The Environmental Dimension of Urban Design: A Point of View

International research on sustainable architecture ascertained the responsibilities of urban forms for buildings’ energy‐environmental performances, highlighting the necessity to broaden the field of intervention in urban design. Furthermore, goals concerning the sustainable city increased design complexity, due to the involvement of different interrelated disciplines, which modified design processes by incorporating external contributions. In particular, environmental analyses are growing in importance and need to be reintegrated into the urban project at the conceptual stage. This ‘environmental awareness’ accompanies the history of the city, and numerous pieces of evidence clearly show the mutual and in‐depth relationship between urban form and local microclimates. Lessons from the ancients constituted the fundamentals in urban design until the Modern Movement, during which knowledge of the past also influenced the work of G. Vinaccia, an Italian pioneer in microclimatic urban design. After the World War II, most of the lessons had been forgotten in favour of technology systems that have since revealed their failures. The current design condition requires a discovery of past abilities, coupling them with contemporary scientific advances. This work introduces a methodology through which to integrate current urban design processes with environmental data and analyses. It is illustrated through a case study and is supported by software

Gaetano Vinaccia’s (1881–1971) Theoretical Work on the Relationship between Microclimate and Urban Design

Because of his classification as a minor architect, Gaetano Vinaccia’s (1881–1971) role in the history of architecture has not been studied in depth. Despite the fact that his impact on the debate about rational architecture was limited, the depth and scientific accuracy of his theoretical contribution to the field of microclimatology in relation to urban design issues deserve to be highlighted, especially today when environmental and bioclimatic questions arise strongly in architecture and planning. Thus, this work aims to reconsider this figure by describing the—unfavorable—context in which his work evolved, by bringing to light his most brilliant statements, by reading his scientific productions, and by starting to consider the validity of some of Vinaccia’s intuitions and their actual correspondence with contemporary research. The question of whether Vinaccia can be considered as an innovator (or not) largely derives from the point of view of architectural criticism and the fact that he did not have a well-defined discipline in which to be classified. Despite the fact that his The City of Tomorrow (1943–1952), which is the first complete treatise on the subject, reveals that he was an absolute pioneer, he has had no chance to influence architecture and urbanism until today

Comparative US-MRI evaluation of the Insall–Salvati index

Purpose: To investigate whether the universally accepted range of normal patellar height ratio derived from MRI for the Insall–Salvati (IS) method could be similarly applied to ultrasound (US). Materials and methods: This study included 52 patients (age range 11–75 years) who underwent a bi-modality (US and MRI) examination, with a total of 60 knees evaluated. IS index (ratio of the patella tendon length to length of the patella) was acquired with both methods. Two operators, with different experiences of musculoskeletal imaging and blinded to the results of other investigators, separately performed the MRI and US measurements. Results: For the two operators, MRI reported a mean value of patellar height ratio of 1.10 ± 0.16 (mean ± standard deviation SD), while US a mean value of 1.17 ± 0.16 (mean ± SD). For comparable results, the small addition of 0.16 is needed for the measurements on US compared with MRI. Inter-observer agreements using intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was, respectively, 0.97 for MRI and 0.98 for US. The difference of mean values in patellar height ratios between MRI and US was not statistically significant (p = 0.15). The ICC between the two modalities was 0.94. Conclusion: According to our experience, IS index can be appropriately evaluated on US images, reducing the need of other imaging techniques

Dedica ad Atena da Megara

The bronze table, found in Megara on a hill called Alkathoos, has to be associated with the temple of Athena seen by Pausanias in 1.42.4. The table is broken on the upper part, where the name of those who did the ex-voto were placed. The text mentions the offering of a tenth of a booty, deducted from some marauders and then consecrated to the goddess Athena. From the graphic peculiarities of the letters, we can deduce a chronology about 450-440 BC

La Citè (post) Industrielle. Efficienza energetica urbana

Main studies in energy saving in construction have demonstrated the restriction on benefits achievable with efforts mon buildings and the necessity of a “change of scale” moving from a single residential unit to the whole urban system. In fact, results attainable with energy saving policies applied on individual buildings tend to level off, requiring necessarily works on an ‘upper’ scale (urban or land scale) in relation to the city size and shape. In a time when energy world situation is asking for a transition toward new alternative sources, interesting research have already confirmed the deep relationship between energy consumptions and urban morphology through the study of some macro-classes of ‘physical’ parameters like: urban density, h/w ratio, settlement’s shape and size, microclimate, ecc. The re-reading of the city hystory from an energy viewpoint, shows the one-to-one relation that exists between spatial configurations, determined by urban design, and the corresponding energy balance. This relationship has been reasserted also by the foremost international organization (ONU, European Commission, etc.) which have indicated the urban design as one of the favoured tools to build the future ‘sustainable city’. Although today the actions on this topics are rapidly growing, settlements which can be defined in this way are really few. Difficulties found in this changeover can be ascribed also to the hidden meaning of ‘sustainaiblity’, whose comprehension entails overcoming an urban design ‘by parts’ in favour of an holistic approach which acts on the City seen as an ecosystem interrelated to its environment. This interdependence is chiefly revealed by input and output processes which govern urban metabolism. Even if the use of new local and renewable sources is a necessary condition to label a city like ‘sustainalbe’, it is insufficient unless accompanied with an appropriate consumption’s containment policy. The designer’s scant attention to the local weather and environmental conditions has been counterbalanced in the course of time by use of technologies with heavy consequences on global energy consumptions. The rude awakening from faulty belief on hydrocarbon’s limitless availability forces us to rethink the urban design process in function of ‘physical’ and environmental parameters which affected city energy behavior. In fact, the urban energy balance is deeply affected by spatial configurations resulting from typo-morphological initial choices among which the H/W ratio is gaining in importance. The significance that takes the correct urban design on subsequent energy behavior ascribed great responsibility to spatial solutions delineated during the early stage of the project, re-introducing again weather and environmental data among the basic information used by designers for the correct composition of their works

Radiofrequency Ablation of Benign Thyroid Nodules and Recurrent Thyroid Cancers: Consensus Statement and Recommendations

Thermal ablation using radiofrequency is a new, minimally invasive modality employed as an alternative to surgery in patients with benign thyroid nodules and recurrent thyroid cancers. The Task Force Committee of the Korean Society of Thyroid Radiology has developed recommendations for the optimal use of radiofrequency ablation for thyroid nodules. These recommendations are based on a comprehensive analysis of the current literature, the results of multicenter studies, and expert consensus

UTOPIA?

The city is energy: a mouth where the food is related to the energy flows into and out. Throughout its history could be reinterpreted on energy, linking the form to the energy use, and how to vary the latter, also vary the first constantly. If form and function of the city depend on the availability in the area of energy networks and infrastructure and whether these have a direct impact in its spatial conformation, such as new renewable sources and technologies will change the shape of next city