438 research outputs found
A method based on environmental monitoring and building dynamic simulation to assess indoor climate control strategies in the preventive conservation within historical buildings
No full textThis paper proposes a multidisciplinary method to provide improved conservation strategy and thermal comfort for visitors in historical buildings. The method combines microclimate observations along with the dynamic simulation of the building and an empirical evaluation of the degradation of hygrosocopic artifacts. It was applied to a historic building in Priverno (Italy) where cracks along the tangential direction in valuable wooden ceilings were observed. The method produced an identification strategy for temperature control that, if applied, would reduce the total size of cracks from 0.25 mm to 0.10 mm
Microclimatic measurements and whole-building dynamic simulation of a semi-confined paleontological site: La Polledrara di Cecanibbio (Rome)
No full textLa Biblioteca Meteorologica Storica del CREA al Collegio Romano: analisi critica del microclima al fine della conservazione del suo patrimonio librario
No full textLa collezione libraria della Biblioteca ex CREA-CMA al Collegio Romano rappresenta una delle più importanti testimonianze dell’eredità scientifica della tradizione meteorologica e geofisica italiana. Il Gruppo di Meteorologia (GMET) di Sapienza Università di Roma ha intrapreso negli ultimi anni una linea di ricerca in Fisica dell'Atmosfera applicata alla conservazione dei Beni Culturali per la comprensione della complessa interazione tra i manufatti e l’ambiente e per lo studio delle cause di deterioramento indotte dal microclima. Dallo scorso giugno 2019 il GMET ha avviato nella Sala del Consiglio della Biblioteca una campagna di monitoraggio microclimatico al fine di caratterizzare l’ambiente dal punto di vista dei livelli medi e delle variazioni di temperatura (T) e di umidità relativa (UR) e di valutarne il rischio di deterioramento per il suo patrimonio librario. Il sistema di monitoraggio consiste di due termoigrometri – posizionati uno nella sala e uno all’interno di un libro campione – e di un sensore di anidride carbonica (CO2). Le serie termoigrometriche sono state analizzate per identificare le stagioni più rischiose per la conservazione e per confrontare i valori di T e UR misurati nella sala e all’interno del libro campione. Una funzione di deterioramento specifica per i materiali cartacei, basata sulla costante di idrolisi della cellulosa e sulle isoterme di adsorbimento del vapore proprie della carta, ha permesso di valutare l’aspettativa di vita degli oggetti in funzione delle condizioni ambientali registrate. Dai valori di concentrazione di CO2 sono stati ricostruiti il tasso medio di ricambio dell’aria e la relazione tra la fruizione e le dinamiche delle grandezze termo-igrometriche in ambiente interno
Climate-induced risk for the preservation of paper collections: Comparative study among three historic libraries in Italy
No full textThe conservation of historic libraries can be referred towards both the ancient book collections and the buildings themselves. Heritage collections made of paper are threaten by climate-induced deterioration risks such as cellulose hydrolysis. Several studies have investigated the microclimate inside historic libraries but comparisons are difficult due to the lack of long-term microclimate observations and uniformity in the use of standards and risk assessment methods. For the first time, the long-term microclimate observations collected in three historic libraries in Italy were comparatively studied to outline differences and similarities of their microclimates in terms of paper preservation. A multidisciplinary approach was applied to assess the building performance (a) and the deterioration risks for the collections (b). As for a), a common feature of the libraries was the high thermal inertia and low indoor-outdoor air exchanges. As for b), the Time Weighted Expected Lifetime (TWEL) was defined to account for an average chemical risk on a seasonal and yearly basis. TWEL allowed to highlight the impact of the most adverse conditions on the overall chemical risk for acidic paper preservation (e.g., temperatures above 20 ◦C reached naturally in summer/artificially in winter). It resulted that the measured microclimate conditions in the libraries would lead to the loss of their acidic collections in less than 300 years. Demographic plots were finally used to inform about the risk resulting from the synergy between handling and microclimate as well as to explore the effectiveness of possible preservation measures such as the deacidification of 10% of the collections
On-site measurements and whole-building thermal dynamic simulation of a semi-confined prefabricated building for heritage conservation
No full textIn this study the capability of BDFWall model (IDA Indoor Climate and Energy software) is assessed in a semi-confined site for conservation of works of art. The case under study is the paleontological deposit of “La Polledrara di Cecanibbio” (Rome, Italy), where many valuable faunal remains from Middle Pleistocene are preserved. Thermo-hygrometric data collected over the period 2009 – 2013 allowed thoroughly investigating the environmental conditions of the site. The calibration of the simulation building model was performed in two phases. First, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify which input parameters significantly affect the discrepancy, if any, between measured and modelled hourly indoor temperature (T) data (from September to December 2013). Second, the calibration of the model was carried out taking into account the most effective parameters. The dual approach, given by both experimental and simulation data, can support preventive measures about risk analysis for artworks in the case of retrofit solutions of a building used for the conservation purpose
