1,471 research outputs found
The evaluation of heat vulnerability in Friuli Venezia Giulia
No full textHeat waves are leading cause of weather-related illness and death, in a
context where their frequency, intensity and impact are expected to surge due to
rising climate change, growing urbanisation and population ageing. This work develops
a Heat Vulnerability Index by means of the composite indicator methodology
with the aim to depict heat vulnerability in Friuli Venezia Giulia at the census tract
level. The results show that heat vulnerability follows a spatial pattern with highest
hazard in urban areas, lower risk in rural areas and lowest danger in mountainous
areas. The performance interval approach is exploited to validate the Index
Evaluation of a program for promoting physical activity and well-being: Friuli Venezia Giulia in Movimento
No full textThis article presents an evaluation of the “Friuli Venezia Giulia in Movimento” project, aimed at promoting the culture of movement and well-being in a region which is particularly affected by population ageing. The goals of the project reside in promoting appropriate lifestyles through the endorsement of healthy behaviours (physical activity, healthy nutrition, well-being); increasing the number of physically active people in the various municipal territories, by enhancing or creating new pedestrian paths that reflect the 10,000-step goal; enhancing the local territory by promoting the existing paths and the initiatives already in place; promoting new paths and environments conducive to physical activity for people of all ages; encouraging the creation of new “walking groups” and the adhesion of people to them to promote physical activity and socialisation, with the consequent improvement of psychophysical well-being. Although the evaluation is still on-going, the preliminary results—obtained by means of two surveys and a multilevel model—show that the initial steps of the project have been carried out satisfactorily and that Municipalities still need to be supported in order to achieve good participation on part of the citizens
Evaluation of a program for promoting physical activity and well-being: Friuli Venezia Giulia in Movimento
No full textThis article presents an evaluation of the “Friuli Venezia Giulia in Movimento” project, aimed at promoting the culture of movement and well-being in a region which is particularly affected by population ageing. The goals of the project reside in promoting appropriate lifestyles through the endorsement of healthy behaviours (physical activity, healthy nutrition, well-being); increasing the number of physically active people in the various municipal territories, by enhancing or creating new pedestrian paths that reflect the 10,000-step goal; enhancing the local territory by promoting the existing paths and the initiatives already in place; promoting new paths and environments conducive to physical activity for people of all ages; encouraging the creation of new “walking groups” and the adhesion of people to them to promote physical activity and socialisation, with the consequent improvement of psychophysical well-being. Although the evaluation is still on-going, the preliminary results—obtained by means of two surveys and a multilevel model—show that the initial steps of the project have been carried out satisfactorily and that Municipalities still need to be supported in order to achieve good participation on part of the citizens
Age-dependent regulation of ELP1 exon 20 splicing in Familial Dysautonomia by RNA Polymerase II kinetics and chromatin structure.
No full textFamilial Dysautonomia (FD) is a rare disease caused by ELP1 exon 20 skipping. Here we clarify the role of RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) and chromatin on this splicing event. A slow RNAPII mutant and chromatin-modifying chemicals that reduce the rate of RNAPII elongation induce exon skipping whereas chemicals that create a more relaxed chromatin exon inclusion. In the brain of a mouse transgenic for the human FD-ELP1 we observed on this gene an age-dependent decrease in the RNAPII density profile that was most pronounced on the alternative exon, a robust increase in the repressive marks H3K27me3 and H3K9me3 and a decrease of H3K27Ac, together with a progressive reduction in ELP1 exon 20 inclusion level. In HEK 293T cells, selective drug-induced demethylation of H3K27 increased RNAPII elongation on ELP1 and SMN2, promoted the inclusion of the corresponding alternative exons, and, by RNA-sequencing analysis, induced changes in several alternative splicing events. These data suggest a co-transcriptional model of splicing regulation in which age-dependent changes in H3K27me3/Ac modify the rate of RNAPII elongation and affect processing of ELP1 alternative exon 20
Giulia Veronica Varisco
No full textThe headword explains the biography and the contribution of the author Giulia Varisco to the children's literatur
The Construction of a Heat Vulnerability Index by Means of the Composite Indicator Approach: A Case Study for Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Italy
