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Osteoporosis is a public health problem, which negatively impacts society and national health services worldwide. Altered mineralization of the skeleton can be caused by persistent vitamin D deficiency. However, the combined impact of both on bone health is still under investigation. In fact, although there is compelling evidence in the literature about the positive effect of weight-bearing sports participation on bone mineral density, its impact on bone geometry gains more attention in pediatric population. The sports modalities that we evaluated were artistic gymnastics and track and field. Nonsports group was composed of 43 adolescents. Bone density was assessed using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Vitamin D concentration was assessed by blood analysis. In the crude comparison of bone outcomes, the sport group presented higher aBMD only in the trochanter (p -value = 0.040). Considering the combination of the engagement in sports and vitamin D, adolescents in the sports group presented significantly higher values of aBMD in lower limbs, whole body, trochanter, shaft, and femur whole body (p -value = 0.024, 0.035, 0.001, 0.019 and 0.003 respectly). In contrast, only the sport group with high vitamin D presented a higher CSA (p -value = 0.015) and femur neck aBMD compared to the non-sport/low vitamin D group. Only adolescents with a combination of sports participation and higher serum concentrations of vitamin D presented better bone geometry, denoting the relevance of the combination of both factors to bone health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making evidence-based decisions in Disaster Risk Management is crucial for practitioners. However, it remains unclear how to systematically identify and characterize potential good practices to build upon available experiences. This paper proposes a methodology for identifying, documenting, and extrapolating potential good practices in Disaster Risk Management from the literature with a procedure that consists of five steps. Step 1 involves defining the general premises that guide the search for good practices based on well-established literature within a specific field. Step 2 selects a suitable framework to derive requirements that must be met by the practices. In Step 3, potential good practices are identified through the collection of case studies that encapsulate them, while criteria to select case studies are defined. Step 4 utilises a template to document the practices and their context of implementation. Step 5, finally, compares the practices described in the case studies against the requirements and general premises to extrapolate, among them, those practices that are potentially good (i.e., those that can work in similar contexts). To better illustrate its applicability, the methodology was implemented in the domain of disaster risk and crisis communication. The application of this methodology enables practitioners to capture features of a good practice in a given context and assess their replicability across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Genitourinary atrophy is a menopausal pathological change determined by the definitive drop of ovarian hormones' production that can impact heavily on the health status of women, with important direct and indirect social costs. Unfortunately, available treatments are only symptomatic, and they are not able to reverse the atrophy and other related symptoms. Regenerative medicine, with single local injection of autologous micro-fractured fat tissue, could represent a viable new solution for these patients as it not only helps to relieve symptoms, but it also counteracts the mechanisms that lead to the menopausal genitourinary atrophy. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of micro-fractured fat vulvar injection for genito-urinary atrophy in patients, affected by severe genitourinary atrophy (at least 4 symptoms lasting for at least 4 years). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We present a case series of 35 patients followed for 36 months to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a single subcutaneous vulvar injection of autologous micro-fragmented fat tissue (MFAT). RESULTS: We have not observed any adverse effects in any patients. All symptoms, and especially pelvic pain and dyspareunia, improved in almost half of patients within 3 months. Ninety-nine percent of patients recovered completely from all symptoms after 9-12 months, reporting no relapse of the symptoms up to the third year of follow up. CONCLUSIONS: Our case series is the first case series, evaluating the long-term (3 years) safety and effectiveness of micro-fragmented adipose tissue graft for urogenital atrophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Urogenital atrophy is a degenerative process that may occur during menopause causing debilitating disorders and painful symptomatology. Estrogen therapy slows the onset of atrophy, but it requires ongoing therapy to maintain its effectiveness. To mitigate the degenerative evolutions associated with menopause, patients may benefit from new therapeutic approaches, such as the use of mesenchymal stem cells. Among the many sources, the adipose tissue is considered one of the smartest, due to its abundance and easy access. This study investigated the feasibility and potential benefits of using an autologous adipose tissue to treat the symptoms of urogenital atrophy. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In 2014, the first three women affected by post-menopausal urogenital atrophy were treated with injections of autologous and micro-fragmented adipose tissue (Lipogems ®). Clinical outcomes were determined at 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months by evaluating vaginal dryness, burning, itching, stranguria, sensitivity, and dyspareunia. Pre- and 36 months post-op biopsies and vaginal discharge were also collected. RESULTS: The three women reported a significant improvement of the symptoms at 6 months with complete resolution at 9 months. This benefit, subjectively reported and confirmed by clinical evaluation, remained constant without recurrence at least until 36 months. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed a total recovery of vaginal vitality with production of glycogen, vasculature hyperplasia and regeneration of the epithelium and subcutaneous tissue at 36 months. The analysis of vaginal discharge showed a restoration of an acid pH with the colonization of lactobacilli. No postoperative complications nor adverse events were recorded. CONCLUSIONS: The results of these first three cases pointed to autologous and micro-fragmented adipose tissue as a safe, feasible and effective therapeutic approach for the treatment of post-menopausal urogenital atrophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local Civil Protection planning is a key aspect of the emergency preparedness, resulting to be strategic for all phases of Disaster Risk Management. The Civil Protection plan is the instrument allowing authorities to coordinate and implement actions to protect people, dwellings and infrastructures when a disaster occurs. In Italy, law 100 of July 12th, 2012, enforced municipalities to draw up Civil Protection plans. As a consequence, a large number of municipalities outsourced the work to external practitioners without a real shared cooperation, resulting in most of the plans to be methodological and poorly operational. Today in Italy the 88% of the municipalities have formally adopted an Civil Protection plan, but their operability and applicability can be barely assessed by territorial civil protection authorities. In this paper, the authors propose a two-level assessment method that allows assessing the completeness, coherence and operability of Civil Protection plans, and applied them to a case study. The methodology, in both versions, prove to be effective to perform a fast assessment of the status of civil protection planning at a territorial level, suitable to prioritize civil protection actions and addresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines a new approach to rapidly estimate the damage to tall buildings immediately following a large earthquake. The preevent groundwork involves the creation of a database of structural responses to a suite of idealized ground-motion waveforms. The postevent action involves (1) rapid generation of an earthquake source model, (2) near real-time simulation of the earthquake using a regional spectral-element model of the earth and computing synthetic seismograms at tall building sites, and (3) estimation of tall building response (and damage) by determining the best-fitting idealized waveforms to the synthetically generated ground motion at the site and directly extracting structural response metrics from the database. Here, ground-velocity waveforms are parameterized using sawtoothlike wave trains with a characteristic period (T), amplitude (peak ground velocity, PGV), and duration (number of cycles, N). The proof-of-concept is established using the case study of one tall building model. Nonlinear analyses are performed on the model subjected to the idealized wave trains, with Τ varying from 0.5 s to 6.0 s, PGV varying from 0.125 m/s, and Ν varying from 1 to 5. Databases of peak transient and residual interstory drift ratios (IDR), and permanent roof drift are created. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the rapid response approach by applying it to synthetic waveforms from a simulated 1857-like magnitude 7.9 San Andreas earthquake. The peak IDR, a key measure of structural performance, is predicted well enough for emergency response decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article discusses the 12th century mosaics from the Vercelli and Casale Monferrato churches that are now part of the Museo Leone's collection. The author offers interpretations of the scenes depicted in the mosaics and their inscriptions in vulgar Latin.

