Nuovi dati d’archivio e nuove evidenze archeologiche sulla necropoli punica orientale di Nora (Cagliari)

The ancient city of Nora is a Phoenician, Punic and Roman settlement rising on a peninsula that encloses the Gulf of Cagliari in the south-west coast of Sardinia (Italy). First authorized excavations were made by F. Nissardi in 1891-1892 on the north side of the isthmus, where the Punic chamber-tombs lie. Despite the remarkable findings published by G. Patroni (1904) and a review of grave potteries undertaken by P. Bartoloni and C. Tronchetti (1981), researches about the necropolis were only partially deepened; therefore, some reports, pictures, sketches and maps remained unpublished in the archive of Soprintendenza Archeologia belle arti paesaggio in Cagliari and in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome. A critical study of these documents has been undertaken by the University of Padova in order to reconstruct the history of investigations, to recover the archaeological records and to contextualize the finds of the last half of the 1800s in a new view of the punic necropolis of the Punic colony

Energy efficiency in access and aggregation networks: From current traffic to potential savings

Access and aggregation networks account nowadays for a large share of the consumed energy in communication networks, and actions to ameliorate their energy cost are under investigation by the research community. In this work, we present a study of the possible savings that could be achieved if such technologies were in place. We take advantage of large datasets of measurements collected from the network of FASTWEB, a national-wide Internet Service Provider in Italy. We first perform a detailed characterization of the energy consumption of Points of Presence (PoPs) investigating on how factors such as external temperature, cooling technology and traffic load influence the consumed energy. Our mea- surements precisely quantify how the power consumption in today networks is practically independent from the traffic volume, while it is correlated only with the external temper- ature. We then narrow down our analysis to consider the traffic generated by each house- hold. More specifically, by observing about 10,000 ADSL customers, we characterize the typical traffic patterns generated by users who access the Internet. Using the available real data, we thus investigate if the energy consumption can be sig- nificantly reduced by applying simple energy-efficient policies that are currently under studies. We investigate energy-to-traffic proportional and resource consolidation technol- ogies for the PoP, while sleep modes policies are considered at the ADSL lines. All these energy-efficient policies, even if they are not yet available, are currently being widely investigated by both manufacturers and researchers. At the PoP level, our dataset shows that it would be possible to save up to 50% of energy, and that even simple mechanisms would easily allow to save 30% of energy. Considering the ADSL lines, it results that sleep mode policies can be effectively implemented, reducing the energy consumption of ADSL modems with little or marginal impact on the Quality of Service offered to users. We make available all datasets used in this paper to allow other researchers to benchmark their pro- posals considering actual traffic traces

Anaerobic co-digestion effluent as substrate for chlorella vulgaris and scenedesmus obliquus cultivation

Anaerobic digestate supernatant can be used as a nutrient source for microalgae cultivation, thus integrating phytoremediation processes with high value products storage in microalgae biomass. Microalgae are able to use nitrogen and phosphorous from digestate, but high nutrient concentration can cause growth inhibition. In this study, two microalgae strains (C. vulgaris and S. obliquus) were cultivated on the anaerobic co-digestion supernatant (obtained from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and waste activated sludge (WAS)) in a preliminary Petri plate screening at different dilutions (1:10 and 1:5) using a synthetic medium (ISO) and tap water (TW). Direct Nile red screening was applied on colonies to preliminarily identify hydrophobic compound storage and then a batch test was performed (without air insufflation). Results show that C. vulgaris was able to grow on digestate supernatant 1:5 diluted, while Nile red screening allowed the preliminary detection of hydrophobic compound storage in colonies. The analysis carried out at the end of the test on ammonia, phosphate, nitrate and sulphate showed a removal percentage of 47.5 ± 0.8%, 65.0 ± 6.0%, 95.0 ± 3.0% and 99.5 ± 0.1%, respectively

Machine learning-based Sr isoscape of southern Sardinia: A tool for bio-geographic studies at the Phoenician-Punic site of Nora

Since prehistoric times, the island of Sardinia—in the western Mediterranean—has played a leading role in the dynamics of human population and mobility, in the circulation of raw materials and artefacts, idioms and customs, of technologies and ideas that have enriched the biological, linguistic and cultural heritage of local groups. For the Phoenician and Punic periods (from the 9th to the 3rd centuries BCE), the ancient site of Nora—in southern Sardinia—represents an emblematic case in the study of migratory phenomena that occurred on the Island from the Iron Age until the Roman conquest. Despite the importance of exploring (and characterising) such movements from a wider bio-cultural perspective, the application of bio-geochemical tools for geographical provenance to the ancient skeletal populations of Sardinia is yet scarce. The present work is the first step towards filling this gap with the development of the first isoscape of southern Sardinia using new bioavailable Sr isotope data and a machine-learning approach. From a geolithological point of view, Sardinia is rather heterogeneous and requires detailed studies to correctly assess the distribution of the isotopic signature of bioavailable Sr. The random forest model employed here to construct the Sr isoscape uses several external environmental and geological variables. The most important predictors are related to age and bedrock type, with additional input from local soil properties. A 10-fold cross-validation gives a mean square error of 0.0008 and an R-squared of 0.81, so the model correctly predicts the 87Sr/86Sr ratio of unknown areas. By using a Bayesian provenance assignment workflow, we tested the isoscape here produced to determine the geographic origin and the mobility of archaeological and modern fauna collected from the Phoenician-Punic site of Nora and the surrounding Pula Plain. Our results indicate that archaeological sheep and goats (87Sr/86Sr < 0.7090) are compatible with areas close to Nora and Pula Plain, in agreement with archaeological evidence of pastoralism in those areas. Modern wild and domesticated fauna (87Sr/86Sr > 0.7090) show compatibility with several natural and anthropogenic locations in southern Sardinia, as expected based on modern species distribution data. Finally, we discuss the large Sr isotopic variability of the Nora baseline, where human mobility studies of human cremated and inhumed individuals are currently underway

