Search

The Metropolitan city of Roma Capitale (Italy) represents a vast area, including many municipalities with the purpose to strength the promotion and coordination of economic and social development. Natural Parks included in the Metropolitan area are able to provide ecosystem services and resources such as agricultural and forest products as well as biomass resources that could be an opportunity to replace fossil fuels, make the city more climate friendly and, at the same time, to relaunch the sustainable management of forest that are often abandoned and prone to degradation risk. The goal of this paper is to investigate and update the actual distribution of the main forest types of the Bracciano-Martignano Regional Natural Park, through GIS and Remote Sensing techniques, in order to assess the biomass potential present in the forest areas. Results showed that there are about 20,000 t of woody biomass per year available and confirmed the importance of Sentinel-2 satellite data for vegetation applications, reaching a high overall accuracy. Rationale forest management can be strategic to deal both with forest degradation and city energy supply.

Background. In the past two decades, a rapid increase of infections due to multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae was reported worldwide, including in Italy. These bacteria express genes encoding for extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL) or bear a plasmid-mediated AmpC that induce phenotypically a resistance to the last-generation cephalosporins; even more worrying is the rapid increase of Enterobacteriaceae carrying genes conferring resistance to carbapenems (CPE). Materials and methods. The gut may serve as reservoir for these antibiotic drug-resistant bacteria: as a consequence, the rapid detection of drug resistant Enterobacteriaceae from rectal swabs is an important tool to identify rectal carriage of resistant bacteria. This procedure is the basic tool to successfully implement the infection control measures in the hospital wards. The study evaluated the capability of the HB&L ESBL/AmpC and CARBAPENEMASE screening kit (Alifax, Padua, Italy) to rapidly identify the drug resistant enterobacteriaceae from rectal swabs: the performance was compared with the conventional method. Results and conclusions. The overall agreement was very good (91% for the detection of ESBL-AmpC, and 96.2% for the identification of CPE); this method is thus an efficient tool to quickly report positive multidrug resistant bacteria in rectal swabs.

Background. Aim of this study was to assess the role of peritoneal fluid sampling for detection of bacterial infections due to Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MT) in women undergoing laparoscopic investigation. The potential link between microbiological positive result(s) and types of gynecological pathology was also evaluated. Materials and Methods. A large sample of women (n=1377) with their peritoneal fluids taken laparoscopically was studied. Data of microbiological and clinical/histopathological findings were entered into a database from a retrospective chart review. Culture and/or microscopy were used to detect NG or MT infection, whereas CT infection was detected using a PCR-based test. Results and Conclusions. Of all the patients (14 to 50 years aged), 463 (33.6%) had endometriosis, 1179 (85.6%) had a pathology/condition other than endometriosis, and 71 (5.2%) had no pathology as histologically documented. None of the patients had peritoneal fluid samples positive for NG or MT. In contrast, 30 (2.2%) of 1377 patients had peritoneal fluid samples positive for CT. Except for 3 women with no histopathological alteration, all the CT positive patients had either endometriosis (n=12) or non-endometriosis (n=13) pathology. Two remaining patients were diagnosed with both the pathologies. Accordingly, no significant association (OR) was found between CT positivity and pathology [only endometriosis, 1.13 (95%CI, 0.30-4.20)]; [only non-endometriosis, 0.53 (95%CI, 0.15-1.87)]. While confirming the low positivity rate for the CT molecular detection, the present data indicate the need for prospective studies to firmly establish the clinical usefulness of peritoneal fluid diagnostic in gynecological settings.

An increasing number of people regularly eats lunch away from home, using catering services. In this context, therefore, it is extremely important to improve the meals’ quality, remaining faithful to the principles of hygiene, nutritional and organoleptic quality and proper food handling. At the same time, it is necessary to promote food choices, nutritionally correct, by evaluations of appropriateness of menus. The study of food waste allows an evaluation of the nutritional habits of consumers and an important economic consideration of the costs incurred for the implementation of the service. This becomes even more important in some particularly sensitive groups, such as children and elderly. The purpose of this work is to test a model of semiquantitative evaluation of waste to monitor food consumption in two different catering contexts (educational and business), in order to improve the service for school students and other consumers.

I pazienti affetti da IRC presentano fin dai primi stadi della malattia una ridotta attivazione del recettore per la Vitamina D (VDR), determinata da ridotti livelli sia di 1.25-idrossivitamina D (1.25(OH)2D3) che di 25-idrossivitamina D (25(OH)D3), con il conseguente sviluppo di anomalie del metabolismo osseo e minerale. La Vitamina D e i suoi metaboliti di sintesi, oltre a controllare l'iperparatiroidismo secondario (IPTS), esercitano numerosi effetti pleiotropici in diversi sistemi cellulari e, in particolare, sembrano giocare un ruolo fondamentale nella salute del sistema cardiovascolare e nella riduzione della mortalità, come suggerito da studi osservazionali. È stato di recente dimostrato che il paracalcitolo orale nell'IRC non solo riduce il paratormo-ne, ma è anche associato a un effetto antiproteinurico significativo, e ciò appare di particolare interesse in quanto la proteinuria è un fattore di rischio renale e cardiovascolare. I dati attuali non sono, tuttavia, sufficienti per raccomandare l'uso degli agenti attivatori dei VDR (VDRa) oltre al trattamento delle alterazioni del metabolismo minerale legate all'iperparatiroidismo secondario.

