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Oil–water two-phase flow experiments were conducted in horizontal ducts made of Plexiglas® to determine the in situ oil fraction (holdup) by means of the closing valves technique, using mineral oil (viscosity: 0.838 Pa s at 20 °C; density: 890 kg m−3) and tap water. The ducts present sudden contractions from 50 mm to 40 mm i.d. and from 50 mm to 30 mm i.d., with contraction ratios of 0.64 and 0.36, respectively. About 200–320 tests were performed by varying the flow rates of the phases. Flow patterns were investigated for both the up- and downstream pipe in order to assess whether relevant variations of the flow patterns across the sudden contraction take place. Data were then compared with predictions of a specific correlation for oil–water flow and some correlations for gas–water flow. A drift-flux model was also applied to determine the distribution parameter.

Objectives To evaluate predictors of mortality in patients residing in nursing-homes (NHs) or long-term care facilities (LTCFs) with diagnosis of NH-acquired pneumonia (NHAP). Methods We conducted an observational, prospective study (December 2013-December 2015) of patients residing in nine NHs/LTCFs of Central and Northern Italy with diagnosis of NHAP. Data on demographics, comorbidities, microbiology, and therapies were entered into an electronic database. To identify risk factors associated with 30-day mortality, we performed univariable and multivariable analyses, and predictors were internally validated using a bootstrap resampling procedure. We derived a prediction rule using the coefficients obtained from the multivariable logistic regression. The model obtained was assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC). Results Overall, 446 patients with NHAP were included in the final cohort. The median age was 80 (IQR 75–87) years. A definite aetiology was obtained in 120 (26.9%) patients; of these, 66 (55%) had a culture positive for a multidrug-resistant pathogen. The 30-day mortality was 28.7%. On multivariate analysis, malnutrition (OR 7.8; 95% CI 3–20.2, 2 points), bilateral pneumonia (OR 3.7; 95% CI 1.4–9.8, 1 point), acute mental status deterioration (OR 6.2; 95% CI 2.2–17.6, 2 points), hypotension (OR 7.7; 95% CI 2.3–24.9, 2 points), and PaO 2 /FiO 2 ratio ≤250 (OR 7.4; 95% CI 2.2–24.2, 2 points) were independently associated with 30-day mortality. The derived prediction rule showed an AUROC of 0.83 (95% CI 0.78–0.87, p Conclusions NH residents with pneumonia have specific risk factors associated with 30-day mortality. Malnutrition and acute mental change appear as major determinants of death in this population.

Underground gas storage (UGS) and CO 2 sequestration (CCS) are strategic practices to address the growing demand of energy and reduction of greenhouse gas emission. There is an interest from the energetic, economic, and environmental viewpoint to store as much gas as possible consistent with the requirement of a safe disposal. A transversely isotropic geomechanical model is developed and calibrated using the vertical and horizontal displacements measured by SAR-based interferometry over an exhausted gas field located in Northern Italy where UGS is active since 1986. The predictions show that a maximum storage pressure up to 140% p i , p i being the virgin fluid pore pressure, may yield a 400% increase of the gas stored relative to p i provided that an accurate assessment of the parameters defining the yield surface, i.e. friction angle and cohesion in the Mohr–Coulomb criterion, is performed for the reservoir formation. No appreciable risk for the integrity of the sealing layer is ever expected, along with a negligible impact on the ground structures. Land motion does not exceed few centimeters with the differential displacements safely below the bound required by structural safety.

[1] Underground gas storage (UGS) in depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs is a strategic practice to cope with the growing energy demand and occurs in many places in Europe and North America. In response to summer gas injection and winter gas withdrawal the reservoir expands and contracts essentially elastically as a major consequence of the fluid (gas and water) pore pressure fluctuations. Depending on a number of factors, including the reservoir burial depth, the difference between the largest and the smallest gas pore pressure, and the geomechanical properties of the injected formation and the overburden, the porous medium overlying the reservoir is subject to three-dimensional deformation with the related cyclic motion of the land surface being both vertical and horizontal. We present a methodology to evaluate the environmental impact of underground gas storage and sequestration from the geomechanical perspective, particularly in relation to the ground surface displacements. Long-term records of injected and removed gas volume and fluid pore pressure in the “Lombardia” gas field, northern Italy, are available together with multiyear detection of vertical and horizontal west-east displacement of the land surface above the reservoir by an advanced permanent scatterer interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PSInSAR) analysis. These data have been used to calibrate a 3-D fluid-dynamic model and develop a 3-D transversally isotropic geomechanical model. The latter has been successfully implemented and used to reproduce the vertical and horizontal cyclic displacements, on the range of 8–10 mm and 6–8 mm, respectively, measured between 2003 and 2007 above the reservoir where a UGS program has been underway by Stogit-Eni S.p.A. since 1986 following a 5 year field production life. Because of the great economical interest to increase the working gas volume as much as possible, the model addresses two UGS scenarios where the gas pore overpressure is pushed from the current 103%pi, where pi is the gas pore pressure prior to the field development, to 107%pi and 120%pi. Results of both scenarios show that there is a negligible impact on the ground surface, with deformation gradients that remain well below the most restrictive admissible limits for the civil structures and infrastructures.

A screen printing ink of SrFe0.6Ti0.4O3−δ (STFO60) nanopowders produced by Self-propagating High-temperature Synthesis (SHS) was used to produce gas sensors with high level of reproducibility at low cost. The stability and rheology of the produced ink were studied in order to obtain high quality, highly reliable films. The electrical characteristics of the sensors as a function of the firing temperature and thickness of the sensing layer were investigated. The best results were obtained stabilizing the powder with lauric acid. Laboratory bench and on-road oxygen tests demonstrated that the response of 30 μm STFO60-based resistive sensors is comparable with the one of a commercial oxygen probe.

Recent works have shown that it is possible to solve the Simultaneous Localization And Mapping problem using an Extended Kalman Filter and a single perspective camera. The principal drawback of these works is an inaccurate modeling of measurement uncertainties, which therefore causes inconsistencies in the filter estimations. A possible solution to proper uncertainty modeling is the Unified Inverse Depth parametrization. In this paper we propose the Inverse Scaling parametrization that still allows an un-delayed initialization of features, while reducing the number of needed parameters and simplifying the measurement model. This novel approach allows a better uncertainty modeling of both low and high parallax features and reduces the likelihood of inconsistencies. Experiments in simulation demonstrate that the use of the Inverse Scaling solution improves the performance of the monocular EKF SLAM filter when compared with the Unified Inverse Depth approach; experiment on real data confirm the applicability of the idea.

A trustable and accurate ground truth is a key requirement for benchmarking self-localization and mapping algorithms; on the other hand, collection of ground truth is a complex and daunting task, and its validation is a challenging issue. In this paper we propose two techniques for indoor ground truth collection, developed in the framework of the European project Rawseeds, which are mutually independent and also independent on the sensors onboard the robot. These techniques are based, respectively, on a network of fixed cameras, and on a network of fixed laser scanners. We show how these systems are implemented and deployed, and, most importantly, we evaluate their performance; moreover, we investigate the possible fusion of their outputs. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

The association between body mass index (BMI) and serum liver enzyme activity [gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST)] was studied in 3167 subjects, 2373 men and 794 women. The subjects were managers and employees, ages 18-64 years, who were examined during a program of preventive medicine. Analysis of covariance was used to compare the serum liver enzyme activities (expressed as natural logarithms) of the subjects, who were subdivided according to BMI, while also considering age, alcohol and cigarette consumption, and physical activity. In men, the percentage increase in the geometric mean of liver enzyme activity of the obese subjects (BMI greater than 30 kg/m2) compared with that of the normal subjects (BMI less than or equal to 25 kg/m2) was 47.7% (P less than 0.001) for GGT, 55.3% (P less than 0.001) for ALT, and 19.7% (P less than 0.001) for AST; in women, the increase was 63.2% (P less than 0.01) for GGT, 58.4% (P less than 0.001) for ALT, and 7.3% (P greater than 0.05) for AST. Thus, our observations demonstrate a relation between BMI and serum liver enzyme activity.

Supersonic beams of TiO2 clusters and metal phthalocyanines have been developed for the synthesis of hybrid for gas-sensing applications. This approach allows high degree of control on the properties of the synthesized materials and on the interface between clusters and organic molecules, so that new functional materials with novel and promising sensing properties are obtained. These materials can be synthesized in different architectures, shape and phases, and are constituted by nanocrystalline clusters of TiO2 functionalized during the growth by the co-deposited molecules. The outcome is a porous nanostructured material characterized by a diffused organic-inorganic interface at the nanoscale. The properties of the codeposited interfaces, where the functionalization of the hybrid material plays a crucial role, can be tailored directly acting on the beam parameters of the cluster (mass size distribution, phase) and of the organic molecules (kinetic energy, deposition rate) © 2008 IEEE.

Recent improvements in instrumentation and surveying techniques have made time-lapse gravity and gravity gradient surveys a cost-effective and useful method for gas and hydrocarbon monitoring. The objective of this study was to investigate if time-varying gravity measurements can be correlated to the gas storage activities or not.

Self localization and mapping with vision is still an open research field. Since redundancy in the sensing suite is too expensive for consumer-level robots, we base on vision as the main sensing system for SLAM. We approach the problem with 3D data from a trinocular vision system. Past experience shows that problems arise as a consequence of inaccurate modeling of uncertainties; interestingly enough, we found that accuracy in modeling the robot pose uncertainty is much less relevant than for the uncertainty on the sensed data. To overcome the severe limitation of linear and Gaussian approximations, we applied a particle-based description of the inherently non-normal probability density distribution of the sensed data; the aim is to increase the success rate of data association, which we see as the most important problem. The increase in correct data associations reduces the uncertainty in the model and, consequently, in the robot pose, respectively estimated with a hierarchical map decomposition and a six degree of freedom extended Kalman filter. In this paper, we present approaches for particle-based sensor modeling and data association, with a comparative experimental evaluation on real 3D vision data.

A03 HQ & FULL FIDELITY 3D LAND SEISMIC DATA ACQUISITION – EXPERIENCES AND APPROACHES IN HIGH INHABITED AREAS Introduction 1 The necessity of high resolution 3D seismic data is of paramount importance. Today thanks to the very dramatic development of electronics in the last few years the single sensor/single channel acquisition seems to be the optimal tool. Unfortunately the effective drawbacks discouraging the actual use of this technology are the operative constraints and high costs mainly due to the large recording channel number and the huge amount of data to be managed. This is particularly true in highly inhabited areas

H-12 OPTIMISING WITHDRAWAL AND INJECTION PERFORMANCE FOR GAS STORAGE RESERVOIRS Abstract 1 The paper will present an integrated approach defined and implemented by ENI AGIP technical services and STOGIT SpA (the Italian gas storage company) for the optimisation and day-by-day operation of gas storage reservoirs. In the scope of the project reservoir simulation models and plant simulation models have been integrated to provide the complete picture for the selection of optimal operating points. Models are continuously and automatically updated with gas withdrawal/injection data and plant component availability and efficiency status. Optimisation techniques have been exploited to determine the best scheduling

The authors investigated the possible relation between habitual cigarette and coffee consumption and blood pressure (BP) levels in 7506 men and 2095 women. The study population were managers and employees examined in northern Italy between 1986–1988. In particular, the hypothesis of a substantial independence between smoking-BP and coffee-BP was tested. BP levels were corrected for age, body mass index, physical activity, and alcohol consumption by analysis of covariance. Significantly, smoking was inversely related to BP, both in men (SBP, P < 0.001, DBP, P < 0.001) and women (SBP, P = 0.001, DBP, P = 0.012). In particular, the BP of non-smoking men, SBP/DBP, was 131.0/83.5, whereas in male smokers up to and over 20 cigarette/day, BP was 128.1/82.0 and 128.1/82.1 respectively. Coffee consumption was related to BP levels in men (SBP, P < 0.001; DBP, P = 0.009), but not in women (SBP, P = 0.320; DBP, P = 0.982). BP in male subjects was 131.3/83.5 in non-drinkers, 130.7/83.3 in those drinking 1–3 cups/day, 128.4/82.6 and 127.2/81.8 in drinkers of 4–5 and over 5 cups/day, respectively. No significant interactions were demonstrated, thus the relationship between habitual smoking and coffee consumption with BP appears to agree with an additive model.

The Cavone Field is an Agip-operated oil field located in the Po Valley of ltaly. lt produces from a Mesozoic carbonate reservoir Iying at a moderate depth of approximately 2900m. Field recovery rates are relatively low, and significant quantities of mobile oil could remain in place after primary and secondary recovery operations if trapping and production rnechanisms in the reservoir are poorly understood.

We studied the iron status of 400 Italian subjects, 200 men and 200 women, equally distributed in four 10-year age groups between 20 and 60 years. The frequency of iron deficiency was elevated in women of childbearing age. On average 13% of the women in the three younger age groups showed low serum ferritin levels and 16-18% a low transferrin saturation index. Only 6% of the women over 50 were iron deficient. Signs of iron deficiency were never observed in more than 2% of the men in the age groups under 50, with the percentage rising slightly in the men over 50. In the women an inverse correlation was found between serum ferritin levels and number of births [log ferritin (ng/ml) vs number of births, b +/- SE (b): -0.252 +/- 0.088] and between serum ferritin and duration of menstruation [log ferritin (ng/ml) vs duration of menstruation (days), b +/- SE (b): -0.160 +/- 0.065]. Furthermore, hemoglobin levels were 0.700 (+/- 0.248, SE) g/dl lower in the women with 'abundant menstrual flow', and hemoglobin levels correlated inversely with number of births [hemoglobin (g/dl) vs number of births, b +/- SE (b): -0.354 +/- 0.115]. Our study showed an elevated frequency of iron deficiency in women of reproductive age. The number of births and abundance of menstrual flow were both important factors in predisposing younger women to developing iron deficiency.

Abstract Some of the most promising techniques proposed for evaluating the remaining oil saturation (ROS) of watered-out formations were tested in a few wells of three different fields Chuells (France), Cortemaggiore (Italy) and a field in the Gulf of Guinea (Africa). The work was carried out with the following main objectives:–to identify a screening for selecting the best ROS measurement method(s) to be applied under different reservoir and/or well conditions;–to compare for the same well the results obtained applying different methods with various investigation depths;–to emphasize the importance of the in-situ ROS determination in heterogeneous reservoirs. The techniques selected were:–conventional carbon-oxygen logging;–pulsed neutron capture tool (log-inject-log);–single well tracer test;–interwell tracer test. . The logging methods give results in good agreement in the high-porosity reservoirs considered and can reveal a heterogeneous distribution of the oil saturation. . The single well tracer test may be difficult to interpret when a significant heterogeneity and/or fluid drift occurs. In other cases, this tracer method can be very accurate. . The interwell tracer test can give interesting results about flow behaviour in the reservoir, despite difficulties of test analysis. It can also measure an average ROS value at the end of a flooding process. From this series of on-site experiments, we conclude that: . using more than one method improves the accuracy of in-situ ROS determinations; . ROS measurements performed on one well are representative of the surrounding area; . in-situ ROS measured at the end of the flooding process may be quite different from the residual oil saturation (Sor) measured in laboratory. Introduction In this paper, results obtained with different ROS techniques are presented. The selected fields were different from the point of view of reservoir and fluid characteristics. Table 1 summarizes these parameters: Chuelles reservoir has low parameters: Chuelles reservoir has low temperature, pressure and water salinity, but high oil viscosity; Cortemaggiore has high salinity brine and is a formation with shale present; Guinea Gulf field is an off-shore multilayered reservoir. For every reservoir the ROS techniques were chosen following the screening listed by Chang et al. and, mainly, on the basis of field characteristics and logistic and technical problems as, for instance, off-shore or well completions. Therefore the ROS measurements carried out by the selected techniques: conventional carbon/oxygen logging (C/O), pulsed neutron capture tool (PNC), single well tracer test (SWTT) and interwell tracer test (IWTT), were sometimes performed in non-optimal conditions. Nevertheless, the calculated ROS values were often in good agreement. CHUELLES FIELD CASE Reservoir Characteristics The field characteristics are summarized in Table 1; further details have been reported in a previous paper. We can point out here the high oil previous paper. We can point out here the high oil viscosity, the low reservoir temperature and the very low salinity of water. There wells which are 100 m apart, were recompleted by plugging the lower reservoir and perforating the upper reservoir selected for ROS measurements. Screening for ROS Measurements On the basis of the reservoir characteristics and well completions all the selected ROS techniques could be applied. Lab Experiences The lab activities were performed:to estimate the Sor in reservoir cores andto select the primary tracer for the SWTT. primary tracer for the SWTT. The reservoir cores gave a Sor value of about 22% (details of the experiments reported elsewhere). p. 847

HLA phenotypes of 64 Italian pediatric patients with celiac disease (CD) were compared with those of a group of healthy controls. DR3 and DR7 are significantly increased as reported in other populations. In addition an increase of heterozygotes DR5/DR7 was observed in our patients. The Hardy-Weinberg distribution in the patients group shows a disequilibrium due to the genotype DR5/DR7. Our data confirm that more than one HLA gene product is associated with CD: one with DR3 and the other with DR7.

HLA phenotypes of 64 Italian pediatric patients with celiac disease (CD) were compared with those of a group of healthy controls. DR3 and DR7 are significantly increased as reported in other populations. In addition an increase of heterozygotes DR5/DR7 was observed in our patients. The Hardy-Weinberg distribution in the patients group shows a disequilibrium due to the genotype DR5/DR7. Our data confirm that more than one HLA gene product is associated with CD: one with DR3 and the other with DR7.

We describe metabolic acidosis in a 15-month-old girl with clinical features of Shwachman's syndrome. Renal function tests indicated that the patient had type 1 renal tubular acidosis. Based on our findings and other reports of renal tubular dysfunction in patients with Shwachman's syndrome, we conclude that it is important to look for a possible renal tubular defect in this syndrome.

40 children (27 F and 13 M) of 3-13 years of age with DH were studied from genetic, immunological and gastrointestinal points of view. Genetic analysis of HLA haplotypes showed and incidence of HLA B8 of 50% and DW3 of 59.3%. Immunopathology of the skin demonstrated the presence of granular IgA deposits along D.E.J. Immune complexes were present in all cases. Subtotal mucosal atrophy was present in 32% and partial atrophy in 50% of the children. 35 patients were put on a strict dietary regimen for at least 12 months. The results were as follows: jejunal mucosa became normal in all patients indipendently of HLA haplotype. Gluten challenge reinduced mucosal atrophy and mild skin lesions. Diet alone induced complete regression of the skin lesionsin 43%; in the other 57% diet did not permit complete control of the skin lesions but allowed a 50% or more reduction in the mean dose of dapsone . 5 patients treated only with dapsone showed a satisfactory respon se of the skin lesion with no effect on the jejunal mucosa.