Il ruolo strategico del service core nel bilancio energetico di un edificio alto

L’elemento fondamentale e caratteristico di un grattacielo è senza dubbio il service core, ovvero il nucleo di connessione che attraversa verticalmente l’intero edificio. Il service core è occupato in gran parte dagli elementi di comunicazione verticale (ascensori e scale), ma svolge però altre importanti funzioni: molto spesso esso è infatti circondato da un “guscio” (core) strutturale al quale è affidata la resistenza dell’edificio ai carichi orizzontali generati dal vento e dai sismi. All’interno del service core trovano inoltre alloggiamento tutti i principali cavedi di ventilazione, le reti di servizio (elettricità, fluidi, dati ecc), e gli spazi meno pregiati di un grattacielo come i servizi igienici, magazzini, ripostigli, ecc. La corretta progettazione del service core è fondamentale per il funzionamento del grattacielo e i principali attori coinvolti nella realizzazione di un edificio alto sono direttamente interessati dalle caratteristiche di questo complesso elemento. Oltre ai progettisti e agli specialisti delle varie discipline tecniche, l’efficiente progettazione del service core risulta cruciale anche per un’altra figura chiave del processo che porta alla costruzione di un grattacielo: il developer, ossia la figura professionale che si fa carico delle esigenze degli utenti. Il service core si presenta infatti come l’elemento chiave anche nel successo economico della costruzione, poiché dalla sua corretta progettazione dipende il rapporto di efficienza dell’utilizzo dello spazio (superficie netta commerciabile / superficie totale costruita). Nonostante la sua importanza, il service core viene però troppo frequentemente visto dagli architetti come un elemento secondario, una componente esclusivamente tecnica del progetto, “estranea” alle competenze e agli interessi dell’architettura. La sua messa a punto viene dunque lasciata agli specialisti delle varie discipline (ingegneri strutturisti, trasportisti, progettisti degli impianti tecnici, ecc.), ognuno dei quali è responsabile della definizione degli elementi di sua competenza e il risultato finale è spesso dato dalla semplice somma delle singole componenti. In questo modo vengono meno due aspetti fondamentali: l’integrazione funzionale degli elementi progettuali e la possibilità di una evoluzione tipologica di questo elemento. La presente ricerca si prefigge l’obiettivo di sistematizzare le nozioni disponibili riguardanti la progettazione del service core di un edificio alto per fornire, ai destinatari dello studio, gli strumenti necessari a comprendere il ruolo fondamentale che questo elemento e le sue singole componenti svolgono nel bilancio energetico di un grattacielo

Creating Industry-Accepted Criteria for Measuring Tall Building Floor Area

The entire tall building industry relies on floor-area measurements to serve as a precise, unambiguous calculation to guide decisions. This can range from architects using the measurement to influence design interventions and engineers formulating the loads on their systems, to developers determining the value of their assets and property managers analyzing the efficiency of building components. Unfortunately, the measurement systems for determining his floor area are not consistent across all markets, which creates a massive gap in the ability to compare projects across time and location, preventing evaluation of the success of one project against another, and making it difficult to build upon industry decisions made in the past. Work to create floor-area measurement standards that are accepted internationally is underway, but there is hesitancy from investors, governing bodies, and professionals that have used different methods for many years. This paper, one of the outputs of a one-year research project funded by ArcelorMittal, examines some of the problems with existing, local regulations, and presents the progress that has been made towards a globally-accepted standar

A case of cryptogenic organizing pneumonia occurring in Crohn's disease.

A 29 year-old-man with Crohn's disease, who developed diffuse pulmonary infiltrates and hypoxemia two months following oral administration of mesalazine, was examined. Clinical findings and computed tomography were suggestive of, and lung histology was diagnostic of, bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia, also known as cryptogenic organizing pneumonia. Although the data did not allow for definitive conclusions, they did suggest that the pulmonary disease was an extraintestinal manifestation of Crohn's disease, rather than an adverse reaction to mesalazine. In fact, the patient showed clinical, radiological and functional improvements, despite the treatment with mesalazine and the withdrawal of steroid therapy

Inhibition of Bromodomain Proteins in Treatment of Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma

Only ~50% of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most common and aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, enter long-term remission after standard chemotherapy, and patients who do not respond to treatment have few options. Therefore, there is a critical need for effective and targeted therapeutics for DLBCL. Recent studies highlight the incidence of increased c-MYC protein in DLBCL and the correlation between high levels of c-MYC and poor survival prognosis of DLBCL patients, suggesting that c-MYC is a compelling therapeutic target for DLBCL therapy. The small molecule JQ1 suppresses c-MYC expression through inhibition of the BET family of bromodomain proteins. We show that JQ1 efficiently inhibited cell proliferation of human DLBCL cells regardless of their molecular subtypes, suggesting a broad effect of JQ1 in DLBCL. After JQ1 treatment, initial G1 arrest in DLBCL cells was followed by either apoptosis or senescence. In DLBCL cells treated with JQ1, we found that c-MYC expression was suppressed in the context of the natural, chromosomally-translocated or an amplified gene locus. Furthermore, JQ1 treatment significantly suppressed growth of DLBCL cells engrafted subcutaneously and improved survival of mice engrafted with DLBCL cells intraperitoneally. These results demonstrate that inhibition of the BET family of bromodomain proteins, and consequently c-MYC, has the potential clinical utility in DLBCL treatment

Pulmonary sclerosing pneumocytoma: A pre and intraoperative diagnostic challenge. report of two cases and review of the literature

Pulmonary sclerosing pneumocytoma is a rare benign pulmonary tumor of primitive epithelial origin. Because of the unspecific radiological features mimicking malignancies and its histological heterogeneity, the differential diagnosis with adenocarcinoma and carcinoid tumors is still challenging. We report our experience of two cases of sclerosing pneumocytoma, as well as a review of the literature. Immunohistochemical findings showed intense staining of the cuboidal epithelial cells for cytokeratin-pool and TTF-1, with focal positivity for progesterone receptors. Round and spindle cells expressed positivity for vimentin, TTF-1 and focally for the progesterone receptor. Cytologic diagnosis of pulmonary pneumocytoma requires the identification of its dual cell population, made up of abundant stromal cells and fewer surface cells. Since the pre-and intraoperative diagnosis should guide surgical decision making, obtaining a sufficient specimen size to find representative material in the cell block is of paramount importance

Stiffness and slip in multi-dowel flitch-plate timber connections

Large multi-dowel connections can provide the strong and ductile connections required for large, highly-loaded timber structures, but their slip under load is not well understood. This is important because accumulated local displacements at connections can have significant implications for overall building serviceability. Empirical relationships for the slip of a single-dowel connection do not capture the dowel interaction effects of the multi-dowel connections used in larger structures. We present the results of an experimental test series and probabilistic numerical analysis investigating the development of stiffness in multi-dowel timber flitch plate connections. The influence of the diameter and number of dowels on the stiffness of the connection are investigated, including the influence of off-centring of dowels due to manufacturing tolerances. The test series is used to validate a probabilistic model for the stiffness of such a connection. The model incorporates the nonlinear stiffness and hole opening observed in single-dowel connections to predict the behaviour of the group. The study shows that the random off-centring of dowels in multi-dowel connections reduces the range of displacements over which the connection displays zero stiffness, but that this zone is not eliminated as a result of irreversible hole opening under load

PILOT APPLICATION OF 3D UNDERWATER IMAGING TECHNIQUES FOR MAPPING <i>POSIDONIA OCEANICA</i> (L.) DELILE MEADOWS

Seagrass communities are considered one of the most productive and complex marine ecosystems. Seagrasses belong to a small group of 66 species that can form extensive meadows in all coastal areas of our planet. Posidonia oceanica beds are the most characteristic ecosystem of the Mediterranean Sea, and should be constantly monitored, preserved and maintained, as specified by EU Habitats Directive for priority habitats. Underwater 3D imaging by means of still or video cameras can allow a detailed analysis of the temporal evolution of these meadows, but also of the seafloor morphology and integrity. Video-photographic devices and open source software for acquiring and managing 3D optical data rapidly became more and more effective and economically viable, making underwater 3D mapping an easier task to carry out. 3D reconstruction of the underwater scene can be obtained with photogrammetric techniques that require just one or more digital cameras, also in stereo configuration. In this work we present the preliminary results of a pilot 3D mapping project applied to the P. oceanica meadow in the Marine Protected Area of Capo Rizzuto (KR, Calabria Region &ndash; Italy)

