Il Patrimonio Culturale tra esigenze e funzionalità quotidiane

La memoria vuole evidenziare come la politica che una nazione adotta sul patrimonio storico, ed in particolare sulle aree urbane, se adeguatamente correlata agli aspetti della Conservazione, della Valorizzazione, della Fruizione etc., puà migliorare, anche in modo significativo, lo sviluppo economico di un territorio che spesso, essendo depositario di specifiche caratteristiche, è Patrimonio non soltanto del singolo paese ma dell’intera Umanità. Una città accessibile a tutti i fruitori, dal turista, allo studioso, al portatore di handicap, etc., puà divenire fattore trainante di uno sviluppo culturale ed economico del territorio stesso. Per raggiungere questo scopo occorre proporsi l’obiettivo di offrire strutture, percorsi e attrezzature che ne consentano la piena godibilità a tutti, nel rispetto del contesto

Recupero delle ex Officine Ducrot, oggi Cantieri culturali alla Zisa a Palermo

Il costante aumento della popolazione delle grandi città, ha indotto i comuni a reperire, spesso in maniera più o meno disordinata, nuove aree edificabili destinate, soprattutto, ad edilizia residenziale. Tale attività ha soventemente portato ad inglobare, all’interno delle città, particolari strutture come ad esempio, carceri, mercati ortofrutticoli, mercati ittici, agglomerati industriali, ecc. Nello specifico, le attività industriali, in seguito ad oculate pianificazioni, hanno spesso abbandonato gli antichi siti, per trasferirsi in aree industriali moderne e idoneamente attrezzate. La memoria, prendendo in esame le “Officine Ducrot”, realizzate alla fine dei XIX secolo a Palermo, vuole evidenziare come una corretta azione “politica” sul patrimonio di archeologia industriale, può rifunzionalizzare i siti rendendoli fruibili, consentendone una riappropriazione da parte della società e, al contempo, fare in modo che possano divenire fonte di sviluppo culturale ed economico del territorio stesso. Per raggiungere questo scopo occorre porsi l’obiettivo di offrire strutture, percorsi e attrezzature che ne consentano la piena godibilità a tutti, nel rispetto del contest

Task Scheduling with RT Constraints

This paper addresses the problem of scheduling reactive realtime transactions (task groups) implementing a network of extended Finite State Machines communicating asynchronously. Task instances are..

Hepatotoxicity induced by greater celandine (Chelidonium majus L.): a review of the literature

The available literature assessing Chelidonium majus L. (CM) hepatotoxicity potential, and its risk to benefit assessment has been reviewed in this paper. Identification of significant scientific literature was performed via the following research databases: Cochrane Central, Google Scholar, EMBASE, Medline, Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science, using the following keywords: "Chelidonium majus", "greater celandine", "Hepatotoxicity", "Liver" "Injury", "Toxicity" individually investigated and then again in association. CM named also greater celandine, swallow-wort, or bai-qu-cai (Chinese), has been used for a long time in traditional Chinese medicine and phytotherapy. Its extracts have been claimed to display a wide variety of biological activities: antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, spasmolytic, antineoplastic, hepatoprotective, and analgesic. Moreover, herbal medicine suggests this plant have numerous additional effects which have not yet been scientifically evaluated, such as antitussive, diuretic, and eye-regenerative. However, despite its claimed hepatoprotective effects, several hepatotoxicity cases have been reported to be probably or highly probably connected with CM exposure, after their evaluation through liver-targeted causality assessment methods. CM hepatotoxicity has been defined as a distinct form of herb-induced liver injury (HILI), due to an idiosyncratic reaction of the metabolic type. This evidence has to be considered in relationship with the absence of considerable benefits of CM therapy. Therefore, the risk to benefit ratio of the use of herbal products containing greater celandine can actually be considered as negative

NO Abatement using Microwave Micro Plasma Generated using Granular Activated Carbon

Abatement of NO using microwave micro-plasma is presented in this paper. The micro-plasma is generated using granular activated carbon (GAC) particles of size (size 2-3mm) in loosely fluidised bed in microwave filed operated at 2.45GHz. A single mode microwave cavity reactor (SMMCR) was constructed and microwave was injected through another slotted waveguide in a sandwiched manner. COMSOL Multiphysics software was used to investigate the microwave electric field and the power density within the SMMCR. Gas mixture of air and 500 ppm NO (in N2) at the flow rate of 2 l/min was passed through a quartz tube centered within SMMCR while the supplied microwave power was very low 10-80 W and NO reduction was greater than 98%. The mass of GAC used for generating the plasma was 5g. When air is mixed with NO (in N2), the efficiency of NOx reduction achieved vary greatly with respect to the supplied microwave energy and behavior has become complex and is not predictable. The gas analyzer (testo 350) was used to measure the gas (NO, NO2, CO and O2) concentration and temperature

The FDA “black box” warning on antidepressant suicide risk in young adults: More harm than benefits?

