High speed/high capacity railway and regional development - evaluation of effects on spatial accessibility

In the last decade the theme of high speed infrastructure in Italy has been deeply debated, with different political and technical opinions, which have expanded the time for projects and constructions. As a consequence of this long debate, a redefinition of the whole system, moving from high speed to high speed/high capacity railway system (HS/HC) has been agreed. This new model can be considered more suitable especially for the northern Italy corridor, which is highly populated and densely urbanised. Moreover, while the environmental effects of transportation facilities and of high speed infrastructure are relatively well known in literature since the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure has been applied to several study cases, the effects on economical and geographical structure are less studied and so quite often misunderstood or underestimated. According to a demand-side approach, infrastructure investments will follow mobility needs by the economical system, while from a supply-side approach infrastructure are a crucial means of regional growth. This paper presents a study case in northern Italy (the Milan-Verona track, of about 140 km of lenght), and it shows how spatial effect of a transport network can spread off far from the line, determining a new regional hierarchy and new location opportunity in a wide and highly populated area. A comparison has been made between the original high speed model and the most recent high speed-high capacity model. In the two cases the work investigates what is the area where the new infrastructure shows effects, at short and long term. With a spatial interaction model, used to represent residential location in relation to the distribution of workplaces, HS/HC line efficiency by accessibility calculus has been measured, showing several important results. Those results may be of interest even in similar European context where the HS programme is developing.

La sfida delle Valli Resilienti: una visione comunitaria per il domani

The theme concerning the restoration of urban texture built in historical centres, boosted through the reinterpretation of the “Carta di Gubbio”, has been enriched in the last decades of considerations about the role of such inhabited centres, especially in the case of minor centres, that have to be be taken into consideration in respect with their own territory and the main centres. Henceforth, intervention strategies have been derived with which the theme of recovery of buildings is entwined alongside the territory project. Beside the SNAI (2014), other financing project related to specific areas – among which the AttivAree (Fondazione Cariplo, 2016-2020) cross-sectorial program, have fostered a multidisciplinary, place-based approach which finds its core in a territorial scale project. The specific case of the Valli Resilienti project, as part of AttivAree, offers several ideas so as to discuss about strategies which, instead of focusing on structural interventions in driving financial sectors, try to trigger an improvement on a day-by-day basis, based on the knowledge of the areas and their potential and on the recovery of the existing heritage, albeit searching for solutions that may combine the traditional technical knowledge with state of the art technologies. In this perspective, a renewed attention is triggered in order for it to be put to the test on new challenges related to the recovery of the building stock of the historical fabrics

Phospholipases A1

Phospholipase A1 (PLA1) is an enzyme that hydrolyzes phospholipids and produces 2-acyl-lysophospholipids and fatty acids. This lipolytic activity is conserved in a wide range of organisms but is carried out by a diverse set of PLA1 enzymes. Where their function is known, PLA1s have been shown to act as digestive enzymes, possess central roles in membrane maintenance and remodeling, or regulate important cellular mechanisms by the production of various lysophospholipid mediators, such as lysophosphatidylserine and lysophosphatidic acid, which in turn have multiple biological functions

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

An approach to landscape analysis

Il lavoro propone una riflessione sulle modalità di descrizione, analisi e valutazione delle componenti costitutive del paesaggio utilizzate nelle valutazioni ambientali, alla luce della Convenzione Europea sul Paesaggio e della normativa della Regione Lombardia. Si propone una check-list di aspetti che, partendo dagli aspetti sensibili delle componenti del paesaggio, permetta la costruzione di carte tematiche ragionate sintetiche utili nelle procedure valutative. Il tema più delicato della rappresentazione di elementi legati alla percezione individuale ed al significato attribuito all'immagine complessiva del paesaggio viene affrontato a partire da un caso studio concreto

Movimento e qualità dello spazio urbano

Collana dei Quaderni CeSCAm n.4, diretta da R.Busi, quaderno n.

Can social significance be a good reason for the restoration of industrial buildings? The case of Borghetto’s warehouse (Brescia, Italy) - the reuse of a redundant industrial building

The province of Brescia underwent very considerable development due to the industrialisation that took place since the second half of the eighteenth century. Nowadays, redundant and decommissioned industrial buildings constitute a large part of the heritage of our built environment, in both urban and suburban areas. As time passes, these buildings are becoming more difficult to manage. They belong to an age which, measured in terms of time, is not far from ours; but at the same time, due to the rapid evolution of technology, the buildings are now far away in terms of usefulness. These structures often take on conflicting meanings, from the fascination of ruins to the memory of special moments in an otherwise difficult life, full of physical and psychological sacrifice. The demolition of numerous industrial buildings – which took place due to the enthusiasm for regaining urbanised spaces within the city or as urban cleansing of run-down areas – heightened awareness amongst professionals that the heritage of industrial buildings was gravely threatened. ‘Loss’ means not only the simple cancellation of architectonic areas, but above all the elimination of a material and immaterial cultural heritage of a more recent past

Le oasi del Garda

Lo studio del sistema idraulico tradizionale delle limonaie rivela le analogie fra questi metodi e l’agricoltura praticata nei deserti, mettendo i nostri “giardini d’agrumi terrazzati” in relazione con ecosistemi e percorsi culturali sovranazionali