Italian Project Research Articles

The eightieth anniversary season of “Maggio Musicale Fiorentino” (about the role of music festivals in the system of cultural life in modern Italy)

The aim of this research is to reveal the most important aspects and features of functioning of music festivals in modern Italy; to consider their main types and specifics of organizing such music projects on the example of “Maggio Musicale Fiorentino” (the eightieth anniversary season). The methodology of the research is based on the use of the inductive method, which consists in the study of individual festival trends, which allowed determining the general tendencies of the existence of the festival process in the system of cultural life in modern Italy. Relevance is in the necessity to study comprehensively the music festival life in modern Italy as an integral part of Italian national culture The identification of the importance and influence of Italian projects on the state of the musical life at our time acquires special attention and will help domestic musicians learn the specifics of the organization of music festivals in modern Italy, learn this experience and use it in the practice of the musical life of modern Ukraine. Conclusions . Festivals have become a vital part of the music life system in modern Italy; the festival movement has undergone considerable changes and has acquired pace in the last decade of the 20 th century and in the beginning of the 21 st century: 1) number of festival events, both professional and amateur, is growing; 2) professionals festivals are growing to the size of large-scale events, that may even include schools that give master classes and implement creative projects within the festivals for young musicians; 3) intercultural and creative ties develop, not only between 20 regions of Italy (that are divided into 107 provinces), but also in the international context (taking place on international, regional and city levels). 4) one of the brightest musical projects in the panorama of professional festivals is the “Florentine musical May”, during the years of its existence has significantly expanded its functions. Now it’s not only a music festival that takes place in a certain month of the year, but a creative organization with its own theater, orchestra, choir, academy, master classes, recording studio, magazine, association “Amici del teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino”, sponsors. It is a powerful creative project that preserves traditions and adheres to the basic formula – high quality and professional level in everything. This large-scale project also includes the festival “Maggio Musicale Fiorentino”, which already passes the 80 th season every year from the end of April to the beginning of June in the heart of Italian Tuscany – the city of Florence.

Detecting persons at risk for diabetes mellitus type 2 using FINDRISC: results from a community pharmacy-based study.

This cross-sectional study has been developed within the framework of the Italian project 'We love your heart' ('Ci sta a cuore il tuo cuore') and reports the results of the initial type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) risk assessment carried out in a big network of community pharmacies in Italy and Spain. In total 4002 pharmacists from 854pharmacies were specifically trained to collect data and perform the evaluation of the probability of developing T2DM among pharmacy customers. The risk of developing T2DM within 10 years was evaluated using the FINDRISC. Overall, 7234 (22.1%) subjects were at low risk to develop the disease, whereas 43.3% were at slightly elevated risk (scores 7-11), 19.3% were at moderate (scores 12-14), 13.9% were at high (scores 15-20), and 1.4% were at very high risk (scores > 20). Spanish participants showed higher levels of risk than Italian (16.7 vs. 14.7%) taking the cut-off FINDRISC ≥ 15. This study shows that considerable percentage of persons is likely to develop diabetes in the next 10 years. Analyses of the risk factors indicate that men were more susceptible to develop this disease, as well as the Spanish participants respect to Italian.

CHARACTERIZATION OF 27 MEV PROTON BEAM GENERATED BY TOP-IMPLART LINEAR ACCELERATOR.

The first proton linear accelerator for tumor therapy based on an actively scanned beam up to the energy of 150 MeV, is under development and construction by ENEA-Frascati, ISS and IFO, under the Italian TOP-IMPLART project. Protons up to the energy of 7 MeV are generated by a customized commercial injector operating at 425 MHz; currently three accelerating modules allow proton delivery with energy up to 27 MeV. Beam homogeneity and reproducibility were studied using a 2D ionizing chamber, EBT3 films, a silicon diode, MOSFETs, LiF crystals and alanine dosimetry systems. Measurements were taken in air with the detectors at ~1 m from the beam line exit window. The maximum energy impinging on the detectors surface was 24.1 MeV, an energy suitable for radiobiological studies. Results showed beam reproducibility within 5% and homogeneity within 4%, on a circular surface of 16 mm in diameter.

