Debris and Hyper-concentrated Flows : Overview and Perspective

Debris and hyper-concentrated flows are among the most destructive of all water \u2013 related disasters. They mainly affect mountain areas in a wide range of morpho-climatic environments and in recent years have attracted more and more attention from the scientific and professional communities and concern from public awareness, due to the increasing frequency with which they occur and the death toll they claim. In this context, achieving a system of debris and hyper-concentrated flow constitutive equations is a task which has been given particular attention by scientists during the second half of the last Century. In relation to these issues, the paper reviews the most updated and effective procedures , nowadays available, suitable to predict the triggering and mobilising processes of these phenomena and proposes a new set of mathematical models able to assess the depth of the wave and the velocities of the liquid and solid phases of both non-stratified (mature) and stratified (immature) flows following flash-floods and dam-break events , in one and two dimensional schemes. Different experimental cases of dam-break situations in a square section channel were considered for the purpose of comparing results. These tools will allow, on one hand, to better focus what to observe in the field and, on the other hand, improve both mitigation measures and hazard mapping procedures

Flood-risk assessment and hazard mitigation mesures : case studies and lessons learnt in Italy

The effect of climate change and the growing world population are together increaing both the chance of flooding and the consequences. In Italy , in the wake of the floods that plagued the northen part of the country in the fifties and sixties ,a process was set in motion aimed at developing a new integrated approach to water management, at the catchment level,suitable for coping with water related disasters.In this context,three case-studies of flood risk management and hazard assessment are described

Optimization of pump operations in a complex water supply network: new genetic algorithm frameworks

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Wave Celerity in Hydraulic Transients Computation for CIPP-Rehabilitated Pipes

[Abstract] Most of the water pipe infrastructure is outdated; therefore, frequent maintenance and repair works are required. To speed up the rehabilitation work and to have a more sustainable and efficient approach, trenchless methodologies have been developed in the last decades. One of the most cost-effective trenchless methods is the so-called Cured in Place Pipeline (CIPP) method, in which a resin-impregnated liner is pulled or inverted inside the host pipe and, when cured, it restores the old pipe structural and mechanical integrity. The aim of this study is to analyse the effects of the presence of a CIPP liner in a deteriorated pipe during unsteady flow for compressible fluids. In particular, the paper deals with a new formulation to compute the celerity of the wave which produces the overpressures, when the pipe wall is composed of both the host (old) pipe and the new liner, whose thickness depends on the required mechanical characteristics. The problem is strictly dependent on the mechanical properties of the liner. In order to obtain the new formula for celerity, the linear elastic problem for multi-layered pipes has been solved. The theoretical results have been validated by performing numerical simulation analysis using a Boundary Element model, with the software BEASY™. The resulting circumferential strain is integrated in the continuity equation, deriving the new formula to compute the wave celerity. The values of the celerity are dependent on the thickness and on the elastic properties of the liner. The behaviour of several combinations of thickness of the liner and Young’s modulus values has been studied and the results have been critically shown in the paper

Application of a score system to evaluate the risk of malnutrition in a multiple hospital setting

Background: An increased but unpredictable risk of malnutrition is associated with hospitalization, especially in children with chronic diseases. We investigated the applicability of Screening Tool for Risk of Impaired Nutritional Status and Growth (STRONGkids), an instrument proposed to estimate the risk of malnutrition in hospitalized children. We also evaluated the role of age and co-morbidities as risk for malnutrition. Methods. The STRONGkids consists of 4 items providing a score that classifies a patient in low, moderate, high risk for malnutrition. A prospective observational multi-centre study was performed in 12 Italian hospitals. Children 1-18 years consecutively admitted and otherwise unselected were enrolled. Their STRONGkids score was obtained and compared with the actual nutritional status expressed as BMI and Height for Age SD-score. Results: Of 144 children (75 males, mean age 6.5 \ub1 4.5 years), 52 (36%) had an underlying chronic disease. According to STRONGkids, 46 (32%) children were at low risk, 76 (53%) at moderate risk and 22 (15%) at high risk for malnutrition. The latter had significantly lower Height for Age values (mean SD value -1.07 \ub1 2.08; p = 0.008) and BMI values (mean SD-values -0.79 \ub1 2.09; p = 0.0021) in comparison to other groups. However, only 29 children were actually malnourished. Conclusions: The STRONGkids is easy to administer. It is highly sensitive but not specific. It may be used as a very preliminary screening tool to be integrated with other clinical data in order to reliably predict the risk of malnutrition. \ua9 2013 Spagnuolo et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Creating a Worldwide Network For the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) and Related Experimental Environments

Many important societal activities are global in scope, and as these activities continually expand world-wide, they are increasingly based on a foundation of advanced communication services and underlying innovative network architecture, technology, and core infrastructure. To continue progress in these areas, research activities cannot be limited to campus labs and small local testbeds or even to national testbeds. Researchers must be able to explore concepts at scale—to conduct experiments on world-wide testbeds that approximate the attributes of the real world. Today, it is possible to take advantage of several macro information technology trends, especially virtualization and capabilities for programming technology resources at a highly granulated level, to design, implement and operate network research environments at a global scale. GENI is developing such an environment, as are research communities in a number of other countries. Recently, these communities have not only been investigating techniques for federating these research environments across multiple domains, but they have also been demonstration prototypes of such federations. This chapter provides an overview of key topics and experimental activities related to GENI international networking and to related projects throughout the world

Planck pre-launch status : The Planck mission

Peer reviewe