Dispersione atmosferica a microscala di emissioni veicolari da flussi di traffico rilevati automaticamente e confronto con misure di qualità dell’aria

La stima del contributo del traffico veicolare all’inquinamento atmosferico urbano è una informazione fondamentale per la popolazione e le amministrazioni. A questo scopo è stata condotta una simulazione microscala della dispersione delle emissioni da traffico veicolare presso un incrocio trafficato lungo la circolare interna a Reggio Emilia, una città di medie dimensioni nella parte centrale della pianura Padana (Italia settentrionale). L’area studiata include una stazione della rete regionale di monitoraggio della qualità dell’aria: la stazione è classificata come sito urbano di traffico, ovvero ci si attende che la stazione sia principalmente influenzata dalle emissioni da traffico veicolare. I modelli di simulazione a microscala sono maggiormente adatti alla modellizzazione della dispersione in aree urbane, dove la concentrazione in gran parte dipende anche dalla stagnazione di aria dovuta ad edifici ed ostacoli. Micro-Swift-Spray (Aria Technologies, Francia), un modello di dispersione lagrangiano a particelle derivato direttamente dal modello Spray a scala locale, è stato utilizzato per simulare al dispersione delle emissioni da traffico veicolare (in particolare NOx e CO), tenendo conto anche della volumetria degli edifici e degli ostacoli. Un radar conta traffico installato localmente ha fornito velocità e lunghezza dei veicoli in continuo per un periodo di 12 giorni (13 – 24 gennaio 2014). Questi dati, assieme ai dettagli della composizione della flotta, sono stati usati per calcolare fattori di emissioni su misura in base alla tipologia, alimentazione, velocità e classe EURO di emissione. Sono stati prodotti dei campi 3D di concentrazione e i risultati sono stati confrontati con le misure locali di qualità dell’aria: la correlazione tra le concentrazioni orarie di NO x simulate ed osservate è risultata estremamente soddisfacente (r = 0.86). Il confronto con le misure di qualità dell’aria in condizioni di fondo urbano ha permesso di stimare meglio la performance del modello e la quantità di NO x primario e secondario al sito di studio

SP516ARTERIOVENOUS FISTULA SURVEILLANCE IN HEMODIALYZED PATIENTS: HOW, WHERE AND WHEN?

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Patient-reported outcome measure to implement routine assessment of cancer survivors' unmet needs: An overview of reviews and COSMIN analysis

: As the number of cancer survivors (CSs) is increasing worldwide, providing services relevant to the specific, unmet needs of these individuals is crucial. There are currently various patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) whose aim is to identify the unmet needs of CSs. Still, limited guidance supports healthcare providers in choosing the most valid and reliable PROMs for this purpose. We conducted this overview of systematic reviews (SRs) on the psychometric properties of PROMs addressing the unmet needs of adult CSs suffering from non-cutaneous cancers. We searched databases for SRs published between 2012 and January 2023. Two SRs were included, covering 14 PROMs tested on 19,151 CSs. These were assessed according to the COSMIN methodology for SRs of PROMs for the quality of their measurement properties and risk of bias, thus providing guidance in selecting PROMs that appropriately reflect the unmet needs of CSs

Vehicular exhaust impact simulated at microscale from traffic flow automatic surveys and emission factor evaluation