The present work focuses on the use of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), commonly known as drones, for the inspection and assessment of bridge infrastructures. Recent events, in Italy and abroad, have not only brought into question infrastructure behaviour but also reminded that many ordinarily used bridges and viaducts are reaching the end of their design service life. Lack of appropriate maintenance and monitoring could worsen the situation in many circumstances, further calling for cost-effective countermeasures and tools. With this in mind, a comprehensive UAS-based methodology for the inspection and damage assessment of bridges is proposed. Such approach is applicable not only in the aftermath of a disaster (e.g., after a seismic event) but also routinely, to support disaster risk reduction strategies towards resilient bridge infrastructures. In addition to routine inspections, fast UAS-based evaluation procedures of the extent and severity of damage are described with the objectives to determine whether the transportation infrastructure systems are safe and suitable to use or reopen. Thanks to aerial data acquired by means of remote-controlled multirotor UASs equipped with high-resolution cameras, data processing in the form of a 3D virtual model, as an example, allows useful virtual inspections and provides key input information to structural/numerical modelling and analysis, the latter being part of any quantitative risk analysis and loss assessment framework. The abovementioned aspects of the methodology are examined in detail with the support of in-situ applications and corresponding results meant to showcase lessons learnt and issues still open. • Inspections and monitoring of bridge infrastructures using drones. • Use of drones to support disaster risk reduction strategies towards resilient bridge infrastructures. • Definition of a practice-oriented approach for risk mitigation and resilience enhancement of bridge infrastructures. • Pre-defined flight trajectories for inspection and 3D reconstruction purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aims: Angiogenesis is essential for malignancies growth. CD105 is a proliferation-associated protein abundantly expressed in angiogenic endothelial cells. The aim of this study has been to determine the expression of CD105 in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and to investigate the role of CD105-assessed mean vascular density (MVD) in predicting patients’ prognosis. Methods: The sections of 43 consecutive cases of laryngeal SCC were stained with mouse monoclonal antibody CD105. All the measures were performed by a computer-based image analysis system. The percentage of the fields occupied by CD105-assessed micro-vessels was determined. Results: The mean CD105-assessed MVD were 11% and 6% in laryngeal SCC with and without malignancy recurrence, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression stated that CD105-assessed MVD was significantly related to disease recurrence (p =0.030). Conclusions: Our preliminary results suggest that CD105-assessed MVD may be a valuable parameter for predicting patients having an increased risk of developing laryngeal carcinoma loco-regional recurrence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Although nonlinear time‐history analysis constitutes the most accurate way to simulate the response of structures subjected to seismic excitation, comparison with experimental results from large‐scale testing of structures is still needed. The fiber modeling approach employed in this paper inherently accounts for geometrical nonlinearities and material inelasticity, without a need for calibration of plastic hinge mechanisms, typical in concentrated plasticity models. The approach is employed in the framework of a finite element program downloaded from the Internet for seismic response analysis of framed structures. The accuracy and reliability of the program are demonstrated using pseudo‐dynamic tests on a four‐span continuous deck concrete bridge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper focuses on the use of Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), commonly known as drones, for the fast mapping of medium to large areas in an emergency response scenario, for example after a seismic event. The information obtained by processing the aerial acquired data (generally images) provide a significant contribution not only in supporting the Search and Rescue (SAR) activities, when timeliness is crucial, but also in the framework of debris volume assessment, exterior safety inspection of critical infrastructures and post-event reconnaissance and reconstruction activities. Within the context of coordinated flight planning for emergency aerial photogrammetry (involving the use of commercial multi-rotor UAS fleets), an operative strategy is proposed in order to address several critical aspects, frequently faced in particular when mapping large areas. The results and the lessons learned from an in-situ implementation of the presented procedure are also reported. • Survey of medium-large areas affected by catastrophes using fleets of drones. • Definition of a technical-operational service in an emergency context. • Photogrammetry-oriented mapping of areas affected by disasters in times compatible with emergency management. • Balance between data accuracy/reliability, safety of survey and rescue teams, timeliness of result delivery. • Situational awareness methodology after a major disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]