Italian Standards Research Articles

Assessment on Strength and Stiffness Properties of Aged Structural Timber

Despite the growing popularity of wood and wood-based products in the construction industry, there has been insufficient focus on assessing the condition, preservation, and potential reuse of existing timber. While numerous standards evaluate the quality of freshly sawn timber, there is currently no standardized system for assessing the strength properties of aged and reused timber. The lack of these guidelines is also one of the reasons the results obtained in numerous research are often fluctuating, and we cannot draw clear conclusions. The matter is further complicated by the lack of data on old in-situ wood and its exploitation, which would help to evaluate its condition. Consequently, there is a real practical need to assess the condition of old timber to avoid unnecessary demolition and the loss of valuable and structurally sound building material. What sets this study apart from others is that, in addition to destructive testing, the 4-point non-destructive (ND) bending tests were conducted on all four faces of test specimens. This provided an opportunity to assess the wood visually and then find connections to associate external characteristics with real properties. This methodology aimed to determine whether it is feasible to visually assess the most practical way to use wooden elements in construction. If this question arises, which face of the beam would be better suited for the tension side and which for the compression side? The old timber used in testing originated from an old library building located on Vaksali Street, Tartu, Estonia and is estimated to be about 120 years old. This paper investigates and compares the collected data with a Nordic standard for grading fresh-sawn timber and two established Italian standards for visually assessing aged timber. This comparison contributes to developing a standardized framework for future visual assessments. ND and destructive four-point bending tests were performed to validate and find appropriate visual characteristics to determine the strength and stiffness of the timber elements. The primary goals of this study were first to compare the results obtained from existing ND methods with actual results and secondly to provide guidelines for better visual grading of wood in the future, based on Nordic Standard INSTA 142 (2010) and Italian standards UNI 11119 (2004) and UNI 11035 (2010) Contrary to previous research conclusions, the visual assessment results yielded unexpected outcomes. The results show that the grading standards significantly underestimated the real strength of the wood, and even more, none of the visual assessments overestimated the real strength of the specimens. Therefore, based on prior research and the findings derived from this study, there is evident a substantial potential for extensive development and optimization within this field.

Simple Nonlinear Numerical Modeling for Unreinforced and FRP-Reinforced Masonry Domes

This paper presents a new method to model the nonlinear behavior of double-curvature masonry structures, possibly reinforced by composite materials, by means of conventional elasto-plastic analyses. The method is meant to be used in professional design, especially for assessment and retrofitting purposes, based on the exploitation of the simplest nonlinear finite elements available in commercial software, namely, trusses with elasto-fragile and elasto-ductile behavior (Cutoff Bars, according for instance to the definition provided by Strand7 R3.1.3a). Numerical static nonlinear analyses are carried out by considering elastic hexahedral elements for bricks and by lumping nonlinearities on joints. These are assumed, in turn, to be elastic–brittle and elastic–plastic by using 1D elements, namely, Point Contacts, under the No-Tension Material hypothesis, and Cutoff Bars, respectively, assigning a small tensile resistance to the material. The reinforcement, realized with FRP hooping strips, is successfully modeled in a similar fashion, i.e., by applying perfectly bonded elastic–plastic Cutoff Bars at the extrados of the dome, where debonding is accounted for in a conventional way, limiting the tensile strength according to Italian Standards’ indications. The procedure is validated against benchmark models with the same geometry, using experimental data and more refined structural model results for comparison. After an in-depth analysis of the obtained results, in terms of capacity curves, the robustness and accuracy of the proposed approach are assessed.

Exploring the Growing Importance of Forensic Geoarchaeology in Italy

Forensic geoarchaeology provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to investigating crime scenes. This field combines the techniques and methods of archaeology, geology, geophysics, and remote sensing, to provide a more comprehensive picture of the events that have occurred at a site. Forensic geoarchaeologists can not only provide valuable information about the context of a crime scene but also help reconstruct past events and collect relevant information about missing persons. Moreover, the use of geospatial technologies and the analysis of evidence together with a vast range of scientific methods and techniques help forensic geoarchaeologists provide compelling and reliable evidence before courts and law enforcement agencies. Although some reticence still prevails among Italians about recognizing forensic geoarchaeology as a fundamental discipline vis-a-vis crime scenes, the recognition of its vital significance is growing in Italy, thanks to the decision of the Italian Standards Organization (UNI) to standardize it alongside other fields of criminalistic expertise.

