Noise in a hospital area. Measure and evaluation

The territory of Sciacca has been acoustically subdivided into homogeneous areas by the authors. In the present job, our attention is focused on the zones in class I that includes particularly sensitive areas as schools and hospitals. The acoustic climate inside and outside the hospital of Sciacca is carried out. The hospital was built on a hillock. Around the hillock two roads, an urban and a main highway are present, both with high traffic. With a campaign of measures, in proximity of the roads, in the hospital square, in the parking, and finally inside the hospital, the equivalent level and the patients exposure was calculated as Ld, Ln and DNL. Both the impact due to the roads (consider…

Inpact of the vehicular traffic in the acoustic-atmospheric climate of the Perreira district in Sciacca

Cognitive deficits in beta-thalassemia major.

OBJECTIVES: To assess cognitive functioning in patients affected by beta-thalassemia major (beta-th) by using a neuropsychological battery, and to identify clinical correlates. MATERIAL AND METHODS:Forty-six beta-th patients and 46 controls similar for age, sex, and education participated in the study. All subjects performed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery including tests of abstract reasoning, attention, executive functions, language, constructional/visuospatial skills, and memory. RESULTS:Compared to controls beta-th patients, in particular those showing signs of hemosiderosis, were significantly impaired on all neuropsychological tests. There was no relationship between cognit…

Design of an acoustical decision support system for town and traffic planning

The town planning and the traffic urban planning studies of our modern cities lead us to emphasize the impact that urban activities and movements have on the acoustic level and annoyance. In Italy the enforced rules and laws on noise pollution provide us with an optimal procedure for the measurement, valuation and noise control across the urban territory. The control of the acoustic climate of a city depends on the acoustic zoning of the urban territory which fixes restrictive limits of exposition for each area. The aim of the present paper is to assess acoustic tools of calculation and the territorial information system, useful as a decision support system for town-planning and territorial…