SASICE: Safety and sustainability in civil engineering

The performance of the built environment and the construction sector are of major importance in Europe’s long term goals of sustainable development in a changing climate. At the same time, the quality of life of all European citizens needs to be improved and the safety of the built environment with respect to man-made and natural hazards, such as flooding and earthquakes, needs to be ensured. Education has a central role to play in the transformation of a construction sector required to meet increasing demands with regard to safety and sustainability. In this work, the SASICE project is presented. The aim of this project is to promote the integration of safety and sustainability in civil engineering education. The project is organised in the context of the Lifelong Learning Programme, funded by the European Community. The coordinator organisation is the University of Bologna. Nine partner universities from different countries are involved in this transnational project. The universities participating to the project constitute a network of high level competences in the civil engineering area, with several opportunities to improve lifelong learning adopting different media: joint curricula, teaching modules and professor and student exchanges. As a response to the challenge regarding new educational methods in sustainable engineering, teaching modules are developed in 4 thematic areas: (1) Safety in construction, (2) Risk induced by Natural Hazards Assessment, (3) Sustainability in construction, and (4) Sustainability at the territorial level. The development of the teaching modules is based on an extensive analysis of the need for highly qualified education on Safety and Sustainability involving all relevant stakeholders (European and national authorities, companies, research institutes, professional organizations, and universities).The main target is enabling students to introduce these advanced topics in their study plans and curricula and reach, at the end of their studies, a specific skill and expertise in safety and sustainability in Civil Engineering. With our natural resources fading away and our infrastructure in dire need of repair, new trends and challenges in civil engineering education in the concept of “Sustainable Development” are needed to be adressed.<br/

Interactive management control via analytic hierarchy process (AHP). An empirical study in a public university hospital.

Management control in public university hospitals is a challenging task because of continuous changes due to external pressures (e.g. economic pressures, stakeholder focuses and scientific progress) and internal complexities (top management turnover, shared leadership, technological evolution, and researcher oriented mission). Interactive budgeting contributed to improving vertical and horizontal communication between hospital and stakeholders and between different organizational levels. This paper describes an application of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to enhance interactive budgeting in one of the biggest public university hospital in Italy. AHP improved budget allocation facilitating elicitation and formalization of units’ needs. Furthermore, AHP facilitated vertical communication among manager and stakeholders, as it allowed multilevel hierarchical representation of hospital needs, and horizontal communication among staff of the same hospital, as it allowed units’ need prioritization and standardization, with a scientific multi-criteria approach, without using complex mathematics. Finally, AHP allowed traceability of a complex decision making processes (as budget allocation), this aspect being of paramount importance in public sectors, where managers are called to respond to many different stakeholders about their choices

role of winter host plants in vineyard colonization and phenology of zygina rhamni hemiptera cicadellidae typhlocybinae

Abstract Zygina rhamni Ferrari (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Typhlocybinae) is a mesophyll-feeding leafhopper that infests grapevine, Vitis vinifera L. This leafhopper's overwintering strategy and the dynamics of its vineyard colonization, relative to the distance between the grapevines and the winter host plants and different grapevine vegetative densities, are described herein. This species shows a facultative heteroecious life cycle. In autumn, it migrates from vineyards to bramble, Rubus gr. fruticosus, and rose, Rosa chinensis Jacquin. On these host plants, females lay eggs that start to hatch at the end of March. Adults that developed on bramble colonize grapevines beginning in May; the leaf fall of rose, which takes place during the first half of April, probably causes the death of unhatched eggs and nymphs. We found that overwintering females can move back to vineyards and lay eggs until early June. The dynamics of vineyard colonization by the leafhopper involved initial concentration in areas close t..

Expression and purification of the recombinant subunits of toluene/o-xylene monooxygenase and reconstitution of the active complex.

This paper describes the cloning of the genes coding for each component of the complex of toluene/o-xylene monooxygenase from Pseudomonas stutzeri OX1, their expression, purification and characterization. Moreover, the reconstitution of the active complex from the recombinant subunits has been obtained, and the functional role of each component in the electron transfer from the electron donor to molecular oxygen has been determined. The coexpression of subunits B, E and A leads to the formation of a subcomplex, named H, with a quaternary structure (BEA)2, endowed with hydroxylase activity. Tomo F component is an NADH oxidoreductase. The purified enzyme contains about 1 mol of FAD, 2 mol of iron, and 2 mol of acid labile sulfide per mol of protein, as expected for the presence of one [2Fe-2S] cluster, and exhibits a typical flavodoxin absorption spectrum. Interestingly, the sequence of the protein does not correspond to that previously predicted on the basis of DNA sequence. We have shown that this depends on minor errors in the gene sequence that we have corrected. C component is a Rieske-type ferredoxin, whose iron and acid labile sulfide content is in agreement with the presence of one [2Fe-2S] cluster. The cluster is very sensitive to oxygen damage. Mixtures of the subcomplex H and of the subunits F, C and D are able to oxidize p-cresol into 4-methylcathecol, thus demonstrating the full functionality of the recombinant subunits as purified. Finally, experimental evidence is reported which strongly support a model for the electron transfer. Subunit F is the first member of an electron transport chain which transfers electrons from NADH to C, which tunnels them to H subcomplex, and eventually to molecular oxyge