Abstracting application deployment on Cloud infrastructures

Deploying a complex application on a Cloud-based infrastructure can be a challenging task. In this contribution we present an approach for Cloud-based deployment of applications and its present or future implementation in the framework of several projects, such as “!CHAOS: a cloud of controls” [1], a project funded by MIUR (Italian Ministry of Research and Education) to create a Cloud-based deployment of a control system and data acquisition framework, “INDIGO-DataCloud” [2], an EC H2020 project targeting among other things high-level deployment of applications on hybrid Clouds, and “Open City Platform”[3], an Italian project aiming to provide open Cloud solutions for Italian Public Administrations. We considered to use an orchestration service to hide the complex deployment of the application components, and to build an abstraction layer on top of the orchestration one. Through Heat [4] orchestration service, we prototyped a dynamic, on-demand, scalable platform of software components, based on OpenStack infrastructures. On top of the orchestration service we developed a prototype of a web interface exploiting the Heat APIs. The user can start an instance of the application without having knowledge about the underlying Cloud infrastructure and services. Moreover, the platform instance can be customized by choosing parameters related to the application such as the size of a File System or the number of instances of a NoSQL DB cluster. As soon as the desired platform is running, the web interface offers the possibility to scale some infrastructure components. In this contribution we describe the solution design and implementation, based on the application requirements, the details of the development of both the Heat templates and of the web interface, together with possible exploitation strategies of this work in Cloud data centers.

Numerical Modeling of Seismic Site Effects in a Shallow Alluvial Basin of the Northern Apennines (Italy)

Research Article| September 25, 2017 Numerical Modeling of Seismic Site Effects in a Shallow Alluvial Basin of the Northern Apennines (Italy) Claudia Madiai; Claudia Madiai aDipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Santa Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy, claudia.madiai@unifi.it Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Johann Facciorusso; Johann Facciorusso aDipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Santa Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy, claudia.madiai@unifi.it Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Elisa Gargini Elisa Gargini aDipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Santa Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy, claudia.madiai@unifi.it Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information Claudia Madiai aDipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Santa Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy, claudia.madiai@unifi.it Johann Facciorusso aDipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Santa Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy, claudia.madiai@unifi.it Elisa Gargini aDipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Santa Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy, claudia.madiai@unifi.it Publisher: Seismological Society of America First Online: 27 Sep 2017 Online Issn: 1943-3573 Print Issn: 0037-1106 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (2017) 107 (5): 2094–2105. https://doi.org/10.1785/0120160293 Article history First Online: 27 Sep 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation Claudia Madiai, Johann Facciorusso, Elisa Gargini; Numerical Modeling of Seismic Site Effects in a Shallow Alluvial Basin of the Northern Apennines (Italy). Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 2017;; 107 (5): 2094–2105. doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0120160293 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyBulletin of the Seismological Society of America Search Advanced Search Abstract The main purpose of this work is to investigate the basin‐edge effects on a cross section of an alluvial basin in the northern Apennines (Italy) and to compare the results with those obtained by applying existing approximate criteria to account for valley effects in cases of simple geometrical and stratigraphic conditions. The combined influence of geometry and layering of the basin was evaluated by performing 1D and 2D numerical analyses. The examined site is located in one of the highest seismicity zones of Tuscany. Geological, geophysical, and geotechnical information is obtained from extensive surveys carried out in the area as part of a pioneering Italian project (1998–2004) promoted and supported by the Regional Government of Tuscany to address microzoning studies on an urban scale. Five actual accelerometric signals were adopted in the analyses, consistent with a site reference spectrum defined according to Italian building code. To estimate the additional valley effects on the ground surface of the basin, numerical results from a 2D model were compared with the corresponding 1D numerical results obtained for an isolated soil column at the same location. A large number of vertical soil profiles were analyzed along the cross section, and different types of amplification factors were computed with reference to both peak ground accelerations and elastic response spectra. The results obtained were compared with those of existing approximate approaches for estimating basin effects on basic geometric and geological conditions (sine‐ or trapezoidal‐shaped valley, homogeneous soil deposits), fitting the actual cross section by a simplified symmetrical trapezoidal scheme. You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.

NANODOSIMETRY: TOWARDS A NEW CONCEPT OF RADIATION QUALITY.

