Search

The strictness of the result of an excavation, whether mechanical or by means of explosives, is naturally conditioned by its objective and, therefore, by the type of technique applied to achieve it. To attain the best results in terms of rock breakage, and with respect to the final profile, it is important to evaluate the specific excavation energy and its optimization. This study, being a revision of different techniques to achieve good quality of the final walls, focuses on evaluating the effects of those techniques on the quality of the result, in both open-pit and underground operations. Different geometries and configurations can be applied to both quarrying and tunneling blasts. This study aims to push contour blasts to their limits, and the main aspects are discussed in order to improve the blast parameters in daily practice.

The use of ornamental stones has a historical value that makes them strategically precious in Italy; marble can offer high performance in architectural applications, even though the variability of the rock mass requires detailed studies to optimize the exploitation techniques and reduce waste. Italy is world famous for its marble, which is extracted mainly through chainsaw cutting machines, which are currently used intensively due to their high-safety working conditions compared to alternative techniques and for their great versatility, especially in underground applications. Although this cutting technique is well-rooted, an uncommon problem of tool wear was found in the quarry under study, which strongly affected productivity. A series of laboratory test were carried out to estimate the wear potential of the rock and the suitability of the tools. The Cerchar abrasivity test highlighted a mean wear potential for the marble of 2.77, while microhardness outcomes pointed out the presence of quartz veins in the tested material (values over 10,000 MPa). Finally, additives typically used in the conditioning process of EPB machines in tunneling were tested with the purpose of reducing the extent of wear. A reduction of about 50% in the wear (in terms of weight lost) was obtained for a moisture content of 9%.

The rapid development of the mechanized tunneling in current decades has raised serious concerns about the environmental impact of large quantities of the muck. EPB-TBMs require the use of foaming agents for optimizing the soil conditioning. These agents could contain some chemicals (e.g., sodium lauryl ether sulfate - SLES) that are not included in the current legislation at the Italian or EU level. In order to minimize the project costs, it is useful to re-use the excavated soil as a reusable by-product that requires that it does not have any environmental impact on the ecosystems. For this purpose, to draw up a site-specific protocol is a practical and successful tool to evaluate the environmental compatibility of excavated soil during the tunneling. It can rely on one-month experiments at a microcosm or mesocosm scale using soil coming from the excavated site. At fixed times (from 0 to 28 days) the chemical degradation of the chemical together with ecotoxicological tests can be performed on soil or soil-water extracts. Both aquatic and terrestrial organisms are used and the choice of the tests depends on the final destination site. The results of the residual concentration of SLES in soil and in the elutriates, together with those of the ecotoxicological tests, make it possible to evaluate the temporary storage of spoil material and the time necessary for obtaining a safe soil debris to be used as a by-product. These data are usually included in the site-specific protocol to be applied during the excavation phase. This paper describes the main methodological aspects regarding microcosm experiments.

According to many studies, extracorporeal dialysis with convective methods is associated with better clinical outcomes and a survival benefit compared to diffusive techniques. However, there is no full agreement on the actual superiority of this kind of renal replacement therapy on hard end-points such as mortality. We performed a retrospective epidemiological cohort study to provide "real-world" evidence on the impact of convective and non-convective dialysis techniques on all-cause and cardiac mortality and biochemical outcomes among dialysis patients in Sicily, the southernmost region of Italy. Data of all incident adult patients (N = 6529) who have started chronic extracorporeal dialysis over the period 2009-2015 were retrieved from the Sicilian Registry of Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation. There were 1558 patients receiving convective techniques (23.86%). Overall mortality rate was 45.21% with a significant difference between convective (31.39%) and non-convective (49.55%) groups (P 0.0001). After adjustment for potential confounders in multiple Cox regression models of increasing complexity, the mortality risk remained significantly lower for patients treated with convective methods (HR, 0.581; 95%CI, 0.525 to 0.643; P 0.0001). Moreover, the convective group had a better blood chemistry profile, improved dialysis efficacy, and reduced mortality rate from cardiac diseases compared to the non-convective group. As a sensitivity analysis, patients were categorized according to propensity score quartiles and the hazard ratio for both all-cause and cardiac mortality was significantly lower for the convective group in each quartile. In conclusion, despite the observational and retrospective design, the results of the present study further support the use of convective therapies for the treatment of end-stage renal disease.