The impact of changing climate on the preservation of Mediterranean cinematographic archives
No full textA changing climate significantly impacts the preservation of cultural heritage both outdoors and indoors. In the case of cultural collections preserved indoors, buildings play a key role in buffering the short-term outdoor climate fluctuations, being still heavily influenced by long-term outdoor climate trends. This makes indoor climate control challenging, especially when stable indoor temperature and relative humidity conditions should be kept preserving climate-vulnerable materials (e.g., polymeric-based materials). In the last decades, this approach is becoming increasingly unsustainable due to the extensive use of air conditioning systems, which contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases. This study examines the potential challenges in indoor climate control in the Mediterranean cinematographic archives -preserving cellulose acetate motion picture films- under the intermediate Shared Socio-economic Pathways climate scenario (SSP2-4.5). The analysis employs the "degree-days" index, using temperature thresholds recommended by standards to limit climate-induced degradation in cinematographic collections. The expected increase of the outdoor temperatures will be responsible for a significant increase in the cooling degree days with a different extent throughout Mediterranean countries. This will make more challenging the preservation of cinematographic collections as they are highly vulnerable to temperature greater that 15°C. These findings can support strategies to adapt to predicted warming by fine-tuning indoor climate control to preserve collections while enhancing energy efficiency. This may lead to the construction of new more-efficient cinematographic archives in climate resilient areas and to the development of new standards incorporating future climate projections and adaptation measures
Diagnosis of historic reinforced concrete buildings. A literature review of non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques
No full textNon-destructive testing (NDT) techniques are employed by many authors as reliable and effective methodologies to investigate the current conservation state of historic buildings and to follow up its evolution in response to the surrounding environmental changes. This paper briefly reviews the scientific articles dealing with NDT techniques applied to historic reinforced concrete (RC) buildings. To this purpose, 32 articles were selected through the steps of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta- analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram and critically analysed. It emerges that Acoustic Emission and Ultrasonic techniques, Thermography, Rebound Hammer, and Electromagnetic techniques (e.g., Eddy Current and Ground Penetrating radar) are commonly employed due to their ability to detect damage in RC structures. As a result, the combined use of acoustic and mechanical methods (also known as “SonReb” Rebound Hammer and Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity) is found to be the approach more frequently used in the revised documents. This work allows to guide in the selection of NDT techniques to study the rate of decay, if any, and shows the way towards the development of new early warning approaches for historic RC structures
Performance assessment of hygrothermal modelling for diagnostics and conservation in an Italian historical church
No full textThe hygrothermal modelling of historical churches is a promising approach to study preservation issues and suitable retrofit measures. However, difficulties can arise in the use of Heat, Air and Moisture (HAM) models, which are often customised objects to be integrated into validated building energy simulation (BES). This research outlines a multi-step methodology to investigate the capability of a BES software coupled with a HAM model (BES + HAM) as a technique for diagnostics and conservation in complex settings. The 17th-century church of Santa Rosalia (Italy) was used as a historical site in a real context. As first step, the performance of the simulation tool was analysed through standardised exercises aiming at excluding incorrect assumptions and calculations in the HAM model (HMWall). Secondly, a building model of the church using a 1D heat transfer model (named building model A) was compared with one using HMWall (named building model B) in terms of the accuracy of the indoor climate simulations against hygrothermal measurements. The results showed that building model B enhanced the simulation accuracy by +50% with respect to building model A. Finally, annual simulations inside the church were run to further compare the seasonal trends of indoor climate scenario obtained from the two building models. Building model B allowed to study the water content distribution inside the altarpiece and a wall partition, showing that BES + HAM tools can be used to identify potential moisture-induced conservation risks
HEALTHCARE AND CULTURE: SUBJECTIVITY IN THE HEALTHCARE CONTEXTS.
No full textThe book deals with current issues, pertinent every healthcare relationship. Changes in medicine as well as some constant aspects over time arise within a cultural ground and generate new questions and issues that are not only purely medical, but also bioethical, social, political, economic and psychological of course.