Road geometrical design out of standards: a preliminary study in a simulated context

When a road design solution is quite out of standards for the presence of insurmountable constraints, there is the need for an objective procedure aimed at achieving a certain level of safety for drivers. To avoid issues on judicial responsibility, designers aim to fully satisfy the existing standards, possibly without any exception. Traditional methodologies based on previous experience or road administrators’ guidelines generally caused problems due to the high subjectivity involved in the analysis. In this paper, to overpass these issues, a rational procedure based on vehicles telemetry data in a simulated environment is proposed. This process, through synthetic indices, allows the analysts to compare two road geometries, similar but different, because one includes curves with shorter residual circular arcs than threshold values imposed by Italian standards. The main results, derived from a two-way ANOVA with subsequent contrast analysis, suggest that a certain deviation respect to the standards did not determine any decay in the driver’s performance. Compared to the existing literature, in this study, a full objective procedure was proposed, based on a totally new indicator, which can be easily adapted to any context, involving driver, road and vehicle at the same time.

Non-Financial Communication in Health Care Companies: A Framework for Social and Gender Reporting

Social and gender reporting in the public sector has a double purpose: analyzing the social impact produced by the bodies of the public administration (PA), highlighting the reflection of their activity on women and men (gender auditing), and developing a series of policies aimed at achieving gender balance (gender budgeting), in order to provide useful indications of evolution, with respect to SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. In the field of public enterprises, a very peculiar subcategory is represented by health care companies as they carry out activities in the field of care and health in all of its direct or indirect meanings. Among the stakeholders of health care companies, the most relevant are employees and patients; social and gender reporting that focuses on them allows for the calculation of the distribution of income and expenditure between the genders and the empowerment of spending policies to eliminate discrimination. To understand the spread of non-financial reporting tools among national health facilities, an exploratory survey was conducted in the period August–September 2022. Processing the data available on the website of the Italian Ministry of Health, a database was built containing a list of 1064 health facilities spread throughout the country including public hospitals, research institutes, and accredited private clinics. Data showed that only 10% of the structures had conducted some form of social or/and gender reporting, highlighting the need to improve the spread of these kind of tools. In order to overcome the gap identified between scientific studies and corporate practices on gender and social reporting, we propose a framework for the construction of social and gender reporting in the health care sector. Based on the Italian standards, envisaged for the realization of social reporting and based on the regulatory provisions for public bodies on the reclassification of revenue and expenditure by gender, we propose a process of development for social and gender reporting that focuses on reporting the areas of intervention of health activity in which the gender dimension is equally represented.

Risk Assessment and Management for Potential Living Kidney Donors: The Role of "Third-Party" Commission.

Living kidney donation is the most common type of living-donor transplant. Italian guidelines allow the living donations from emotionally related donors only after clear and voluntary consent expressed by both the donor and the recipient involved. Living donation raises ethical and legal issues because donors voluntarily undergo a surgical procedure to remove a healthy kidney in order to help another person. According to the Italian standards, the assessment of living donor-recipient pair has to be conducted by a medical “third party”, completely independent from both the patients involved and the medical team treating the recipient. Starting from the Hospital “Città della Salute e della Scienza” of Turin (Italy) experience, including 116 living kidney donations, the Authors divided the evaluation process performed by the “Third-Party” Commission into four stages, with a particular attention to the potential donor. Living donation procedures should reflect fiduciary duties that healthcare providers have toward their patients, originating from the relationship of trust between physician and patient. In addition to that, the social implications are enormous if one considers the worldwide campaigns to promote public awareness about organ donation and transplantation, and to encourage people to register their organ donation decisions. The systematic process proposed here can be a tool that proactively reduces and controls the risks of coercion, organ trafficking, vitiated consent, insufficient weighting of donative choice, that could arise especially in donors involved in living kidney donation.

