Preference Theory and Low Fertility: A Comparative Perspective

The discussion on the causes of the most recent fertility decline in Europe, and in particular on the emergence of lowest low fertility, emphasises the relevance of cultural factors in addition to economic ones. Being part of such a cultural framework, the heterogeneity of preferences concerning the "career vs. family" dichotomy has been systematised in the "Preference Theory" approach developed by Catherine Hakim. So far, however, this heterogeneity in preferences has been underinvestigated in a comparative framework. This paper makes use of new comparative data from the 2004/05 Round of the European Social Survey to test the links between individual-level preferences and both fertility outcomes and intentions in a variety of social settings. Results confirm a link between work-family lifestyle preferences and realised fertility in a variety of European countries, while they do not support the relevance of lifestyle preferences for fertility intentions.Preference Theory, low and lowest low fertility, Europe, European Social Survey, welfare regime.

Saturation excess runoff numerical simulation

Saturation excess runoff is a relevant process which needs additional experimental and modeling efforts. This work is focused on its numerical modeling. The final objective is the successive interpretation of ongoing experimental monitoring results in two watersheds in different areas of Italy where the saturation excess runoff formation mechanism seems to be important. The numerical solution of the two-dimensional Richards\u2019 equation allows the evaluation of the sensitivity to the various influent parameters : rainfall intensity, soil properties, depth and initial water content, slope and hillslope length. Also the subsurface flow is simulated at the same time, allowing the evaluation of the different characteristic times and dominances of the two processes, namely subsurface and surface runoff. Only steady runoff intensities are considered for the sake of simplifying the results interpretation, but unsteady ones can be easily implemented. The same holds for soil layering

Sulla possibilit\ue0 di estendere l'informazione climatica del passato attraverso le serie dendrocronologiche

In the paper tree-ring index series obtained by 15 Pino Laricio individuals from Etna Volcano in Sicily was used in order to reconstruct the past climate. The significative relation founded between minimun temperature and tree-ring index have enable to reconstruct the minimum temperature series up to the 1790

Local polynomial regression for circular predictors

We consider local smoothing of datasets where the design space is the d-dimensional (d >= 1) torus and the response variable is real-valued. Our purpose is to extend least squares local polynomial fitting to this situation. We give both theoretical and empirical results

Comparison of SWAP and FAO Agro-Hydrological Models to Schedule Irrigation of Wine Grape

This paper compares two agro-hydrological models that are used to schedule irrigation of a typical Mediterranean crop. In particular, a comparison between the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) model, which uses a black box approach, and the soil-water-atmosphere-plant (SWAP) model, which is based on the numerical analysis of Richards' equation, are shown for wine grape. The comparison was carried out for the 2005 and 2006 irrigation seasons and focused on hydrological balance components and on soil water contents. Next, the ordinary scheduling parameters were identified so that the performance of the two models, which aimed to evaluate the seasonal water requirements and the irrigation times, could be assessed. In the validation phase, both of the models satisfactorily simulated the soil water content, and comparable values of cumulative evapotranspiration were obtained. With the goal of recognizing the crop water stress condition in the field, the original algorithm of the FAO model was modified. This research provided evidence of how the two agrohydrological models, although characterized by different approaches in modeling the phenomena, showed a similar behaviour when used for scheduling irrigation under soil water deficit conditions. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers

Combined use of eddy covariance and sap flow techniques for partition of ET fluxes and water stress assessment in an irrigated olive orchard

Correct estimation of crop actual transpiration plays a key-role in precision irrigation scheduling, since crop growth and yield are associated to the water passing through the crop. Objective of the work was to assess how the combined use of micro-meteorological techniques (eddy covariance, EC) and physiological measurements (sap flow, SF) allows a better comprehension of the processes involving in the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere continuum. To this aim, an experimental dataset of actual evapotranspiration, plant transpiration, and soil water content measurements was collected in an olive orchard during the midseason phenological period of 2009 and 2010. It was demonstrated that the joint use of EC and SF techniques is effective to evaluate the components of actual evapotranspiration in an olive orchard characterized by sparse vegetation and a significant fraction of exposed bare soil. The availability of simultaneous soil water content measurements allowed to estimate the crop coefficients and to assess a simple crop water stress index, depending on actual transpiration that can be evaluated even in the absence of direct measurements of actual transpiration. The crop coefficients experimentally determined resulted very similar to those previously evaluated; in particular, in the absence of water stress, a seasonal average value of about 0.65 was obtained for the "single" crop coefficient, whereas values of a 0.34 and 0.41 were observed under limited water availability in the root zone. The comparison between the values of crop water stress index evaluated during the investigated periods evidenced systematically lower values (less crop water stress) in the first year compared to the second, according to the general trend of soil waters content in the root zone. Further researches are however necessary to extent the experimental dataset to periods characterized by values of soil evaporation higher than those observed, in order to verify the crop coefficients even under different conditions than those investigated. © 2012 Elsevier B.V

