Terraced landscapes located in areas of great value for touristic purposes as an irreversible practice

Since Neolithic, terraced landscapes have been an essential element for moulding mountain or steep slope into habitable arable areas. Over the last decades, they have been subjected to a quick abandonment because of their inadequate economic competitiveness causing a gap in their maintenance and, consequently, incrementing the hydrogeological instability of those areas. Minori is a small municipality (256 ha), protected by UNESCO, located in Amalfi Coast. That area is well known not only for the beauty of its territory but also for some catastrophic raining events, like in 1954 when a rain shower of 500 mm topped up to 24 hours. The current research work intends to analyse the landscape changes in Minori over sixty year period (1956 - 2017) for assessing the new values taken on the land use and the agricultural sites. A detailed orthophoto and a high resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the study area have been reconstructed using the historical photogrammetric photos of 1954, acquired by the Italian Military Geographic Institute (IGM), and the aerial photogrammetric pictures of 2017, obtained by an own flight. DEM and orthophoto have been reconstructed applying Agisoft Photoscan Professional. The resolution of the generated DEM is equal to 0.48 and 0.1 m for 1956 and 2017, respectively. The orthophoto resolution is of 0.24 and 0.07 for 1956 and 2017, respectively. Comparing the generated products of the two periods, it is pointed out that terraces extension has not been amended, while the amount of human constructions have increased of about 800%. To give a first idea of the most vulnerable areas to be investigated more in depth through simulation procedures, a first proposal of an expeditious index of vulnerability (EVI) has been introduced and tested. It is based on the ratio between the amount of surface occupied by buildings and the amount of areas subjected to a debris flow event. The increase of the vulnerability, exposure values and probability of accident occurring involve a risk rise

Optimal Control Problems with Mixed and Pure State Constraints

This paper provides necessary conditions of optimality for optimal control problems, in which the pathwise constraints comprise both ‘pure’ constraints on the state variable and also ‘mixed’ constraints on control and state variables. The proofs are along the lines of earlier analysis for mixed constraint problems, according to which Clarke’s theory of ‘stratified’ necessary conditions is applied to a modified optimal control problem resulting from absorbing the mixed constraint into the dynamics; the difference here is that necessary conditions which now take account of the presence of pure state constraints are applied to the modified problem. Necessary conditions are given for a rather general formulation of the problem containing both forms of the constraints, and then these are specialized to apply to problems having special structure. While combined pure state and mixed control/state problems have been previously treated in the literature, the necessary conditions in this paper are proved under less restrictive hypotheses and for novel formulations of the constraints

Social determinants and BCG efficacy: a call for a socio-biological approach to TB prevention.

A high burden of TB mortality persists despite the long-term availability of the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, whose efficacy has been highly variable across populations. Innovative and alternative approaches to TB prevention are urgently needed while optimal biomedical tools continue to be developed. We call for new interdisciplinary collaborations to expand and integrate our understanding of how social determinants influence the biological processes that lead to TB disease, how this translates into differential BCG efficacy and, ultimately, how social protection interventions can play a role in reducing the global burden of TB. After providing an overview of the immune pathways important for the establishment of a response to the BCG vaccine, we outline how social determinants and psychosocial stressors can contribute to the observed variation in BCG efficacy above and beyond these biological factors. We conclude by proposing a new interdisciplinary research model based on the integration of social epidemiology theories with biomedical knowledge

Duration reproduction in regular and irregular contexts after unilateral brain damage: Evidence from voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping and atlas-based hodological analysis

It has been proposed that not completely overlapping brain networks support interval timing depending on whether or not an external, predictable temporal cue is provided during the task, aiding time estimation. Here we tested this hypothesis in a neuropsychological study, using both a topological approach – through voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM), that assesses the relation between continuous behavioral scores and lesion information on a voxel-by-voxel basis – and a hodological approach, using an atlas-based tractography. A group of patients with unilateral focal brain lesions and their matched controls performed a duration reproduction task assessing time processing in two conditions, namely with regularly spaced stimuli during encoding and reproduction (Regular condition), and with irregularly spaced stimuli during the same task (Irregular condition). VLSM analyses showed that scores in the two conditions were associated with lesions involving partly separable clusters of voxels, with lower performance only in the Irregular condition being related to lesions involving the right insular cortex. Performance in both conditions correlated with the probability of disconnection of the right frontal superior longitudinal tract, and of the superior and middle branches of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus. These findings suggest that the dissociation between timing in regular and irregular contexts is not complete, since performance in both conditions relies on the integrity of a common suprasecond timing network. Furthermore, they are consistent with the hypothesis that tracking time without the aid of external cues selectively relies on the integration of psychophysiological changes in the right insula