La tesi di Laurea Magistrale a ciclo unico, in "Conservazione e Restauro dei Beni Culturali", della Dottoressa Nicoletta Chiparo, riguarda l'intervento di restauro di un lacerto di dipinto murale staccato, di età paleocristiana, raffigurante un'orante; l’approccio alle problematiche di conservazione del dipinto murale ha suggerito l’avvio di una ricerca bibliografica e di laboratorio sui materiali per la realizzazione degli strati di sacrificio per i dipinti murali staccati. Il dipinto murale, di provenienza incerta e delle dimensioni di cm. 60 di h, cm. 41.5 di larg. mm. 1-3 di sp., rappresenta una figura femminile orante che, per la resa del volto, dei particolari dell’acconciatura e la cura nell’abbigliamento sembra rientrare in un filone ritrattistico che inizia con l’Orante del cubicolo della “Velata” nella catacomba di Priscilla a Roma, della metà del III secolo, e di cui fa parte anche Dionysas nel cubicolo dei cinque santi nella catacomba di San Callisto a Roma, collocabile tra la fine del III e l’inizio del IV secolo d. C. Il lacerto di dipinto ha subito vari interventi nel corso del tempo: l’ultimo dei quali riferibile agli anni ’70, ha previsto il collocamento del dipinto su un supporto autonomo (H 64,5 cm, L 44,2 cm, S 3 cm) costituito da un telaio ligneo, al quale è stata fissata la tela di sostegno, e la stuccatura perimetrale con malta a base di gesso, massicciamente rilevata lungo i margini frammentati del lacerto, che, prima dell’attuale intervento di restauro, occultava parte della superficie pittorica falsandone così la dimensione originaria. Sulla superficie pittorica era, inoltre, riscontrabile una stesura omogenea verde-grigiastra a base acquosa, che altera la percezione dei colori e appiattisce la superficie. L’intervento di restauro è stato eseguito con lo scopo di migliorare le condizioni conservative dell’opera e la lettura unitaria del dipinto, rispettando l'identità della materia originaria, purtroppo compromessa da interventi precedenti. Al fine di approfondire lo studio dello stato di conservazione del reperto e di adottare una corretta metodologia d’intervento, sono state condotte indagini multispettrali, quali la fuorescenza ultravioletta (UVFLU) per evidenziare le ridipinture, l’analisi in Falso Colore che ha evidenziato un’alta concentrazione di stuccature in gesso. Dalla fluorescenza ultravioletta si è inoltre evidenziata la presenza di una sostanza organica, probabilmente dovuta alla colla utilizzata per l’intervento di stacco e di un olio siccativo riconducibile ad un protettivo. La presenza di cera sulla superficie pittorica, di colla organica all’interno delle fratture e anche del caseinato di calcio, utilizzato quale adesivo per far aderire il backing di tela al retro del dipinto murale, è stata confermata dalle indagini spettroscopiche FT-IR e Raman. Nel corso dell'intervento di restauro è stato possibile recuperare la leggibilità e restituire piena dignità ad reperto archeologico e, inoltre, agendo con la massima attenzione durante le fase di pulitura, sono stati rivelati preziosi dettagli iconografici ormai scomparsi. A conclusione dell'intervento è stato adottato un nuovo supporto autonomo in Aerolam e durante la progettazione di esso è stata parallelamente avviata una sperimentazione sull’utilizzo di un nuovo materiale per la realizzazione di strati di intervento a base di sughero con diversi adesivi. La sperimentazione, sebbene ancora preliminare, evidenzia buone potenzialità ed applicabilità per i dipinti murali staccati grazie all’elevata elasticità mostrata dal materiale utilizzato, che garantisce migliore adattamento alle tensioni della tela di sostegno a suo tempo utilizzata nello stacco, e dalle caratteristiche di durabilità del sughero e alla buona reversibilità garantita dalla corretta scelta dell’adesivo. The paper shows the results of the restoration of the fresco of the "Orante" of the Archaeological Museum "A. Salinas" of Palermo. Preliminary experimentation shows good potential and applicability for detached wall paintings thanks to the high elasticity shown by the material used, which guarantees better adaptation to the tensions and good reversibility guaranteed by the correct choice of adhesive.

