Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975). In order to achieve the above mentioned objectives, the chapter relies on thematic analysis of selected publications in the Spanish and British press during those years. Moreover, we have also relied on a review of academic literature on the role of Real Madrid during the Franco dictatorship years, mainly the 1950s and 60s. This chapter is part of wider on-going research. In this research we examine the content of two Spanish dailies (ABC and Marca) and three British newspapers (The Guardian, The Times and the Daily Mirror). We searched these newspapers for content related to Real Madrid on specific dates: The semifinal games (two legs) and the final of each one of the five years where Real Madrid won the European Cup. We searched for content the day of each match, the day before and two days after each one of the matches. This chapter is a presentation of the findings obtained through thematic analysis of the data obtained through those searches

Long-term management of GERD in the elderly with pantoprazole

The prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) increases with age and elderly are more likely to develop severe disease. Older patients often complain of less severe or frequent heartburn than younger patients and they may present with atypical symptoms such as dysphagia, weight loss, or extraesophageal symptoms. Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are central in the management of GERD and are unchallenged with regards to their efficacy. They are considered safe and more effective than histamine receptor antagonists for healing esophagitis and for preventing its recurrence using a long term maintenance treatment. PPI have minimal side effects and few slight drug interactions and are considered safe for long term treatment. Pantoprazole is significantly effective both for acute and long-term treatment with excellent control of relapse and symptoms. It is well tolerated even for long-term therapy and its tolerability is optimal. Pantoprazole shows to have minimal interactions with other drugs because of a lower affinity for cytocrome P450 than older PPIs. Although the majority of elderly has concomitant illnesses and receive other drugs, this does not adversely effect the efficacy of pantoprazole because of its pharmacokinetics, which are independent of patient age. Clinical practice suggests that a low dose maintenance of PPIs should be used in older patients with GERD

Liberal governmentality in Spain: bodies, minds, and the medical construction of the “outsider,” 1870–1910

This paper traces the fragility of the subject in the period extending from the aftermath of the Sexenio through to the early twentieth century. In particular, two case studies are focused upon: the question of gender “deviance” and the figure of the genius, in order to understand how medicine participated in the construction of “outsider” identities within the context of the emerging liberal order. How did liberal rationales exclude or curtail certain wayward expressions of identity and subjectivity? What consequences did the marking of “excessive” figures or outsiders have for notions of inclusiveness and citizenship within the late-nineteenth-century liberal order? By concentrating primarily on medical texts and journals published during the period, this study builds on existing research to tease out answers to these questions