Trend Analysis of Air Quality Index in Catania from 2010 to 2014

Abstract Information on air quality in urban areas represents an important objective to raise awareness and participation of citizens towards those measures aimed at containing and reducing vehicular traffic. For several years at the international level, evaluation procedures have been adopted by indices. One of the first synthetic indices, adopted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA), was the Pollution Standard Index (PSI). In 1999, the EPA replaced the PSI index with Air Quality Index (AQI), which includes two new sub-indices, the ozone at ground level and fine particulate. Despite the European Decisions 97/101/EC and 2001/752/EC, have established an exchange of information from networks and individual stations measuring ambient air pollution in Member States, the use of a single index has not yet been defined that allows you to compare different realities. This heterogeneity emerges in Italy as well, where only a few Environmental Protection Agencies disclose indexes to inform citizens. In this article, the Air Quality Index (AQI) currently used by the United States Environmental Protection Agency has been applied to the metropolitan city of Catania, in order to analyze the level of pollution daily from 2010 to 2014. Through the use of the AQI it was possible to synthesize in a single daily value, concentrations of major pollutants in urban areas (NO2, O3, CO, SO2, PM10) for the entire period. For the calculation procedure of the AQI, the data concentrations were provided by Municipal Ecology and Environment Office. The data relates to three monitoring stations, whose locations have not changed over the years. This also made it possible to evaluate the change in frequency of AQI agglomerations where the monitoring units have been positioned. The value obtained by the AQI for each station has been ranked in six levels of pollution; each level has been associated with a particular coloring allowing this information to be more intuitive. Lastly, it was possible to reach the air quality assessment in urban environment from the frequency variations of each level derived from the year 2010 until 2014

Horizontal and Vertical BIM Interoperability Aimed at Seismic Vulnerability Assessment

A vital task of this millennium is to protect the existing heritage, also through the adoption of resilient management systems. In this framework, the organization of knowledge remains one of the critical points. For this reason, new methodologies and cross-disciplinary technologies are increasingly being chosen to optimize resources toward more sustainable interventions. Therefore, the ability to model the building geometry and behavior must be maximized through interoperable processes between Building Information Modeling and Finite Element Modeling methods aimed at the seismic vulnerability assessment. Setting up an integrated digitalization process is undoubtedly challenging initially but returns more significant benefits during the infrastructure life cycle. The interoperability tests' bi-directionality is essential for constantly evaluating activities to update data following facilities' modifications. The Modal Assurance Criterion indicator is used to assess the coherence of the models after possible simplifications introduced for non-linear state analyses

A Nonlocal Elasto-Plastic Model for Structured Soils at Large Strains for the Particle Finite Element Method

This work presents a robust and mesh-independent implementation of an elasto-plastic constitutive model at large strains, appropriate for structured soils, into a Particle Finite Element code specially developed for geotechnical simulations. The constitutive response of structured soils is characterized by softening and, thus, leading to strain localization. Strain localization poses two numerical challenges: mesh dependence of the solution and computability of the solution. The former is mitigated by employing a non-local integral type regularization whereas an Implicit-Explicit integration scheme is used to enhance the computability. The good performance of these techniques is highlighted in the simulation of the cone penetration test in undrained conditions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Highlights on HIV eradication in 2013

Almost 20 years after the introduction of HAART, scientific community, doctors and patients are still struggling with the absence of effective strategies aimed at eradicating HIV infection, or at preventing it through a vaccin

Theoretical and Experimental Study of Gaussian Plume Model in Small Scale System

Abstract Atmospheric dispersion pollution modelling is of great and actual concern in the scientific international community. Many dispersion models have been developed and used to estimate the downwind ambient concentration of air pollutants from sources such as industrial plants, vehicular traffic or accidental chemical release. Among them, Gaussian model is perhaps the most commonly used model type. It is often used to predict the dispersion of air pollution plumes originated from ground-level or elevated sources. In this research an experimental campaign was carried out in the wind tunnel of the Industrial Engineering Department of University of Catania. It was tested an emission plume of particulate matters and the concentrations of PM 10 were evaluated in several points downwind beyond the emitter. Both the wind velocity and PM 10 mass flow were varied in order to test the differences in terms of PM10 concentrations in the sampling points. A Gaussian plume mathematical model was developed according the boundaries conditions of the experimental campaign. The results of the model were compared with experimental ones in order to identify the limits and the advantages of this model in such a small scale system

