The principal reason behind our decision to create a web site on the legislative aspects of the construction industry in the Health sector, is due to the necessity of experts to have a source easily available for consultation in an area under continual change affecting new and revised standards and complex legislation. Over the last 20 years all standards and regulation affecting the construction industry in the Health sector, particularly that of hospital construction, have undergone ...

ITC-CNR, in collaboration with ANCE (the National Association of Building Constructors) and F.IN.CO (Federation of Industries Products Installations and Services for Constructions) and with the patronage of the Ministry of Production Activities, has created the website www.aedilitia.itc.cnr.it, completely devoted to Directive 89/106/EEC "Construction Products" and to the EC marking of products. The reasons behind its creation can be found in the more and more pressing need to face up to the ...

The development of innovative chemical processes, with high performances and low environmental impact, is crucial for a sustainable growth. In this perspective membrane technology can offer important new opportunities in the design, rationalization and optimization of processes and products. In particular, catalytic membrane reactors are an interesting example of integrated system in which molecular separation and chemical conversions are combined in one step One of the main advantages of the ...

Process intensification is a design strategy aiming to lead benefits in processing, substantially shrinking equipment size, boosting plant efficiency, saving energy, reducing costs, minimizing environmental impact, improving safety, remote control and automation. Membrane processes have potential to replace conventional energy-intensive techniques, to accomplish a selective and efficient transport, to improve the performance of reactive processes, to provide options for a sustainable industrial ...

The working project for the creation of the Dulbecco Open Laboratory is dedicated to genomics and proteomics students. The Nobel Prize winner Renato Dulbecco, who was the director of the Human Gemone Section at the ITB CNR and who currently works with the researchers of the ITB as Project Manager, will participate in the founding of the Laboratory. The Dulbecco Open Laboratory will be equipped to develop technological platforms in the field of genetics, proteomics, bioinformatics and animal ...

Over the past few years, the research undertaken has been focused on configuring a system capable of merging complex and heterogeneous data produced by using different acquisition methods specific to each particular phase of the fact-finding approach to the building within a custom-designed ICT environment. The product carried out consists of a software package called ARKIS (Architecture Recovery Knowledge Information System) developed in AVENUE and based on the ArcView engine (ESRI). Its ...

Scientific Coordinator: Dr. Salvatore Piro Non-destructive ground surface geophysical prospecting methods are increasingly used for the investigation of archaeological sites, where a detailed physical and geometrical reconstruction of hidden ambients is required prior to any excavation work. However, due to the often limited dimensions and depth of the archaeological structures, it can be rather difficult to individuate their position and extension because of the generally low values of ...

The Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche has developed AIR (Apprendere Insieme in Rete - Learning together online), a blended course addressed to expert teachers. The course lasted four months and involved 240 participants from different school levels selected through a questionnaire whose criteria matched the European pioneer teacher profile: it is being delivered in 10 parallel editions, in two Italian regions. In each edition 20/25 participants were organized in a virtual group co-ordinated ...

Grapevine is an economically important fruit crop; in fact the growing areas account over 10 million hectares in the world. It is reported that the number of cultivars ranges between 5000 and 8000, many of them are endangered. To avoid genetic erosion it's necessary the rescue and preservation of the grapevine germplasm both in situ and ex situ, e.g. in collection fields or in vitro. Growth reduction of in vitro cultures is obtained by decreasing O2 rate or temperature and light quantity. ...

In the framework of the project FISR SOFC it has been realised the first SOFC stack prototype designed and realized in Italy. The aim is to operate the stack at intermediate temperatures between 600° and 800°C. The interconnectors are realised in ferritic stainless steel . This materials allow good thermal compatibility with the ceramic materials, high mechanical stability. The problems related with the cathodic corrosion have been mitigated by using perovkite coatings. The stack is equipped ...

