Comparative Review on the Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Relief Teams' Deployment to Sudden-Onset Disasters

When a disaster exceeds the capacity of the affected country to cope with its own resources, the provision of external rescue and health services is required, and the deployment of relief units requested. Recently, the cost of international relief and the belief that such deployment is cost-effective has been questioned by the international community; unfortunately, there is still little informed debate and few detailed data are available. This paper presents the results of a comparative review on the cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of search and rescue (SAR) and Emergency Medical Team (EMT) deployment. The aim of this work is to provide an overview of the topic, highlight the criteria used to assess the effectiveness, and identify gaps in existing literature. The results show that both deployments are highly expensive, and their success is strongly related to the time they need to be operational; SAR deployments are characterized by limited outcomes in terms of lives saved, and EMTs by insufficient data and lack of detailed assessment. This research highlights that the criteria used to assess the effectiveness need to be explored further, considering different purposes, lengths of stay, and different activities performed, especially for any comparison. This study concludes that data reporting should be mandatory for humanitarian response agencies.</p

Previsione dell'età biologica mediante segnali PPG

La fotopletismografia (PPG) è una tecnica recente per la misura del volume del sangue arterioso basata sullo studio della variazione dell'assorbanza fra emoglobina ossigenata e deossigenata. I suoi vantaggi sono la semplicità dell'apparato, il basso costo e la non invasività. L'età biologica di un individuo è determinata non solo dall'età cronologica, ma anche da altri fattori come lo stile di vita, possibili patologie, dieta, esercizio fisico, stress. Lo studio dell'età biologica è quindi importante per la possibilità di diagnosticare possibili malattie o problemi con il proprio stile di vita. In questa tesi svilupperemo diversi modelli di machine learning e reti neurali per la regressione dell'età biologica utilizzando delle features estratte da un dataset di segnali PPG. La quantità di sangue che transita nel sistema vascolare dipende infatti dal tono vascolare e questo a sua volta dipende dall'età del soggetto

Cochinilla coma Lepidosaphes ulmi

Las cochinillas son insectos especiales que han perdido la mayoría de las características que nos permiten identificarlos como tales, como son las alas y las patas. La cochinilla coma presenta una escasa movilidad sobre el cultivo, solo algunos estadios juveniles poseen patas y de esta forma se trasladan hacia otras partes de las plantas, donde se establecen formando nuevas colonias. La cochinilla coma se caracteriza por la forma alargada del escudo protector de la hembra y su color pardo rojizo.EEA La ConsultaFil: Bartolucci, Andrea. Instituto de Sanidad y Calidad Agropecuaria Mendoza (ISCAMEN); Argentin

Mosca del Mediterráneo Ceratitis capitata

La mosca del Mediterráneo es un insecto que pertenece a la familia de los Tefrítidos, también conocida como “moscas de la fruta”. Los adultos miden 15 mm, con tórax negro brillante y manchas blancas características. El abdomen es marrón con bandas claras. Posee dos alas membranosas, con tres bandas de color amarillo anaranjados formando el característico patrón alar del símbolo π (letra griega Pi). Los huevos son blanco-cremosos alargados, con extremos ahusados, de menos de 2 mm. Las larvas miden de 3 a 6 mm de largo, de color blanco amarillentas. Son mucidiformes (anchas en la parte caudal, adelgazando gradualmente hacia la cabeza). Las larvas nacen dentro de la fruta y se alimentan de ella. Pasan por tres estadios larvales hasta llegar al siguiente estado de pupa. Las pupas toman el aspecto de cápsulas de color marrón café, con 11 segmentos, y miden 3 a 5 mm de largo.EEA La ConsultaFil: Bartolucci, Andrea. Instituto de Sanidad y Calidad Agropecuaria Mendoza (ISCAMEN); Argentin