Damage to Churches after the 2016 Central Italy Seismic Sequence

The present study focuses on seismic damage to 36 masonry churches observed after the 2016 Central Italy earthquake. In the sample, recurrent architectural and structural features were identified and accurately described. In order to classify the churches in the sample based on their safety level, their seismic vulnerability was assessed by adopting the simplified procedure proposed in the current Italian standards for cultural heritage. The observed damage, directly detected by the authors during the post-earthquake surveys, is presented and carefully described, highlighting the evolution of the damage. An analysis of the damage suffered by the inspected churches highlighted the most frequent causal mechanisms and the most vulnerable macroelements. Particular attention was devoted to computation of a damage index based on the observed damage as well as on the macroelements present in the surveyed churches. Moreover, a judgment of usability, i.e., whether a church could be occupied after a seismic event, was made using the official survey form and related to both the seismic intensity experienced and the observed damage index. An analysis of the collected data enabled consideration of the usability judgment with respect to the damage index values, computed according to the Italian standards.

Could a Behavioral Model Explain Adherence to Second-Level Colonoscopy for Colon Cancer Screening? Results of a Cross-Sectional Study of the Palermo Province Population.

According to Italian Essential Levels of Assistance (ELA), a colonoscopy is strongly recommended after a positive fecal occult blood test (FOBT) due to its effectiveness in early colorectal cancer detection. Despite the evidence, the Palermo province population (Italy), after a positive FOBT, have a lower colonoscopy adherence compared to Italian standards. This cross-sectional study analyzed patients’ perceptions of colonoscopy procedures to understand the reasons for non-adherence. Patients with a positive FOBT who did not undergo a colonoscopy within the national organized screening program were administered a telephone interview based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) questionnaire. The number of non-compliant patients with a colonoscopy after a positive FOBT were 182, of which 45 (25.7%) patients had undergone a colonoscopy in another healthcare setting. Among the HBM items, in a multivariate analysis only perceived benefits were significantly associated with colonoscopy adherence (aOR = 6.7, p = 0.03). Health promotion interventions should focus on the importance of the benefits of colorectal screening adherence to prevent colorectal cancer, implementing health communication by healthcare workers that have closer contacts with people, as general practitioners.

Object-Oriented Mapping as a Tool for the Assessment of Landslide Hazard in Higly Urbanized Areas

The assessment and mitigation of landslide risk affecting hillslopes in highly urbanized and infrastructured environments are often problematic due to the inadequacy of the traditional approach based on landslide inventories and the absence of a shared language between the different scientific-technical operators (geologists, engineers, architects, environmentalists, economists, jurists) and recurrent understanding problems with policymakers, stakeholders, and property owners. Therefore, innovative technologies and working procedures are required to address these problems. In this context, the European INSPIRE Directive and the Italian national Catalog of Territorial Data with the related Geo-Topographic DB provide positive responses in terms of data standardization and transdisciplinary interoperability. On the other hand, the application of the object-oriented geomorphological mapping of landslides and, even more, the recently proposed Landslide Object-Oriented Model (LOOM) make it possible to develop a more thorough approach to assess the spatial and temporal relationships between landslides and affected slopes. Following the above perspective, the InterUniversity Research Center for Prevision and Prevention of Great Risks (C.U.G.RI.) produced the LOOM-based “eventory” of landslides over a sector of the Tyrrhenian coastal belt, northwest of Salerno city, in the framework of a multi-disciplinary investigation project launched by the Campania Regional Administration to assess the landslide risk. The quantitative assessment of the geomorphological expert-judgment procedures has been carried out exploiting morphometric indexes: the Topographic Position Index (TPI) for automatic slope features recognition, and the Slope-Area plots for surficial process domains. Furthermore, the application of the INSPIRE, and related Italian National Geo-Topographic DB standards allowed transdisciplinary interaction between scientists, technicians, and managers. Such proposal can support the risk management procedure, adding in the Value Judgement and Risk Tolerance Criteria simplicity and effective interoperability in trans-disciplinary frameworks.

Structural design of an Italian bamboo house in an Italian regulatory context: Revisiting a small building built in Costa Rica with tropical bamboo

A residential building designed by the architect Anna Zanetti and already built in Costa Rica using Guadua angustifolia and Dendrocalamus asper is redesigned, choosing the municipality of Bologna, in the north part of Italy, as the construction site and Moso (Phyllostachys edulis) cultivated in Italy, as structural material. The redesign is performed in the context of Italian standards. The paper demonstrates how it is possible to design a building using European bamboo, geometrically smaller in respect to the tropical one, in compliance with the Italian national standards NTC2018 with the aid of Bamboo International standards (ISO 22156). All the members are multi-culms and the connections are chosen without perforations.