At beginning of '70 T.O. Diener discovered that the causal agent of potato spindle tuber disease is an infectious agent with very surprising features. It is a tiny RNA (246-401 nucleotides, nt) with a size much smaller than the genome of the smallest known virus. In the following years, scientists isolated other RNAs with similar properties from several plants, and the term "viroid" was generally accepted to refer to these biological entities which, from a structural point of view, are the ...

The Population Genetics Institute carries on since 1995 a multidisciplinary project for the identification of genes predisposing to multifactorial diseases and to complex traits. This project is conducted in the villages of the Ogliastra geographic isolate of central-eastern Sardinia. These villages are examined under the epidemiological, genealogical, genetic, molecular and statistical profile. The identification of genes associated with pathological phenotypes in such populations is ...

Detection of water-soluble substances present in the environment is commonly defined as taste and is crucial for animal's survival. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans repellents trigger an avoidance reaction, consisting in a reversal of the forward movement. We developed a quantitative single worm assay for this behavior and showed that many repellents, which induce an avoidance reaction in the nematode, are toxic to animals, are recognized as bitter by humans and are discarded in double ...

Welding of biological tissues induced by laser radiation can integrate or substitute traditional suturing procedures employed in various surgical fields, with remarkable advantages, such as simplification of the surgical technique, reduction of the surgery time, and faster healing process of the wound, without the typical foreign-body reaction caused the presence of the suture wire. Regarding development and application of laser welding techniques in ophthalmic surgery studies were started in ...

Works of art cannot be appreciated without light, but light is also one of the most powerful parameters in altering colour and so causing irreversible damage. Therefore, a compromise has to be found that can balance visitor's requirements and object's safety. It is known that the damage increases with the length of exposure and the irradiance. Rather than limiting the time of exposure for each object, it is advisable to monitor the lighting conditions on site. A continuous monitoring program for ...

Plants normally acquire nitrogen from the soil, but leguminous plants are almost independent of soil N due to a beneficial association with rhizobia bacteria that induce the formation of N fixing root nodules. During symbiosis bacteria invade developing nodules and within a group of invaded plant cells, differentiate into intracellular bacteroids. A single or few bacteroids surrounded by a plant membrane form organelle-like structures, the symbiosome, which convert the unusable N2 of the air ...

Most of the substances involved both in the organization and the functional-metabolic aspects of biological material can act as fluorophores, giving rise to a fluorescence emission under excitation at suitable wavelengths. The properties of this fluorescence signal are strictly related to the chemical nature and the concentration of the endogenous fluorophores, to their distribution inside the biological substrate, and to the physico-chemical characteristics of their microenvironment. On ...

La comprensione dei processi geodinamici e l'analisi dei fattori che ne influenzano l'evoluzione rappresenta un traguardo fondamentale nell'ambito delle Scienze della Terra. Tra i vari processi, l'estensione continentale e la formazione delle rift valleys riveste un ruolo di notevole importanza in quanto precede la formazione dei bacini oceanici. L'importanza delle aree di estensione crostale è inoltre legata alla presenza di giacimenti minerari e idrocarburi ed all'elevato impatto sociale ...

All plants emit a wide range of volatile compounds such as nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, and non-methane volatile organic compounds, the so-called biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC). BVOC emissions have received increased scientific attention in the last two decades because BVOCs are highly reactive and, thus, may profoundly influence the chemical and physical properties of the atmosphere. The global carbon emitted as BVOCs is about 1.1 Pg per year, and is believed to be of the same ...

On December 30th 2002 the inhabited coastal areas of Stromboli Island were hit by a series of tsunami waves up to 10 metre high. Tsunami waves were the effect of at least two destructive landslides which involved the submarine and subaerial Sciara del Fuoco slope, respectively. Sciara del Fuoco is the NW flank of the Stromboli volcano, where the products of the volcanic activity accumulate. At present the NW flank looks like a regular slope above and below the sea level. Actually it is the ...

