1,721,778 research outputs found
Preface [Therapeutic Landscape Design Methods, Design Strategies and New Scientific Approaches]
No full textThe health status—as considered today—is not just an individual protection and
promotion issue, but a collective condition, strongly influenced by the environmental
context; the link between the morphological and functional features of urban contexts
and places, and the Public Health outcomes, opening up to a new scientific and design
scenario about Urban Health research topic.
Referring to this research field, the introduction of Nature-Based Solutions and
Therapeutic Landscape Design approaches into the healthcare contexts, facilities,
and architectures has assumed a considerable importance over the years. The recent
period that saw the healthcare facilities fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic,
highlighted the need, especially in complex periods of lockdown, to use green spaces
to recover health and well-being both in hospitals and in public or private places. The
COVID-19 pandemic is an important demonstration of the dual effects of urbanization on the environment, that is, the intrinsic capacity of the contemporary city to
be a place of economic and social opportunities and, at the same time, places where
multiple risk factors for Public Health and Health Welfare could be developed and
disseminated.
Starting from the experience developed into the six editions of the Training Course
in “Therapeutic Landscape Design”—which has been held since 2015 at the Department of Architecture, Built environment and Construction engineering (ABC) of
Politecnico di Milano, where the multidisciplinary approach of the Lectures involved
helps to provide scientific, technical, healthcare, social and design methodologies to
over 120 attendees—the need to bring together, in a scientific monograph, the contribution of the Professors, Professions, and Practitioners, became crucial as much as
relevant.
A more conscious design of therapeutic green spaces—especially referred to
the Healing Gardens—can give texture and consistency to several unique elements
in the treatment of specific pathologies, to support social discomfort, to develop
healing processes and practices, and to improve the evolution of healthy lifestyle and
accessible built environment for fragile users and people with disabilities. This collection of insights and scientific experiences aims to provide the tools
to plan and create therapeutic places and natural spaces aimed to support the care
process, as well as giving an overview of national and international case studies,
defining design approaches, analysis, and best practices
Drug design and screening by in silico approaches
No full textHundreds of millions of people worldwide are affected by infectious diseases caused by Kinetoplastida parasites. Especially in non-industrialized countries, these diseases represent one of the most serious health problems. Since current drugs lack efficacy, specificity, and suffer from several side-effects, there is an urgent need for novel therapeutics. In modern drug discovery, more and more relevance is given to the use of computer-aided (or in silico) techniques. Especially in the early phases of projects, in silico tools based on the knowledge of the target receptor structure (structure-based) or on the chemical structure of active small molecules (ligand-based) are routinely used for discovering and optimizing hit or lead compounds of pharmaceutical interest. Here, in silico approaches for discovering anti-trypanosomal compounds are described and general remarks on computer-aided methods are provided
First-move advantage in seasoned equity offerings: Evidence from European banks
Full text linkThe financial crisis that started in 2008 has generated significant losses for European banks, forcing them to undertake a series of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) to reinforce their balance sheets in order to comply with regulatory capital requirements. As a result, they have produced repeated SEO waves in a relatively short time frame, when capital supply was limited due to the economic and financial context. We investigate the conditions at which European banks have been able to raise new equity capital by means of rights issues during the global financial crisis, demonstrating the existence of a first-move advantage: within a SEO wave, banks that acted first were able to complete the capital increase at more favorable conditions than their peers that acted later. We also show that first-movers experienced higher valuation ratios at the final cum-rights date compared to late-comers. As a result, first-movers obtained a double advantage: they could offer a lower discount on a price that embedded an higher valuation ratio
Therapeutic Architecture. Assessment Tools and Design Strategies for Healing Gardens Implementation
No full textSeveral Evidence Based Design studies highlighted the impact of natural elements in the form of Healing or Therapeutic Gardens on patients health and wellbeing. A significant number of users within hospitals and socio-sanitary facilities is represented by medical doctors and nurses. They also spend a significant amount of time inside healthcare buildings and are subject to different risks factors, such as burnout. Aim of the research is to investigate the impact that Healing Gardens have on doctors and nurses perceived wellbeing and to provide tools and strategies for design implementations. A qualitative empirical study has been conducted on a sample of seven case studies selected among national and international Therapeutic Gardens inside socio-sanitary facilities or nursing homes. Both primary and secondary data have been used. The study demonstrates that Therapeutic Gardens can have a positive impact on hospital staff perceived satisfaction, relax improvement and willingness to work with the patients. Different recommendations and design suggestions have been proposed for the improvement of therapeutic open spaces usage. Future research on the topic are encouraged to involve a wider and more various sample
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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