THE IFC FILE FORMAT AS A MEANS OF INTEGRATING BIM AND GIS: THE CASE OF THE MANAGEMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF UNDERGROUND NETWORKS

Abstract. The construction sector is undergoing an important digital revolution. The integration between Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographical Information System (GIS) is a key component of this revolution and is increasingly discussed. Although benefits are already recognised, several challenges still remain. The purpose of this paper is to present the method proposed by the GEOBIMM project to overcome the existing barriers towards the integration between BIM and GIS domains and to present the first results applied to the maintenance of underground networks. The results are a set of guidelines essential for the integration of BIM files in GIS platforms within the GEOBIMM domain, to ensure: the appropriate geometric description of the elements; the correct georeferencing; the geospatial semantic and topological interoperability between the two systems; the appropriate definition of the information parameters. These pillars are further used to develop a guideline for planners and construction companies supporting them in developing compliant BIM models

Relationship between molecular connectivity and carcinogenic activity: a confirmation with a new software program based on graph theory.

For a database of 826 chemicals tested for carcinogenicity, we fragmented the structural formula of the chemicals into all possible contiguous-atom fragments with size between two and eight (nonhydrogen) atoms. The fragmentation was obtained using a new software program based on graph theory. We used 80% of the chemicals as a training set and 20% as a test set. The two sets were obtained by random sorting. From the training sets, an average (8 computer runs with independently sorted chemicals) of 315 different fragments were significantly (p < 0.125) associated with carcinogenicity or lack thereof. Even using this relatively low level of statistical significance, 23% of the molecules of the test sets lacked significant fragments. For 77% of the molecules of the test sets, we used the presence of significant fragments to predict carcinogenicity. The average level of accuracy of the predictions in the test sets was 67.5%. Chemicals containing only positive fragments were predicted with an accuracy of 78.7%. The level of accuracy was around 60% for chemicals characterized by contradictory fragments or only negative fragments. In a parallel manner, we performed eight paired runs in which carcinogenicity was attributed randomly to the molecules of the training sets. The fragments generated by these pseudo-training sets were devoid of any predictivity in the corresponding test sets. Using an independent software program, we confirmed (for the complex biological endpoint of carcinogenicity) the validity of a structure-activity relationship approach of the type proposed by Klopman and Rosenkranz with their CASE program

Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens in England and Wales: a COVID-19 social distancing perspective

Visiting parks and gardens supports physical and mental health. We quantified access to public parks and gardens in urban areas of England and Wales, and the potential for park crowdedness 22during periods of high use. We combined data from the Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey to quantify(i) the number of parks within 500and 1,000metresof urban postcodes (i.e., availability), (ii) the distance of postcodes to the nearest park (i.e., accessibility), and (iii) per-capita space in each park for people living within 1,000m.We26examined variability by city and share of flats. Around 25.4 million people(~87%) can access public parks or gardens within a ten-minute walk, while 3.8 million residents (~13%) live farther away; of these 21% are children and 13% are elderly. Areas with a higher share of flats on average are closer to a park but people living in these areas visit parks that are potentially overcrowded during periods of high use. Such disparity in urban areas of England and Wales becomes particularly evident during COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown when local parks, the only available out-of-home space option, hinder social distancing requirements. Cities aiming to facilitate social distancing while keeping public green spaces safe might require implementing measures such as dedicated park times for different age groups or entry allocation systems that, combined with smartphone apps or drones, can monitor and manage the total number of people using the park

Cardiac Autonomic Effects of Yearly Athletic Retreats on Elite Basket Players. Usefulness of a Unitary Autonomic Nervous System Indicator

In most sports athletic performance is determined by a combination of hard and soft modifiable components, encompassing physical and psychological elements that can be assessed with modern techniques based respectively on simple friendly methods: analysis of HRV and questionnaires. Specifically a novel % rank Autonomic Nervous System Indicator (ANSI) seems particularly useful also in elite sports. In this investigation we assessed ANSI capacity to detect the expected changes in cardiac autonomic regulation induced in the Italian basketball team by the participation (18 subjects) to the yearly biweekly Alpine training summer camp. We observed that ANSI increased from 58.8 +/- 32.5 to 81.7 +/- 27.5 (at the end of training camp) and did not change further in the subsequent initial weeks of competition season (overall p &lt; 0.001). Congruent changes were observed in non-linear indices. Concomitantly indices of somatic symptoms were slightly reduced just at the end of the alpine training. We conclude that analysis of HRV and questionnaires might offer a simple, useful technique to monitor changes in cardiac autonomic regulation and psychological state in elite athletes providing a convenient additional element to evaluation of training routines also in the fields

The prognostic importance of chronic end-stage diseases in geriatric patients admitted to 163 Italian ICUs