Marble exploitation in the Apuane Alps gives rise to rock wall faces and underground voids of uncommon size and shape. The trend towards gigantism in quarry operations (the height of the faces increases up to 150m, the length of underground voids to 80-120m, their height to 30-50m and their span to 20-40m) is sustained by the higher outputs required and favored by the growing mechanization of the stopes. It is known however that ornamental stones exploitation, both surface and underground, is ...

Recent news of mercury contamination in the Priolo-Agusta-Melilli industrial zone (Sicily) brought to public attention the seriousness of mercury pollution on human health and ecosystems. Mercury pollution is a long standing environmental problem, going back to the 19th century, starting with mercury used in gold extraction in North America; this practice is still widely used in Laos, Vietnam, Tanzania and Venezuela today. Mercury is much used in the manufacturing industry (eg., chlor-alkali ...

Receptors for growth factors are membrane proteins that are activated by binding to the ligand. Ligand activation causes swichting on receptor enzimatic function, consisting in transfer of a phosphate group from ATP to specific tyrosine residues contained either on the receptor itself or on external protein substrates. The phosphorylation event induces a signal cascade that leads to cellular proliferation and/or survival. Therefore any perturbation of such a system can lead to neoplastic ...

The ever more strong presence of information technology is decisive for the elaboration of new styles of research, for the production, storage and diffusion of texts and, last but not least, also for the modalities of teaching and learning in the field of Humanities. Such a radical change of perspectives and languages is obviously at work also for the possible interconnections between digital innovations and studies on ancient philosophy. Taken for granted such basic considerations, the 'Sezione ...

In recent years, a specific Laboratory for Surface Tensiometry has been built and organised at IENI- Dept. of Genoa, with characteristics of a particular interest at an international level. In this infrastructure, which can be defined as an "Infrastructural Center open for services to a wide Scientific Community" can offer support both experimental and scientific for measurements of Surface and Interface tensions, wettability, elasticity and surface rheology in a temperature range which span ...

Si conclude il progetto di raccogliere per la prima volta in un corpus unico i saggi scientifici e filosofici pubblicati da G. W. Leibniz durante la sua vita, con la loro pubblicazione da parte della casa editrice internazionale Olms (A. Lamarra, R. Palaia (ed.), G. W. Leibniz, Essais scientifiques et philosophiques. Les articles publiés dans les journaux savants. Avec une préface de Heinrich Schepers, Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim/New York, 3 voll.). Come è noto, il filosofo diede alle ...

Introduction The European Fusion Development Agency (EFDA), in the strive to develop the first international reactor-tokamak experiment (ITER) of controlled fusion energy production is placing a large number of active (i.e. financially supported) scientific and technical study contracts to the Associated Laboratories within Europe. A specific very important subject concerns the auxiliary plasma heating system based on the injection of high power millimiter waves resonantly absorbed at the ...

Introduction The fundamental problem of nuclear fusion research based on magnetic confinement of a plasma of Deuterium and Tritium is the achievement of a high temperature (~100 Million deg. Kelvin) to allow the energy yielding fusion reactions to occur, and keeping the temperature for a sufficiently long "energy confinement time". The problem motivates the study of both experimental techniques and first principle theories to improve the operation regimes of tokamaks in view of an optimal ...

Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are considered as the next generation of light sources for illumination. They are lighter, thinner, more efficient and easier for large area applications than usual LEDs. In addition, OLEDS offer wide tunability over a broad spectral coverage, by varying the chemical structure of the emissive species or by modifying the device structures. This work identifies for the first time the fundamental process occurring in polymeric light emitting devices by ...

In this focus we will report on the first single electron transistors (SET) fabricated on silicon/germanium heterostructures whose critical dimensions are in the nanometer scale. The evolution of fabrication techniques in large scale integrated circuit (LSI) have lead to reduction of the size of the electronic devices into the submicron scale. In parallel a large increase in the circuit operating speed and device density is observed. CMOS technology is presently used in microelectronics and ...