Study to regenerate the degraded neighborhood of San Carlo on the northern outskirt of Padua, Italy

The San Carlo neighborhood with the church of San Carlo at its center is a degraded area in the northern outskirts of Padua, a city located near Venice in the Veneto region of north-eastern Italy. Once marked by a distinctive identity, this part of the outskirts of Padua has gradually lost its social and functional character. The idea of restoring this decaying district has long been the subject of discussion by the local authorities. The neighborhood of San Carlo is one of the subjects recently investigated by students studying the \u2018Architectural and Urban Composition 2' course on the Master\u2019s Degree in Architectural Engineering at the University of Padua. Their ideas include a green piazza park, a community center and hall, a library, study rooms for students, additional parking, open space for the weekly market

Rebuilding an urban empty space. The area where the Eretenio Theatre once stood near the River Retrone in Vicenza, Italy

Vicenza is an ancient city located in the Veneto region, not far from Venice, in the north-east corner of Italy. This work specifically refers to the area of the Eretenio theatre on the bank of the River Retrone. The theatre was bombed and destroyed in 1944. Intimately part of the historic center of Vicenza, this abandoned area gradually lost its functional and social identity. The idea of rebuilding that degraded place has long been the object of discussion on the part of local authorities. The Eretenio theatre area is one of the subjects recently investigated by our students at the \u2018Architectural and Urban Composition 2' course taught on the master\u2019s degree in Architectural Engineering at the University of Padua. Students were required to present project hypotheses to reconfigure the lost unity of this symbolic part of the city. The history is considered an indispensable tool to know the deep reasons of the urban structure, which can be used to control the change of functional systems (political, social and economic). The Eretenio theatre area was proposed to our students as an opportunity to suggest new ways to manage the passage from past to future in the shadow of Andrea Palladio\u2019s architecture

A study on fiber-arrangement close to the root of a sharp notch, for short fiber-reinforced thermoplastics

An approach, which aims at the morphological characterization near the sharp notch of specimens, has been developed for Short Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics. This work is directly related to the fa- tigue behavior of such materials, since the early stages of the cyclic damage are strictly influenced by the local microstructure at the stress concentration sites. Therefore, a comprehensive description of fi- bers\u2019 arrangement is needed in order to proceed with a modeling activity for the lifetime duration esti- mation. To this end, a semi-automatic tool has been developed, which is capable of evaluating fiber- arrangements through statistical descriptors, after submitting 2D pictures of the notch-tip area. Particu- larly, the attention was focused onto the nearest neighbor distance distribution function and onto a new formulation, which gives information about the level of the fiber-clustering phenomenon. On this basis, the repeatability of results has been evaluated with the goal of stating whether such information can be inherited by lifetime estimating models

Un’interpretazione veneta del nuovo giardino europeo: Selvaggiano, il ritiro campestre di Cesarotti

Dopo aver ripercorso le tappe dell’affermazione del giardino inglese nel Settecento, il contributo esamina il dibattito teorico sui giardini inglesi svoltosi presso l’Accademia patavina di Lettere Scienze ed Arti, dibattito di cui Melchiorre Cesarotti è uno dei principali promotori. Emerge un Cesarotti, anche nell’estetica del giardino, così come nella letteratura e nella politica, oscillante fra il moderno e l’antico, fra l’apertura al nuovo e la conservazione di valori e istanze tradizionali. Si ricostruiscono infine le fasi evolutive del giardino di Selvazzano e l’estetica che presiede alla sua realizzazione

Natural materials and basic construction techniques. Aspects of neo-brutalism in current architectural experience

Contemporary research in architecture recognises the enduring influence of neo-brutalist poetry in the simplicity of construction and simple linguistics of many developments inspired by minimalist asceticism that are important in Europe and particularly significant in Switzerland. In fact, there is the same preference for using untransformed natural materials and adopting basic construction techniques that facilitate the reading of these experiences as a continuum notwithstanding the different approach to form choices. Indeed, although the two trends differ in terms of form since this is fundamental in minimalist poetry but purely transcription of the construction project, being mere consistency in time and space, in the neo-brutalist experience, they are similarly interested in an architecture based on construction techniques and the full visibility of the materials and their characteristics, on the unfinished and the imperfect. Through a new way of reading and interpreting the ordinary and the banality of daily life, the continuity of the two experiences manifests itself in the adoption of a basic technology that exalts the joints between elements and materials. What emerges from comparing the development of the construction technique expressed in the projects of authors such as Peter Zumthor, and especially Herzog & De Meuron in their initial projects and the imperfect austere experiments in the London suburbs by Alison and Peter Smithson in the 1950s is that arguments now crucial to sustainability can be evaluated, arguments such as the use of materials not meant for buildings, the recovery of disused space and urban contexts unused instead of building consuming the soil, and more generally with reference to an architecture lacking the spectacular, able to draw its extraordinary characteristics from the communal world

