‘Interrupted’ landscapes: post-earthquake reconstruction in between urban renewal and social identity of local communities

Il presente saggio vuole affrontare il tema della ricostruzione postsismica con un'attenzione alla questione del paesaggio, termine che lega in maniera indissolubile la realtà fisica del territorio a quei valori immateriali (storici, culturali, produttivi, enogastronomici, ecc.) che costituiscono l'identità dei luoghi. In questo senso si intendono “paesaggi interrotti” i luoghi distrutti dal sisma, perchè sono state interrotte le storie che legano gli abitanti al luogo, è stato interrotto quel processo di narrazione continua e di attribuzione di senso e significati che avviene tra una collettività e il suo territorio. La ricerca parte dall'analisi delle recenti ricostruzioni post-sistmiche, che hanno oscillato tra le due idee opposte di new town, poco distanti dalle città distrutte e ricostruzione “dov'era, com'era”. Il saggio indaga la dimensione sociale e semiologica del paesaggio, riflettendo sul tema dell'identità sociale, sull'attaccamento al luogo da parte degli abitanti, anche con l'obiettivo di definire linee guida e strategie progettuali per la ricostruzione sostenibile dei paesi distrutti dal sisma e da altri eventi disastrosi. In particolare vengono definite azioni di governance, strategie resilienti a partire dal coinvolgimento delle comunità locali e buone pratiche per la ricostruzione secondo un approccio paesaggistico al progetto urbano

Simmetria

Il termine è usato in architettura per indicare la composizione di elementi la cui unità è fondata su una serie di corrispondenze metriche e proporzionali tra le parti

Regenerating Urban Spaces under Place-specific Social Contexts: a Commentary on Green Infrastructures for Landscape Conservation

This study investigates the issue of green infrastructures in contemporary cities, adopting a strategic vision for increasingly complex metropolitan regions. Green infrastructures play an important role in ecological services and biodiversity preservation, improving significantly the quality of life of residents and visitors. The social dimension of gardens and parks at local (e.g. urban district) scale and green infrastructures at larger spatial scales is also addressed, fostering the relationship between local communities and urban landscapes. With economic crisis, urban parks are increasingly considered a primary component of integrated strategies for urban regeneration with a bottom-up approach, addressing the demand for "natural landscape" in peri-urban areas. By recovering public spaces with social purposes and providing a comprehensive strategy for aesthetic improvement of common goods, the analyzed case studies give examples of specific measures for promoting environment-friendly urban regeneration strategies under place-specific social contexts

A Fifty-Year Sustainability Assessment of Italian Agro-Forest Districts

DistrictAs cropland management and land use shifted towards more intensive practices, global land degradation increased drastically. Understanding relationships between ecological and socioeconomic drivers of soil and landscape degradation within these landscapes in economically dynamic contexts such as the Mediterranean region, requires multi-target and multi-scalar approaches covering long-term periods. This study provides an original approach for identifying desertification risk drivers and sustainable land management strategies within Italian agro-forest districts. An Environmental Sensitivity Area (ESA) approach, based on four thematic indicators (climate, soil, vegetation and land-use) and a composite index of desertification risk (ESAI), was used to evaluate changes in soil vulnerability and landscape degradation between the years 1960 and 2010. A multivariate model was developed to identify the most relevant drivers causing changes in land susceptibility at the district scale. Larger districts, and those with a higher proportion of their total surface area classified as agro-forest, had a significantly lower increase in land susceptibility to degradation during the 50 years when compared with the remaining districts. We conclude that preserving economic viability and ecological connectivity of traditional, extensive agricultural systems is a key measure to mitigate the desertification risk in the Mediterranean region

Re-sewing the urban periphery. A green strategy for fontivegge district in Perugia

The present study debates on the issue of urban regeneration in contemporary cities, adopting a strategic vision which includes the use of vegetation and green infrastructure to create a network of public spaces. Especially, urban periphery lacks of public spaces, meaning a public use of urban space for outdoor activities and social networks. The extraordinary program for the Italian peripheries, addressed to all the metropolitan cities and provincial capitals in 2016, inspired to Renzo Piano idea of “resewing” urban fabrics, has been a good opportunity for testing new approaches to urban regeneration. The case study investigated in this study is the financed project for the city of Perugia, which provides different interventions aimed at improving (and developing new) public spaces through vegetation enhancement and a large area destined to vegetable social gardens as a strategy for urban infill. By recovering public spaces with social purpose and providing a comprehensive strategy for aesthetic improvement of the city, the case study provides a representative example, how greening the city may promote together biodiversity conservation and urban regeneration

