Survey on retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in Italy

This study aims to investigate the incidence and the relative risk factors of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and posterior-ROP (P-ROP): ROP in Zone I and posterior Zone II, as well as to analyze the occurrence of surgical treatment of ROP and to evaluate the short term outcome of the disease in Italy

Sustainable Development Goals and Current Sustainability Actions at Politecnico di Torino

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, the agenda of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represents a new coherent way of thinking about how issues as diverse as poverty, education and climate change fit together; it embeds economic, social and environmental targets in an holistic way. Implicit in such SDG logic is that each goal relies on another, although there are no clear ways to measure this intersection. International negotiations are obviously one trial table of these trade-offs. Universities, with their broad responsibility in the creation and dissemination of knowledge and their exceptional position within society, have a crucial role to play in the achievement of the SDGs and in understanding the complexity underling them, since they can help to demonstrate the university impact on society, shape an SDG-related education, build new partnerships, access new funding streams, and redefine the strategic plan of a university. This paper explores the way Politecnico di Torino maps its actions through the lens of a mission-based university, where SDGs can restructure and update the whole knowledge transfer approach to students and among staff. However, this transition is still difficult since departments and administrative unites operate in silos and the leader’s agenda does not allow a real flexible and adaptable model to feed in. Researchers and administrators also lack tools to identify which interactions are the most important to tackle, and evidence to show how particular interventions and policies help or hinder progress towards the goals. Given the size of the task of achieving the SDGs, this mapping exercise provides interesting stimula for the academic sector to accelerate insights on the SDGs complementarity and prioritization

Explorative multidimensional analysis for Energy Efficiency: Dataviz versus clustering algorithms

We propose a simple tool to help the energy management of a large building stock defining clusters of buildings with the same function, setting alert thresholds for each cluster, and easily recognizing outliers. The objective is to enable a building management system to be used for detection of abnormal energy use. We start reviewing energy performance indicators, and how they feed into data visualization (DataViz) tools for a large building stock, especially for university campuses. After a brief presentation of the University of Turin’s building stock which represents our case study, we perform an explorative analysis based on the Multidimensional Detective approach by Inselberg, using the Scatter Plot Matrix and the Parallel Coordinates methods. The k-means clustering algorithm is then applied on the same dataset to test the hypotheses made during the explorative analysis. Our results show that DataViz techniques provide quick and user-friendly solutions for the energy management of a large stock of buildings. In particular, they help identifying clusters of buildings and outliers and setting alert thresholds for various Energy Efficiency Indices

L'estimo e l'economia

In questo primo capitolo, senza pretesa di esaustività, si intendono introdurre alcune teorie fondamentali alla base della valutazione delle risorse economiche, quali immobili o intangibili, beni privati e pubblici piani e progetti di trasformazione, strategie di sviluppo urbano e sostenibilità, attualmente oggetto di interesse dell’estimo. Considerando che gli asset intangibili, quali il benessere e la cultura, sono diventati sempre più cruciali per lo sviluppo e la crescita economica dei diversi Paesi, oltre che risorse sempre più scarse, il campo di interesse dell’estimo si è ampliato, inglobando anche tali beni. Le relative metodologie di valutazione sono piuttosto articolate e, in questa sede, si intende fornire solo una sintetica presentazione dei principali approcci mutuati dalle diverse discipline cui si fa cenno, fra queste la matematica finanziaria e l’econometria (illustrate in appendice), l’equilibrio spaziale, le scienze economiche e sociali che servono per capire e governare la complessità delle scelte nel campo dello sviluppo urbano sostenibile e Smart City. La questione ambientale rappresenta un imperativo non trascurabile a livello planetario. In economia, essa assume specifiche connotazioni di carattere morale ed etico, con riferimento al concetto di green economy. L’economia verde riconosce e investe nel capitale naturale, considerando la biodiversità come il tessuto vivente proprio di questo pianeta, che contribuisce al benessere umano e fornisce servizi gratuitamente, risorse preziose per il benessere delle persone. Insito nella green economy è anche il concetto di sviluppo sostenibile che da alcuni decenni sta impegnando studiosi di diverse discipline, ed in particolare gli studiosi di valutazione economica per la necessità di definire appropriate metriche di riferimento alle diverse scale (spaziali), dai materiali, all’edificio, alla città, fino alla scala territoriale e globale

Place-based solutions for global social-ecological dilemmas: An analysis of locally grounded, diversified, and cross-scalar initiatives in the Amazon

The Amazon has a diverse array of social and environmental initiatives that adopt forest-based land-use practices to promote rural development and support local livelihoods. However, they are often insufficiently recognized as transformative pathways to sustainability and the factors that explain their success remain understudied. To address this gap, this paper proposes that local initiatives that pursue three particular pathways are more likely to generate improvements in social-ecological outcomes: (1) maintaining close connections with local grassroots, (2) pursuing diversity in productive activities performed and partnership choices, and (3) developing cross-scale collaborations. To test these ideas we collected and analyzed observations of 157 initiatives in Brazil and Peru, applying a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses. Our results show that initiatives maintaining groundedness in representing the interests and concerns of local actors while partnering with other organizations at multiple scales are more likely to develop joint solutions to social-ecological problems. Partnerships and support from external organizations may strengthen and enhance local capabilities, providing a platform for negotiating interests and finding common ground. Such diversified pathways demonstrate the power of local actors to transcend their own territories and have broader impacts in sustainability objectives. Our findings highlight the need to make governmental and non-governmental support (e.g., financial, technical, political) available according to local needs to enable local initiatives' own ways of addressing global environmental change