Comparative study of Global, European and Italian Standards on Hydrogen Refueling Stations

The purpose of this paper is to give a strategic overview of the existing standards governing the construction and operation of hydrogen refueling stations. A succinct and comprehensive study of hydrogen refueling station standards globally, in Europe, and in Italy is conducted and discussed in light of the new European Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap. Among the numerous topics examined, a particular emphasis is placed on the standards in force for on-site hydrogen production via water electrolysis, hydrogen storage, both liquid and gaseous, and refueling protocols for light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles, on an international level through the provision of ISO, IEC, and SAE standards; on a European level through the examination of the CEN/CENELEC database; and on an Italian national level through the analysis of the UNI database.

A novel approach for the calculation of the energy savings of heat metering for different kinds of buildings

The aim of this paper is to propose a novel approach in order to accurately calculate the energy and economic savings due to the use of heat metering and thermostatic valves in residential buildings. The paper aims at proving that the present simplified approaches used in European Legislation may lead to significantly underestimate the profitability of this technology. The study is developed for four different typologies of buildings located in the city of Naples (South of Italy), including their geometrical and thermophysical properties. The buildings are first modelled in Google Sketchup and subsequently linked to the TRNSYS environment, which also includes a detailed model of the piping systems. The models allow one to evaluate, for every period of the year, energy demand, energy supplied by radiators, heat gains, transmission, etc. The developed models are used to calculate energy demands for three scenarios for each type of building: centralized heating systems not equipped with heat metering; thermostatic valves without heat metering; heat metering and thermostatic valves. The possible savings related to thermostatic valves and heat metering are estimated using the developed model. The results are compared with the ones provided by the Italian Standards. Results show that the thermostatic valves adoption leads to a significant reduction, up to 50%, of the thermal energy demand of the residential buildings and that all the proposed systems exhibit a remarkable economic profitability, with a payback period lower than 1.7 years.

Life-sustaining treatment decisions in pediatric intensive care: an Italian survey on ethical concerns

ObjectivesTo investigate how life-sustaining treatment (LST) decisions are made and identify problematic ethical concerns confronted by physicians and nurses in pediatric intensive care within Italy.MethodsAn 88-question online survey was created, based on a previous qualitative study conducted by this team. The survey was designed to identify how LST decisions were managed; contrasting actual practices with what participants think practices should be. Replies from physicians and nurses were compared, to identify potential inter-professional ethical tensions. The study also identified participants’ principal ethical concerns. Moreover, open-ended questions elicited qualitative perspectives on participants’ views. The survey was pilot-tested and refined before initiation of the study.Results31 physicians and 65 nurses participated in the study. Participants were recruited from pediatric intensive care units across five Italian cities; i.e., Florence, Milan, Padua, Rome, Verona. Statistically significant differences were identified for (a) virtually all questions contrasting actual practices with what participants think practices should be and (b) 14 questions contrasting physician replies with those of nurses. Physicians and nurses identified the absence of legislative standards for LST withdrawal as a highly problematic ethical concern. Physicians also identified bearing responsibility for LST decisions as a major concern. Qualitative descriptions further demonstrated that these Italian pediatric intensive care clinicians encounter significantly distressing ethical problems in their practice.ConclusionsThe results of this study highlight a need for the development of (a) strategies for improving team processes regarding LST decisions, so they can be better aligned with how clinicians think decisions should be made, and (b) Italian LST decision-making standards that can help ensure optimal ethical practices.

PROS and CONS of linear and nonlinear seismic analyses for existing URM structures: Application to a historical building

Seismic capacity assessment of existing buildings is of paramount importance for mitigating the seismic risk in earthquake-prone areas. In Europe, the next version of Eurocode 8 and the current version of the Italian standards suggest the adoption of both linear and nonlinear approaches to perform seismic analyses of existing masonry buildings.This paper discusses with the main issues concerning linear and nonlinear analyses methodologies provided by the Italian standards for existing unreinforced masonry buildings. An historical building located in Southern Italy, representative of the Mediterranean basin buildings, has been chosen as a case study and modelled through the equivalent frame model. According to the Italian standards, the influence of in-plane stiffness of floors and spandrels on the overall seismic capacity of the structure has been considered in the analyses. Beyond the code prescriptions, the effect of different ultimate drifts values assumed for the spandrels on nonlinear behavior of the structure has been analysed.The results of two types of linear analyses (lateral static force method and modal response spectrum analysis) have been compared among them and with those provided by the nonlinear static method. Conclusions show that either behavior and overstrength factors provided by the Italian standards are conservative than those estimated through the nonlinear static analyses. Moreover, it has been remarked that the value of ultimate drift adopted for the spandrel can affect significantly the nonlinear response of the structures, although this topic still represents an open issue.