The biological action of ionizing charged particles is initiated at the DNA level, and the effectiveness with which the initial physical effect changes into measurable biological damage is likely ruled by the stochastics of ionizations produced by the incident ions in subcellular nanometric volumes. Based on this hypothesis, experimental nanodosimetry aims at establishing a new concept of radiation quality that builds on measurable characteristics of the particle track structure at the nanometer scale. Three different nanodosimetric detection systems have been developed to date that allow measurements of the number of ionizations produced by the passage of a primary particle in a nanometer-size gas volume (in unit density scale). Within the Italian project MITRA (MIcrodosimetry and TRAck structure), funded by the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and the EMRP Joint Research Project 'BioQuaRT' (Biologically Weighted Quantities in Radiotherapy), experiments have been carried out, in which the frequency distribution of ionizations produced by proton and carbon ion beams of given energy was measured with the three nanodosimetric detectors. Descriptors of the track structure can be derived from these distributions. In particular, the first moment M1, representing the mean number of ionizations produced in the target volume, and the cumulative probability Fk of measuring a number ν ≥ k of ionizations. The correlation between measured nanodosimetric quantities and experimental radiobiological data available in the literature is here presented and discussed.

Digital Resource Sharing and Library Consortia in Italy

Interlibrary cooperation in Italy is a fairly recent and not very widespread practice. Attention to the topic was aroused in the eighties with the Italian library network project. More recently, under the impetus toward technological innovation, there has been renewed (and more pragmatic) interest in cooperation in all library sectors. Sharing electronic resources is the theme of greatest interest today in university libraries, where various initiatives are aimed at setting up consortia to purchase licenses and run digital products. A number of projects in hand are described, and emerging trends analyzed.

Prevalence of Polysubstance Abuse and Dual Diagnosis in Patients Admitted to Alcohol Rehabilitation Units for Alcohol-Related Problems in Italy: Changes in 15 Years.

Alcohol abuse has long been known as a disease with social and economic burden to society. Given the complex nature of alcohol treatment, it is worthwhile to examine the change over time of patients admitted to residential alcohol abuse rehabilitation units. The data were collected from two Italian projects on alcoholics performed in the mid-1990s (ASSALT) and in 2009 (CORRAL), respectively. Categorical variables were considered in terms of absolute and relative frequencies. Comparisons of relative frequencies between groups were assessed by means of Fisher's exact test. Mixed logistic regression models were fitted to CORRAL data to identify the predictors of the probability of being a polysubstance abuser or having a dual diagnosis. The association estimates were reported as adjusted odds ratios and relative 95% confidence intervals. Compared to the mid-1990s, in 2009 patients were older (P= 0.0003), with a higher level of education (P= 0.0204), with fewer comorbidities (liver disease except cirrhosis, P < 0.0001; polyneuropathy, P= 0.0001), more frequently polysubstance abusers (P < 0.0001), affected by dual diagnosis (P < 0.0001). In 2009, the probability of being a polysubstance abuser was higher in younger and in patients with dual psychiatric diagnosis. Female gender and polysubstance abuse were positively associated to the probability of being affected by dual psychiatric diagnosis. The increment of patients admitted to residential programs for alcohol dependence with polysubstance abuse and/or dual psychiatric diagnoses suggests the need to pay more attention to both psychological/psychiatric interventions and internal medicine/physical rehabilitation. The results of this study suggest that further research is needed to identify the best treatment strategy that is safe and effective for the new population of alcoholics.

Track structure characterization and its link to radiobiology

Within the Italian project MITRA (MIcrodosimetry and TRAck structure), funded by the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), and the EMRP Joint Research Project “BioQuaRT” (Biologically Weighted Quantities in Radiotherapy), experiments have been carried out at the Tandem–Alpi accelerator facility of Legnaro National Laboratories (LNL), in which the frequency distribution of the number of ionisations produced by proton and carbon ion beams of given energy was measured with the PTB Ion Counter and the LNL StarTrack Counter. Descriptors of the track structure can be derived from these distribution; in particular, the first moment M1, representing the mean number of ionisations produced in the target volume, and the cumulative probabilities Fk of measuring cluster sizes ν ≥ k.Experimental radiobiological data have been compared with nanodosimetric quantities derived from measured ionisation-cluster size distributions. It was found that the cumulative probabilities Fk as a function of M1 behave in the same way as the inactivation cross sections as a function of LET, first increasing with increasing values of M1 and then showing a saturation effect.A comparison of Fk and radiobiological quantities is presented and discussed.

