La conoscenza spaziale degli ambienti di grande scala dimensionale: uno studio preliminare planning-oriented

Lo studio degli ambienti spaziali si è evoluto considerevolmente nel tempo, seguendo diverse prospettive. In accordo con la prospettiva cognitivista, gli spazi sono entità ad alta densità di conoscenza nei quali gli agenti umani si muovono in maniera flessibile per tutto l'arco della loro vita. Riconoscere e comprendere gli elementi caratterizzanti tali spazi, pertanto, diventa fondamentale per una efficace pianificazione e per i processi di decision-making ambientale, sia a livello urbano che regionale, poiché essi rappresentano elementi strutturali e resilienti. La cognizione dello spazio si sviluppa anche attraverso elementi taciti o impliciti quali percezioni, emozioni, sensazioni. Questo lavoro rappresenta un tentativo preliminare di riconoscere questi elementi in ambienti a popolazione estremamente ridotta come gli spazi rurali. Trattandosi di aree scarsamente strutturate rispetto agli insediamenti urbani, percezioni, sensazioni ed emozioni diventano variabili particolarmente importanti per l'interpretazione e la strutturazione degli spazi

Navigating in multi-level buildings: the effect of rotation

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Imagining living spaces in extreme conditions: suggestions from a case study in Bari

The coronavirus pandemic has affected over 200 countries worldwide, finding an environment well-suited to its spread in cities as the heart of our civilization, as the meeting place for ideas, cultures and commercial exchanges. In these circumstances, prevention and control play a vital role, revealing the need to improve the current knowledge of users’ perception of urban spaces and the way in which spaces are perceived and used. This work aims at investigating how the coronavirus emergency influenced perception of the surrounding spaces. In this regard, two questionnaire-based surveys were carried out on a sample of students from the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Bari (Italy), one during the lockdown phase and one immediately after. Even after only a preliminary analysis, results showed some interesting patterns. They revealed, on the one hand, the expectations regarding possible changes, indicating places that are particularly important or symbolic for participants, and which are perceived to be missing, and on the other, the feelings of fear, worry and uncertainty with regard to the risk of contagion during post-lockdown access to and navigation through them. Nonetheless, some changes were considered positive, thus providing a strong indication of the expectations placed on future citie

GIS Multisource Data for the Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Buildings at the Urban Scale

The paper presents a methodology of extraction, integration and elaboration of data from different sources using the geographic information system (GIS), to realize a georeferenced building database (GBD) useful for the seismic vulnerability assessment of existing buildings on a large scale. Three levels of GIS entities have been defined and equipped with the related information: census section (CS), urban block (UB), and individual building (IB), depending on the level of detail of dataset. Additional information about the typological and structural features has been extracted by CARTIS catalogue, to refine the data associated with each building. The data have been validated using detailed information gathered on a proper sample of buildings, which have been filed and analyzed one-by-one. The alphanumeric format of data allows for the automatic implementation of different methods available in the literature, which provide a qualitative seismic vulnerability index at different scales (whole urban district, an urban block, and a single building). Finally, the 3D representation of data and results have been elaborated, providing a tool easily searchable and constantly implementable. An application has been developed for a case study in Puglia, Italy: Bisceglie, for which 3726 IB have been assessed. The work addresses the issue of the lack of information typical of large-scale applications, exploiting all the available data sources to achieve nearly complete knowledge of existing building stock finalized to a rapid but extensive evaluation of the seismic vulnerability on an urban scale with very low computational efforts and the use of limited resources in terms of time and cost

More-than-human health for the responsible innovation of wearable medical devices

The more-than-human is an emerging perspective that enlarges the focus beyond the human subject, to consider the connections between the human beings and other entities in the material world and in the natural environment. When this perspective is adopted in the design of wearable medical devices, it increases the complexity of the elements to consider and this requires the definition of a new unit of analysis beyond the patient-device interaction. To guide the design practice in this domain, we propose to focus the analysis on three levels: the human, the socio-cultural context and the natural environment. Through the discussion of a case study for the responsible innovation of compression therapy in treating venous disease, we propose some key lenses to guide the future design of medical wearable design for a more-than-human health

Extracellular matrix composition modulates PDAC parenchymal and stem cell plasticity and behavior through the secretome

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal cancers. Its aggressiveness is driven by an intense fibrotic desmoplastic reaction in which the increasingly collagen I-rich extracellular matrix (ECM) and several cell types, including cancer stem cells (CSCs), create a tumor-supportive environment. However, how ECM composition regulates CSC dynamics and their relationship with the principle parenchymal tumor population to promote early invasive growth is not yet characterized. For this, we utilized a platform of 3D organotypic cultures composed of laminin-rich Matrigel, representative of an early tumor, plus increasing concentrations of collagen I to simulate malignant stroma progression. As ECM collagen I increases, CSCs progress from a rapidly growing, vascular phenotype to a slower growing, avascular phase, while maintaining their endothelial-like gene signatures. This transition is supported autocrinically by the CSCs and paracrinically by the parenchymal cells via their ECM-dependent secretomes. Indeed, when growing on an early tumor ECM, the CSCs are dedicated toward the preparation of a vascular niche by (a) activating their growth program, (b) secreting high levels of proangiogenic factors which stimulate both angiogenesis and vasculogenic mimicry, and (c) overexpressing VEGFR-2, which is activated by VEGF secreted by both the CSC and parenchymal cells. On Matrigel, the more differentiated parenchymal tumor cell population had reduced growth but a high invasive capacity. This concerted high local invasion of parenchymal cells into the CSC-derived vascular network suggests that a symbiotic relationship between the parenchymal cells and the CSCs underlies the initiation and maintenance of early PDAC infiltration and metastasis