Experimental Analysis of a Plume Dispersion Around Obstacles

Abstract Nowadays, transport and deposition of aerosol particles (PM 2.5 , PM 10 , TSP) caused by industrial plants, environmental applications and transports, are of great concern to public health. Despite the establishment by the European Union of emission standards (European directive 2008/50/CE e.g) to control the limits of particulates in the air, the emissions by industrial plants are still not accurately monitored. In particular, the interaction between plume dispersion and obstacles, such as buildings, is not currently well studied. A lot of theoretical researches were carried out in this field with a lack of experimental data comparison. This paper focuses on a laboratory work made to better explain the interaction of a continuous plume released from a point source and various obstacles. First of all a vertical pipe was reproduced, a continuous aerosol emitter was characterized in terms of a specified and controlled mass flow and the ratio between smoke emission and the total suspended particulates thanks to use of the certified gravimetric calculation of PM 10 . The experimental campaigns were conducted by means of a wind tunnel all the data collected were validated. The characterization of plume was made by the use of several sensors and calculation of velocity in several points of the field. Moreover, the plume dispersion was studied also by using digital image analysis. It was then investigated downwind the influence of obstacles of various shapes and distances from source in terms of aerosol concentration in several points

Computational and synthetic approaches for the discovery of HIV-1 integrase inhibitors

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In Vivo IS6110 profile changes in a Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain as determined by tracking over 14 years

Transposition and homologous recombination of IS6110 appear in Mycobacterium tuberculosis along in vivo sequential infec- tions. These events were checked in different clones of a successful strain, M. tuberculosis Zaragoza, with the focus on a variant in which integration of a copy of IS6110 in the origin of replication (oriC) region occurred

Optimizing HIV therapy. A consensus project on differences between cytidine analogues and regime compactness

The identification of the most effective HAART regimens in different clinical settings is still an issue. The aim of the study was to analyze how the compactness of HAART regimens is perceived and if differences between lamivudine (3TC) and emtricitabine (FTC) do exist according to a panel of Italian HIV/AIDS clinicians, using the Delphi method

Игровой образ пространства: русские и испанские загадки о городах

This article discusses Russian and Spanish riddles about cities. According to the authors, riddles about cities, being of a later origin compared to the riddles of traditional folklore topics of nature and every-day life, are focused on entertaining and didactic functions. Until now, riddles about cities have not become the subject of special consideration, which determined the novelty of the undertaken research. The hypothesis of this article is that riddles about cities create a ludic image of space, meanwhile each riddle text acts as a topographical image and a sign of collective memory. On the material of 100 Russian and 100 Spanish riddles, the structural, rhetorical, discursive means of the ludic representation of Russian and Spanish cities, respectively, are interpreted and compared. The study showed that riddles about cities combine experiences, associations, and real topographical features, all together creating a system of topographic images  of the cities on the principles of biomorphism, direct questions, the use of polysemy, homonymy, popular etymology, sound symbolism, and allusions to proverbs.The article discusses Russian and Spanish riddles about cities. According to the authors, being of a later origin, riddles about cities, compared to the riddles of traditional folklore topics of nature and everyday life, are focused on entertaining and didactic functions. Until now, riddles about cities have not yet become the object of special consideration which determines the novelty of the undertaken research. The hypothesis of this article is that riddles about cities create a ludic image of space, meanwhile each riddle text acts as a topographical image and a sign of collective memory. On the material of 100 Russian and 100 Spanish riddles, the structural, rhetorical, discursive means of the ludic representation of Russian and Spanish cities, respectively, are interpreted and compared. The study showed that riddles about cities combine experiences, associations, and real topographical features, all together forming a system of topographic images of the cities on the principles of bio-morphism, direct questions, the use of polysemy, homonymy, popular etymology, sound symbolism, and allusions to proverbs.В статье рассматриваются русские и испанские загадки о городах. По мнению авторов, загадки о городах, имеющие более позднее происхождение по сравнению с загадками традиционных для фольклора тем природы и быта, сосредоточены на развлекательной и дидактической функциях. До настоящего времени загадки о городах не становились предметом специального рассмотрения, что обусловило целесообразность предпринятого исследования. Гипотеза состоит в том, что загадки о городах создают игровой образ пространства, при этом каждый текст загадки выступает как топообраз и знак коллективной памяти. На материале 100 русских и 100 испанских загадок интерпретированы и сопоставлены структурные, риторические, дискурсивные средства игрового представления русских и испанских городов соответственно. Установлено, что загадки о городах объединяют культурно-исторический опыт, ассоциации и реальные топографические черты, что создает систему топообразов, построенных по принципам биоморфизма, прямых вопросов, использования многозначности, омонимии, народной этимологии, звукосимволизма, апелляции к паремиям