Polilla de la pera y la manzana Carpocapsa pomonella

La polilla de la pera y la manzana es una plaga muy importante de los frutales de pepita y nogal. Es un insecto lepidóptero con hábitos crepusculares. Los huevos miden aproximadamente 1 mm de diámetro, de forma circular, aplanados y de color variable. En un principio son blanquecinos y luego, dependiendo del estado de desarrollo, van del verde cristalino al verde opaco. Con la evolución del ciclo embrionario aparece el estado llamado de “aureola roja” para alcanzar finalmente el de “cabeza negra” cuando la larva está a punto de eclosionar. Las larvas son eruciformes. Recién nacidas miden 1,5 mm, son de color amarillento, con la cabeza y el escudete pronotal castaño oscuro. Después de 3 mudas alcanzan un desarrollo máximo de 16 a 18 mm y toman una coloración rosada (quinto estadio). Carece de peine anal, detalle morfológico que permite diferenciarla de la larva de grafolita. Las pupas se ubica en el interior de un pupario que, recién formado, es de color ámbar, pero con el tiempo se va oscureciendo hasta llegar al marrón. Mide unos 10 mm de largo por 2,2 mm de diámetro en la parte más ensanchada. El adulto mide entre 15 y 22 milímetros con las alas abiertas. Es gris cenizo, con finas líneas marrones y una característica mancha cobriza semicircular en el extremo inferior.EEA La ConsultaFil: Bartolucci, Andrea. Instituto de Sanidad y Calidad Agropecuaria Mendoza (ISCAMEN); Argentin

Plomo del duraznero Vasates cornutus (=Aculus cornutus)

El plomo del duraznero es causado por un eriófido, cuyas medidas son muy pequeñas y es difícil su identificación a simple vista. Generalmente, se observa primero la sintomatología característica en el cultivo. La longitud del adulto puede variar de 0,1 a 0,3 mm. Su cuerpo es estriado o anillado transversalmente, de color ambarino, transparente o ligeramente rosado. Tiene solamente dos pares de patas cortas.EEA La ConsultaFil: Bartolucci, Andrea. Instituto de Sanidad y Calidad Agropecuaria Mendoza; Argentin

Sustainable forest management and habitat of diurnal raptors in the SIC Alpe della Luna-Bocca Trabaria (province of Pesaro and Urbino).

For the definition of methodology in a naturalistic silviculture in a Site of Community Importance (Marche Region), documents relating to the physiognomic-structural data of forest vegetation and ecological requirements of 4 species of raptors (Goshawk, Sparrow hawk, Buzzard, Honey Buzzard) were superimposed. A wildlife suitability index of forest habitats (IIHF) was calculated, according to which forestry interventions, aimed at improving and preserving the raptor habitats, are proposed

Weighted Barycentric Sets and Singular Liouville Equations on Compact Surfaces

Given a closed two dimensional manifold, we prove a general existence result for a class of elliptic PDEs with exponential nonlinearities and negative Dirac deltas on the right-hand side, extending a theory recently obtained for the regular case. This is done by global methods: since the associated Euler functional is in general unbounded from below, we need to define a new model space, generalizing the so-called space of formal barycenters and characterizing (up to homotopy equivalence) its very low sublevels. As a result, the analytic problem is reduced to a topological one concerning the contractibility of this model space. To this aim, we prove a new functional inequality in the spirit of [16] and then we employ a min-max scheme based on a cone-style construction, jointly with the blow-up analysis given in [5] (after [6] and [8]). This study is motivated by abelian Chern- Simons theory in self-dual regime, or from the problem of prescribing the Gaussian curvature in presence of conical singularities (hence generalizing a problem raised by Kazdan and Warner in [26]).Comment: to appear on Journal of Functional Analysis. One proof in Section 3 has been simplified with respect to the previous version, while Section 6 (on open problems) has been substantially improved. At the end on the Introduction, the complete proof of the topological conjecture given in Section 6 (to appear in a forthcoming paper) is announce

An improved geometric inequality via vanishing moments, with applications to singular Liouville equations

We consider a class of singular Liouville equations on compact surfaces motivated by the study of Electroweak and Self-Dual Chern-Simons theories, the Gaussian curvature prescription with conical singularities and Onsager's description of turbulence. We analyse the problem of existence variationally, and show how the angular distribution of the conformal volume near the singularities may lead to improvements in the Moser-Trudinger inequality, and in turn to lower bounds on the Euler-Lagrange functional. We then discuss existence and non-existence results.Comment: some references adde