The Kotayk Survey Project. Preliminary Report on 2015 Fieldwork Activities

The Kotayk Survey Project (ksp) started in the summer of 2013. This is a joint Armenian—Italian project involving the study of the upper Hrazdan river valley, located in the northern part of the Kotayk region in the Armenian Republic. This article presents the results of the third fieldwork season, which involved both excavation and survey. In particular, the text describes the excavation of the Solak 1 fortress and discusses its role in the framework of Middle Iron Age/Urartian archaeology.

Artificial neural network decision support tool for assessment of the energy performance and the refurbishment actions for the non-residential building stock in Southern Italy

The public buildings sector represents one of the most intensive items of EU energy consumption; the application of retrofit solutions in existing buildings is a crucial way to reduce its impact. To facilitate the knowledge of the energy performance of existing non-residential buildings and the choice of the more adequate actions, Public Administrations (PA) should have the availability of proper tools. Within the Italian project “POI 2007-13”, a database and a decision support tool, for easy use, even to a non-technical user, have been developed. A large set of data, obtained from the energy audits of 151 existing public buildings located in four regions of South Italy have been analysed, elaborated, and organised in a database. This was used to identify the best architectures of two ANNs and to train them. The first ANN provides the actual energy performance of any building; the second ANN assesses key economic indicators. A decision support tool, based on the use of these ANNs is conceived for a fast prediction of the energy performance of buildings and for a first selection of energy retrofit actions that can be applied.

S2-2014 Project: a tour

This Special Issue describes some steps for introducing measurable improvements into Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment, done during the Italian Project S2-2014 “Constraining Observations into Seismic Hazard”. The papers here gathered cover different topics, but are joint by the common aim of confronting models’ results with observations. In this volume, some contributions for improving the quality and quantity of data archives, the design of new tools for seismic hazard assessment, the development of innovative methodological approaches for sanitizing data incompleteness, and a few case studies for ranking and scoring the seismic hazard results are presented. We dedicate this volume to the friend and colleague Marco Mucciarelli that passed away in November 2016: we keep in our heart the energy and humor he put into the several research branches and activities he promoted inside this project.

Latent Ignorability and Item Selection for Nursing Home Case-Mix Evaluation

In the social, behavioral, and health sciences it is often of interest to identify latent or unobserved groups in the population with the group membership of the individuals depending on a set of observed variables. In particular, we focus on the field of nursing home assessment in which the response variables typically come from the administration of questionnaires made of categorical items. These types of data may suffer from missing values and the use of lengthy questionnaires may be problematic as a large number of items could have a negative impact on the responses. In such a context, we introduce an extended version of the Latent Class (LC) model aimed at dealing with missing values, by assuming a form of latent ignorability. Moreover, we propose an item selection algorithm, based on the LC model, for finding the smallest subset of items providing an amount of information close to that of the initial set. The proposed approach is illustrated through an application to a dataset collected within an Italian project on the quality-of-life of nursing home patients.