Vehicular emissions are a large NOx and CO source in Italian urban areas. In order to assess the impact of heavy traffic roads on local air quality a micro-scale simulation of pollutant concentration fields was produced. The investigated areas are in downtown of Reggio Emilia and Modena, two cities in central Po valley, Italy, and focused on high traffic intersections. An urban traffic station of the regional air quality monitoring network is present in both investigated areas, where traffic is expected to be the main local source of atmospheric pollutants. The simulation has been performed by the micro-scale model suite Micro-Swift-Spray (Aria Technologies, France and ARIANET, Italy) a Lagrangian particle dispersion model directly derived from the SPRAY code, able to account for buildings and obstacles. Simulated pollutants are NOx and CO, as main tracers of combustion emissions. Direct measurements of traffic flow have been continuously collected for 12 day survey periods (in Reggio Emilia from January 13 to 24, 2014 by a two channel doppler radar traffic counter and in Modena from October 28 to November 8, 2016 by four one channel doppler radar traffic counters) and used for the hourly modulation of vehicular emissions. Specific emission factors were obtained by the combination of radar counts with vehicular fleet composition for each municipality: these depend on vehicle type, fuel type, speed and EURO category and were calculated according to the EMEP/EEA guidelines for air pollutant emission inventory. Simulated concentration fields were evaluated over the period with direct traffic counts for the two studied areas: for both areas the results were compared to local air quality measurements collected at the traffic urban monitoring stations and also at the respective urban background stations. The simulated NOx hourly concentrations show a very large agreement with the observations, even if they result underestimated compared to the observed atmospheric concentrations at the traffic site. Simulated and observed concentrations show a fair agreement for CO. The results outline the representativeness of air quality stations in characterizing the sites for pollution level and for dominant pollutant sources

Learning from Mother Nature: Innovative Tools to Boost Endogenous Repair of Critical or Difficult-to-Heal Large Tissue Defects

For repair of chronic or difficult-to-heal tissue lesions and defects, major constraints exist to a broad application of cell therapy and tissue engineering approaches, i.e., transplantation of "ex vivo" expanded autologous stem/progenitor cells, alone or associated with carrier biomaterials. To enable a large number of patients to benefit, new strategies should be considered. One of the main goals of contemporary regenerative medicine is to develop new regenerative therapies, inspired from Mother Nature. In all injured tissues, when platelets are activated by tissue contact, their released factors promote innate immune cell migration to the wound site. Platelet-derived factors and factors secreted by migrating immune cells create an inflammatory microenvironment, in turn, causing the activation of angiogenesis and vasculogenesis processes. Eventually, repair or regeneration of the injured tissue occurs via paracrine signals activating, mobilizing or recruiting to the wound site cells with healing potential, such as stem cells, progenitors, or undifferentiated cells derived from the reprogramming of tissue differentiated cells. This review, largely based on our studies, discusses the identification of new tools, inspired by cellular and molecular mechanisms overseeing physiological tissue healing, that could reactivate dormant endogenous regeneration mechanisms lost during evolution and ontogenesis

Association of kidney disease measures with risk of renal function worsening in patients with type 1 diabetes

Background: Albuminuria has been classically considered a marker of kidney damage progression in diabetic patients and it is routinely assessed to monitor kidney function. However, the role of a mild GFR reduction on the development of stage 653 CKD has been less explored in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic role of kidney disease measures, namely albuminuria and reduced GFR, on the development of stage 653 CKD in a large cohort of patients affected by T1DM. Methods: A total of 4284 patients affected by T1DM followed-up at 76 diabetes centers participating to the Italian Association of Clinical Diabetologists (Associazione Medici Diabetologi, AMD) initiative constitutes the study population. Urinary albumin excretion (ACR) and estimated GFR (eGFR) were retrieved and analyzed. The incidence of stage 653 CKD (eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) or eGFR reduction > 30% from baseline was evaluated. Results: The mean estimated GFR was 98 \ub1 17 mL/min/1.73m2 and the proportion of patients with albuminuria was 15.3% (n = 654) at baseline. About 8% (n = 337) of patients developed one of the two renal endpoints during the 4-year follow-up period. Age, albuminuria (micro or macro) and baseline eGFR < 90 ml/min/m2 were independent risk factors for stage 653 CKD and renal function worsening. When compared to patients with eGFR > 90 ml/min/1.73m2 and normoalbuminuria, those with albuminuria at baseline had a 1.69 greater risk of reaching stage 3 CKD, while patients with mild eGFR reduction (i.e. eGFR between 90 and 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) show a 3.81 greater risk that rose to 8.24 for those patients with albuminuria and mild eGFR reduction at baseline. Conclusions: Albuminuria and eGFR reduction represent independent risk factors for incident stage 653 CKD in T1DM patients. The simultaneous occurrence of reduced eGFR and albuminuria have a synergistic effect on renal function worsening