On the one hand, changes in medicine generate new questions for society, on the other hand, the society poses new questions to the medicine, new challenges, and in some cases they can conflict with consolidated models and practices. Never the progress of Western medicine and its therapeutic practices have been as significant as in the last decades but the increase of specific competence and effectiveness of medical treatments are not linearly translated into an increase of consensus, dialogue and alliance between medicine and society. How does psychology take on a position of interlocutor towards medicine and its transformations? How does Cultural Psychology, Health Psychology, Clinical Psychology confront themselves with the processes of meaning making generated by medicine?
The interest of the book is aimed to grasp the construction of processes of cultural, relational and subjective meaning in the dialogical encounter between medicine and society, between doctor and patient. The book intends to focus in particular on two specific plans: on the one hand, to present a reflection and analysis on contemporary medicine and its on‐going transformations of the healthcare relationship; on the other hand, to present and discuss experiences of intervention and possible models of intervention addressed to healthcare and doctor‐patient relationships during its crucial steps (consultation, formulation and communication of diagnosis, therapy, conclusion). The book’s purposes are aimed to discuss crucial and current issues on the borders between medicine and psychology: consensus and sharing, decision‐making and autonomy, subjectivity and narration, emotions and affectivity, medical semeiotics and cultural semiotics, training of physicians, and epistemological, theoretical and methodological issues.
CONTENTS
Series Editor’s Preface: Caring for Health Care: Cultural Processes in Medicine, Jaan Valsiner. Introduction: The Meaning Making Processes of Healthcare Relationship in the Current Scenario, Maria Francesca Freda and Raffaele De Luca Picione. PART I: HEALTHCARE RELATIONSHIP AS ARENA OF MEANING. FROM CULTURAL ISSUE TO SUBJECTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF ILLNESS. Medicine as a Complex Set of Cultural Systems of Meanings, Raffaele De Luca Picione. The Border Into Wonderland: When Words Between Doctor and Patient Is Not Enough, Jensine Nedergaard. Autonomy: A Concept at the Crossroads of Medicine and Psychology, Giovanni Guerra. The Role of the Meaning‐Making Process in the Management of Hereditary Angioedema, Livia Savarese, Maria Bova, Raffaella Falco, Maria Domenica Guarino, Gerarda Siani, Paolo Valerio, and Maria Francesca Freda. PART II: HEALTHCARE RELATIONSHIP AS ARENA OF TRANSFORMATION: FROM COMMUNICATION TO DIALOGUE. Psychological Scaffolding in the Healthcare Relationship: A Methodological Proposal, Maria Francesca Freda, Raffaele De Luca Picione, and Francesca Dicè. Breaking Bad News: Theory and Practice for Healthcare Professionals’ Training, Giulia Lamiani, Daniela Leone, Elaine C. Meyer, and Elena Vegni. Psychologists and Family Physicians in an Experience of Collaborative Care in Italy: An Effort Towards Integration and Against Stigma, Luigi Solano, Barbara Cordella, Michela Di Trani, Rosa Ferri, and Alessia Renzi. Clinical Psychology in Hospital Setting, Renzo Carli, Rosa Maria Paniccia, Silvia Policelli, and Andrea Caputo. PART III: MENTAL HEALTHCARE AS PARADIGMATIC ARENA TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN RELATION. From Psychopathology to Service. A New View of the Clinical Psychology Intervention, Sergio Salvatore, Claudia Venuleo, Valeria Pace, Marianna Puglisi, Mari Tandoi, Annalisa Venezia, Rossano Grassi, and Gianna Mangeli. Recovery, Paternalism and Narrative Understanding in Mental Healthcare, Tim Thornton. “Why Do You Then Not Shit?” Diagnosis and the Semiotic Sphere, Yair Neuman. PART IV: PREGNANCY AND MOTHERHOOD: A CHALLENGING ARENA FOR DIALOGUE BETWEEN MEDICINE AND PSYCHOLOGY. Birth Experience as Socially and Culturally Regulated Event, Kristiina Uriko. The Generative Function of a Healthcare System: Linking Meanings Between Chronic Illness and Motherhood, Giorgia Margherita, Maria Carlino, and Francesca Tessitore.Doctor‐Patient Relationship in Face of Grief/Mourning: The Case of Gestational Losses, Vivian Volkmer Pontes and Ana Cecília Bastos.Conclusion: Healthcare Relationship: An Open Space Dialogue in Search of Its Own Forms, Maria Francesca Freda and Raffaele De Luca Picione. About the Authors
L’EFFICACIA DEI NUTRACEUTICI NELLE MALATTIE MUSCOLARI PRIMITIVE: SCOPING REVIEW
No full textLe malattie muscolari sono disordini ereditari, congeniti o acquisiti che colpiscono il muscolo. Esse si manifestano con debolezza muscolare progressiva, mialgie e affaticamento precoce ed esitano in una notevole limitazione delle attività di vita quotidiana (ADL) e della partecipazione sociale, con un impatto negativo sulla qualità di vita dei pazienti (1). Ad oggi il management del paziente affetto da miopatia si basa essenzialmente sul trattamento farmacologico e chirurgico, entrambi orientati alla gestione degli impairment.