Avaliação da cobertura vegetal para a bacia do Rio Ji-Paraná (RO).

Este estudo tem por objetivo a descrição e o uso do método de classificação de imagens de satélite denominado híbrido, visando a análise de coberturas vegetais. O local escolhido para tal foi a bacia hidrográfica do rio Ji-Paraná, localizada na parte leste do estado de Rondônia. Foram utilizadas imagens do satélite Landsat 5 do ano 2009; sendo a bacia recoberta por oito cenas. A acurácia da classificação obtida foi baseada no índice estatístico kappa e atingiu o valor de 0,7990. O mapa classificado criado referente ao ano de 2009, foi comparado a outro preexistente de 2001 e, após a análise da área de cobertura vegetal nativa (floresta) de cada um deles, pode-se inferir a variação desta no período referido. Foi constatada uma redução de 4102 ha da floresta local

Influence of the rainfall measurement interval on the erosivity determinations in the Mediterranean area

The single-storm erosion index, EI, of the USLE and RUSLE models may vary appreciably with the rainfall measurement interval, Dt. However, the effect of Dt on EI has not been investigated in the Mediterranean area. Approximately 700 erosive events and 1.5 years of rainfall energies measured by a rainfall impact measurement device were used to evaluate the effect of the rainfall measurement interval (5 min 6 Dt 6 60 min) on the erosivity determinations in the Mediterranean semi-arid area of Sicily. According to both literature and practical considerations, a reference time interval equal to 15 min was used in this investigation. Hourly rainfall data led to an appreciable underestimation of the mean value of EI (i.e., by also a factor of two, depending on the location). In the range 5 min 6 Dt 6 15 min, the effect of the rainfall measurement interval on the predicted erosivity was negligible (i.e., mean values differing by a maximum factor of 1.10) as compared with the uncertainties in the soil loss predictions. Two methods were developed for estimating the reference single-storm erosion index, (EI)15, from hourly rainfall data in Sicily. Method 1 converts the erosion index calculated on a 60- min measurement interval basis to (EI)15. Method 2 estimates (EI)15 by using the storm rainfall depth and the maximum rainfall intensity. Testing the two methods against two independent data sets produced a maximum difference between the estimated and the calculated mean values of (EI)15 equal to 7% for method 1 and 11% for method 2. Both methods may be applied in practice, depending on the available rainfall data. For a given rainfall intensity, the specific power, P, measured at eight time intervals (5 min 6 Dt 6 60 min) was in the range ±10% of the mean of the eight P values

Loop Dynamics of the Extracellular Domain of Human Tissue Factor and Activation of Factor VIIa

In the crystal structure of the complex between the soluble extracellular domain of tissue factor (sTF) and activesite- inhibited VIIa, residues 91 and 92 in the Pro79-Pro92 loop of sTF interact with the catalytic domain of VIIa. It is not known, however, whether this loop has a role in allosteric activation of VIIa. Time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy measurements of probes covalently bound to sTF mutants E84C and T121C show that binding uninhibited Factor VIIa affects segmental motions in sTF. Glu84 resides in the Pro79-Pro92 loop, and Thr121 resides in the turn between the first and second antiparallel b-strands of the sTF subdomain that interacts with the Gla and EGF1 domains of VIIa; neither Glu84 nor Thr121 makes direct contact with VIIa. Probes bound to T121C report limited segmental flexibility in free sTF, which is lost after VIIa binding. Probes bound to E84C report substantial segmental flexibility in the Pro79-Pro92 loop in free sTF, which is greatly reduced after VIIa binding. Thus, VIIa binding reduces dynamic motions in sTF. In particular, the decrease in the Pro79-Pro92 loop motions indicates that loop entropy has a role in the thermodynamics of the protein-protein interactions involved in allosteric control of VIIa activation