Clearance Operation of Teulada Site (Italy): A Novel Approach for Short Term MCM Missions in Seafloor Hard Conditions

In May 2007, following a request by Italian Navy (ITN), NURC agreed to provide the technology, developed during the port protection studies and 2006 MCM ops. in Baltic sea for Estonian Navy, to survey part of the Capo Teulada firing range (Sardinia Island, Italy), used by NATO Armed Forces. The goal of the service, fully funded by ITN, was to survey part of the firing range with acoustic, magnetic and optical instruments in order to detect and classify the ordnance laying on the seafloor. The team operated from CRV Leonardo to produce a detailed acoustic and magnetic map of the area. The positions of the targets of interest have been provided to Italian Navy for further identification and disposal. The activities have demonstrated that the NURC Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) Remus type equipped with high frequency side scan sonar can detect and classify targets of the dimensions of unexploded ordnance laying proud on the sea floor. A multiple sonar images technique has also been used to improve the classification performances. However, in some areas, targets that were completely buried or concealed in Posidonia fields wouldn’t have been detectable with AUV sonar. To overcome this limitation, INGV supported the NURC team by using a new high definition magnetometer technique to detect and classify buried metal targets. A proton Overhauser sensor was towed from Leonardo vessel and a magnetometer reference station was set ashore in an appropriate site. A subset of interesting contacts (acoustic and magnetic) have been identified optically by means of the video camera installed on the ROV (Pluto Plus type by Gaymarine) operated from Leonardo. The positioning accuracy achieved was fully compatible with the reacquisition by ROV and then by divers or mine hunters for future disposal ops. The survey has also produced an accurate map of the Posidonia fields and a detailed bathymetry of the area. More than 300 contacts have been acquired and more than 200 were classified in less than 15 days. The success of Teulada operation has convinced ITN to ask NURC for a common development programme with the aim to validate at sea a fully integrated multi-sensor approach (sonar, magnetic and optical) in MCM short term ops. using USV/AUV platforms

Integrated forest management to prevent wildfires under Mediterranean environments

This review presents a multidisciplinary framework for integrating the ecological, regulatory, procedural and technical aspects of forest management for fi res prevention under Mediterranean environments. The aims are to: i) provide a foreground of wildfi re scenario; ii) illustrate the theoretical background of forest fuel management; iii) describe the available fuel management techniques and mechanical operations for fi re prevention in forest and wildland-urban interfaces, with exemplifi cation of case-studies; iv)allocate fi re prevention activities under the hierarchy of forest planning. The review is conceived as an outline commentary discussion targeted to professionals, technicians and government personnel involved in forestry and environmental management

Contribution to the floristic knowledge of the head of the Po Valley (Piedmont, north Italy)

In 2014, the annual field trip of the working group for Floristics, Systematics, and Evolution of the Italian Botanical Society was held in Piemonte (northern Italy), at the head of the Po Valley. This valley, at whose extremity is located the Monviso (3,841 m a.s.l.), belongs to the Cottian Alps about which very little is known from a floristic point of view. An inventory of the taxa of vascular plants collected during the field trip is reported here. The research led to the identification of 3,546 exsiccata, kept in nine public and nine private collections. A total of 669 taxa belonging to 79 plant families were recorded. Six taxa resulted endemic to Italy and three exclusive to Piemonte, while only nine alien species were detected; six taxa are new and five confirmed for the regional flora

Nuove liste rosse della flora italiana

Vengono presentate le nuove liste rosse per la Flora Italiana incluse le piante superiori, le briofite ed i fungh

An updated checklist of the vascular flora native to Italy

An updated inventory of the native vascular flora of Italy, providing details on the occurrence at regional level, is presented. The checklist includes 8195 taxa (6417 species and 1778 subspecies), distributed in 1092 genera and 152 families; 23 taxa are lycophytes, 108 ferns and fern allies, 30 gymnosperms and 8034 angiosperms. The taxa currently occurring in Italy are 7483, while 568 taxa have not been confirmed in recent times, 99 are doubtfully occurring in the country and 19 are data deficient. Out of the 568 not confirmed taxa, 26 are considered extinct or possibly extinct

An updated checklist of the vascular flora native to Italy

An updated inventory of the native vascular flora of Italy, providing details on the occurrence at regional level, is presented. The checklist includes 8195 taxa (6417 species and 1778 subspecies), distributed in 1092 genera and 152 families; 23 taxa are lycophytes, 108 ferns and fern allies, 30 gymnosperms and 8034 angiosperms. The taxa currently occurring in Italy are 7483, while 568 taxa have not been confirmed in recent times, 99 are doubtfully occurring in the country and 19 are data deficient. Out of the 568 not confirmed taxa, 26 are considered extinct or possibly extinct

Notulae to the Italian native vascular flora: 11.

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of native vascular flora in Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes to the Italian administrative regions. A new combination in the genus Pilosella is proposed. Nomenclatural and distribution updates, published elsewhere, and corrigenda are provided as Suppl. material 1

Implementation of perceptual aspects in a face recognition algorithm

Automatic face recognition is a biometric technique particularly appreciated in security applications. In fact face recognition presents the opportunity to operate at a low invasive level without the collaboration of the subjects under tests, with face images gathered either from surveillance systems or from specific cameras located in strategic points. The automatic recognition algorithms perform a measurement, on the face images, of a set of specific characteristics of the subject and provide a recognition decision based on the measurement results. Unfortunately several quantities may influence the measurement of the face geometry such as its orientation, the lighting conditions, the expression and so on, affecting the recognition rate. On the other hand human recognition of face is a very robust process far less influenced by the surrounding conditions. For this reason it may be interesting to insert perceptual aspects in an automatic facial-based recognition algorithm to improve its robustness. This paper presents a first study in this direction investigating the correlation between the results of a perception experiment and the facial geometry, estimated by means of the position of a set of repere points