The relations between Leonardo and the Governor of Milan, Charles 11 Chaumont d'Amboise, during the French occupation of Milan in 1506-1507 are well known through the letters addressed by the latter to the Florentine Republic in 1506-1507 and from the letters written by Leonardo to Charles d'Amboise. Gerolamo Calvi was the first to suggest that Leonardo may have executed some architectural works for the 'gran maestro' (this was indeed the title of Charles d'Amboise in 1506). Afterwards Carlo Pedretti reconstructed Leonardo's projects for a villa, on Charles d'Amboise's commission, but this hypothesis was recently questioned by some scholars, such as Pascal Brioist and Laure Fagnart, who suggested that Leonardo was only charged with the organization of a scenic apparatus or temporary works, without involvement in architectural and practical engineering works. However, recent studies by Marino Vigan6 indisputably link Leonardo to the military survey on the border between Lombardy and Switzerland in 1507, when Leonardo was guest of Charles d'Amboise and when he probably lived (as he had before 1507) in the latter's house in Milan. Precisely, in the first days of June 1507 Charles d'Amboise offered a performance in the garden of his palace in honour of the King of France, Louis XII, consisting in an assault on a bastion which is described by Jean d 'Auton in his Chroniques de Louis Xll: 'ung bastyon [...] fossoy - er tout autour, et fermer de gros boys debout mys en terre et au devant tout a l'environ fortiffy* de planchon a groux et chevilles bien actachaes'. This bastion had also two towers at its corners and its (clearly evident) triangular shape with two towers corresponds not only to some images of bastions drawn by Leonardo in the Paris Ms. 8, c. 1487-1490, but also in his later studies from these years, i.e. Codex Atlanticus, fol. 117 recto (showing a fortress, probably in relation to an addition of a 'rivellino' promoted by d'Amboise in Locarno in 1507) and in other studies of earthen bastions, where willow trees had been planted, found in Ms. Arundel in the British Library and in Paris Ms. K. Because of the use of earth (given the needs to construct the bastions very quickly) in turn, these Leonardo's studies anticipate the drawings of earthen bastions Michelangelo executed in 1528-1529 for the defence of Florence. It is logical to assume that d'Amboise, who hosted Leonardo in his home and had employed him as an architect at least from the previous year, asked him to design this bastion, perhaps similar to the one he had made for him in Locarno earlier that year. This occurrence, in turn, call also for a reconsideration of the role of Leonardo as the personal architect of d'Amboise; what is more, it is also possible that he designed a new villa for him. It is not by chance that in the same year, on 26 July 1507, Leonardo was appointed 'nostre paintre et ingenieur ordinaire' by the King of France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A relationship between the watercolour additions and those in pen and ink in a group of drawings from the Jabach Collection (1618-1695), now in the Département des Arts Graphiques at the Louvre, Paris, Is presented here for the first time. The drawings discussed in this study were done by Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Andrea Solario and Bernardino Luini, as well as by Nicolas Poussin, with additions and integrations executed by Charles Errard on the occasion of the publication of Leonardo's Trattato della Pittura (Paris, 1651). Among the artists Everhard Jabach employed for the "Improvements" on the drawings in his collection before selling them to the King of France in 1671, was Michel Corneille the Younger (1642-1708) to whom Jabach assigned a particular role, as has been demonstrated in previous important studies by Catherine Monbeig Goguel. The present article considers a broader cultural context including mid-seventeenth century Rome, Giovan Pietro Bellori and the veneration for Raphael, to whom at least two of the drawings in the Jabach Collection here examined (now assigned to Solario) were attributed at the time. Certain drawings executed at Jabach's time by French artists, such as Charles Errard, Noël Coypel and Michel Corneille the Younger (hitherto unpublished), seem to show familiarity with the Raphael-Solario drawings, now in the Louvre, retouched and Integrated at that time with landscapes and vegetation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rediscovered Pietà, once in the Artaria Collection in Vienna at the end of 19th century and later disappeared, was attributed to Bartolomeo Suardi called Bramantino by Wilhelm Suida (1902, 1905, 1910, 1953), Roberto Longhi (1955, 1973) and Bernard Berenson (1968). Many copies and later versions of it are known. The Artaria panel and these copies were discussed again recently by the author in a monograph published in Paris in 2005. Accordingly to the more recent chronology of the works by Bramantino, the Artaria panel was then dated around the end of 15th century. Now, another unpublished copy of it has been discovered in a private collection in Legnano, once considered to be the original by Pico Cellini (the famous Italian restorer and connoisseur) and coming from the Savoy Royal Collection in Rome (there until 1944 circa). In that painting, tempera on canvas, the detail of a face, in full view (not entirely visible in the Artaria panel and in the other versions), has been considered by Cellini the self-portrait of the artist. On the basis of that "portrait", Pico Cellini assigned the painting once in the Savoy Collection to a period following the Crucifixion now in the Brera Gallery in Milan, then considering it late in the artist's career. Discussing this proposal and presenting a new examination of the St. John in Patmos by Bramantino in the Borromeo Collection, the author dismissed that hypothesis and suggests for the Artaria panel and for the Borromeo St. John a new date around the very first years of 16th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]