Low-CO2 Binders for restoring a Pb-contaminated Soil: Improvements and Drawbacks with respect to Ordinary Portland Cement

The remediation of heavy metal contaminated soils is usually approached with binder-based techniques, like solidification/stabilization (S/S), and ordinary Portland cement (OPC) as the main binding agent. This paper reports our preliminary attempts of substituting traditional OPC with more environmentally sustainable alkali-activated cements, in the S/S of a Pb-contaminated soil. The treatment of Pb contamination is complicated by the amphoteric behavior of Pb, whose mobility is increased at high pH values, which are characteristic of cementitious systems. The use of alkali-activated cements proved to be suitable for soil remediation, with different performances depending on the formulation studied. These preliminary findings may be further enhanced by long-term investigations and further optimization of the alkaline activating solution, as first steps towards the improvement of the environmental impact of soil remediation technologies

Geostructural and Geomechanical Study of the Piastrone Quarry (Seravezza, Italy) Supported by Photogrammetry to Assess Failure Mode

The use of non-contact-techniques for rock mass characterization has been growing significantly over the last decade. However, their application to stability assessment of ornamental stone has not yet received much attention from researchers. This study utilizes rock mass data both in terms of slope orientations and degree of fracturing obtained from a point cloud, a set of three-dimensional (3D) points representing a rock mass surface, to (1) investigate the influence of geostructures at different scales and (2) assess quarry stability by determining areas susceptible to different failure types. Multi-resolution point clouds are obtained through several photogrammetric survey techniques to identify important structural elements of the site. By integrating orientation data of discontinuity planes, obtained with a traditional survey, and of traces, outlined on point clouds, several joint sets were identified. Kinematic tests revealed various potential failure modes of the rock slope. Moreover, an analysis of the influence of the discontinuity strength determined by the presence of rock bridges was carried out. The study revealed that the strength of the quarry face is governed by the presence of rock bridges that act to improve the stability condition of the rock fronts

3D additive manufactured composite scaffolds with antibiotic-loaded lamellar fillers for bone infection prevention and tissue regeneration

Bone infections following open bone fracture or implant surgery remain a challenge in the orthopedics field. In order to avoid high doses of systemic drug administration, optimized local antibiotic release from scaffolds is required. 3D additive manufactured (AM) scaffolds made with biodegradable polymers are ideal to support bone healing in non-union scenarios and can be given antimicrobial properties by the incorporation of antibiotics. In this study, ciprofloxacin and gentamicin intercalated in the interlamellar spaces of magnesium aluminum layered double hydroxides (MgAl) and α-zirconium phosphates (ZrP), respectively, are dispersed within a thermoplastic polymer by melt compounding and subsequently processed via high temperature melt extrusion AM (~190 °C) into 3D scaffolds. The inorganic fillers enable a sustained antibiotics release through the polymer matrix, controlled by antibiotics counterions exchange or pH conditions. Importantly, both antibiotics retain their functionality after the manufacturing process at high temperatures, as verified by their activity against both Gram + and Gram - bacterial strains. Moreover, scaffolds loaded with filler-antibiotic do not impair human mesenchymal stromal cells osteogenic differentiation, allowing matrix mineralization and the expression of relevant osteogenic markers. Overall, these results suggest the possibility of fabricating dual functionality 3D scaffolds via high temperature melt extrusion for bone regeneration and infection prevention.We are grateful to the FAST project funded under the H2020-NMP- PILOTS-2015 scheme (GA n. 685825) for financial support. Some of the materials used in this work were provided by the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Scott & White through a grant from NCRR of the NIH (Grant #P40RR017447)

TREND towards more energy-efficient optical networks

International audienceWith one third of the world population online in 2013 and an international Internet bandwidth multiplied by more than eight since 2006, the ICT sector is a non-negligible contributor of worldwide greenhouse gases emissions and power consumption. Indeed, power consumption of telecommunication networks has become a major concern for all the actors of the domain, and efforts are made to reduce their impact on the overall figure of ICTs, and to support its foreseen growth in a sustainable way. In this context, the contributors of the European Network of Excellence TREND have developed innovative solutions to improve the energy efficiency of networks. This paper gives an overview of the solutions related to optical networks