Behaviour Factor of Ductile Code-Designed Reinforced Concrete Frames

The current generation of seismic design codes is based on a linear elastic force-based approach that includes the nonlinear response of the structure implicitly through a response modification factor (named reduction factor R in American codes or behaviour factor q in European codes). However, the use of a prescribed behaviour factor that is constant for a given structural system may fail in providing structures with the same risk level. In this paper, the behaviour factor of reinforced concrete frame structures is estimated by means of nonlinear static (pushover) and nonlinear incremental dynamic analyses. For this purpose, regular reinforced concrete frames of three, five, seven, and nine storeys designed for high ductility class according to the European and Italian seismic codes are investigated, and realistic input ground motions are selected based on the design spectra. Verified analysis tools and refined structural models are used for nonlinear analysis. Overstrength, redundancy, and ductility response modification factors are estimated, and the effects of some parameters influencing the behaviour factor, including the number of bays and the number of storeys, are evaluated. The results are finally compared with those obtained from a previous paper for steel moment-resisting frames with the same geometry. According to the analysis results, the behaviour factors in the case of pushover analysis are significantly higher than those obtained in the case of nonlinear response history analysis. Thus, according to the pushover analysis, the behaviour factor provided by European and Italian standards seems highly conservative. On the contrary, the more refined nonlinear dynamic analysis shows that the code-prescribed value may be slightly nonconservative for middle-high-rise frame structures due to unfavourable premature collapse mechanisms based on column plastic hinging at the first storey. Thus, some modifications are desirable in local ductility criteria and/or structural detailing of high ductility columns to implicitly ensure that the recommended value of the behaviour factor is conservative.

Intellectual abilities, language comprehension, speech, and motor function in children with spinal muscular atrophy type 1

BackgroundSpinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a chronic, neuromuscular disease characterized by degeneration of spinal cord motor neurons, resulting in progressive muscular atrophy and weakness. SMA1 is the most severe form characterized by significant bulbar, respiratory, and motor dysfunction. SMA1 prevents children from speaking a clearly understandable and fluent language, with their communication being mainly characterized by eye movements, guttural sounds, and anarthria (type 1a); severe dysarthria (type 1b); and nasal voice and dyslalia (type 1c).The aim of this study was to analyze for the first time cognitive functions, language comprehension, and speech in natural history SMA1 children according to age and subtypes, to develop cognitive and language benchmarks that provide outcomes for the clinical medication trials that are changing SMA1 course/trajectory.MethodsThis is a retrospective study including 22 children with SMA1 (10 affected by subtype 1a-1b: AB and 12 by 1c: C) aged 3–11 years in clinical stable condition with a coded way to communicate “yes” and “no”. Data from the following assessments have been retrieved from patient charts: one-dimensional Raven test (RCPM), to evaluate cognitive development (IQ); ALS Severity Score (ALSSS) to evaluate speech disturbances; Brown Bellugy modified for Italian standards (TCGB) to evaluate language comprehension; and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Infant Test of Neuromuscular Disorders (CHOP-INTEND) to assess motor functioning.ResultsSMA 1AB and 1C children were similar in age, with the former characterized by lower CHOP-INTEND scores compared to the latter. All 22 children had collaborated to RCPM and their median IQ was 120 with no difference (p = 0.945) between AB and C. Global median score of the speech domain of the ALSSS was 5; however, it was 2 in AB children, being significantly lower than C (6.5, p < 0.001).TCGB test had been completed by 13 children, with morphosyntactic comprehension being in the normal range (50). Although ALSSS did not correlate with both IQ and TCGB, it had a strong (p < 0.001) correlation with CHOP-INTEND described by an exponential rise to maximum.ConclusionsAlthough speech and motor function were severely compromised, children with SMA1 showed general intelligence and language comprehension in the normal range. Speech impairment was strictly related to global motor impairment.