Contains fulltext : 153534.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) INTRODUCTION: Adults with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) treated with haemodialysis experience mortality of between 15% and 20% each year. Effective interventions that improve health outcomes for long-term dialysis patients remain unproven. Novel and testable determinants of health in dialysis are needed. Nutrition and dietary patterns are potential factors influencing health in other health settings that warrant exploration in multinational studies in men and women treated with dialysis. We report the protocol of the "DIETary intake, death and hospitalisation in adults with end-stage kidney disease treated with HaemoDialysis (DIET-HD) study," a multinational prospective cohort study. DIET-HD will describe associations of nutrition and dietary patterns with major health outcomes for adults treated with dialysis in several countries. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: DIET-HD will recruit approximately 10,000 adults who have ESKD treated by clinics administered by a single dialysis provider in Argentina, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. Recruitment will take place between March 2014 and June 2015. The study has currently recruited 8000 participants who have completed baseline data. Nutritional intake and dietary patterns will be measured using the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network (GA(2)LEN) food frequency questionnaire. The primary dietary exposures will be n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid consumption. The primary outcome will be cardiovascular mortality and secondary outcomes will be all-cause mortality, infection-related mortality and hospitalisation. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study is approved by the relevant Ethics Committees in participating countries. All participants will provide written informed consent and be free to withdraw their data at any time. The findings of the study will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, conference presentations and to participants via regular newsletters. We expect that the DIET-HD study will inform large pragmatic trials of nutrition or dietary interventions in the setting of advanced kidney disease.

The life history of the bivalve-inhabiting hydroid Eugymnanthea inquilina was investigated in two different hosts, the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis (collected from 1989–1991 from the Ionian Sea, Italy) and the clam Ruditapes decussatus (collected from 1991–1992, Ionian Sea, Italy). Hydroids living in mussels revealed a size selection for hosts longer than 40 mm, being almost completely absent in mussels below this size. This might be controlled by signals linked to the sexual maturity of the bivalve. The proportion of molluscs inhabited showed a seasonal trend in mussels only, with a sharp decline at the onset of medusoid liberation. Production of medusoids was high in mussels, whereas medusoids were rare and often abortive in clams. This indicates a higher degree of fitness of E. inquilina in mussels than in clams. The hydroid life cycle was not completed in clams, which therefore were presumably supplied by planulae from medusoids produced by mussel-inhabiting hydroids. Mussels played a key role in the stability and persistence of E. inquilina populations in the studied area. Selective ingestion of trematode sporocysts by E. inquilina hydroids indicated a protective role of the hydroid against mussel parasites, leading to reconsideration of this symbiotic association as a possible mutualism rather than a simple inquilinism.

We report on the design of highly reflecting two-dimensional photonic crystal (2D-PC) mirrors, which can be inte- grated in a short InGaAs QWs laser source, operating around 970 nm. These mirrors consist of a triangular lattice of air holes into the GaAs slab, whose geometrical parameters have been calculated by the effective index method and 2D plane wave expansion method. A 2D finite-difference time-domain (2D-FDTD) model has also been used in order to evaluate the transmission and reflection characteristics of 2D-PC front and back mirrors of the in-plane laser. Finally, a detailed description of the nanotechnology processes necessary for the fabrication of ultra-compact in-plane laser is shown.

Meningiomas have been found to have receptors for several hormones, such as oestrogen, progesterone, somatostatin, dopamine and recently also for prolactin.To investigate any possible role of prolactin in the growth of those tumours we detected the presence of prolactin-receptors (PRL-R) in 22 meningiomas and we correlated these data with PRL serum levels in patients before surgery. We also studied 13 patients with schwannomas and 7 with other cerebral tumours (4 glioblastomas, 2 ependymomas and 1 astrocytoma).Increased prolactin binding was present in 10 (45.4 percent;) meningiomas, 9 (69.2 percent;) schwannomas and in the patient with astrocytoma. The presence of high PRL levels was present in 6 (27.2 percent;) patients with meningiomas, 8 (61.5 percent;) with schwannomas and in 3 (42.8 percent;) with other tumours. No direct correlation was present between serum PRL levels and PRL binding in all groups.In conclusion we confirmed the presence of PRL receptors in patients with meningiomas and we have also shown the presence of PRL receptors also in schwannomas. Moreover increased serum PRL were shown in some patients with different tumours of nervous tissue before surgery. Our data could suggest that PRL might have a role in the growth of meningiomas and schwannomas.