No full textLast decades have seen increasing consensus towards the issue of climate change and rising awareness of the implied responsibility of human activity. With growing global warming, extreme climate events like heat waves have increased in duration, frequency and intensity leading to higher heat-related morbidity and mortality rates. In this context, heat vulnerability assessments play an important role supporting decision-makers in implementing targeted mitigation and prevention actions. With this motivation, this work develops a heat vulnerability index by means of the Composite Indicator techniques to depict heat vulnerability in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region at the census tract level. The results show that heat vulnerability follows a spatial pattern, where most vulnerable census tracts are located in urbanised and densely populated areas, lower risk is observed in rural areas and lowest danger in mountainous areas. The Performance Interval approach confirms that these results do not depend on the aggregation method used to construct the index
Anthropogenic hybridization and its influence on the adaptive potential of the Sardinian wild boar (Sus scrofa meridionalis)
No full text: The wild boar (Sus scrofa meridionalis) arrived in Sardinia with the first human settlers in the early Neolithic with the potential to hybridize with the domestic pig (S. s. domesticus) throughout its evolution on the island. In this paper, we investigated the possible microevolutionary effects of such introgressive hybridization on the present wild boar population, comparing Sardinian wild specimens with several commercial pig breeds and Sardinian local pigs, along with a putatively unadmixed wild boar population from Central Italy, all genotyped with a medium density SNP chip. We first aimed at identifying hybrids in the population using different approaches, then examined genomic regions enriched for domestic alleles in the hybrid group, and finally we applied two methods to find regions under positive selection to possibly highlight instances of domestic adaptive introgression into a wild population. We found three hybrids within the Sardinian sample (3.1% out of the whole dataset). We reported 11 significant windows under positive selection with a method that looks for overly differentiated loci in the target population, compared with other two populations. We also identified 82 genomic regions with signs of selection in the domestic pig but not in the wild boar, two of which overlapped with genomic regions enriched for domestic alleles in the hybrid pool. Genes in these regions can be linked with reproductive success. Given our results, domestic introgression does not seem to be pervasive in the Sardinian wild boar. Nevertheless, we suggest monitoring the possible spread of advantageous domestic alleles in the coming years
Fidarsi è bene! Rappresentazioni sociali dell’affido e fiducia nel sociale
No full textIntroduzione. Il tema delle rappresentazioni sociali dell’affido familiare è stato poco indagato e limitati sono gli studi che hanno sondato come l’affido è visto e percepito dalla popolazione generale. Emerge, quindi, l’importanza di approfondire il tema delle rappresentazioni in quanto “guida per l’azione”. Obiettivi. Il presente studio è volto a sondare le rappresentazioni dell’affido e promuovere una cultura dell’accoglienza, indagando quali fattori ne predicano una rappresentazione positiva e realistica. Sono stati presi in considerazione la prosocialità, la visione del mondo sociale come coerente e la generatività sociale, ipotizzando che visioni più positive e realistiche dell’affido siano ad essi connessi favorendo, a loro volta, una potenziale disponibilità all’accoglienza. Metodo. Un questionario self-report contenente variabili socio-demografiche, variabili relative alle rappresentazioni dell’affido, la Scala di Comportamento Prosociale, la Sense of Coherence Scale e la Loyola Generativity Scale è stato somministrato a genitori e insegnanti di nove Istituti Comprensivi del territorio lombardo (N=1285). Risultati. Il comportamento prosociale, l’atteggiamento generativo e la visione del mondo come coerente risultano predittori di una rappresentazione positiva e realistica dell’affido. In particolare, rispetto alla rappresentazione positiva, i tre costrutti sono predittori di sentimenti positivi verso tale pratica e l’atteggiamento generativo predice l’idea che l’affido sia un intervento migliore della comunità. Rispetto alla rappresentazione realistica, la prosocialità è predittore dell’idea dell’importanza del legame tra le famiglie coinvolte, mentre sia la prosocialità che la visione del mondo come coerente predicono l’idea che l’affido presupponga una collaborazione con i servizi. Conclusioni. I soggetti che presentano alti livelli di tali costrutti potrebbero essere maggiormente sensibili a interventi volti a individuare potenziali famiglie affidatarie
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