1,721,040 research outputs found
The former mining area of Santa Barbara in Tuscany and a spatial strategy for its regeneration
No full textThe former brown coal mining site of Santa Barbara (1,600 ha) is located in the Valdarno area of Tuscany, Italy. It is owned by Enel, the main Italian energy company, formerly State-run and progressively privatized since 1992. As mining activities drew to a close, Enel began developing an Environmental Rehabilitation Plan (“Piano di Recupero Ambientale”) for the site in 1993, as required by law. To date, that plan has not yet been implemented. In the meantime, the Santa Barbara site has been reconquered by ‘nature’. Within the framework of the Enel's Futur-e project, the Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with the Università degli Studi di Firenze have designed a spatial strategy for the redevelopment of Santa Barbara, capable to interact with the Environmental Rehabilitation Plan. This paper describes the history and particular landscape of the site and, from the inside, the complex process undertaken to design the spatial strategy and the Master Plan for the area. Based upon the cultural heritage of cycling in Tuscany, the “Santa Barbara Cycling Hub & Park” Master Plan is the first milestone on the path to a sustainable landscape and heritage-based development, in a continuously changing scenario driven by shifting energy market dynamics and Enel's business strategy
Il progetto Futur-e
No full textFutur-e è il nome del progetto promosso da enel nel 2015 per la riqualificazione dei siti di oltre venti centrali termoelettriche in dismissione o già dismesse, situate in varie parti del territorio italiano. Il progetto, ancora in corso, ha visto fin dal principio il supporto tecnico dei Dipartimenti di Architettura e Studi Urbani e di Ingegneria Gestionale del Politecnico di Milano. A valle del lavoro svolto e nella prospettiva di innovare la collaborazione attualmente in corso, si propongono alcune riflessioni sul ruolo svolto dall’università nel processo, sulla natura e distribuzione territoriale delle centrali oggetto del progetto, sui loro paesaggi e architetture, sulla vita che si svolge al loro interno, sugli strumenti operativi per la conversione e, infine, su nuove strategie possibili di Corporate Social Responsibility per le imprese.Futur-e is the project promoted by enel in 2015 for the redevelopment of the sites of more than twenty unused or underused thermoelectric power stations in various parts of the Italian territory. Since the beginning, the still on-going project has foreseen the technical support of the Dipartimento di Architettura e Studi Urbani and of the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Gestionale of the Politecnico di Milano. On the basis of the work done and with the view to innovating the current collaboration, the authors of this issue reflect on the role of the university in the process, on the nature and the territorial distribution of the power stations included in the project, on their landscapes and architecture, on the life that takes place inside and around them, on the tools for their redevelopment, and on new possible Corporate Social Responsibility strategies for large companies
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
Cardiac autonomic dysfunction is associated with white matter lesions in patients with MCI
No full textBackground. Cardiac autonomic dysfunction has been associated with cognitive impairment, but the underlying
pathogenesis is complex and cerebral white matter lesions (WMLs) might be implicated.
Methods. Time and frequency heart rate variability (HRV) and visual rating of WMLs were carried out in 42 patients
with mild cognitive impairment.
Results. After adjustment for relevant demographic and clinical characteristics, including left ventricular mass, reduced
HRV indices of parasympathetic (root mean square of successive difference of RR intervals, RMSSD) and sympathetic
modulation (low-frequency [LF] power) were associated with increased WML score (RMSSD: B − 0.30, 95%
CI − 0.52 to − 0.08, p = .01; LF: B − 0.24, 95% CI − 0.46 to − 0.02, p = .05). In a multiple-adjusted model, RMSSD was the
major independent predictor of WMLs ( B − 0.35, 95% CI − 0.57 to − 0.13, p = .002).
Conclusion. The evidence for an independent association of cardiac autonomic dysfunction with WMLs might
suggest its role in the pathogenesis of WMLs
Molecular mechanisms in cognitive frailty: potential therapeutic targets for oxygen-ozone treatment
No full textIn the last decade, cognitive frailty has gained great attention from the scientific community. It is characterized by high inflammation and oxidant state, endocrine and metabolic alterations, mitochondria dysfunctions and slowdown in regenerative processes and immune system, with a complex and multifactorial aetiology. Although several treatments are available, challenges regarding the efficacy and the costs persist. Here, we proposed an alternative non-pharmacological, non-side-effect, low cost therapy based on anti-inflammation, antioxidant, regenerative and anti-pathogens properties of ozone, through the activation of several molecular mechanisms (Nrf2-ARE, NF-κB, NFAT, AP-1, HIFα). We highlighted how these specific processes could be implicated in cognitive frailty to identify putative therapeutic targets for its treatment. The oxigen-ozone (O2-O3) therapy has never been tested for cognitive frailty. This work provides thus wide scientific background to build a consistent rationale for testing for the first time this therapy, that could modulate the immune, inflammatory, oxidant, metabolic, endocrine, microbiota and regenerative processes impaired in cognitive frailty. Although insights are needed, the O2-O3 therapy could represent a faster, easier, inexpensive monodomain intervention working in absence of side effects for cognitive frailty
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