Примерная тематика контрольных работ и тестов для дневного отделения

This dataset contains the observations of air quality collected within one experimental campaign conducted in August 2018 at Lazzaretto campus of the University of Bologna to verify the effectiveness of photocatalytic coatings in reducing pollutant concentrations. The dataset also contains the meteorological data collected during non-synoptic periods, representing the ideal condition to assess the behavior of the local circulation and turbulence. This experimental field campaign was conducted under WP3 (“Planning and evaluation of PCS solutions”) of the iSCAPE project. Briefly, two parallel street canyons were instrumented for measurements of meteorology and turbulence variables at two height levels, while pollutant concentrations were monitored at ground level inside both canyons. After a first period of parallel contemporary measurements to verify the presence of intrinsic differences between the two canyons, one of the two canyons (Canyon A) was painted with photocatalytic coatings, while the other (Canyon B) was left untouched and used as reference canyon. This dataset is linked to the paper “The effect of photocatalytic coatings on NOx concentrations in real-world street canyons” by Brattich E. et al., which has been submitted for publication on “Science of the Total Environment” edited by Elsevier. If you use this dataset for your research or work purposes, we ask that you acknowledge us in the use of your data, which can be done by including a proper citation in any documents or publications using these data

Development of a low-cost movable hot box for a preliminary definition of the thermal conductance of building envelopes

In the recent years, very promising envelop solutions are available for energy-efficient buildings. Particular interest is risen by the use of innovative natural or bio-based materials. Even if, in some cases, they are wastes coming from industrial or agricultural processes, they can be effectively applied as by-product for the creation of new more sustainable insulation panels and composite materials. In this context, the thermal characterization of a new building material, actually needs of very expensive equipment, with fixed installation, requiring expensive usage and periodic calibration and maintenance. Development of alternative methodologies to determine thermal properties, even in a preliminary way, seems important in order to reduce the costs and to make the tests accessible to wider number of researchers. This paper describes the development and the validation test of a lowcost movable hot box suitable for a preliminary assessment of the thermal conductance of wall elements and insulation panels with dimensions about 1 m x 1 m. The prototype of the hot box has been realized and then tested in the conductance range 0.5\u201310 W/(m2 K) by adopting two commercial panels used in the building sector. The availability of a low-cost, low-size and moveable equipment allowing a quickly and preliminary assessment of the thermal characteristics of a by-product is useful to understand if the material has suitable properties for future re-use. All this allows the reduction of laboratory time and costs needed for the thermal characterization tests

Numerical study of wind-driven natural ventilation in a greenhouse with screens

none6noAvailable online 30 September 2017This paper is devoted to the CFD study of wind-driven ventilation in a greenhouse, with particular focus to the effect of screens on the inner airflow distribution. Although the use of shading screens to cover agricultural crops has been constantly increased to reduce high radiation loads, their effect on airflow distribution within the greenhouse is still not fully understood. In this paper, CFD simulations of the ventilation in a greenhouse with and without screens are performed, by means of a finite volume CFD code (Ansys-Fluent 17.2), with a standard k-ε turbulence model, together with proper user defined functions (UDF) for the inlet velocity and turbulent profiles. The screens have been modeled as porous surfaces and the porosity and the permeability have been obtained experimentally and set into the model. The code has been validated by a comparison with velocity measurements performed in a greenhouse owned by the University of Bologna. Comparisons between the airflow velocity patterns obtained within the greenhouse with screens and without screens have been obtained for different external airflow velocities. The cases with screens show a more uniform distribution of velocity field inside the greenhouse than the cases without screens, especially near the crops. All the cases show that screens strongly affect the airflow velocity distribution inside the greenhouse and the distribution of volume flow rates through the vents. This work shows how the characteristics of the screens and their positioning near the vents are critical for the ventilation within a greenhouse.noneSantolini, Enrica; Pulvirenti, Beatrice; Benni, Stefano; Barbaresi, Luca; Torreggiani, Daniele; Tassinari, PatriziaSantolini, Enrica; Pulvirenti, Beatrice; Benni, Stefano; Barbaresi, Luca; Torreggiani, Daniele; Tassinari, Patrizi