Indoor Air Quality in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence: sampling methodology and preliminary results

In museums, indoor air quality plays a fundamental role in the visitors and staff well-being as well as in the deterioration processes of the exhibit objects. Due to some complaints dealing with poor air quality conditions reported by the occupants, a preliminary survey in some rooms of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence was carried out. To assess indoor temperature, relative humidity, chemical and microbiological pollutants in the museum, a methodology of investigation and evaluation of the results was defined and applied to several rooms of the Gallery. The survey aim is to underline the presence of critical issues in order to determine the pollutant concentration and compare the sampled values with the limits reported in Italian standards, technical regulation and guidelines. The preliminary results can be used to plan a deepen investigation with a more detailed sampling of specific pollutants. In this paper the results regarding a representative room are shown and discussed.

An innovative multidisciplinary intervention to prevent and treat child obesity: the Epode Umbria Region OBesity Intervention Study (EUROBIS)

The lifestyle’s fundamental role in the approach to the young people with metabolic problems is now supported by the scientific evidence. However, multidisciplinary (including nutritional, physical activity and psychological aspects) intervention studies conducted on this issue are still lacking. This work aims to reflect on issues concerning the EUROBIS multidisciplinary intervention study, which aims to contrast childhood obesity, addressing the complex nutritional, motor, and psychological aspects to improve children’s lifestyle through the implementation of curative and preventive strategies. The curative, clinical approach already proved to be effective in a significant reduction in body weight, BMI, waist circumference, fat mass, waist circumference/height index, and an improvement of Mediterranean diet adherence and physical activity measures, in subjects with overweight/obesity [1]. Now we present the first results of the preventive project "Let’s improve the Umbrian children lifestyle", a school-based intervention, conducted in 2015-16 school year on first classes of primary schools in Umbria (more than 4000 children) resulting in an improvement in Mediterranean diet adherence and physical activity measures. This study confirms that multidisciplinary lifestyle intervention can improve anthropometric, nutritional and physical activity outcomes and represents the cornerstone to build recommendations with a high level of evidence within the Italian standards of care, although it has demonstrate the difficulties of young people and parents to join it.

Road Functional Classification Using Pattern Recognition Techniques

The existing international standards suggest a methodology to assign a specific functional class to a road, by the values of some features, both geometrical and use-related. Sometimes, these characteristics are in contrast with each other and direct the analyst towards conflicting classes for a road or, worse, one or more of these features vary heterogeneously along the road. In these conditions, the analyst assigns the class that, by his capability and experience, he retains the most appropriate, in a very subjective way. On the contrary, the definition of an automatic procedure assuring an objective identification of the most appropriate functional class for each road would be desirable. Such a solution would be useful, especially when the road belongs to the existing infrastructure network or when it was not realised by out of date standards. The proposed procedure regards the definition of a classification model based on Pattern Recognition techniques, considering 13 input variables that, depending on their assumed value, direct the analyst towards one of the four functional classes defined by the Italian standards. In this way, it is possible to classify a road even when its characteristics are heterogeneous and conflicting. Moreover, the authors analysed the model limitations, in terms of errors and dataset size, considering observation and variable numbers. This approach, representing a beneficial decision support tool for the decision-maker, is exploitable for both planned and existing roads and becomes particularly advantageous for road agencies aiming to optimally allocate their limited funds for specific interventions assuring the achievement of a fixed functional class.

Nutrient intake in aging infants and toddlers: 3-year follow-up of the Nutrintake study

We performed a 3-year follow-up of the children enrolled into the Nutrintake Study to evaluate the changes of anthropometry and nutrient intake in aging infants and toddlers. Nutrient intake was assessed using a 7-day weighted food-diary. Of the 390 Nutrintake children, 164 (42%) participated in the present study. Their median (IQR) age was 54 (48; 66) months and their anthropometrical status, expressed as standard deviation scores, remained stable during the follow-up. During the same period, there was no biologically relevant change in the intake of macronutrients expressed as percentage of energy while median increases of 757 mg/day, 0.7 mg/day and 3.1 g/1000 kcal per day were detected for sodium, iron and fibre, respectively. As compared to the Italian reference standards, the Nutrintake children continued to show at the 3-year follow-up an excessive intake of simple carbohydrates, proteins, sodium, and a low intake of iron and fibre.