Tuna: underwater natural and cultural heritage. The Tunèa case study, a project for the re- connection between coastal community and marine ecosystem

Understanding the intersection between marine nature and culture is a basis for sustainable coastal development. In this frame the Carloforte tonnara, one of the last fixed Thunnus thynnus trap in the Mediterranean, represent a significant case study. Since until about thirty years ago the life of local community was closely linked to the fishing activities, but the evolution of the fish market at a global scale has radically interrupted it. In 2021 the author of this contribution created Tunèa, an art-based research in-action project, aimed to re-create the lost relationship in new forms

DENTRO IL PARADOSSO COSTIERO. Un approccio transdisciplinare per un paesaggio instabile

The Ph.D. thesis starts from the assumption of recognizing in the coastal landscape a distinctive condition with respect to other forms of landscapes, declining it semantically by adopting the adjectival noun "Coastalness", and identifying it in the characters of an unstable landscape. It aims to investigate its semantic and strategic significance, to develop an epistemological and methodological approach useful for elaborating new critical directions propaedeutic to the project. The focus lays on the extreme complexity and dynamism of the littoral, the only place on earth where oceanic, terrestrial, and atmospheric processes interact simultaneously, in a space with shifting and permeable boundaries, subject to continuous variations of moving flows that shift from the global to the local scale, and on which the effects of the climate crisis are significantly more visible and intense than on other territories. Although since the 1960s international policy agendas have developed specific tools for guiding administrative processes and planning strategies, and for prompting public debate and coastal communities' participation, the accelerating alteration of the coastal landscape on a global scale reveals their insufficient impact. At the same time, scientific research, often isolated within its academic and disciplinary boundaries, shows that it still has a marginal influence on policymakers and limited effectiveness in effecting widespread awareness. Studying, designing, and managing through linear tools and static approaches the coast as a landscape, which is subject to wicked problems and whose intrinsic character is instability, is therefore configured as a coastal paradox. In an era of profound and rapid changes dominated by anthropocentrism, it is, therefore, necessary to evolve traditional analytical, programmatic, and design methodologies by developing flexible, experimental, immersive, and evolutionary approaches capable of transcending their disciplinary boundaries to read the dynamics of coastal landscape transformation and accompany its evolution. In recent years, a growing number of art research has begun to flank and support scientific research and policy agendas in the process of investigating and monitoring the state of the marine, terrestrial and atmospheric environment, and their mutual interrelations: through its ability to transcend the boundaries of specialized fields, to combine the multiplicity of their respective methods, the collaboration between art and science is configured as a transdisciplinary approach that opens up new possibilities for the interpretation, communication, and management of contemporary changes. Placing within an international frame of reference the experiences conducted personally inside two chosen experimental spaces, the port city of Genoa and Carloforte, on the island of San Pietro in Sardinia, the doctoral research outlines the potential of art-based research in action to configure itself as a transdisciplinary epistemological and methodological process propaedeutic to the elaboration of innovative design approaches on the coastal landscape

Zones Portuaires: un dispositivo di ricerca-azione sul Porto di Genova

Fino a pochi decenni fa, a Genova, porto e città erano culturalmente un tutt’uno: non c’era famiglia che non contasse un parente camallo, marinaio o armatore. Con la progressiva meccanizzazione portuale e una visione urbanistica che, in Italia, considera città e porto realtà separate, questo legame si è deteriorato. Il laboratorio di studi urbani UniGE “Incontri in città” e l’associazione U-BOOT Lab nel 2015 hanno promosso un dispositivo di indagine territoriale che coinvolge attivamente le comunità: Zones Portuaires lavora per favorire la connessione tra porto e città con un progetto di ricerca di lunga durata articolato in più azioni, la cui portata e efficacia sono cambiate nel tempo. Se il clima di fiducia sviluppato negli anni ha permesso di accedere ad ambienti, dati, contatti inizialmente non raggiungibili, anche le aspettative rispetto ai risultati si sono fatte più ambiziose nelle comunità coinvolte. Il testo esplora queste esperienze in maniera riflessiva e osserva il funzionamento del dispositivo e i suoi esiti, cercando di coglierne l’aspetto scientifico, culturale e sociale in una prospettiva integrata.Until a few decades ago, the port and the city were culturally “one” in Genoa: there was no family that did not count a dock worker, sailor or ship owner as a relative. With the progressive mechanization of the activity and an urbanistic vision that considers city and port as separate realities in Italy, this link has deteriorated. In 2015 UniGE urban studies laboratory “Incontri in città”, initiated with the association U-BOOT Lab a device for territorial analysis and active community involvement: Zones Portuaires works to understand and promote the connection between port and city with a long-term research project articulated in several actions. The scope and effectiveness of these actions have changed over time: while the climate of trust developed over the years and has allowed to access environments, data, contacts that were initially unreachable, expectations regarding results have also become more ambitious in the involved communities. The text explores these experiences in a reflective way and with concrete examples it observes the functioning of the device and its outcomes, trying to grasp its scientific, cultural and social aspect in an integrated perspective

