Rifting and arc-related early Paleozoic volcanism along the North Gondwana margin: geochemical and geological evidence from Sardinia (Italy)

Three series of volcanic rocks accumulated during the Cambrian to Silurian in the metasediment-dominated Variscan basement of Sardinia. They provide a record of the changing geodynamic setting of the North Gondwana margin between Upper Cambrian and earliest Silurian. A continuous Upper Cambrian–Lower Ordovician succession of felsic submarine and subaerial rocks, dominantly transitional alkaline in character (ca. 492–480 Ma), is present throughout the Variscan nappes. Trace element data, together with Nd isotope data that point to a depleted mantle source, indicate an ensialic environment. A Middle Ordovician (ca. 465 Ma) calc-alkaline bimodal suite, restricted to the external Variscan nappes, overlies the Sardic Unconformity. Negative ϵNdi values (−3.03 to −5.75) indicate that the suite is a product of arc volcanism from a variably enriched mantle. A Late Ordovician–Early Silurian (ca. 440 Ma) volcano-sedimentary cycle consists of an alkalic mafic suite in a post-Caradocian transgressive sequence. Feeder dykes cut the pre-Sardic sequence. The alkali basalts are enriched in Nb-Ta and have Zr/Nb ratios in the range 4.20–30.90 (typical of a rift environment) and positive ϵNdi values that indicate a depleted mantle source. Trachyandesite lavas have trace element contents characteristic of within-plate basalt differentiates, with evidence of minor crustal contamination

Mean mutual information and symmetry breaking for finite random fields

International audienc

Melnikov analysis in nonsmooth differential systems with nonlinear switching manifold

We study the family of piecewise linear differential systems in the plane with two pieces separated by a cubic curve. Our main result is that 7 is a lower bound for the Hilbert number of this family. In order to get our main result, we develop the Melnikov functions for a class of nonsmooth differential systems, which generalizes, up to order 2, some previous results in the literature. Whereas the first order Melnikov function for the nonsmooth case remains the same as for the smooth one (i.e. the first order averaged function) the second order Melnikov function for the nonsmooth case is different from the smooth one (i.e. the second order averaged function). We show that, in this case, a new term depending on the jump of discontinuity and on the geometry of the switching manifold is added to the second order averaged function

Augmented contents as assistive technology to make more inclusive everyday objects for visually impaired people

This study investigates how to exploit technologies for making society more inclusive by increasing the usability of artefacts that may be not accessible to people with disabilities. Accessing everyday objects can be a challenge for blind and visually impaired people. Although digital calendars are available, a tangible paper-based calendar can be more suitable or preferred by users, in specific contexts. Such a calendar should be as inclusive as possible. This paper shares the experience of designing an inclusive paper-based calendar conceived in codesign sessions with blind and visually impaired users

Convergent decomposition techniques for training RBF neural networks.

In this article we define globally convergent decomposition algorithms for supervised training of generalized radial basis function neural networks. First, we consider training algorithms based on the two-block decomposition of the network parameters into the vector of weights and the vector of centers. Then we define a decomposition algorithm in which the selection of the center locations is split into sequential minimizations with respect to each center, and we give a suitable criterion for choosing the centers that must be updated at each step. We prove the global convergence of the proposed algorithms and report the computational results obtained for a set of test problems

Orbitally symmetric systems with applications to planar centers

We present a generalization of the most usual symmetries in differential equations known as the time-reversibility and the equivariance ones. We check that the typical properties are also valid for the new definition that unifies both. With it, we are able to present new families of planar polynomial vector fields having equilibrium points of center type. Moreover, we provide the highest lower bound for the local cyclicity of an equilibrium point of polynomial vector fields of degree 6, M(6) ≥ 48

Cyclicity Near Infinity in Piecewise Linear Vector Fields Having a Nonregular Switching Line

Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UABIn this paper we recover the best lower bound for the number of limit cycles in the planar piecewise linear class when one vector field is defined in the first quadrant and a second one in the others. In this class and considering a degenerated Hopf bifurcation near families of centers we obtain again at least five limit cycles but now from infinity, which is of monodromic type, and with simpler computations. The proof uses a partial classification of the center problem when both systems are of center type

Evaluation of an Internet Document Delivery Service

An Internet-based Document Delivery Service (DDS) has been developed within the framework of the CNR ( the Italian Research National Council) Project BiblioMIME, in order to take advantage of new Internet technologies and promote cooperation among CNR and Italian university libraries. Adopting such technologies changes the traditional organisation of DDS and may drastically reduce costs and delivery times. An information system managing DDS requests and monitoring the temporal evolution of the service has been implemented, running on the local-area network of a test-site library. It aims to track number and types of documents requested and received, user distribution, delivery times and types (surface mail, fax, Internet), to automate repetitive manual procedures and to deal with the various accounting methods used by other libraries. Transmission of documents is carried out by means of an e-mail/Web gateway system supporting document exchange via Internet, which assists receiving libraries in retrieving requested documents. This paper describes the architecture and main design features of the e-mail/Web gateway server (the BiblioMime server). This approach permits librarians to continue using e-mail service to send large documents, while resolving problems that users may encounter when downloading large size files with e-mail agents. The library operator sends the document as an attachment to the destination address; on fly the e-mail server extracts and saves the attachments in a web-server disk file and substitutes them with a new message part that includes an URL pointing to the saved document. The receiver can download these large objects by means of a user-friendly browser. We further discuss the data gathered during the triennium 1998-2000; this consists of about 5,000 DDS transactions per annum with 300 other Italian scientific and bio-medical libraries and commercial document suppliers. Use of the instruments described above allowed us to evaluate the performance of service "before" and "after" the use of Internet Document Delivery and to extract some critical data regarding DDS. Those include: a) libraries with which we have greater numbers of exchanges and their turnaround times; b) extraordinary reduction in costs and delivery times; c) the most frequently requested serial titles (allowing cost-effective decisions on new subscriptions); d) impact on DDS of library participation in consortia which allow user access to greater numbers of online serials