Corruption and Deterioration of Democracy: The Brazilian Lesson

Although it has emerged, nationally and internationally, as one of the largest investigations against political corruption, Operation Car Wash—at its peak of popular prestige—cleared the path for the political rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil. And by doing so, to a certain extent, it paved the way for a set of arbitrary practices that today threaten and weaken the main Brazilian democratic institutions. Brazilian democracy today pays a high price for the Judiciary’s lethargic and condescending response to the unorthodox and illegal practices of Federal Judge Sérgio Moro during the golden years of Operation Car Wash (2014–2018). The lesson that the Brazilian episode brings to the international legal community is that the constant disrespect for the rules of due criminal procedure in large cases of corruption erodes the institutional bases that support the proper confrontation of this type of crime. The pertinent fight against corruption in a democracy can only take place in strict obedience to the law

dose administration maneuvers and patient care in tobramycin dry powder inhalation therapy

Abstract The purpose of this work was to study a new dry powder inhaler (DPI) of tobramycin capable to simplify the dose administration maneuvers to maximize the cystic fibrosis (CF) patient care in antibiotic inhalation therapy. For the purpose, tobramycin/sodium stearate powder (TobraPS) having a high drug content, was produced by spray drying, characterized and the aerodynamic behavior was investigated in vitro using different RS01 DPI inhalers. The aerosols produced with 28, 56 or 112 mg of tobramycin in TobraPS powder using capsules size #3, #2 or #0 showed that there was quasi linear relationship between the amount loaded in the device and the FPD. An in vivo study in healthy human volunteers showed that 3–6 inhalation acts were requested by the volunteers to inhale 120 mg of TobraPS powder loaded in a size #0 capsule aerosolized with a prototype RS01 device, according to their capability to inhale. The amount of powder emitted at 4 kPa pressure drop at constant air flow well correlated with the in vivo emission at dynamic flow, when the same volume of air passed through the device. The novel approach for the administration of 112 mg of tobramycin in one capsule could improve the convenience and adherence of the CF patient to the antibiotic therapy

Polymeric Films Loaded with Vitamin E and Aloe vera

Burns are serious traumas related to skin damage, causing extreme pain and possibly death. Natural drugs such as Aloe vera and vitamin E have been demonstrated to be beneficial in formulations for wound healing. The aim of this work is to develop and evaluate polymeric films containing Aloe vera and vitamin E to treat wounds caused by burns. Polymeric films containing different quantities of sodium alginate and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) were characterized for their mechanical properties and drug release. The polymeric films, which were produced, were thin, flexible, resistant, and suitable for application on damaged skin, such as in burn wounds. Around 30% of vitamin E acetate was released from the polymeric films within 12 hours. The in vivo experiments with tape stripping indicated an effective accumulation in the stratum corneum when compared to a commercial cream containing the same quantity of vitamin E acetate. Vitamin E acetate was found in higher quantities in the deep layers of the stratum corneum when the film formulation was applied. The results obtained show that the bioadhesive films containing vitamin E acetate and Aloe vera could be an innovative therapeutic system for the treatment of burns

Stabilimento balneare ad Aarhus, Danimarca

La municipalità di Aarhus, una delle città più antiche della Danimarca, oggi seconda per popolazione alla sola Copenaghen e principale porto del paese, ha avviato dal 1997 un vasto programma di riqualificazione del proprio waterfront. In questa iniziativa si innesta, nel 2014, il piano 04, elaborato dallo studio Bjarke Ingels Group, che prevede la costruzione di un comparto costituito da sette grandi blocchi edilizi affacciati sul Bacino 7 (BSN7), innervati da una lunga promenade pubblica che, zigzagando secondo traiettorie curvilinee tra acqua e terraferma, connette con nuovi spazi e servizi questo molo al retrostante porto turistico e alla vicina piazza Nikoline Kochs, e da qui al centro città.In 1997, the Danish town of Aarhus launched a wide waterfront renewal programme in accordance with a master plan designed to reclaim urban portions of the former port for the city’s inhabitants. Grafted onto this wide programme is the Plan 04, developed by BIG

Chioggia ed i suoi porti, patrimonio e futuro della città

Divisa dal mare da una lunga striscia di arenile che va dalla bocca di Porto di San Felice alla Foce del Brenta, la città di Chioggia, nelle propaggini meridionali della laguna veneta, ha da sempre legato le proprie vicende all’acqua che la bagna e ne definisce l’impianto urbano. La presenza delle infrastrutture del porto peschereccio di Isola Saloni, in diretta aderenza al tessuto di antico impianto, e del porto commerciale in Val da Rio, sorto lungo le direttrici della mobilità che la legano alla terraferma, sono testimonianze di una struttura urbana incapace di instaurare dialoghi virtuosi con la delicatissima e fragile condizione fisico-geografica del suo territorio. Per questo oggi la città ha bisogno di allestire una nuova cultura del progetto incentrata sul riequilibrio dei rapporti tra strutture produttive e paesaggio urbano. Con questo studio preliminare per il nuovo Piano Regolatore Portuale di Chioggia, condotto da un gruppo interdisciplinare del Dipartimento di Architettura e Progetto coordinato da Orazio Carpenzano e incentrato sull’individuazione di nuovi paradigmi nel rapporto tra la risorsa acqua e la città, si è voluto indicare nel sistema portuale una nuova matrice infrastrutturale e architettonica per Chioggia ed il suo territorio. La transizione graduale verso una città ripensata anche in funzione del water sensitive urban design (WSUD) diviene matrice di trasformazione delle criticità attuali in opportunità di maggiore qualità urbana e ambientale

