Solar energy technologies in sustainable energy action plans of italian big cities

Cities, accounting for more than 3/4 of global final energy consumption, are equipping themselves with governance tools to improve energy efficiency. In Europe, urban energy policy has adopted, only recently and voluntarily, the Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP), following the European Strategy 20-20-20. Italy, country most sensitive among European ones, accounts for 53% of SEAPs signatories. In order to evaluate how urban energy system in Italy can match sustainability European goals, it is necessary to analyse the technological options promoted by the energy policies for the urban environment. The paper presents the state-of-art of Urban Energy Planning in Italy, focusing on the implementation of Solar Energy technologies, and their role in new urban energy strategy instruments, i.e. SEAP, to promote renewables deployment. Carbon emission avoidance interventions planned by Italian big cities were analysed, highlighting the chosen Solar Energy technology. The aim of this paper is to discuss and evaluate the differences of solar energy harvesting in Italian urban scenarios, taking into account geographical and morphological constraints, and to compare the forecasts for 2020 and 2030scenarios, in accordance with European and National laws in force

Innovative Use of Hydrogen in Energy Retrofitting of Listed Buildings

Existing buildings represent the major challenge in energy efficiency strategies applied to the building stock. Moreover, architectural and landscaping constraints related to listed buildings are further limitations to possible interventions. When listed buildings are used as museum, achieving the same effectiveness level of typical energy efficiency measures is very difficult and, if possible, very expensive. In order to couple preservation of cultural heritage and CO2 emission reduction, the approach would move to energy supply rather than modifications in building envelope or installation of new HVAC components. So, this study focuses on the opportunity to green NG supply of existing heating systems by means of Power to Gas option at district level. Thus, the recent advancements in Hydrogen enriched Natural Gas produced by RES electricity excess offer a zero-impact strategy to decarbonize the listed buildings using existing energy infrastructures. At the same time, the absence of changes in building features and the introduction of a renewable share in the supply address the sustainability issues of cultural heritage. In conclusion, a first original attempt was made towards the future crucial task of museum's deep energy refurbishment

Increase of spinach growth through the use of larger plug cell volume and an exogenous BAP spray

In spinach, transplanting has replaced direct seeding but small containers may cause root restriction effects that would be decreased post-transplant yield. Although a single hormonal regulator (BAP) spray is effective in overcoming root restriction, the mechanisms involved are unknown. The objective of this work was to analyze yield changes by the use of different plug cell volumes and BAP as foliar spray. Our results showed that the use of large plug cell volumes and BAP sprays at the pre-transplant stage increased plant productivity, through an increase in the relative growth rate (RGR) or the rate of leaf area expansion (RLAE). We found a close direct relationship between RGR and net assimilation rate (NAR) but an inverse relationship between RGR and leaf area ratio (LAR). In addition, we found that NAR significantly increased as leaf thickness, intercellular spaces and stomatal density increased. A change in dry weight partitioning toward shoots was found as well.Fil: Di Matteo, Javier Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias; ArgentinaFil: Rattin, Jorge Edgardo. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias; ArgentinaFil: Di Benedetto, Adalberto Hugo. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía; Argentin

The Oxygen Therapy Tube as a Tool for Breast Squeezing during Pedicle De-epithelialization in Reduction Mammaplasty

During breast reduction, pedicle de-epithelialization, as meticulous as possible, is necessary to ensure satisfying breast sculpting and to avoid any epidermoid cyst. To perform an effective and rapid de-epithelialization, a good tension of the skin is mandatory. Several techniques to improve skin tension of the breast are described in the literature. We report a cheap, effective, and easily reproducible method, based on the use of an oxygen tube with nasal cannula

Case report: Sublingual mucinosis in a dog

Oral focal mucinosis (OFM) is a rare clinic-pathological condition histologically similar to focal skin mucinosis and thus, OFM is considered as the oral counterpart of cutaneous focal mucinosis (1, 2). Cutaneous mucinosis refers to an excessive deposition of mucinous substance in the dermis that clinically manifests as a thickening of the skin or as a vesicular appearance (3, 4). A generalized cutaneous mucinosis, of likely genetic origin, occurs primarily in Shar-pei dogs, giving them its characteristic appearance (5). In other breeds, severe mucinosis is associated with secondary diseases such as intertrigo, bacterial infections and entropion, all of which can lead to severe deterioration in the health of the animal (6). In human, OFM was first described and named by Tomich in 1974 (1). Its pathogenesis is still unclear, but an increased production of hyaluronic acid (HA) by fibroblasts in expense of collagen production and myxoid degeneration is suggested (7, 8). Clinically, oral lesions often present as a small (<1 cm) submucosal, single, pink, and slow-growing asymptomatic nodule containing gelatinous material (8, 9). The gingiva and palate are the most affected sites (9, 10). OFM has already been reported in literature in a dog as a nodular lesion on the buccal mucosa (11). This is the first case described with this type of presentation

Nasogastric Tube Feeding in Anorexia Nervosa: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis on Clinical Efficacy and Treatment Satisfaction