Hilltop Curvature Increases With the Square Root of Erosion Rate

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Gabet, E. J., Mudd, S. M., Wood, R. W., Grieve, S. W. D., Binnie, S. A., & Dunai, T. J. (2021). Hilltop curvature increases with the square root of erosion rate. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 126, e2020JF005858. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF005858, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF005858. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions

Climate and soil micro‐organisms drive soil phosphorus fractions in coastal dune systems

1. The importance of soil phosphorus (P) is likely to increase in coming decades due to the growing atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition originated by industrial and agricultural activities. We currently lack a proper understanding of the main drivers of soil P pools in coastal dunes, which rank among the most valued priority conservation areas worldwide. 2. Here, we evaluated the joint effects of biotic (i.e. microbial abundance and richness, vegetation and cryptogams cover) and abiotic (i.e. pH and aridity) factors on labile, medium‐lability and recalcitrant soil P pools across a wide aridity gradient in the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula. 3. Climate determined the availability of medium‐lability, recalcitrant and total P, but had a minor net effect on labile P, which was positively and significantly related to the presence of plants, mosses and lichens. Medium‐lability P was significantly influenced by soil bacterial richness and abundance (positively and negatively, respectively). 4. Our results suggest that micro‐organisms transfer P from medium‐lability pool to more labile one. At the same time, increases in bacterial richness associated to biofilms might be involved in the thickening of the medium‐lability P pool in our climosequence. 5. These bacterial‐mediated transfers would confer resistance to the labile P pool under future climate change and uncover an important role of soil micro‐organisms as modulators of the geochemical P cycle.This project was financed by FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades-Agencia Estatal de Investigación/Proyect (CGL2017-88124-R), European Research Council (ERC Grant Agreement 647038 [BIODESERT]) and the Fundaçã o para Ciência e Tecnologia (IF/00950/2014) and the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and COMPETE 2020 (UID/BIA/04004/2013). F.T.M. acknowledges support from Generalitat Valenciana (CIDEGENT/2018/041). B.K.S. acknowledge research support on microbes and ecosystem functions from the Australian Research Council (DP170104634) and Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation

Linguistic profile automated characterisation in pluripotential clinical high-risk mental state (CHARMS) conditions: methodology of a multicentre observational study

Introduction: Language is usually considered the social vehicle of thought in intersubjective communications. However, the relationship between language and high- order cognition seems to evade this canonical and unidirectional description (ie, the notion of language as a simple means of thought communication). In recent years, clinical high at-risk mental state (CHARMS) criteria (evolved from the Ultra-High-Risk paradigm) and the introduction of the Clinical Staging system have been proposed to address the dynamicity of early psychopathology. At the same time, natural language processing (NLP) techniques have greatly evolved and have been successfully applied to investigate different neuropsychiatric conditions. The combination of at-risk mental state paradigm, clinical staging system and automated NLP methods, the latter applied on spoken language transcripts, could represent a useful and convenient approach to the problem of early psychopathological distress within a transdiagnostic risk paradigm. Methods and analysis: Help-seeking young people presenting psychological distress (CHARMS+/− and Clinical Stage 1a or 1b; target sample size for both groups n=90) will be assessed through several psychometric tools and multiple speech analyses during an observational period of 1-year, in the context of an Italian multicentric study. Subjects will be enrolled in different contexts: Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health (DINOGMI), Section of Psychiatry, University of Genoa—IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa, Italy; Mental Health Department—territorial mental services (ASL 3—Genoa), Genoa, Italy; and Mental Health Department—territorial mental services (AUSL—Piacenza), Piacenza, Italy. The conversion rate to full-blown psychopathology (CS 2) will be evaluated over 2 years of clinical observation, to further confirm the predictive and discriminative value of CHARMS criteria and to verify the possibility of enriching them with several linguistic features, derived from a fine-grained automated linguistic analysis of speech. Ethics and dissemination: The methodology described in this study adheres to ethical principles as formulated in the Declaration of Helsinki and is compatible with International Conference on Harmonization (ICH)-good clinical practice. The research protocol was reviewed and approved by two different ethics committees (CER Liguria approval code: 591/2020—id.10993; Comitato Etico dell’Area Vasta Emilia Nord approval code: 2022/0071963). Participants will provide their written informed consent prior to study enrolment and parental consent will be needed in the case of participants aged less than 18 years old. Experimental results will be carefully shared through publication in peer- reviewed journals, to ensure proper data reproducibility. Trial registration number DOI:10.17605/OSF.IO/BQZTN