Covid-19: yesterday, today and tomorrow. The quality of Covid-19 management and the evaluation of the “Health” chapter of the Recovery Plan.

Introduction: The Covid-19 pandemic represented an unprecedented challenge for the healthcare world and the introduction of a new stronger and believable project plays a fundamental role for the quality of work and the provision of qualitative care. Aim: The survey provided by ASIQUAS aims to examines the impact of “Health” chapter included in the Recovery Plan, through the assessment of management quality of the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods: Starting from a literature review, in September 2021, a web-based survey has been conducted and administered by email. It has been taken into account measures widely used by different healthcare structures in order to analyze the projects implemented in the face of pandemic and to evaluate the new real possibility to invest funds in new healthcare structures and projects. Results: The survey consists of 19 multiple choices and respondents were from different types of structures, including regional departments and regional health agencies (1.4%), universities, research centers and IRCCS (11%), hospitals and university polyclinics (34.2%), Local Health Authorities (39.7%), socio-health organizations and Others (13,7%). The pandemic has highlighted many vulnerabilities at both hospitals and territorial level. The major weaknesses revealed by the survey are mainly due to.the lack of support from new staff units and poor availability of specific training tools for Covid-19 procedures. The Recovery Plan is still unclear with a lot of concern about the implementation and many limits of diffusion. Conclusions: It becomes essential to guarantee a new effective and interoperative model of integration. Today we can start more aware for the implementation of a system closer to everyone’s needs, making shortcomings the new strength and starting point

The GEOBASI (Geochemical Database of Tuscany) open source tools

The tools implemented for the new Regional Geochemical Database, called GEOBASI, are hereafter presented. The database has permitted the construction of a repository where the geochemical information (compositional and isotopic) has been stored in a structured way so that it can be available for different groups of users (e.g. institutional, public and private companies). The information contained in the database can in fact be downloaded freely and queried to correlate geochemistry to other non compositional variables. The repository has been aimed at promoting the use of the geochemical data already available from previous investigations through a powerful Web-GIS interface. The resulting graphical-numerical tools in such a complex database have been developed to: 1) analyse the spatial variability of the investigated context, 2) highlight the geographic location of data pertaining to classes of values or single cases, 3) compare the results of different analytical methodologies applied to the determination of the same element and/or chemical species, 4) extract the geochemical data related to specific monitoring plans and/or geographical areas, and finally 5) recover information about data below the detection limit to understand their impact on the behaviour of the investigated variable

GEOBASI: il Database Geochimico della Regione Toscana

In questo lavoro vengono presentate le varie fasi di attività svolte da un gruppo di lavoro costituito da ricercatori delle tre università regionali (Firenze, Pisa e Siena), del CNR di Pisa (Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse), dell’ARPAT, del Consorzio LAMMA e del Sistema Informativo Territoriale ed Ambientale della Regione Toscana, che hanno condotto alla costruzione del Database Geochimico regionale. Tale banca dati si propone come strumento fruibile ed accessibile a differenti livelli di utenza, i cui contenuti possano essere liberamente interrogabili e scaricabili oltre che implementabili nel tempo, secondo regole e standard condivisi. L'obiettivo è quello di fornire un importante riferimento conoscitivo nel campo delle informazioni geochimiche relative alle varie matrici geoambientali nel territorio toscano. Nella prima fase di progetto le attività sono state orientate non solo a favorire la piena fruizione di dati disaggregati già disponibili tramite una potente interfaccia webgis, ma anche ad individuare l’utilizzo di strumenti grafici e numerici di analisi statistica mediante i quali: 1) comprendere la variabilità del fenomeno oggetto di studio nella sua caratterizzazione spaziale; 2) individuare la posizione geografica di valori anomali; 3) confrontare gli esiti di diverse metodologie analitiche sperimentali per uno stesso elemento e/o specie chimica; 4) estrarre dati relativi ad un determinato periodo temporale e/o una determinata area e 5) verificare l’impatto della presenza di informazione numerica con valore inferiore al limite di rilevabilità strumentale. Ulteriori sviluppi del progetto dovranno prevedere la definizione di regole e strumenti finalizzati ad una continua e progressiva implementazione controllata del Database, anche in previsione di un utilizzo di nuove informazioni provenienti da soggetti esterni al gruppo di lavoro