Association Between Migraine and Cervical Artery Dissection

Although sparse observational studies have suggested a link between migraine and cervical artery dissection (CEAD), any association between the 2 disorders is still unconfirmed. This lack of a definitive conclusion might have implications in understanding the pathogenesis of both conditions and the complex relationship between migraine and ischemic stroke (IS). To investigate whether a history of migraine and its subtypes is associated with the occurrence of CEAD. A prospective cohort study of consecutive patients aged 18 to 45 years with first-ever acute ischemic stroke enrolled in the multicenter Italian Project on Stroke in Young Adults was conducted between January 1, 2000, and June 30, 2015. In a case-control design, the study assessed whether the frequency of migraine and its subtypes (presence or absence of an aura) differs between patients whose IS was due to CEAD (CEAD IS) and those whose IS was due to a cause other than CEAD (non-CEAD IS) and compared the characteristics of patients with CEAD IS with and without migraine. Frequency of migraine and its subtypes in patients with CEAD IS vs non-CEAD IS. Of the 2485 patients (mean [SD] age, 36.8 [7.1] years; women, 1163 [46.8%]) included in the registry, 334 (13.4%) had CEAD IS and 2151 (86.6%) had non-CEAD IS. Migraine was more common in the CEAD IS group (103 [30.8%] vs 525 [24.4%], P = .01), and the difference was mainly due to migraine without aura (80 [24.0%] vs 335 [15.6%], P < .001). Compared with migraine with aura, migraine without aura was independently associated with CEAD IS (OR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.30-2.33). The strength of this association was higher in men (OR, 1.99; 95% CI, 1.31-3.04) and in patients 39.0 years or younger (OR, 1.82; 95% CI, 1.22-2.71). The risk factor profile was similar in migrainous and non-migrainous patients with CEAD IS (eg, hypertension, 20 [19.4%] vs 57 [24.7%], P = .29; diabetes, 1 [1.0%] vs 3 [1.3%], P > .99). In patients with IS aged 18 to 45 years, migraine, especially migraine without aura, is consistently associated with CEAD. This finding suggests common features and warrants further analyses to elucidate the underlying biologic mechanisms.

Cybernetic Collaborations, Literature Machines and Italo Calvino's ‘L’incendio della casa abominevole'

ABSTRACTThis article explores two collaborations that influenced Italo Calvino's short story, ‘L’incendio della casa abominevole', the first an anticombinatoric project and collaboration undertaken with Paul Braffort of the French group Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle) in 1973, and the second with the former IBM programmer, William Skyvington, in early 1977. In the case of the latter interaction, a hitherto unknown epistolary exchange between Calvino and Skyvington is examined in order to understand the terms in which Calvino's ambitions and the programmer's doubts were expressed, and the reasons for which a subsequent collaboration was not undertaken. The response Calvino received from Skyvington is finally brought to bear on Calvino's later work and correspondence, in which the limitations articulated by Skyvington are interpreted as influencing the nature of the Italian author's later projects.

“The Italian Project “COPD 270°”: A Collaborative Approach for Identifying Patients with Undiagnosed Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) In Primary Care

“The Italian Project “COPD 270°”: A Collaborative Approach for Identifying Patients with Undiagnosed Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) In Primary Care

MuSe: a semantic solution for personalised recommendations of municipality services

Citizens managing life events are often challenged in finding the needed municipality services (MuSe) and understanding the specific delivery conditions of such services. The lack of a comprehensive view of available services on municipality portals and online systems makes the challenge harder. In this paper, we describe the MuSe ontology, developed in the context of an Italian project that: i) supports the creation of formal and machine-readable descriptions of services available to citizens; ii) enables for personalised recommendations of services based on citizen profiles. Moreover, the paper describes how such recommendations are defined by means of an innovative semantic solution for supply demand matchmaking and how such recommendations are shown to citizens.

MuSe: a semantic solution for personalised recommendations of municipality services

Citizens managing life events are often challenged in finding the needed municipality services (MuSe) and understanding the specific delivery conditions of such services. The lack of a comprehensive view of available services on municipality portals and online systems makes the challenge harder. In this paper, we describe the MuSe ontology, developed in the context of an Italian project that: i) supports the creation of formal and machine-readable descriptions of services available to citizens; ii) enables for personalised recommendations of services based on citizen profiles. Moreover, the paper describes how such recommendations are defined by means of an innovative semantic solution for supply demand matchmaking and how such recommendations are shown to citizens.

Automatic identification of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, heart failure and their levels of severity from Italian General Practitioners' electronic medical records: a validation study

ObjectivesThe Italian project MATRICE aimed to assess how well cases of type 2 diabetes (T2DM), hypertension, ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and heart failure (HF) and their levels of severity can...

Re-exploring the iceberg of celiac disease in children: Preliminary results of a multicenter Italian screening project based on a rapid HLA DQ typing test

Re-exploring the iceberg of celiac disease in children: Preliminary results of a multicenter Italian screening project based on a rapid HLA DQ typing test