DIKEDOC: a multicriteria methodology to organise and communicate knowledge.

DIKEDOC is a knowledge-based multicriteria methodology that is here proposed to organise dispersed knowledge about a complex problem when a decision process has not yet been activated, or is latent, and to generate an interaction space that produces new knowledge. An integrated use of logical and analytical tools is proposed, first for use at a technical level to organise any dispersed knowledge in a way that generates insights that can be communicated, and then in a participative context, to create an opportunity to interact, share personal points of view and experiences and to explore spaces of action, where such tools facilitate understanding, criticism and proposals. A pilot study was developed, by an interdisciplinary research team, in relation to the enhancement process of the "Ivrea, industrial city of the twentieth century" UNESCO site, which still needs to be activated after a long and complex decision process that led to the inclusion of the site in the World Heritage List.

Evidence from catch-up growth and hoarding behavior of rats that exposure to hypobaric air lowers the body-mass set point.

The depression of body growth rate and the reduction of body mass for chronological age and gender in growing experimental animals exposed to hypobaric air (simulated high altitude = SHA) have been associated with hypophagia because of reduced appetite. Catch-up growth during protein recovery after a short period of protein restriction only occurs if food intake becomes super-normal, which should not be possible under hypoxic conditions if the set-point for appetite is adjusted by the level of SHA. The present investigation was designed to test the hypothesis that growth retardation during exposure to SHA is due to an alteration of the neural mechanism for setting body mass size rather than a primary alteration of the central set-point for appetite.

Failure of polycythemia-induced increase in arterial oxygen content to suppress the anorexic effect of simulated high altitude in the adult rat.

The anorexic effect of exposure to high altitude may be related to the reduction in the arterial oxygen content (Ca(O2)) induced by hypoxemia and possibly the associated decreased convective oxygen transport (COT). This study was then performed to evaluate the effects of either transfusion-induced polycythemia or previous acclimation to hypobaria with endogenously induced polycythemia on the anorexic effect of simulated high altitude (SHA) in adult female rats. Food consumption, expressed in g/d/100 g body weight, was reduced by 40% in rats exposed to 506 mbar for 4 d, as compared to control rats maintained in room air.