Espacios públicos y dimensión informal de la vida urbana en Quito

The present study examines the urban public spaces in Quito, through a reading key that connects the characteristics of the places, with the dynamics of use and the individual and collective perception of the users. Through the systematic mapping of urban space with cards, a taxonomic reference framework was built. You can observe an informal use of the public parks, which are populated by the inhabitants on holiday days, to spend time in the open air. What appears very remarkable is that, in absence of strong formal contents, simple surfaces used on a lawn with few trees, they become living spaces where local community interacts and performs activities. The informal city self-organizes through the spontaneous use of spaces, following instances from the bottom and responding to contingent needs in an adaptive manner. If the creation of consumer-oriented public spaces and specialized and segregated mono-functional structures have created a new geography of social exclusion in the western city, Quito's public spaces (which is a poor metropolis case) characterized by unpredictable and spontaneous uses, are socialization spaces where it is possible to cultivate a true relationships with the community. The study of informal practices can be a useful reference in Western metropolises, for the implementation of urban tactics and bottom-up regeneration practices, taking into account the everyday life of ordinary spaces.El presente estudio analiza los espacios públicos urbanos de la ciudad de Quito, desde una lectura que relaciona las características de los lugares, con las dinámicas de uso y la percepción individual y colectiva de los usuarios. En primer lugar ha sido posible estipular un cuadro taxonómico de referencia, mediante un atento trabajo sistemático de los espacios urbanos analizados. Se deduce un uso informal de los parques públicos por parte de los habitantes durante los días de fiesta, para disfrutar al aire libre. Lo que parece muy relevante es como, en ausencia de fuertes contenidos formales, los espacios destinados al área verde con algún arbolado, se transformen en espacios aceptados donde la comunidad local interacciona y cumple con una actividad de esparcimiento. La ciudad informal se auto-organiza con usos espontáneos de los espacios, siguiendo instintos y respondiendo a necesidades contingentes de manera adaptativa

Number of Nodes Removed With Inguinofemoral Lymphadenectomy and Risk of Isolated Groin Recurrence in Women With FIGO Stage IB-II Squamous Cell Vulvar Cancer

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate if the lymph node count from inguinofemoral lymphadenectomy impacted the risk of isolated groin recurrence in patients with nodenegative squamous cell vulvar cancer.Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of women with squamous cell vulvar cancer (stage IBYII according to the 2009 Revised International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics staging system) who underwent primary radical vulvar surgery and groin lymphadenectomy between January 2005 and December 2014. Patients' sociodemographic characteristics, the disease characteristics, the number of nodes removed from each groin, and the oncologic outcomewere evaluated. A cutoff value of at least 6 nodes removed from each groin was used to define the adequacy of inguinofemoral dissection.Results: Seventy-six patients, fulfilling the study inclusion criteria, were considered. The mean number of nodes removed (bilaterally) was 14.5 (T5.3, SD), with a range of 2 to 29 nodes. Thirty-three women (43.4%) had less than 6 nodes removed from each groin. In the whole study cohort, 4 cases of isolated groin recurrence (5.3%) were detected, and all these recurrences developed in patients with less than 6 nodes removed. Considering the demographic, clinical, and histopathological characteristics potentially related to the risk of groin recurrence, only the number of nodes removed showed a significant correlation.Conclusions: Women treated for vulvar cancer in which less than 6 nodes are removed from each groin are at higher risk of groin recurrence

Per una nuova rubrica: dal Network dalle sedi ai Cluster tecnologici.

A partire da questo numero, la rivista Techne, raccogliendo le proposte avanzate dalla comunità scientifica in occasione dell'ultima Assemblea dei Soci tenutasi lo scorso ottobre al MADE-Expo di Milano, trasforma la rubrica “Network SITdA”, oggi rassegna dei contributi dalle sedi universitarie, nella sezione “Cluster”, espressione di un modello organizzativo delle sinergie tra ricerca, formazione, impresa, finalizzato ad un dialogo più efficace con i vari livelli delle Istituzioni. Catalizzatori di nuove risposte alle sfide ambientali, economiche e sociali, i cluster hanno valenze interdisciplinari ed internazionali, per la creazione di 'nuova imprenditorialità dai saperi'. I cluster potrebbero aprire, pertanto nuove opportunità per la società e il mercato, in termini di prodotti, servizi, settori produttivi, modalità di organizzazione e interazione. Il numero 5 della rivista è occasione per introdurre una svolta nell'impegn

Heterogeneity in the Effect of Common Shocks on Healthcare Expenditure Growth

Health care expenditure growth is affected by important unobserved common shocks such as technological innovation, changes in sociological factors, shifts in preferences and the epidemiology of diseases. While common factors impact in principle all countries, their effect is likely to differ across countries. To allow for unobserved heterogeneity in the effects of common shocks, we estimate a panel data model of health care expenditure growth in 34 OECD countries over the years 1980 to 2012 where the usual fixed or random effects are replaced by a multifactor error structure. We address model uncertainty with Bayesian Model Averaging, to identify a small set of important expenditure drivers from 43 potential candidates. We establish 16 significant drivers of healthcare expenditure growth, including growth in GDP per capita and in insurance premiums, changes in financing arrangements and some institutional characteristics, expenditures on pharmaceuticals, population aging, costs of health administration, and inpatient care. Our approach allows us to derive estimates that are less subject to bias than in previous analyses, and provide robust evidence to policy makers on the drivers that were most strongly associated with the growth in health care expenditures over the past 32 years