Exploring concepts of health with male prisoners in three category-C English prisons

Lay understandings of health and illness have a well established track record and a plethora of research now exists which has examined these issues. However, there is a dearth of research which has examined the perspectives of those who are imprisoned. This paper attempts to address this research gap. The paper is timely given that calls have been made to examine lay perspectives in different geographical locations and a need to re-examine health promotion approaches in prison settings. Qualitative data from thirty-six male sentenced prisoners from three prisons in England were collected. The data was analysed in accordance with Attride-Stirling's (2001) thematic network approach. Although the men's perceptions of health were broadly similar to the general population, some interesting findings emerged which were directly related to prison life and its associated structures. These included access to the outdoors and time out of their prison cell, as well as maintaining relationships with family members through visits. The paper proposes that prisoners' lay views should be given higher priority given that prison health has traditionally been associated with medical treatment and the bio-medical paradigm more generally. It also suggests that in order to fulfil the World Health Organization's (WHO) vision of viewing prisons as health promoting settings, lay views should be recognised to shape future health promotion policy and practice

A Molecular Phylogeny of the Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera)

Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera) are extremely diverse with more than 23,000 species described and over 500,000 species estimated to exist. This is the first comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the superfamily based on a molecular analysis of 18S and 28S ribosomal gene regions for 19 families, 72 subfamilies, 343 genera and 649 species. The 56 outgroups are comprised of Ceraphronoidea and most proctotrupomorph families, including Mymarommatidae. Data alignment and the impact of ambiguous regions are explored using a secondary structure analysis and automated (MAFFT) alignments of the core and pairing regions and regions of ambiguous alignment. Both likelihood and parsimony approaches are used to analyze the data. Overall there is no impact of alignment method, and few but substantial differences between likelihood and parsimony approaches. Monophyly of Chalcidoidea and a sister group relationship between Mymaridae and the remaining Chalcidoidea is strongly supported in all analyses. Either Mymarommatoidea or Diaprioidea are the sister group of Chalcidoidea depending on the analysis. Likelihood analyses place Rotoitidae as the sister group of the remaining Chalcidoidea after Mymaridae, whereas parsimony nests them within Chalcidoidea. Some traditional family groups are supported as monophyletic (Agaonidae, Eucharitidae, Encyrtidae, Eulophidae, Leucospidae, Mymaridae, Ormyridae, Signiphoridae, Tanaostigmatidae and Trichogrammatidae). Several other families are paraphyletic (Perilampidae) or polyphyletic (Aphelinidae, Chalcididae, Eupelmidae, Eurytomidae, Pteromalidae, Tetracampidae and Torymidae). Evolutionary scenarios discussed for Chalcidoidea include the evolution of phytophagy, egg parasitism, sternorrhynchan parasitism, hypermetamorphic development and heteronomy

Northern Ireland’s 1968 at 50: agonism and protestant perspectives on civil rights

2018 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the seminal events of Northern Ireland’s 1968: a milestone offering up an opportunity to reassess a pivotal moment in the province’s recent past. This article will argue that the civil rights period has fitted into a common model of the past being used to perpetuate the divisions at the heart of Northern Irish society. It will go on to demonstrate how an innovative methodological and theoretical approach, based on oral history, education and – most crucially – agonism, has facilitated the unearthing and integration of complex and hitherto marginalised Ulster Protestant perspectives

Some experiences with bored and auger piles in Naples area

Experimental evidence on load-settlement behaviour of foundation piles in the volcanic soils of Naples area is presented and discussed. The variability of behaviour among piles of the same foundation seems independent of the pile technology (bored, driven, auger piles). The behaviour of auger piles is generally intermediate between those of bored and driven piles; the results of a number of proof load tests, performed on piles belonging to two recent auger pile foundations, confirm this finding. Eventually, the results of load tests carried out up to failure on large diameter bored piles, equipped with a preloading cell at the base and instrumented along the shaft by means of strain gages extensometers, are presented