Recovery and reuse of abandoned buildings for student housing: A case study in Catania, Italy

Over the past 15 years, housing supply for university students has increased significantly given the considerable attention provided by national institutions on the issue of student housing. In Italy, however, only approximately 4% of students live in university residences. Since 2001, interventions on existing buildings have accounted for approximately 60% of the overall measures proposed for new university residences; these interventions comprise most of the available public economic resources. The possibility of recovering and reusing existing buildings for university residences is remarkable for the city of Catania because most of the students are enrolled in university courses located within the historic city center. Moreover, abandoned buildings are currently a significant part of the city׳s architectural heritage. This research aims to develop an articulated and integrated set of frameworks to support the various phases of the design process for recovering and then reusing existing buildings as university residences. The proposed approach applies existing dimensional standards and environmental sustainability principles to a constructed building using traditional techniques. Keywords: University residences, Historic center, Recovery, Reuse, Refurbishment, Retrofi

A sustainable approach towards the retrofit of the public housing building stock: Energy-architectural experimental and numerical analysis

Nowadays, energy retrofit interventions on the existing building stock are of paramount importance towards energy consumption and emissions reductions in the construction sector. Such interventions are also crucial in the view of increasing cities resilience with respect to the intensification of frequent extreme weather events, such as cold spells and heatwaves. Indeed, a wide portion of our cities is dated and lacking with respect to performances. These are the motivations behind the proposed sustainable approach, which deals with the environmental perspective, but also with social and economic ones, by proposing the retrofit of the Public Residential Building stock (Edilizia Residenziale Pubblica, ERP). The objective is to improve the energy performance of ERP stock by means of construction materials coming from local km0 agricultural waste and by-products. The research was conducted by means of in field and numerical analyses of the energy performances of a relevant case study building. Different layers of bio-based, recycled construction materials for the envelope were tested with respect to their efficacy in improving the energy performance of a case study building. The results demonstrate that the most performing envelope solutions and their combination are able to reduce up to 36% of the yearly energy consumption for heating

The evapotranspiration process in green roofs: a review

Previous research has shown that most of the green roof benefits are related to the cooling effect. In the literature available, however, it is still not clear how and how much the evapotranspiration affects the performance of a green roof. In order to fill the gap in this research topic, this study carries out a review on the cooling effect due to the evapotranspiration process of green roofs. First of all, an overview of the evapotranspiration phenomenon in green roofs, as well as the equipment and methods used for its measurement are presented. Then, the main experimental results available in literature, the physical-mathematical models and the dynamic simulation software used for the evaluation of the latent heat flux are also analysed and discussed among the available literature. Moreover, this review proposes a classification of the results carried out by previous studies as function of the main parameters affecting the evapotranspiration process (e.g. volumetric water content, stomatal resistance, Leaf Area Index, solar radiation, wind velocity, relative humidity, soil thickness, and substrate composition). Additionally, a sensitivity analysis of the results obtained from the literature allowed underlining the correlation among the main factors affecting the evapotranspiration. Finally, a vision of the world area where green roof studies were performed is provided. From the results, it is possible to emphasize that most of the studies that evaluated the evapotranspiration used high precision load cells. Furthermore, all the heat transfer models of green roofs considered in this review took into account the latent heat flux due to evaporation of water from the substrate and plants transpiration, however, only few of them were experimentally validated.This work is partially funded by the Spanish governmentENE2015-64117-C5-1-R (MINECO/FEDER). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2017 SGR 1537). GREiA is certified agent TECNIO in the category of technology developers by the Government of Catalonia. Julià Coma would like to thank Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad de España for the Grant Juan de la Cierva, FJCI-2016-30345. This research is also funded by “the Notice 5/2016 for financing the Ph.D. regional grant in Sicily” as part of the Operational Programme of European Social Funding 2014–2020 (PO FSE 2014–2020)

Transanal protrusion of intussusception can be sign of Waugh syndrome

Intussusception rarely occurs with transanal prolapse of intussusception (TAPI), this presentation may be a sign of Waugh's syndrome (WS), an association between intestinal malrotation and intussusception. The authors present the case of infant with an episode of TAPI, resolved with air enema, who required later diagnostic tests that showed the presence of WS, for which surgery was required after the resolution of the intussusception. At now we found only 72 cases reported of WS and some of them clinically presented with TAPI. In our opinion, patients with this type of presentation require a thorough radiological study of the intestine to rule out intestinal malrotations

towards the development of interfaces for students with speech disorder and motor impairments

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Energy Assessment of A PCM–Embedded Plaster: Embodied Energy Versus Operational Energy

Phase change materials (PCMs) are an emerging technology that can be integrated in building envelope components. PCMs are able to stabilise indoor air temperature and increase thermal energy storage especially in lightweight constructions. Within a research activity aimed at developing advanced plasters with improved thermal properties, a plaster which incorporates a microencapsulated paraffin-based PCM was developed. The paper highlights the importance of an overall analysis, facing both operational and embodied energy, since the expected decrease of the energy consumption during the operational stage difficultly counterbalances the high energy impact related to manufacturing processes

Effects of single or combined water deficit and aphid attack on tomato volatile organic compound (VOC) emission and plant-plant communication

Plants release a broad spectrum of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The composition of the released VOC blend is dependent on the physiological status and, consequently, is affected by biotic and abiotic stresses. Stress-related VOCs can be perceived by different organisms, including natural enemies of herbivores and neighboring plants. Here, the responses of tomato plants (emitters) to single or combined abiotic (water stress) and biotic (aphid attack) stresses, and the effect of VOC released by emitters on neighboring unstressed plants (receivers), have been investigated. Emissions of α-pinene and methyl salicylate from plants exposed to single or combined stress, and of camphene from plants exposed to water or combined stress were significantly higher than in unstressed plants. In receivers, only the release of methyl salicylate increased when companion emitters were stressed. The expression of genes related to VOC biosynthesis and plant defense responses was unaffected or declined in water-stressed emitters, and was generally higher in receivers than in emitters. The gene coding for methyl salicylate biosynthesis was particularly active in aphid-attacked emitters and in receivers that were conditioned by the infested emitters. In addition, VOCs emitted by stressed plants induce VOC emission in unstressed receivers, and this increases attraction of parasitic wasps, which may improve protection against aphid attacks under conditions of reduced water availability

Molecular pathology, oxidative stress, and biomarkers in obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is characterized by intermittent hypoxia (IH) during sleep due to recurrent upper airway obstruction. The derived oxidative stress (OS) leads to complications that do not only concern the sleep-wake rhythm but also systemic dysfunctions. The aim of this narrative literature review is to investigate molecular alterations, diagnostic markers, and potential medical therapies for OSAS. We analyzed the literature and synthesized the evidence collected. IH increases oxygen free radicals (ROS) and reduces antioxidant capacities. OS and metabolic alterations lead OSAS patients to undergo endothelial dysfunction, osteoporosis, systemic inflammation, increased cardiovascular risk, pulmonary remodeling, and neurological alterations. We treated molecular alterations known to date as useful for understanding the pathogenetic mechanisms and for their potential application as diagnostic markers. The most promising pharmacological therapies are those based on N-acetylcysteine (NAC), Vitamin C, Leptin, Dronabinol, or Atomoxetine + Oxybutynin, but all require further experimentation. CPAP remains the approved therapy capable of reversing most of the known molecular alterations; future drugs may be useful in treating the remaining dysfunctions