Acustic of University lecture halls: a Design Proposal for Palazzo Malvezzi - Campeggi.

An aspect often overlooked although essential for the learning process is a good speech intelligibility and the acoustic comfort of school classrooms in general. The other design issues, such as lighting, temperature control, environmental appeal, usually take precedence because they are more visible and closer to a tactile sensitivity. But it should be noted how the lack of a single comfort factor substantially affects the feeling of overall discomfort by nullifying the success of the other instances. A good acoustics becomes particularly hard to achieve in the context of the Italian historical heritage rehabilitated for educational purposes. Thanks to the opening of the restoration site of Palazzo Malvezzi-Campeggi, seat of the Law School in the historic city center of Bologna, it was possible to inquire this aspect and to actively contribute in the renewal proposal. From acoustic measurements of nine lecture halls the inadequacy of the present state has been proven. It follows how passive and active acoustic treatments are essential to ensure a good comfort for students, in order to encourage learning and consequently increase school performance. The proposals was developed in collaboration with the lighting design, not treated here. Laboratory measurements carried out in a controlled environment were conducted to support the effectiveness of the passive treatments, while predictive methods allowed to verify design performances

Italian Cultural and Creative Industries

Italian cultural and creative industries are growing both in terms of economic value –-reaching 2.96% of the national GDP in 2015- and employment --attesting over one million people. These figures are quite optimistic, especially compared to the other Italian manufacturing sectors, which places cultural and creative industries in a significant position of the country’s economic landscape. In 2015, the Italian cultural and creative sector recorded a total economic value of 47.9 billion euros. 86% is direct revenues derived from activities directly linked to the creative chain such as conception, production and distribution of cultural and creative works and services. The remaining 14% comes from indirect revenues related to ancillary or ancillary assets. Direct economic values of all the creative and cultural sectors have been growing since 2015, only except the newspapers and periodicals –-this sector showed more than 8% drop. The sector that grew most in terms of direct economic value was music. The cultural and creative industries are ranked third in Italy from an occupational point of view after the construction sector and catering and hotel industry. Thanks to the important intellectual contribution, the creative industry is characterized by a high concentration of human capital

Building comfort control using MPC: Development of a Coupled EnergyPlus-MATLAB Simulation Framework for Model Predictive Control of Integrated Electrical and Thermal Residential Renewable Energy System

The urge of modernizing the building stock in the European Union comes from one clear evidence: it is the largest energy consuming sector, accounting for up to one-third of the total final energy consumption. The vast majority of houses and offices in EU countries were built before 1990 and did not undergo any renovation, meaning they show poor thermal insulation capability, and no smart technique is implemented for the control and reduction of both the electricity and heating demands. This results in significantly high emissions. Almost 40% of EU carbon dioxide emissions indeed come from the building sector [1] , indirectly in the construction process and directly during operation. The set of contaminants also include greenhouse gases such as hydrofluorocarbons, fine particles (PM2.5/PM10) and toxic dusts recognized as one of the main causes of cancer onset [2]. This is precisely related to the fuel mix each country employs to cover the sector needs: 38.2% of the OECD countries residential demand is covered by natural gas and a phasing-out 10% by oil [3]. Technologically advanced solutions such as hydrogen Fuel Cells, integrated with other renewable sources, can represent a clean solution to push down emissions but also energy consumptions by digitalizing the system and implementing control strategies to optimally match demand and generation. This study aims at developing a coupled EnergyPlus-MATLAB Simulation Framework of an integrated electrical and thermal residential renewable energy system with a Model Predictive Controller (MPC) to size and control the operation of a fuel cell stack. A recently renovated single-family house in the province of Turin (IT) is the case-study modelled in EnergyPlus. The simulation requires the building geometry and thermophysical properties and the weather conditions as inputs, and by designing appropriately the controller, a schedule for the heating demand and the resulting evolution of the indoor temperature is obtained.IncomingObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::7 - Energia Assequible i No Contaminan

EP Receptors and Coxibs

n/

Cu,Zn superoxide dismutase genes in Tribolium castaneum: evolution, molecular characterisation and gene expression during immune priming.

The production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a normal consequence of the aerobic cell metabolism. Despite their high and potentially detrimental reactivity with various biomolecules, the endogenous production of ROS is a vital part of physiological, immunological, and molecular processes that contribute to fitness. The role of ROS in host\u2013parasite interactions is frequently defined by their contribution to innate immunity as effectors, promoting parasite death during infections. In vertebrates, ROS and antioxidant system enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) are also involved in acquired immune memory, where they are responsible for T-cell signalling, activation, proliferation, and viability. Based on recent findings, ROS are now also assumed to play a role in immune priming, i.e., a form of memory in invertebrates. In this study, the potential involvement of Cu,Zn SODs in immunity of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum is described for the first time, applying an approach that combines an in\ua0silico gene characterisation with an in\ua0vivo immune priming experiment using the Gram-positive entomopathogen Bacillus thuringiensis. We identified an unusually high number of three different transcripts for extracellular SOD and found that priming leads to a fine-tuned modulation of SOD expression, highlighting the potential of physiological co-adaptations for immune phenotypes

Branded Versus Non-Branded: Differences in Consumer Preferences

Although brands can signal reputation and serve as proxies for trust, consumer preferences for attributes may differ for branded and non-branded products. The authors of this paper test this hypothesis using data from a particular experiment conducted with Italian jeans’ consumers. The results indicate that consumers appear uncertain when there is an absence of a brand; non-brand-oriented consumers ascribe greater importance to the attributes of a product, with emphasis on those that relate to the product model (fit, comfort, design). Price is important for both types of consumers. Factor and cluster analyses permit identification of elements for the positioning strategies of brand and non-branded products. For marketing managers, it is important to know the consumer’s perception of the product’s characteristics and, accordingly, adopt specific communication and positioning strategie