Gestione sostenibile delle foreste Mediterranee e uso energetico delle biomasse forestali residuali

he book describes the reasons that led the Regional Department of Rural and Territorial Development to take part in the PROFORBIOMED Project. They can be summarized by the need to dispose of a tool for the sustainable management of all the state-owned forests of the Region. As a matter of fact, the Project aims at developing a model of sustainable forest management, through the recovery and reuse of wood scraps from ordinary silvicultural operations, to be used for the production of power and heat inside of a process adopting natural renewable energy sources. The main actions taken and the methodologies adopted are described, as well as the principles and instruments required for the setting up and execution of the work. Some of the most relevant are: the drafting of “Forest Management Plans”, the “Short Supply Chain” and the “Biomass Traceability Protocol”, together with the application of “Best Practices” of Management and the “Monitoring of impacts” caused by the woody biomass extraction procedures. The “forest – wood – energy” chain developed and proposed is exclusively related to the territory pertaining to one municipality, and with CHP plants fed with biomass exclusively produced within the territory of each municipality, in strict compliance with the “sustainable forest management” principles, as well as with the fundamental principle of “short supply chain”. For these reasons the CHP plans proposed shall be sized according to the biomass available in each municipality, with the possibility of integrating residual forest biomass with other waste wood resources potentially available in the territory and coming from prunings in agricultural activities. Therefore, the replicable model prepared and proposed by PROFORBIOMED aims at appraising from the economic point of view a waste product, such is currently considered the residual forest biomass from the forests of Sicily, and at the same time significantly improving the natural environment, thanks to the reduction in oil consumption

Dental Health and Mortality in People With End-Stage Kidney Disease Treated With Hemodialysis: A Multinational Cohort Study

Background Dental disease is more extensive in adults with chronic kidney disease, but whether dental health and behaviors are associated with survival in the setting of hemodialysis is unknown. Study Design Prospective multinational cohort. Setting & Participants 4,205 adults treated with long-term hemodialysis, 2010 to 2012 (Oral Diseases in Hemodialysis [ORAL-D] Study). Predictors Dental health as assessed by a standardized dental examination using World Health Organization guidelines and personal oral care, including edentulousness; decayed, missing, and filled teeth index; teeth brushing and flossing; and dental health consultation. Outcomes All-cause and cardiovascular mortality at 12 months after dental assessment. Measurements Multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression models fitted with shared frailty to account for clustering of mortality risk within countries. Results During a mean follow-up of 22.1 months, 942 deaths occurred, including 477 cardiovascular deaths. Edentulousness (adjusted HR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.10-1.51) and decayed, missing, or filled teeth score ≥ 14 (adjusted HR, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.33-2.17) were associated with early all-cause mortality, while dental flossing, using mouthwash, brushing teeth daily, spending at least 2 minutes on oral hygiene daily, changing a toothbrush at least every 3 months, and visiting a dentist within the past 6 months (adjusted HRs of 0.52 [95% CI, 0.32-0.85], 0.79 [95% CI, 0.64-0.97], 0.76 [95% CI, 0.58-0.99], 0.84 [95% CI, 0.71-0.99], 0.79 [95% CI, 0.65-0.95], and 0.79 [95% CI, 0.65-0.96], respectively) were associated with better survival. Results for cardiovascular mortality were similar. Limitations Convenience sample of clinics. Conclusions In adults treated with hemodialysis, poorer dental health was associated with early death, whereas preventive dental health practices were associated with longer survival

Realizzazione della carta digitale dei suoli della Sicilia utilizzando il rilevamento GIS-oriented e un modello CLORPT

Produrre una carta digitale dei suoli della Sicilia (1:250.000) di tipo quantitativo, che combinasse l’approccio tradizionale deterministico con un modello CLORPT, e introducendo nel fattore rilievo i processi geomorfologici è stato lo scopo della ricerca. 1.532 profili di suoli (1.363 analizzati) sono stati raccolti da bibliografi a e da rilevamenti precedenti. Una carta fisiografica della Sicilia è stata realizzata per fotointerpretazione e consultando 54 lavori pubblicati di geomorfologia. Altre informazioni geografi che sono state raccolte: una carta geologica della Sicilia, la carta dell’uso del suolo Corine 2000 e la precedente versione della carta dei suoli della Sicilia. La banca dati geografi ca dei sottosistemi di terre (1:250.000) è stata ottenuta incrociando e generalizzando i dati geografi ci. Ogni poligono di sottosistema di terre è stato completato con l’informazione relativa alle componenti territoriali: combinazioni caratteristiche di fisiografia, litologia e uso del suolo, e superficie da esse occupata. Ogni profilo di suolo è stato assegnato alla componente territoriale di appartenenza semantica, sulla base della sua fisiografia, substrato litologico e uso del suolo al momento del rilievo. Le componenti territoriali di maggiore superficie e prive di informazione pedologica, sono state scelte per il rilevamento pedologico GIS-oriented. 1.400 profili di suolo sono stati descritti in quelle finestre, di cui 700 analizzati. I 2.932 profili di suolo totali sono stati correlati in 139 unità tipologiche di suolo (UTS), con le Soil Regions e la classificazione WRB come criteri di raggruppamento. La probabilità di presenza di ogni UTS nelle componenti territoriali dei sottosistemi di terre e quindi nelle relative delineazioni è stata calcolata. La capacità predittiva di ogni strato geografico è stata valutata considerando il suo potere discriminante: la carta geologica e la carta fisiografica sono risultate le più predittive

Towards improving the e-learning experience for deaf students: e-LUX

Deaf people are more heavily affected by the digital divide than many would expect. Moreover, most accessibility guidelines addressing their needs just deal with captioning and audio-content transcription. However, this approach to the problem does not consider that deaf people have big troubles with vocal languages, even in their written form. At present, only a few organizations, like W3C, produced guidelines dealing with one of their most distinctive expressions: Sign Language (SL). SL is, in fact, the visual-gestural language used by many deaf people to communicate with each other. The present work aims at supporting e-learning user experience (e-LUX) for these specific users by enhancing the accessibility of content and container services. In particular, we propose preliminary solutions to tailor activities which can be more fruitful when performed in one's own "native" language, which for most deaf people, especially younger ones, is represented by national SL. © 2014 Springer International Publishing