The Irreducibility of Prayer:Religious Language and the Overcoming of Metaphysics in Contemporary French Philosophy

In my PhD Thesis, I explore the way the phenomenon of prayer is analysed in contemporary French philosophy, with a particular attention to the work of Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Louis Chrétien, and Jean-Luc Nancy. The overall purpose of this project is to understand the reasons for, and the consequences of, these philosophers’ interest in prayer, in a historical context when prayer seems to have lost its value and meaning. I offer a twofold argument. On the one hand, these philosophical approaches are shaped by the project of the overcoming of metaphysics as articulated by Heidegger. Prayer plays a crucial role in this overcoming, but it has to pay a high price, losing its specificity in favour of a reduction to a pure and undetermined essence. On the other hand, these thinkers commit some sort of “elucidating mistake”: pushed to an extreme, these authors – perhaps not always admitting to it – reveal an irreducible specificity of prayer as a practised and lived act. All in all, this research shows that certain religious phenomena can still assume quite a central importance in contemporary philosophical discourse, and that the borders between philosophy and religion are often more permeable that one thinks

Update on the efficacy, safety, and adherence to treatment of full length parathyroid hormone, PTH (1-84), in the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis

Full length (1-84) parathyroid hormone (PTH) was introduced in Europe as a treatment for postmenopausal osteoporosis in 2006. The efficacy of PTH (1-84) in the prevention of vertebral fractures is very high, and is similar to that of teriparatide. Its action in the prevention of femoral fractures has yet to be fully demonstrated, but the incidence of such fractures in trials was very low, and a decrease in nonvertebral fractures was seen in high-risk patients. The effect on bone mineral density (BMD) was clearly demonstrated in the spine and also in the hip. The effects on BMD were evident and increased progressively with treatment until 36 months. After its discontinuation there was a clear decrease in BMD if no antiresorptive treatment was initiated. Increases in bone volumetric density and bone volume in trabecular sites were also reported. Moreover, a bone volume increase was detected in cortical sites. Hypercalcemia and hypercalciuria are frequent consequences of PTH treatment, but rarely have clinical effects and are usually well controlled by reducing calcium and vitamin D supplementation

Postmenopausal bone loss : prevention and replacement

Osteoporosis is a skeletal disorder predominantly affecting postmenopausal women. Combination therapy of Carbocalcitonin (Elcatonin) and oral conjugated oestrogens (Premarin) not only prevents postmenopausal bone loss but leads to an increase in bone mass in normal early postmenopausal women. The aims of the study was to investigate the effect of combination therapy. A combination of Elcatonin (Carbo calcitonin) and Premarin was compared to Premarin alone, and to Elcatonin (Carbocalcitonin) alone and all groups were then compared to a control group.peer-reviewe

Hendricus Theodorus Wijdeveld. Visions of a new Amsterdam

The early decades of the twentieth century represented a period of particular turmoil for the Netherlands as the country underwent a cultural transition that culminated in the search for a new social order to counteract the chaos generated by the Great War. The Dutch art world, which had always felt the need to play a role in society, now felt a pressing urge for renewal representative of the new community ideal. Wijdeveld contributed to this search through written pieces published in the magazine Wendingen. His support for a new social order first manifested itself in the idealistic design of the People’s Theatre to be built in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam, then in the visionary design concerning the expansion of the city of Amsterdam. Wijdeveld’s proposal for the People’s Theatre was initially conceived in 1919. The monumental theatre is located inside the Vondelpark in Amsterdam up against the city’s seventeenth- century perimeter walls. All around it lie the symbols of the country’s artistic culture: the Rijksmuseum, the Concertgebouw and the Stedelijk Museum. The drawings published in Wendingen magazine on the 9th and 10th of September-October 1919 highlight the urban value of the project. A major road axis, a veritable urban boulevard dotted with tower buildings, crosses the historic Vondelpark. Starting from the ramparts, the boulevard constitutes a perspective axis at the end of which stands the monumental People’s Theatre. The size of the public building reveals its representative value in accordance with a compositional tradition that harks back to the conception of the classical city. In the drawings, the Vondelpark appears to be overshadowed, with its presence negated. A modern route replaced the idea of the romantic park crossed by winding streets and symbolises trust in progress and the idea of urban and social order. This project prefaced the study of a contemporary and monumental expansion plan that involved the development of Amsterdam along radial roads that set out from the heart of the historical city towards rural land. These routes were dotted with a series of tower buildings that represented the idea of a city open to nature, following a development method that contrasted with the settlement rules of the historical city