Investigating the Effect of Nudges on Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Genetically Modified Corn Oil

Shifting from conventional methods of food production to genetic modification methods benefits sustainable agri-food production and environmental preservation. However, one of the main problems genetically modified food manufacturers have ever had to deal with is the public acceptability of GM foods. This study has two major objectives. First, it intends to apply principles from behavioral economics to investigate how consumers’ willingness to pay for GM corn oil can be affected. For this purpose, two different nudges are tested by providing consumers with positive information regarding GMO and changing the wording of the GMO label. Then, a comparison between the effectiveness of each of them is provided. Second, it investigates the impact of trust in GM food institutions, GMO information, and perceived GMO risk on both WTP for GM edible oil and the effectiveness of each nudge. A between-subjects choice experiment with a sample size of 550 Iranian corn oil consumers was conducted in Mashhad from March to April 2021. The results of mixed logit models indicate that both nudges affected consumer valuation of GM corn oil significantly, while their effectiveness differed according to the consumer level of trust in the GM food institutions and the perceived risk of GMO. Increasing consumer trust and information raises the WTP for GM corn oil; however, perceived risk has no effect. This study introduces effortless tools that GM food manufacturers can consider in their marketing strategies to affect consumers in the desired way

Front-end Electronics Test for the LHCb Muon Wire Chambers

This document describes the apparatus and procedures implemented to test Multi Wire Proportional Chambers (MWPC) after front-end assembly for the LHCb Muon Detector. Results of measurements of key noise parameters are also described. Given a fully equipped chamber, this system is able to diagnose every channel performing an analysis of front-end output drivers’ response and noise rate versus threshold. Besides, it allows to assess if the noise rate at the experiment threshold region is within appropriate limits. Aiming at an automatic, fast and user-friendly system for mass production tests of MWPC, the project has foreseen as well electronic identification of every chamber and front-end board, and data archiving in such a way to make it available to the Experiment Control System (ECS) while in operation

Single-incision laparoscopic adnexectomy in an obese patient with previous laparotomies

No case of single-incision laparoscopic surgery in obese patients who had previously undergone multiple midline vertical laparotomies has been described in the literature to date. Hence we report the first case of single-port laparoscopic salpingo-oophorectomy in an obese patient who was affected by a left adnexal mass and who had previously undergone 3 midline vertical laparotomies

The formation of acetate corrosion on bronze antiquities: characterisation and conservation

This project reveals the proliferation in the awareness of acetate and other carbonyl corrosion on bronze artifacts in archaeological collections. Blue and blue-green carbonyl corrosion of bronze is a recent discovery in part due to its mistaken attribution over the years to bronze disease, chalconatronite, and azurite. This project examines sources of acetic acid, and evaluates the environmental conditions in which acetate corrosion develops and the influence of alloyed lead and sodium contaminants in this process. Case studies identifying corrosion by XRD on predominantly Egyptian archaeological bronzes, with a focus on Saqqara, revealed a preponderance of a sodium copper carbonate acetate and copper sodium formate acetate. These were identified on the majority of Saqqara bronzes sampled in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Ashmolean Museum, Liverpool Museum, Petrie Museum and British Museum. Unknown compounds not included in the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD) catalogue were also discovered. Due to the novelty of this discovery, the conservation of bronze with carbonyl corrosion is as yet an unexplored area. This project examines passive and active means of conservation. Solubility and cleaning tests were carried out on the Saqqara bronzes. Solubility of carbonyl corrosion is discussed in terms of removability, influence on cleaning methods, and stabilization of corrosion by means of environmental control. Two coatings, the acrylate Incralac®, and the polyethylene wax emulsion Poligen® ES 91009, underwent corrosion testing on leaded and unleaded bronze with promising results as protective coatings against attack by volatile acetic acid