BACKGROUND: The number of elderly patients undergoing major surgical interventions and then needing admission to intensive care unit (ICU) grows steadily. We investigated this issue in a cohort of 232,278 patients admitted in five years (2011-2015) to 163 Italian general ICUs. METHODS: Surgical patients older than 75 registered in the GiViTI MargheritaPROSAFE project were analyzed. The impact on hospital mortality of important chronic conditions (severe COPD, NYHA class IV, dementia, end-stage renal disease, cirrhosis with portal hypertension) was investigated with two prognostic models developed yearly on patients staying in the ICU less or more than 24 hours. RESULTS: 44,551 elderly patients (19.2%) underwent emergency (47.3%) or elective surgery (52.7%). At least one severe comorbidity was present in 14.6% of them, yielding a higher hospital mortality (32.4%, vs. 21.1% without severe comorbidity). In the models for patients staying in the ICU 24 hours or more, cirrhosis, NYHA class IV, and severe COPD were constant independent predictors of death (adjusted odds ratios [ORs] range 1.67-1.97, 1.54-1.91, and 1.34-1.50, respectively), while dementia was statistically significant in four out of five models (adjusted ORs 1.23-1.28). End-stage renal disease, instead, never resulted to be an independent prognostic factor. For patients staying in the ICU less than 24 hours, chronic comorbidities were only occasionally independent predictors of death. CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirms that elderly surgical patients represent a relevant part of all ICUs admissions. About one of seven bear at least one severe chronic comorbidity, that, excluding end-stage renal disease, are all strong independent predictors of hospital death

A Simple Non-Markovian Computational Model of the Statistics of Soccer Leagues: Emergence and Scaling effects

We propose a novel algorithm that outputs the final standings of a soccer league, based on a simple dynamics that mimics a soccer tournament. In our model, a team is created with a defined potential(ability) which is updated during the tournament according to the results of previous games. The updated potential modifies a teams' future winning/losing probabilities. We show that this evolutionary game is able to reproduce the statistical properties of final standings of actual editions of the Brazilian tournament (Brasileir\~{a}o). However, other leagues such as the Italian and the Spanish tournaments have notoriously non-Gaussian traces and cannot be straightforwardly reproduced by this evolutionary non-Markovian model. A complete understanding of these phenomena deserves much more attention, but we suggest a simple explanation based on data collected in Brazil: Here several teams were crowned champion in previous editions corroborating that the champion typically emerges from random fluctuations that partly preserves the gaussian traces during the tournament. On the other hand, in the Italian and Spanish leagues only a few teams in recent history have won their league tournaments. These leagues are based on more robust and hierarchical structures established even before the beginning of the tournament. For the sake of completeness, we also elaborate a totally Gaussian model (which equalizes the winning, drawing, and losing probabilities) and we show that the scores of the "Brasileir\~{a}o" cannot be reproduced. Such aspects stress that evolutionary aspects are not superfluous in our modeling. Finally, we analyse the distortions of our model in situations where a large number of teams is considered, showing the existence of a transition from a single to a double peaked histogram of the final classification scores. An interesting scaling is presented for different sized tournaments.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure

The built environment as determinant of childhood obesity: a systematic literature review

We evaluated the epidemiological evidence on the built environment and its link to childhood obesity, focusing on environmental factors such as traffic noise and air pollution, as well as physical factors potentially driving obesity-related behaviours, such as neighbourhood walkability and availability and accessibility of parks and playgrounds. Eligible studies were i) conducted on human children below the age of 18 years, ii) focused on body size measurements in childhood, iii) examined at least one built environment characteristic, iv) reported effect sizes and associated confidence intervals, and v) were published in English language. A z-Test, as alternative to the meta-analysis, was used to quantify associations due to heterogeneity in exposure and outcome definition. We found strong evidence for an association of traffic-related air pollution (nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxides exposure; p<0.001) and built environment characteristics supportive of walking (street intersection density; p<0.01 and access to parks; p<0.001) with childhood obesity. We identified a lack of studies which account for interactions between different built environment exposures or verify the role and mechanism of important effect modifiers such as age

Custom Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization: the Importance of DNA Quality, an Expert Eye, and Variant Validation.

The presence of false positive and false negative results in the Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (aCGH) design is poorly addressed in literature reports. We took advantage of a custom aCGH recently carried out to analyze its design performance, the use of several Agilent aberrations detection algorithms, and the presence of false results. Our study provides a confirmation that the high density design does not generate more noise than standard designs and, might reach a good resolution. We noticed a not negligible presence of false negative and false positive results in the imbalances call performed by the Agilent software. The Aberration Detection Method 2 (ADM-2) algorithm with a threshold of 6 performed quite well, and the array design proved to be reliable, provided that some additional filters are applied, such as considering only intervals with average absolute log2ratio above 0.3. We also propose an additional filter that takes into account the proportion of probes with log2ratio exceeding suggestive values for gain or loss. In addition, the quality of samples was confirmed to be a crucial parameter. Finally, this work raises the importance of evaluating the samples profiles by eye and the necessity of validating the imbalances detected