Fantastic of the Shelter. Project for a House of Poetry in the places of Valentino Zeichen

The pandemic that has swept the world has exacerbated the condition of contemporary living, in a time suspended in the perfect dichotomy between hyper-connectedness and self-isolation. The house as a shelter is transformed into a place to stay rather than a place to return to, an enclosure that hybridizes the place of life and that of work, a syncretic element of accumulation of objects and tools of affection. Observed from the place of isolation, the image that the world gives us back is filtered by the means that our altered perception allows us. This image, losing all relationship with matter, sublimates into a horizon in which the senses and the progressive time give way to the imagination and memory of cyclical time. This paradigm of the house as a place of accumulation and fantasy, in balance between John Soane and Piranesi, is perfectly embodied by the hut-house of the poet Valentino Zeichen in Rome. “Nomad by genetic inheritance, but sedentary de facto”, Zeichen lived in perfect balance between these two apparently opposite conditions of precariousness and permanence, from his youth until his death in 2016. A house as a prosthesis of itself, inhabited by books and very few objects of daily use, totally turned inside out and stripped of every superfluous element, in which the poet, as in Thoreau's famous aphorism, defines his richness in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. In 2017, the DiAP and DSDRA departments of Sapienza University of Rome promoted a project for the construction of a House of Poetry in the place inhabited by Zeichen and presented the results at the Biennale Arte 2017 in Venice. The proposal works by subtraction an addition on the now inert matter of a house without any owner, releasing the pages of a dream book into the rarefied space of his imprint. An aviary for verses, which embodies and stages the isolation and the desire for sharing that every artistic operation expresses and yearns for

La villa nella città. Per un Museo dell'Iconografia a Palazzo Silvestri-Rivaldi

Nell’ambito della ricerca presentata in questo volume, la Villa viene individuata come uno dei capisaldi del circuito espositivo diffuso per il Grande Museo del Colosseo. Il piano elaborato dal gruppo di lavoro riconosce la potenza epicentrica del grande anfiteatro, che si dipana secondo forze al tempo stesso centripete e centrifughe, e riequilibra il peso del dibattito posizionandolo nuovamente sul grande monumento, immaginandone un suo riscatto anzitutto sul piano comunicativo. Secondo l’ampia strategia messa in piedi dal masterplan di progetto, la Villa diviene l’ambito espositivo dedicato all’iconografia dell’Anfiteatro Flavio e dei Fori nell’arte moderna e contemporanea

Cities in Transition

The dense volume "Cities in transition" collects the proceedings of the 1st IFAU conference organised in 2017 in Tirana, Albania, by the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Polytechnic University of Tirana and Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Pristine "Hasan Prishtina", with the care of Florian Nepravishta and Andrea Maliqari under the direction of Scientific Committee. The event attracted scholars and researchers from the southern Adriatic area, and this fact reflects the prevalence of contributions dealing with topics centred on the territories of Albania, Kosovo and the Italian regions of the southern Adriatic, with some significant investigations on the Campania region. However, the absence of any indication about to the affiliation of the contributors makes it difficult, except in broad terms, to draw comparisons and identify adjacencies or divergences between the methodological approaches and research horizons of the different schools of origin. The conference focused on the transformative processes affecting cities, which in the curatorial programme are observed through three distinct - and heterogeneous - themes

Le direttive europee e la legge delega

La direttiva 2014/24/Ue sugli appalti pubblici e la direttiva 2014/25/Ue sulle procedure d’appalto degli enti erogatori nei settori dell’acqua, dell’energia, dei trasporti e dei servizi postali, hanno modificato e sostituito, rispettivamente, la direttiva 2004/18/CE e la direttiva 2004/17/CE, allo scopo di realizzare una semplificazione e una maggiore flessibilità delle procedure, nonché avvicinare la disciplina dei settori “speciali” a quella dei settori classici. I “principi comuni” sulle modalità di affidamento, raccolti nel sesto e ultimo titolo della parte prima del codice, si trovano disseminati nelle premesse e nell’articolato delle tre direttive del 2014, oltre che nella legge 28 gennaio 2016 n. 11, con cui il Parlamento italiano ha delegato il Governo per l’attuazione delle suddette direttive. L’esame delle disposizioni europee in materia serve a comprendere in che modo il legislatore nazionale abbia sfruttato i margini di discrezionalità a propria disposizione, per conseguire gli obiettivi comuni, europei ed italiani, di apertura del mercato, economicità, semplificazione, miglioramento della trasparenza, coesione sociale e rafforzamento della protezione della salute, delle persone e dell’ambiente. Il saggio illustra i principi comuni all