The decision made in the year 2004 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require a boxed warning on antidepressants regarding the risk of suicidality in young adults still represents a matter of controversy. The FDA warning was grounded on industry-sponsored trials carried one decade ago or earlier. However, within the past decade, an increasing number of reports have questioned the actual validity of the FDA warning, especially considering a decline in the prescription of the antidepressant drugs associated with an increase in the rate of suicidal events among people with severe depression. The present report provides an overview of the FDA black box warning, also documenting two Major Depressive Disorder patients whose refusal to undergo a pharmacological antidepressant treatment possibly led to an increased risk for suicidal behaviors. The concerns raised by the FDA black box warning need to be considered in real-world clinical practice, stating the associated clinical and public health implications

Adsorption–Desorption Process to Separate Dyes from Tanning Wastewaters

Wastewater production is a major environmental issue for the leather and textile industries: in a modern plant, several synthetic dyes are used in separated coloring batches whose wastewaters are usually mixed, diluted with other process water streams, and sent to a unique wastewater treatment plant. This includes specific physical and biochemical tertiary treatments to remove dyes efficiently. One of the main difficulties of these processes is the presence of multiple dyes, which cannot be treated with the same efficiency as a “wide-spectrum” process. This work explores the possibility of using conventional granular activated carbon (GAC) and a new polyurethane foam (PUF) for the adsorption of an acid red dye in the wastewater of a specific coloring batch of the tanning industry. The aim of this work is twofold: on the one hand, we aim to explore the performance of the new PUF sorbent; on the other hand, we aim to explore the possibility of using adsorption as an optimized pre-treatment for single-dye batches, which may take advantage of the presence of a single type of target dye and its higher concentration. The effluent is then sent to the wastewater treatment plant for further depuration

Prenatal tobacco smoke exposure increases hospitalizations for bronchiolitis in infants

BACKGROUND: Tobacco smoke exposure (TSE) is a worldwide health problem and it is considered a risk factor for pregnant women's and children's health, particularly for respiratory morbidity during the first year of life. Few significant birth cohort studies on the effect of prenatal TSE via passive and active maternal smoking on the development of severe bronchiolitis in early childhood have been carried out worldwide. METHODS: From November 2009 to December 2012, newborns born at ≥ 33 weeks of gestational age (wGA) were recruited in a longitudinal multi-center cohort study in Italy to investigate the effects of prenatal and postnatal TSE, among other risk factors, on bronchiolitis hospitalization and/or death during the first year of life. RESULTS: Two thousand two hundred ten newborns enrolled at birth were followed-up during their first year of life. Of these, 120 (5.4%) were hospitalized for bronchiolitis. No enrolled infants died during the study period. Prenatal passive TSE and maternal active smoking of more than 15 cigarettes/daily are associated to a significant increase of the risk of offspring children hospitalization for bronchiolitis, with an adjHR of 3.5 (CI 1.5-8.1) and of 1.7 (CI 1.1-2.6) respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These results confirm the detrimental effects of passive TSE and active heavy smoke during pregnancy for infants' respiratory health, since the exposure significantly increases the risk of hospitalization for bronchiolitis in the first year of lif

Selective gold and palladium adsorption from standard aqueous solutions

The intensive exploitation of resources on a global level has led to a progressive depletion of mineral reserves, which were proved to be insufficient to meet the high demand for high-technological devices. On the other hand, the continuous production of Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is causing serious environmental problems, due to the complex composition of WEEE, which makes the recycling and reuse particularly challenging. The average metal content of WEEE is estimated to be around 30% and varies depending on the manufacturing period and brand of production. It contains base metals and precious metals, such as gold and palladium. The remaining 70% of WEEEs is composed of plastics, resins, and glassy materials. The recovery of metals from WEEEs is characterized by two main processes well represented by the literature: Pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy. Both of them require the pre-treatment of WEEEs, such as dismantling and magnetic separation of plastics. In this work, the selective adsorption of precious metals has been attempted, using copper, gold, and palladium aqueous solutions and mixtures of them. A screening on different adsorbent materials such as granular activated carbons and polymers, either as pellets or foams, has been performed. Among these, PolyEther Block Amide (PEBA) was elected as the most performing adsorbent in terms of gold selectivity over copper. Spent PEBA has been then characterized using scanning electron microscope, coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy, demonstrating the predominant presence of gold in most analyzed sites, either in the pellet or foam form