The new Italian SIDAPA Baseline Series for patch testing (2023): an update according to the new regulatory pathway for contact allergens

Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) is a common inflammatory skin disease caused by delayed hypersensitivity to chemical and biotic contact allergens. ACD significantly affects the patients' quality of life negatively impacting both occupational and non-occupational settings. Patch testing is the gold standard diagnostic in vivo test to precise the ACD etiology and to correctly perform prevention. According to the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) legislative decree no. 178 of 29th May 1991, allergens are defined as medicines and therefore they are subject to strict regulation. In 2017, AIFA (decree no. 2130/2017) started a procedure to regulate contact allergens on the Italian market and actually the contact allergens temporarily authorized are reported in AIFA decree no. 98/2022, valid until November 2023. The availability on the market of contact allergens to diagnose ACD and continuous updating on the basis of new epidemiological trends are mandatory, jointly with the continuous update of the baseline and integrative series for patch testing. For this reason, the scientific community represented in Italy by the Skin Allergies Study Group of SIDeMaST (Italian Society of Dermatology and Venereology) and SIDAPA (Italian Society of Allergological, Occupational and Environmental Dermatology) are constantly working, in close relationship with the European scientific communities with large expertise in this important sector of the modern Dermatology. Herein, we report the setting up of regulatory legislation by AIFA and the new Italian Adult Baseline Series for patch testing

Decision Agriculture

In this chapter, the latest developments in the field of decision agriculture are discussed. The practice of management zones in digital agriculture is described for efficient and smart faming. Accordingly, the methodology for delineating management zones is presented. Modeling of decision support systems is explained along with discussion of the issues and challenges in this area. Moreover, the precision agriculture technology is also considered. Moreover, the chapter surveys the state of the decision agriculture technologies in the countries such as Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Israel, Malaysia, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Sweden. Finally, different field factors such as GPS accuracy and crop growth are also analyzed

Trasformazioni di datum e di coordinate in alcuni software gis: applicazioni concernenti il territorio della Campania

In this paper results obtained with automatic executions of datum and coordinates transformations using some GIS softwares are described: 43 points of IGM95 network within Campania Region, which are known in reference to UTM-WGS84 and Gauss-Boaga Roma40, have been considered; two vector files, one in UTM-WGS84 plane coordinates, the other in UTM-WGS84 geographic coordinates, have been produced. Using softwares ArcGIS 8.3 (ESRI, 2002), Autodesk Map 3D 2005 (Autodesk, 2005), Idrisi 32 Release 2 (Clark Labs, 2002) and MapInfo Professional 7.0 (MapInfo Corporation, 2002), datum transformations (from WGS84 to Gauss-Boaga Roma 40) and coordinates transformations (from UTM-WGS84 plane coordinates to UTM-WGS84 geographic ones) have been applied; the results have been compared with values supplied by IGM. To conduct additional analyses, for 43 considered vertices also UTM-ED50 coordinates have been calculated with Verto1 (IGM, 2002) and used as comparison terms for analogous ones derived from applications of above mentioned GIS softwares. Datum transformations concerning plane coordinates have been applied using similitude (4 parameters: 1 rotation, 2 translations, 1 factor scale) in CAD MicrostastionV8 XM Edition (Bentley, 2005); in this case 4 points known in the different systems have been considered

A Proposal for Automatic Coastline Extraction from Landsat 8 OLI Images Combining Modified Optimum Index Factor (MOIF) and K-Means

The coastal environment is a natural and economic resource of extraordinary value, but it is constantly modifying and susceptible to climate change, human activities and natural hazards. Remote sensing techniques have proved to be excellent for coastal area monitoring, but the main issue is to detect the borderline between water bodies (ocean, sea, lake or river) and land. This research aims to define a rapid and accurate methodological approach, based on the k-means algorithm, to classify the remotely sensed images in an unsupervised way to distinguish water body pixels and detect coastline. Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) multispectral satellite images were considered. The proposal requires applying the k-means algorithm only to the most appropriate multispectral bands, rather than using the entire dataset. In fact, by using only suitable bands to detect the differences between water and no-water (vegetation and bare soil), more accurate results were obtained. For this scope, a new index based on the optimum index factor (OIF) was applied to identify the three best-performing bands for the purpose. The direct comparison between the automatically extracted coastline and the manually digitized one was used to evaluate the product accuracy. The results were very satisfactory and the combination involving bands B2 (blue), B5 (near infrared), and B6 (short-wave infrared-1) provided the best performance

Investigation of Myriophyllum Aquaticum HTC: Reaction Pathways & Compound Identification

Hydrothermal Carbonization (HTC) represents a promising green technology for converting various biomass feedstocks into valuable hydrochar and liquid products. In this study, the HTC process of Myriophyllum aquaticum Verd., highly diffused in Tuscany (Italy), was investigated varying the process temperatures and the holding times. Indeed, it is one of the world's most troublesome invasive aquatic weeds, impacting not only the quality of water but also contributing to habitat deterioration; therefore, several management practices are required to address the problem. This research focused on obtaining preliminary experimental data to be further implemented in a lumped kinetic model to elucidate the reaction pathways leading to the formation of primary hydrochar and liquid compounds responsible for secondary hydrochar production. To figure out the HTC liquid phase composition and the organic compounds responsible for secondary hydrochar formation, the High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analytical technique was employed. This technique allowed to identify and quantify some of key chemical components present in the HTC liquid phase, i.e., sugars and furans. Moreover, the future integration of a lumped kinetic model and advanced analytical techniques not only will enhance the understanding of the Myriophyllum aquaticum HTC process but will also provide valuable insights into the optimization of HTC conditions for biomass conversion and resource recovery

Intervisibility analysis of an offshore wind farm using GIS tools.

One of Kyoto’s protocol targets is to limit greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities through renewable energy and the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy (for example electricity) which is a kind of renewable source undergoing strong development. In this work, the study is focused on offshore aeolic parks. The term “offshore aeolic” indicates wind turbines installed a few miles from the coasts of seas or lakes, exploiting the exposure of strong currents. The offshore aeolic farms have some disadvantages including the impact of these generators on the landscape, but they produce a minimum visual disturbance compared to onshore aeolic farms. Environmental Impact Assessment (known as the EIA), introduced in Europe by the 377/85/EEC Directive and amended three times, in 1997 (Directive 97/11/EC), in 2003 (Directive 2003/35/EC) and in 2009 (Directive 009/31/EC), ensures that natural resources, usability and identity of landscapes are not compromised by engineering operations. Planning applications must be accompanied by an Environmental Statement (ES), with the purpose of giving an idea about the effect that the operations will have on the local environment. One of the main aims of the ES is the understanding of the likely visual intrusion of he proposed wind farm, which necessitates the use of visual techniques. A visual technique commonly used is the intervisibility map, normally represented by a two-dimensional map, centered on the location of the wind farm. Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) are used to achieve Thematic Maps obtained with GIS software. In this paper, GIS tools are used to identify the effects of wind farms on the landscape; in particular, attention is focused on Map Algebra functions and the study of the analysis of the intervisibility of an offshore aeolic farm is tested in a zone in Italy, localized in the Adriatic sea, along the coast of the Apulia and Molise Regions