Sardinian Landscape and Lighthouses

Lighthouses are commonly perceived as extraordinary places on the edge between land and sea, with such a strong connection with the landscape to be considered as true landmarks. Remained for long time assigned to the exclusive use of the Italian Navy, most of lighthouses are now abandoned and vulnerable pieces of architectures, exposed to erosion, salt water and the unavoidable decay. This article analyses the Integrated Conservation Program (ICP) of public lighthouses developed by the public agency Conservatoria delle coste della Sardegna. The ICP is based on the Protocol of Integrated Coastal Zone Management and on the concept of conservation, intended as measures to preserve the historical heritage and enhance the architectures quality in relation with the Sardinian cultural landscape

Dyspepsia: When and How to Test for Helicobacter pylori

Dyspepsia is defined as symptoms related to the upper gastrointestinal tract. Approximately 25% of western populations complain of dyspeptic symptoms each year. 70% of them do not have an organic cause and symptoms are related to the so-called functional dyspepsia, characterized by epigastric pain, early satiety, and/or fullness during or after a meal occurring at least weekly and for at least 6 months according to ROME III criteria. In order to avoid invasive procedures and adverse effects, to minimize costs, to speed up diagnosis, and to provide the most appropriate treatments, primary care physicians need to recognize functional dyspepsia. Because symptoms do not reliably discriminate between organic and functional forms of the disease, anamnesis, family history of peptic ulcer and/or of gastric cancer, medication history, especially for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, age, and physical examination could help the physician in discerning between functional dyspepsia and organic causes. For patients without alarm symptoms, noninvasive testing for H. pylori, with either carbon-13-labeled urea breath testing or stool antigen testing, is recommended as a first-line strategy. In this review, we provide recommendations to guide primary care physicians for appropriate use of diagnostic tests and for H. pylori management in dyspeptic patients

Application of a new method for GWAS in a related case/control sample with known pedigree structure: identification of new loci for nephrolithiasis

In contrast to large GWA studies based on thousands of individuals and large meta-analyses combining GWAS results, we analyzed a small case/control sample for uric acid nephrolithiasis. Our cohort of closely related individuals is derived from a small, genetically isolated village in Sardinia, with well-characterized genealogical data linking the extant population up to the 16(th) century. It is expected that the number of risk alleles involved in complex disorders is smaller in isolated founder populations than in more diverse populations, and the power to detect association with complex traits may be increased when related, homogeneous affected individuals are selected, as they are more likely to be enriched with and share specific risk variants than are unrelated, affected individuals from the general population. When related individuals are included in an association study, correlations among relatives must be accurately taken into account to ensure validity of the results. A recently proposed association method uses an empirical genotypic covariance matrix estimated from genome-screen data to allow for additional population structure and cryptic relatedness that may not be captured by the genealogical data. We apply the method to our data, and we also investigate the properties of the method, as well as other association methods, in our highly inbred population, as previous applications were to outbred samples. The more promising regions identified in our initial study in the genetic isolate were then further investigated in an independent sample collected from the Italian population. Among the loci that showed association in this study, we observed evidence of a possible involvement of the region encompassing the gene LRRC16A, already associated to serum uric acid levels in a large meta-analysis of 14 GWAS, suggesting that this locus might lead a pathway for uric acid metabolism that may be involved in gout as well as in nephrolithiasis

Muon reconstruction performance of the ATLAS detector in proton–proton collision data at √s = 13 TeV

This article documents the performance of the ATLAS muon identification and reconstruction using the LHC dataset recorded at √s = 13 TeV in 2015. Using a large sample of J/ψ→μμ and Z→μμ decays from 3.2 fb−1 of pp collision data, measurements of the reconstruction efficiency, as well as of the momentum scale and resolution, are presented and compared to Monte Carlo simulations. The reconstruction efficiency is measured to be close to 99% over most of the covered phase space (|η| 2.2, the pT resolution for muons from Z→μμ decays is 2.9 % while the precision of the momentum scale for low-pT muons from J/ψ→μμ decays is about 0.2%

The impact of surgical delay on resectability of colorectal cancer: An international prospective cohort study