Nelle more di una terapia farmacologica eziologica certa, tra le proposte terapeutiche più utilizzate vi è l’uso dei nutraceutici. Questi ultimi sono prodotti contenenti una forma concentrata di una molecola biologicamente attiva normalmente presente negli alimenti, ma in dosi superiori a quelle che si introdurrebbero con l’apporto alimentare (2). È stato ipotizzato che la maggior parte di queste sostanze svolga un ruolo in diverse pathway biologiche, anche a livello del tessuto muscolare.
L’obiettivo della nostra scoping review è definire le evidenze scientifiche sull’efficacia dei nutraceutici all’interno della gestione integrata delle malattie muscolari primitive.
Sono stati selezionati dall’ “EU Register of nutrition and health claims made on foods” (3) i micronutrienti per i quali è ipotizzato un effetto sulla funzione muscolare. La ricerca è stata condotta su Pubmed (Public MedLine, by the NCBI of the National Library of Medicine of Bethesda, USA), tramite MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) e sono stati selezionati gli articoli pubblicati negli ultimi dieci anni (gennaio 2006-gennaio 2016), categorizzati secondo la piramide dell’EBM (evidence based medicine).
Dei 65 micronutrienti elencati sull’ “EU Register of nutrition and health claims made on foods”, ne abbiamo identificati 23 con un ruolo sulla funzione muscolare. Di questi, dopo aver eseguito una ricerca degli studi rilevanti, abbiamo individuato solo 6 nutraceutici il cui utilizzo è supportato da una robusta documentazione scientifica (1 Cochrane review, 2 RCT) riguardo la loro efficacia in pazienti con malattie muscolari. Nello specifico, è stata individuata una sola Cochrane review, condotta su 14 trial per un totale di 364 pazienti affetti da miopatie primitive (ereditarie o idiopatiche infiammatorie), che ha confermato l’efficacy della creatina sul miglioramento della forza muscolare nel breve e medio termine rispetto al placebo (4). L’idebenone in un solo trial clinico randomizzato versus placebo ha dimostrato di essere efficace in termini di incremento della forza dei muscoli respiratori in pazienti con distrofia muscolare di Duchenne (5). La somministrazione orale di vitamina C ed E, di zinco gluconato e di selenio metionina, in un trial clinico randomizzato, in doppio cieco controllato ha dimostrato di migliorare la forza e la potenza muscolare dei quadricipiti in pazienti affetti da distrofia facio-scapolo-omerale (6).
Altre sostanze comunemente utilizzate (magnesio, carnitina e altri) non hanno evidenze scientifiche a supporto del loro utilizzo nel management delle malattie muscolari primitive.
Dall’analisi della letteratura emerge che la gran parte dei nutraceutici utilizzati comunemente nella pratica clinica non dimostra alcuna efficacia in termini di miglioramenti degli impairment muscolari nei soggetti affetti da miopatie primitive. Solo la creatina, il coenzima Q10, le vitamine C ed E, il selenio e lo zinco hanno evidenze scientifiche, anche se non robustissime, a supporto del loro uso routinario nella gestione delle malattie primitive del muscolo.
Studi futuri, in particolare trial randomizzati controllati, sono necessari al fine di giustificare un loro impiego nella pratica clinica, anche in termini di adeguata posologia e profilo di sicurezza.
1. Chawla J. Stepwise approach to myopathy in systemic disease. Front Neurol. 2011 Aug 5;2:49.
2. Zeisel SH. Regulation of "nutraceuticals". Science 1999 17;285(5435):1853-5.
3. European Commission (2016) EU Register of nutrition and health claims made on foods. http://ec.europa.eu/nuhclaims. Accessed 6 August 2015.
4. Kley RA et al. Creatine for treating muscle disorders. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013 Jun 5;6:CD004760.
5. Buyse GM et al. Efficacy of idebenone on respiratory function in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy not using glucocorticoids (DELOS): a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled phase 3 trial. Lancet. 2015 May 2;385(9979):1748-57
6. Passerieux E et al. Effects of vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc gluconate, and selenomethionine supplementation on muscle function and oxidative stress biomarkers in patients with facioscapulohumeral dystrophy: a double-blind randomized controlled clinical trial. Free Radic Biol Med. 2015 Apr;81:158-69
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