Geobasi: Il database geochimico toscano: manuale d'uso

Il presente documento descrive le modalità di consultazione e di accesso a Geobasi attraverso la sua interfaccia WEB. I contenuti della banca dati sono organizzati in un database relazionale ad oggetti, quindi raggruppati in classi di oggetti con specifiche proprietà. Tra i vari oggetti sono definite delle “relazioni” di interdipedenza e legame e tra i vari contenuti insistono vincoli di congruenza dell’integrità topologica ed alfanumerica. Da questa complessità ne deriva una non semplice accessibilità e fruibilità dei contenuti del database, i cui principali utenti risultano generalmente non confidenti con questi tipi di strutture dati. Per tale motivo è stata messa a punto una interfaccia WEB-GIS disponibile all'indirizzo http://www506.regione.toscana.it/geobasi/index.html, tramite la quale poter accedere e fruire della banca dati. Tale interfaccia consente di effettuare una selezione della banca dati, di scaricarne il contenuto in formato CSV (Comma Separated Values), di elaborare delle analisi grafico numeriche, di visualizzare su mappa i risultati delle selezioni e delle analisi

GEOBASI: The geochemical Database of Tuscany Region (Italy)

In this study the new Regional Geochemical Database (RGDB), called GEOBASI, is presented and illustrated in the framework of a joint collaboration among the three Tuscan universities (Florence, Pisa and Siena), CNR-IGG (Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources of Pisa), ARPAT (Regional Agency for the Environmental Protection), LAMMA (Environmental Modelling and Monitoring Laboratory for Sustainable Development) Consortium and S.I.R.A. (Territorial and Environmental Informative System of Tuscany). The database has permitted the construction of a repository where the geochemical information (compositional and isotopic) has been stored in a structured way so that it can be available for different groups of users (e.g. institutional, public and private companies). The information contained in the database can in fact be downloaded freely and queried to correlate geochemistry to other non compositional variables. The first phase of the project was aimed at promoting the use of the geochemical data already available from previous investigations through a powerful Web-GIS interface to implement the exploratory statistics graphical-numerical tools used to: 1) analyse the spatial variability of the investigated context, 2) highlight the geographic location of data pertaining to classes of values or single cases, 3) compare the results of different analytical methodologies applied to the determination of the same element and/or chemical species, 4) extract the geochemical data related to specific monitoring plans and/or geographical areas, and finally 5) recover information about data below the detection limit to understand their impact on the behaviour of the investigated variable. Developments of this project will be focused on the definition of rules and standardized methods in a way that external users could also interactively pursue the RGDB. Furthermore, a detailed investigation of the Scarlino-Follonica plain will permit the improvement and test of statistical and geostatistical methods, using open source software (QGIS and R) to support the process of evaluation of the geochemical baseline

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on surgical neuro-oncology: A survey from the Italian society of neurosurgery (SINch)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on hospitals' activity and organization has imposed a vast change in standard neurosurgical oncology practice to accommodate for shifting resources. Aims: This investigation aims to analyse the nationwide capability in reorganizing the surgical neuro-oncological activity during the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate whether COVID-19-pandemic influenced the surgical management in these patients. Method: A web-based dataset model organized by the Italian Neurosurgical Society (SINCh) was sent to all the Italian neurosurgical departments in May 2021, requesting to report the types and numbers of surgical procedures performed in the pre-pandemic period (from March 9th 2019 to March 9th 2020) compared to the pandemic period (from March 10th 2020 to March 10th 2021). Results: This multicentre investigation included the surgical activity of 35 Italian Neurosurgical Departments in a pre-pandemic year versus a pandemic year. During the COVID period, 699 fewer neuro-oncological patients were operated on than in the pre-COVID period. We noted a slight increase in urgency and a more severe decrease in elective and benign pathology. None of these differences was statistically significant. Surgically treated patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were 36, of which 11 died. Death was found to be COVID-related only in 2 cases. Conclusion: The reorganization of the Italian Neurosurgical Departments was able to guarantee a redistribution of the CNS tumors during the inter-pandemic periods, demonstrating that patients even in the pandemic era could be treated without compromising the efficacy and safety of the surgical procedure