AIM: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore the impact of surgical delays on cancer resectability. This study aimed to compare resectability for colorectal cancer patients undergoing delayed versus non-delayed surgery. METHODS: This was an international prospective cohort study of consecutive colorectal cancer patients with a decision for curative surgery (January-April 2020). Surgical delay was defined as an operation taking place more than 4 weeks after treatment decision, in a patient who did not receive neoadjuvant therapy. A subgroup analysis explored the effects of delay in elective patients only. The impact of longer delays was explored in a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome was complete resection, defined as curative resection with an R0 margin. RESULTS: Overall, 5453 patients from 304 hospitals in 47 countries were included, of whom 6.6% (358/5453) did not receive their planned operation. Of the 4304 operated patients without neoadjuvant therapy, 40.5% (1744/4304) were delayed beyond 4 weeks. Delayed patients were more likely to be older, men, more comorbid, have higher body mass index and have rectal cancer and early stage disease. Delayed patients had higher unadjusted rates of complete resection (93.7% vs. 91.9%, P = 0.032) and lower rates of emergency surgery (4.5% vs. 22.5%, P < 0.001). After adjustment, delay was not associated with a lower rate of complete resection (OR 1.18, 95% CI 0.90-1.55, P = 0.224), which was consistent in elective patients only (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.69-1.27, P = 0.672). Longer delays were not associated with poorer outcomes. CONCLUSION: One in 15 colorectal cancer patients did not receive their planned operation during the first wave of COVID-19. Surgical delay did not appear to compromise resectability, raising the hypothesis that any reduction in long-term survival attributable to delays is likely to be due to micro-metastatic disease

Elective cancer surgery in COVID-19-free surgical pathways during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: An international, multicenter, comparative cohort study

PURPOSE As cancer surgery restarts after the first COVID-19 wave, health care providers urgently require data to determine where elective surgery is best performed. This study aimed to determine whether COVID-19–free surgical pathways were associated with lower postoperative pulmonary complication rates compared with hospitals with no defined pathway. PATIENTS AND METHODS This international, multicenter cohort study included patients who underwent elective surgery for 10 solid cancer types without preoperative suspicion of SARS-CoV-2. Participating hospitals included patients from local emergence of SARS-CoV-2 until April 19, 2020. At the time of surgery, hospitals were defined as having a COVID-19–free surgical pathway (complete segregation of the operating theater, critical care, and inpatient ward areas) or no defined pathway (incomplete or no segregation, areas shared with patients with COVID-19). The primary outcome was 30-day postoperative pulmonary complications (pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, unexpected ventilation). RESULTS Of 9,171 patients from 447 hospitals in 55 countries, 2,481 were operated on in COVID-19–free surgical pathways. Patients who underwent surgery within COVID-19–free surgical pathways were younger with fewer comorbidities than those in hospitals with no defined pathway but with similar proportions of major surgery. After adjustment, pulmonary complication rates were lower with COVID-19–free surgical pathways (2.2% v 4.9%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.62; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.86). This was consistent in sensitivity analyses for low-risk patients (American Society of Anesthesiologists grade 1/2), propensity score–matched models, and patients with negative SARS-CoV-2 preoperative tests. The postoperative SARS-CoV-2 infection rate was also lower in COVID-19–free surgical pathways (2.1% v 3.6%; aOR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.76). CONCLUSION Within available resources, dedicated COVID-19–free surgical pathways should be established to provide safe elective cancer surgery during current and before future SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks

Elective Cancer Surgery in COVID-19-Free Surgical Pathways During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: An International, Multicenter, Comparative Cohort Study.

PURPOSE: As cancer surgery restarts after the first COVID-19 wave, health care providers urgently require data to determine where elective surgery is best performed. This study aimed to determine whether COVID-19-free surgical pathways were associated with lower postoperative pulmonary complication rates compared with hospitals with no defined pathway. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This international, multicenter cohort study included patients who underwent elective surgery for 10 solid cancer types without preoperative suspicion of SARS-CoV-2. Participating hospitals included patients from local emergence of SARS-CoV-2 until April 19, 2020. At the time of surgery, hospitals were defined as having a COVID-19-free surgical pathway (complete segregation of the operating theater, critical care, and inpatient ward areas) or no defined pathway (incomplete or no segregation, areas shared with patients with COVID-19). The primary outcome was 30-day postoperative pulmonary complications (pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, unexpected ventilation). RESULTS: Of 9,171 patients from 447 hospitals in 55 countries, 2,481 were operated on in COVID-19-free surgical pathways. Patients who underwent surgery within COVID-19-free surgical pathways were younger with fewer comorbidities than those in hospitals with no defined pathway but with similar proportions of major surgery. After adjustment, pulmonary complication rates were lower with COVID-19-free surgical pathways (2.2% v 4.9%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.62; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.86). This was consistent in sensitivity analyses for low-risk patients (American Society of Anesthesiologists grade 1/2), propensity score-matched models, and patients with negative SARS-CoV-2 preoperative tests. The postoperative SARS-CoV-2 infection rate was also lower in COVID-19-free surgical pathways (2.1% v 3.6%; aOR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.76). CONCLUSION: Within available resources, dedicated COVID-19-free surgical pathways should be established to provide safe elective cancer surgery during current and before future SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks