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OBIETTIVO DELLO STUDIO L’educazione e l’auto-monitoraggio della persona con diabete aiutano a ottimizzare il controllo metabolico, riducendo morbilità e mortalità. In questo scenario gli smartphone rappresentano uno strumento potente e alla portata di tutti e numerose piattaforme destinate a persone con diabete sono sta-te elaborate allo scopo di fornire loro una salute “su misura”. Lo scopo della presente revisione è valutare l’impatto dell’utilizzo degli smartphone come strumento di educazione sanitaria e la loro efficacia nella gestione della glicemia negli adulti con diabete di tipo 1 e 2. DISEGNO E METODI È stata effettuata una ricerca bibliografica utilizzando quali motori di ricerca CINAHL e PUBMED. Sono stati selezionati 17 studi randomizzati controllati per un totale di 4.125 partecipanti. Per ogni studio la di mensione del campione era compresa tra 30 e 574 partecipanti e tutti i soggetti avevano un’età ≥ 18. RISULTATI I risultati mostrano la riduzione dei livelli di HbA1c nei soggetti che si avvalgono della tecnologia per la cura del diabete. Dei 17 studi analizzati, 14 suggeriscono l’efficacia del supporto della tecnologia per migliorare la gestione della glicemia nei pazienti con diabete mellito di tipo 1 e 2. I restanti 3 studi mostrano risultati contrastanti, ove non si è riscontrata una differenza significativa della concentrazione di HbA1c. CONCLUSIONI L’utilizzo delle nuove tecnologie per la cura del diabete si è dimostrato uno strumento efficace nella cura delle persone con diabete, determinando una riduzione dei livelli di HbA1c. Il loro impiego nella pratica clinica può semplificare la gestione del diabete e migliorare l’educazione del paziente alla terapia e alla cura e alla prevenzione delle complicanze correlate al diabete. PAROLE CHIAVE diabete mellito; smartphone; app; tecnologie.

Purpose – The increasing variety and variability of social and economic dynamics is pushing both researchers and practitioners in developing approaches, models, and tools for supporting decision makers in observing, interpreting, understanding and managing emergent dynamics. For contributing to the ongoing debate, the paper aims at discussing possible paths for facing the challenges of the increasing complexity through flexible decisional and behavioral approaches. Methodology/approach – The paper adopts a qualitative approach for systematizing and refreshing the interpretative role of existing literature within managerial and organizational fields. Through the interpretative contributions provided by the systems thinking, a multi-disciplinarity literature review is conducted for identifying possible constructs through which addressing the development of flexible managerial and organizational models. Findings – Managerial and organizational fields are enriched through the concepts of exaptation and bricolage as explicative domains able to provide useful indications to decision makers interested in building more flexible decisional and behavioral approaches. A possible path for managing the increasing social and economic complexity is depicting in the light of systems perspective, and a system based interpretative framework is defined for explaining actors’ reciprocal adaptation as a way for supporting value co-creation. Research implications – The paper provides possible pillars on which acting to build managerial and organizational approaches able to enhance actors’ contributions through the definition of shared processes. The concepts of exaptation and bricolage enrich previous managerial and organizational literature promoting research on value co-creation as a driver for ensuring systems’ viability in dynamic ecosystems. Practical implications – The paper calls the attention of decision makers on the need for the systems’ flexibility trough the enhancement of actors’ contributions for facing the challenges of increasing social and economic complexity. Acting on exaptation and bricolage, a possible model is provided for clarifying managerial and organizational paths for increasing the systems’ flexibility and for supporting practitioners in defining approaches able to support actors’ collaboration as a required condition for value co-creation. Originality/value – Adopting a multi-disciplinary perspective the paper enriches previous managerial and organizational literature trough the definition of concepts, processes, and approaches able to support both researchers and practitioners for better understanding and managing increasing social and economic complexity by acting on exaptation and bricolage. Thanks to the interpretative lens provided by the systems studies, a conceptual model for addressing systems’ decisions and behaviors in the light of value co-creation is proposed.

To measure foveal morphology using optical coherence tomography (OCT).Three examiners classified normal subjects and patients with macular edema and epiretinal membranes from a normative database (299 OCT scans) and a study sample (80 OCT scans) on the basis of the foveal depression appearance (reference classification). The following parameters were measured for each OCT scan: Central Foveal Thickness (CFT), Central Subfield Thickness (CST), Central Subfield Volume (CSV), Centrofoveal Index (CI), Parafoveal Index (PI), and Foveal Indices (FI1, FI2, FI3). Foveal depression of OCT scans in the study sample were classified based on the values of OCT parameters using Bayesian statistics (test classifications).Agreement between reference and test classifications was of 70% for CFT, 58.7% for CST, 60% for CSV, 80% for CI, 72.5% for PI, 88.7% for FI1, 96.2% for FI2 and 97.5% for FI3.IF3 seems to provide a reliable measure of the foveal morphology.

Aim of the study was to propose a method to define the relationship of not allergic contact dermatitis with chemical risk factors in workplace. This method evaluates the skin response to simultaneous chemical and mechanical stimulation, made with a soft bristle brush. The method has been used on 9 cases of not allergic skin diseases, observed from 2000 to 2006 in Occupational Medicine Division of "Federico II" University of Naples. The greatest part of pathologies had the polymorphous pattern of skin inflammation, characterized by subintrant erythema, suspected of occupational origin. In 6 cases a stronger reaction to both chemical and mechanical stimulation was highlighted, confirming a possible occupational etiology. In 1 case the occupational origin was excluded, while in 2 cases the skin response was uncertain. The method does not define all cases of occupational skin pathologies, but it seems to be very useful to diagnostic and insurance needs.

The knowledge about the long-term behavior of materials represents one of the primary issues to be addressed to optimize their performance in service and for economic reasons as well. In particular, the lack of data about the durability of the polymeric materials can be a limit to their wider use in structural applications, such as those involved in the rehabilitation or renewal of civil infrastructures and cultural heritage. In this case, since the materials are often used outdoors, outside exposure should represent a basic reference for the study of their durability; however, many years could be necessary to produce measurable degradation and to allow the durability assessment. Numerous procedures and devices have been designed to test weathering in shorter times, although the relationship between the natural and the accelerate aging still needs to be more detailed. In this work the effects of natural weathering have been compared to those caused by accelerate artificial aging on the calorimetric and mechanical properties of different cold-curing epoxy resins. It was found that the variations in properties due to both natural exposure and accelerated aging are qualitatively similar. However, the selected accelerated aging procedure appeared excessively severe and not able to accurately reproduce the weathering occurred after outdoor exposure.

In recent years, epoxy resins, widely employed in many industrial fields, have been used in several civil engineering applications. Structural repairs are often carried out by either injection of the neat resin or application of fiber-reinforced composites based on epoxy matrix. These materials are also used for restoration works of historic buildings. Despite their wide spread, their durability in the field of built structures is not well documented yet. Since many years of natural exposition would be necessary to evaluate the long-term behavior, artificial aging is usually used to simulate the environment in service conditions and predict the changes in properties of the materials. In these tests, higher environmental stress levels than those achieved in the natural exposure are employed, in order to obtain accelerate aging. Several papers dealing with the artificial weathering are reported in literature; however, they hardly explain how these tests can be correlated to the real long-term natural exposure. In this report, the first results of a research on the behavior of three cold-curing epoxy resins subjected to aging, either artificial or natural, are presented. The variations of thermal and mechanical properties, as well as color changes, after aging at 70°C and 75% relative humidity and after natural weathering, were compared.

Epoxy resins find wide applications in many fields and have been extensively studied. In particular, great effort has been devoted to the study of the mechanism of crosslinking reactions analysing the factors affecting the molecular network and the physical properties of the hardened material. A detailed understanding of the "curing process" and of the structure-properties relationship, in fact, is essential to control and optimise the process parameters in order to tailor the performance of the of cured systems. Different analytical techniques have been employed to this aim. Among them, FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy has proved to be very helpful allowing quantitative measurements of the variations of functional groups during the crosslinking reactions. In the present work, a review of the scientific publications dealing with the application of FTIR to study the mechanism and the kinetic of the "curing process" of epoxy resins hardened with amines, is presented. This kind of formulation, in fact, is one of the most frequently used and, therefore, has been extensively studied. The main characteristic absorbance peaks of epoxy-amine systems have been listed and discussed. Finally, the kinetic equations more widely employed to determine the degree of conversion and the kinetic parameters, have been reported.

The effects of environmental aging at various levels of humidity were studied on the experimental formulations of epoxy-silica hybrids, specifically designed for curing at ambient temperature to be employed as adhesives for concrete and/or masonry structures. The addition of small amounts of ammonium molybdate to the amine hardener was investigated using thick section specimens (4.5 mm thick) capable of retaining substantial amounts of ethanol either originally added to the resin mixture or subsequently formed by the sol-gel hydrolysis and condensation reactions. The changes taking place during aging were evaluated in terms of variations in glass transition temperature (Tg), water absorption and mechanical properties. It has been found that during environmental aging in moist atmosphere the siloxane domains of the epoxy-silica hybrids undergo additional sol-gel reactions, which bring about a further increase in Tg and substantial increases in Young's modulus (Eflex) and flexural strength (?max flex). The observed effects were found to be enhanced by the addition of small amounts of ammonium molybdate to the formulation. Furthermore, the moisture in the atmosphere was found to assist the extraction of the residual ethanol in the specimens.

The absorption/desorption behavior of a commercial cold-cured bisphenolic epoxy resin, subjected to different treatments prior to exposure to water, was analyzed. The epoxy system has been already used as both matrix and adhesive for the manufacture and application, respectively, of fiber reinforced polymers composites employed for rehabilitation procedures. The effects of different curing, conditioning, and storing conditions on the water absorption/desorption process taking place in the cured resin were evaluated. The different conditioning procedures used to dry the specimens before their exposure to water caused a different extent of physical aging and of curing on each system, influencing the amount and the rate of diffusion of the water molecules inside the specimens. Moreover, if the specimens are subjected to thermohygrometric cycles prior to immersion in water, the rate of diffusion and the amount of water also depends on the presence of water molecules inside the cured resins not easy to remove by any drying treatment. During all the hygrometric treatments performed, a deaging process took place. The kinetic of this deaging process for the not-fully cured systems depends on the additional crosslinking taking place in the samples. The different procedures used to condition the specimens also affect the variations in glass transition temperature (Tg) of the cured systems during and after immersion in water. Finally, the different drying procedures employed proved to be not equally appropriate for cold-cured epoxy resins.

Già da qualche anno si stanno sviluppando materiali ibridi organici-inorganici che, coniugando le proprietà dei polimeri organici con quelle di composti inorganici, hanno mostrato di possedere caratteristiche adatte per numerosi impieghi nel campo del restauro. A tale scopo è stato avviato un lavoro di ricerca finalizzato a sperimentare sistemi ibridi epossi-silice da utilizzare per il ripristino e il restauro di opere in muratura. Nel presente lavoro si illustrano i risultati preliminari di tale sperimentazione. Si sono, da una parte, determinate le Tg raggiunte dai sistemi ibridi dopo la “cura” in condizioni ambientali di laboratorio nonché le loro viscosità, dall’altra la distribuzione dei prodotti applicati su provini di pietra leccese.