GREENWAY IN ITALY: EXAMPLES OF PROJECTS AND IMPLEMENTATION

The study analyses the greenway projects implemented in Italy, summarising their characteristics in a table that contains basic information concerning the geographical location, year of implementation, the type of layout and size, the state of implementation; the Institution that proposed the implementation, the official name, the territorial feature, the socio-economic and cultural aims, references to bibliographic and web resources and to their inclusion in plans and projects. The analysis has allowed to verify the compliance of individual contributions to the definitions attributed to the greenway from national and international associations. It has been possible to verify the use of greenways as physical support to spatial planning and the promotion of economic and productive development of rural areas

Connections between masserie and historical roads system in Apulia

A precise category of Apulian farmsteads, known as masserie, is a significant example of rural buildings featuring relevant architectural and landscape characteristics. Their territorial distribution is diversified and often depend on the close relationship between the building and its adjacent agricultural lot. Moreover, owing to their specific role in overseeing the territory and asserting land tenure rights, Apulian masserie distribution may have genetic origins influenced by other elements, too. The aim of this work is to investigate the existing relationships between masserie and historic roads crossing the Apulia region (Roman roads and sheep's paths called tratturi), considering both their mutual distance and the individual rural buildings importance. Overlay mapping procedures allow to quantify the amount of masserie falling within the catchment areas of the aforementioned historical roads, while historical and territorial in-depth analysis helped to identify those elements characterising the most interesting masserie from cultural and architectural points of view. The research provided interesting qualitative and quantitative information on the existing relations between these assets, leading to further considerations on the possibility to enhance them through the promotion of their integrated recovery

The role of agroforestry areas of the province of Bari in the absortion of carbon dioxide

Agroforestry areas have a significant and recognized productive, socio – economic, environmental and landscape role. An important ecological function performed by these areas is the net absorption of considerable quantities of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The scientific knowledge of the CO2 assimilation capacity of agroforestry ecosystems in a territory, is a useful and innovative means to support territorial planning. In the interests of environmental sustainability, emissions from human activities carried out in a specific local context, must be adapted by the simultaneous capacity of CO2 sequestration. For the protection of environmental quality, the choice of land use should therefore optimize the circuit of interaction between emissions and absorption. This work takes into account the agroforestry areas of the Province of Bari to estimate the potential capacity to absorb CO2 and compare it, with the current emission levels

A kinetic approach to cosmic ray induced streaming instability at supernova shocks

We show here that a purely kinetic approach to the excitation of waves by cosmic rays in the vicinity of a shock front leads to predict the appearance of a non-alfvenic fastly growing mode which has the same dispersion relation as that previously found by Bell (2004) by treating the plasma in the MHD approximation. The kinetic approach allows us to investigate the dependence of the dispersion relation of these waves on the microphysics of the current which compensates the cosmic ray flow. We also show that a resonant and a non-resonant mode may appear at the same time and one of the two may become dominant on the other depending on the conditions in the acceleration region. We discuss the role of the unstable modes for magnetic field amplification and particle acceleration in supernova remnants at different stages of the remnant evolution

Brief episodes of silent atrial fibrillation predict clinical vascular brain disease in type 2 diabetic patients

ObjectivesThis study evaluated whether subclinical episodes of atrial fibrillation (AF) were associated with an increased risk of silent cerebral infarct (SCI) and stroke in diabetic patients younger than 60 years who did not have other clinical evidence of AF and cerebrovascular disease at baseline.BackgroundIn type 2 diabetic patients, one-fourth of strokes are of unknown cause, and subclinical episodes of AF may be a common etiologic factor.MethodsA total of 464 type 2 diabetic patients younger than 60 years were included in a longitudinal observational study and matched to patients without diabetes. Patients underwent 48-h electrocardiographic Holter monitoring quarterly to detect brief subclinical episodes of AF (duration of AF <48 h) and were followed up for 37 months. The outcomes were SCI, assessed by magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, and stroke events during the follow-up period.ResultsThe prevalence of subclinical episodes of AF was significantly greater among patients with diabetes compared with matched healthy subjects (11% vs. 1.6%, p < 0.0001). During an average duration of 37 months, 43 stroke events occurred in the diabetic population and no events occurred in healthy subjects. Diabetic patients with silent episodes of AF (n = 176) had a higher baseline prevalence of SCI (61% vs. 29%; p < 0.01) and a higher number of stroke events (17.3% vs. 5.9%; p < 0.01) during the follow-up period than the other patients (n = 288). An episode of silent AF was an independent determinant of SCI (odds ratio: 4.441; p < 0.001; confidence interval: 2.42 to 8.16) and an independent predictor of the occurrence of stroke in diabetic patients (hazard ratio: 4.6; p < 0.01; confidence interval: 2.7 to 9.1).ConclusionsSubclinical episodes of AF occurred frequently in type 2 diabetic patients and were associated with a significantly increased risk of SCI and stroke

Glycated ACE2 reduces anti-remodeling effects of renin-angiotensin system inhibition in human diabetic hearts

High glycated-hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels correlated with an elevated risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes despite renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibition in type-2 diabetic (T2DM) patients with reduced ejection fraction. Using the routine biopsies of non-T2DM heart transplanted (HTX) in T2DM recipients, we evaluated whether the diabetic milieu modulates glycosylated ACE2 (GlycACE2) levels in cardiomyocytes, known to be affected by non-enzymatic glycosylation, and the relationship with glycemic control