The choice of a refeeding strategy is essential in the inpatient treatment of Anorexia Nervosa (AN). Oral nutrition is usually the first choice, but enteral nutrition through the use of a Nasogastric Tube (NGT) often becomes necessary in hospitalized patients. The literature provides mixed results on the efficacy of this method in weight gain, and there is a scarcity of studies researching its psychological correlates. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of oral versus enteral refeeding strategies in inpatients with AN, focusing on Body Mass Index (BMI) increase and treatment satisfaction, alongside assessing personality traits. We analyzed data from 241 inpatients, comparing a group of treated vs. non-treated individuals, balancing confounding factors using propensity score matching, and applied regression analysis to matched groups. The findings indicate that enteral therapy significantly enhances BMI without impacting treatment satisfaction, accounting for the therapeutic alliance. Personality traits showed no significant differences between patients undergoing oral or enteral refeeding. The study highlights the clinical efficacy of enteral feeding in weight gain, supporting its use in severe AN cases when oral refeeding is inadequate without adversely affecting patient satisfaction or being influenced by personality traits

Esiste un'alternativa alla matrice dermica acellulare per la gestione delle ferite? Rivisitazione del ruolo di una medicazione bioattiva a base di collagene e acido ialuronico

La guarigione delle ferite è un processo complesso che coinvolge molte interazioni sinergiche tra diverse linee cellulari, citochine, enzimi e fattori di crescita. Negli ultimi anni sono stati introdotti diversi biomateriali e medicazioni bioattive che si ritiene svolgano un ruolo attivo nella guarigione delle ferite. Sia il collagene che l'Acido Ialuronico (AI) sono stati ampiamente adottati per la gestione delle ferite e la sua combinazione, utilizzata come medicazione bioattiva, è stata studiata. Abbiamo riportato la nostra esperienza clinica con una medicazione avanzata composta da AI più collagene eterologo di tipo I applicato su ferite acute e croniche di diversa eziologia in una coorte retrospettiva di 30 pazienti. Tutti i pazienti inclusi avevano ferite cutanee portate a guarigione completa per seconda intenzione, e tutte le ferite sono state trattate utilizzando Bionect Pad® (BP). Se necessario, alcuni casi sono stati gestiti con trattamenti combinati al fine di ottenere un'adeguata preparazione del letto della ferita prima dell'applicazione di BP. Trenta pazienti con età media di 60,2 anni sono stati trattati per ferite di diversa eziologia. La tipologia di ferite trattate includeva ulcere venose, ferite post-traumatiche, complicanze di ferite chirurgiche, lesioni da decubito, ustioni, ulcerazioni peristomali e ulcerazioni cutanee dopo radioterapia. Il tempo medio di guarigione è stato di 31 giorni (range: 21-76 giorni). Sulla base dei nostri risultati incoraggianti, riteniamo che tali medicazioni bioattive possano essere considerate un'alternativa utile e affidabile ad altri metodi di trattamento ben noti e consolidati, come le matrici dermiche acellulari o altre medicazioni avanzate, in casi selezionati

Double Clipping: Less-Biased Variance Reduction in Off-Policy Evaluation

"Clipping" (a.k.a. importance weight truncation) is a widely used variance-reduction technique for counterfactual off-policy estimators. Like other variance-reduction techniques, clipping reduces variance at the cost of increased bias. However, unlike other techniques, the bias introduced by clipping is always a downward bias (assuming non-negative rewards), yielding a lower bound on the true expected reward. In this work we propose a simple extension, called $\textit{double clipping}$, which aims to compensate this downward bias and thus reduce the overall bias, while maintaining the variance reduction properties of the original estimator.Comment: Presented at CONSEQUENCES '23 workshop at RecSys 2023 conference in Singapor

On the asymptotic behaviour of solutions to the fractional porous medium equation with variable density

We are concerned with the long time behaviour of solutions to the fractional porous medium equation with a variable spatial density. We prove that if the density decays slowly at infinity, then the solution approaches the Barenblatt-type solution of a proper singular fractional problem. If, on the contrary, the density decays rapidly at infinity, we show that the minimal solution multiplied by a suitable power of the time variable converges to the minimal solution of a certain fractional sublinear elliptic equation.Comment: To appear in DCDS-

Ranking Across Different Content Types: The Robust Beauty of Multinomial Blending

An increasing number of media streaming services have expanded their offerings to include entities of multiple content types. For instance, audio streaming services that started by offering music only, now also offer podcasts, merchandise items, and videos. Ranking items across different content types into a single slate poses a significant challenge for traditional learning-to-rank (LTR) algorithms due to differing user engagement patterns for different content types. We explore a simple method for cross-content-type ranking, called multinomial blending (MB), which can be used in conjunction with most existing LTR algorithms. We compare MB to existing baselines not only in terms of ranking quality but also from other industry-relevant perspectives such as interpretability, ease-of-use, and stability in dynamic environments with changing user behavior and ranking model retraining. Finally, we report the results of an A/B test from an Amazon Music ranking use-case.To appear in 18th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys24), Bari, Italy. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3 page