Historical road system and farmhouses in Apulia

Human settlements often originate from the presence of such natural sustaining water bodies as springs, rivers, or rather from the proximity of relevant infrastructure (roads, harbours, etc.). Rural residential buildings, however, are generally closely linked to the cultivated fields of a farm. A significant example of rural buildings, that particularly identifies some national or regional areas, is that of the Apulian farmhouses known as “masserie”, which are considered as an important cultural heritage in the rural territories of that region. These buildings, featuring relevant architectural and landscape characteristics, encompass several functions within them and often host more than one family living there permanently. Territorial distribution of rural buildings and farmhouses in Apulia is diversified and, in general and as already stated, it can depend on the close relationship between the building and its adjacent agricultural lot. Moreover, in the case of the Apulian farmhouses, owing to their specific role in overseeing the territory and asserting land tenure rights, this distribution may have “genetic” origins influenced by other elements, too. The efforts of the present work regarding this issue are to investigate the existing relationships between the Apulian farmhouses system and the “historical” roads already existing when they were built (XII-XIX centuries). Particularly, the study proved if there are any correlations among the Roman roads, the sheep’s paths (tratturi) crossing the Apulia region and the farmhouses, both from the point of view of the distance from the roads and the importance of the individual farmhouses. Using GIS software and overlay mapping procedures it was possible to quantify the amount of farmhouses and their concentration within the catchment areas of the aforementioned historical roads, while through historical and territorial in-depth analysis those elements characterizing the most interesting farmhouses from the historical and architectural point of view were identified. The research provided interesting information on the existing relations between historical roads and farmhouses, leading to further considerations on the possibility to enhance some of these monuments, located in rural areas, through the promotion of the “integrated” asset represented by the historical road system, with particular reference to the sheep’s paths (tratturi)

Broad band X-ray spectra of short bursts from SGR 1900+14

We report on the X-ray spectral properties of 10 short bursts from SGR1900+14 observed with the Narrow Field Instruments onboard BeppoSAX in the hours following the intermediate flare of 2001 April 18. Burst durations are typically shorter than 1 s, and often show significant temporal structure on time scales as short as $\sim$10 ms. Burst spectra from the MECS and PDS instruments were fit across an energy range from 1.5 to above 100 keV. We fit several spectral models and assumed Nh values smaller than 5$\times 10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$, as derived from observations in the persistent emission. Our results show that the widely used optically thin thermal bremsstrahlung law provides acceptable spectral fits for energies higher than 15 keV, but severely overestimated the flux at lower energies. Similar behavior had been observed several years ago in short bursts from SGR 1806-20, suggesting that the rollover of the spectrum at low energies is a universal property of this class of sources. Alternative spectral models - such as two blackbodies or a cut-off power law - provide significantly better fits to the broad band spectral data, and show that all the ten bursts have spectra consistent with the same spectral shape.Comment: Accepted for Publication in The Astrophysical Journa

The missing GeV {\gamma}-ray binary: Searching for HESS J0632+057 with Fermi-LAT

The very high energy (VHE; >100 GeV) source HESS J0632+057 has been recently confirmed as a \gamma-ray binary, a subclass of the high mass X-ray binary (HMXB) population, through the detection of an orbital period of 321 days. We performed a deep search for the emission of HESS J0632+057 in the GeV energy range using data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). The analysis was challenging due to the source being located in close proximity to the bright \gamma-ray pulsar PSR J0633+0632 and lying in a crowded region of the Galactic plane where there is prominent diffuse emission. We formulated a Bayesian block algorithm adapted to work with weighted photon counts, in order to define the off-pulse phases of PSR J0633+0632. A detailed spectral-spatial model of a 5 deg circular region centred on the known location of HESS J0632+057 was generated to accurately model the LAT data. No significant emission from the location of HESS J0632+057 was detected in the 0.1-100 GeV energy range integrating over ~3.5 years of data; with a 95% flux upper limit of F_{0.1-100 GeV} < 3 x 10-8 ph cm-2 s-1. A search for emission over different phases of the orbit also yielded no significant detection. A search for source emission on shorter timescales (days--months) did not yield any significant detections. We also report the results of a search for radio pulsations using the 100-m Green Bank Telescope (GBT). No periodic signals or individual dispersed bursts of a likely astronomical origin were detected. We estimated the flux density limit of < 90/40 \mu Jy at 2/9 GHz. The LAT flux upper limits combined with the detection of HESS J0632+057 in the 136-400 TeV energy band by the MAGIC collaboration imply that the VHE spectrum must turn over at energies <136 GeV placing constraints on any theoretical models invoked to explain the \gamma-ray emission.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS) Main Journa

Exploring risk of falls and dynamic unbalance in cerebellar ataxia by inertial sensor assessment

Background. Patients suffering from cerebellar ataxia have extremely variable gait kinematic features. We investigated whether and how wearable inertial sensors can describe the gait kinematic features among ataxic patients. Methods. We enrolled 17 patients and 16 matched control subjects. We acquired data by means of an inertial sensor attached to an ergonomic belt around pelvis, which was connected to a portable computer via Bluetooth. Recordings of all the patients were obtained during overground walking. From the accelerometric data, we obtained the harmonic ratio (HR), i.e., a measure of the acceleration patterns, smoothness and rhythm, and the step length coefficient of variation (CV), which evaluates the variability of the gait cycle. Results. Compared to controls, patients had a lower HR, meaning a less harmonic and rhythmic acceleration pattern of the trunk, and a higher step length CV, indicating a more variable step length. Both HR and step length CV showed a high effect size in distinguishing patients and controls (p &lt; 0.001 and p = 0.011, respectively). A positive correlation was found between the step length CV and both the number of falls (R = 0.672; p = 0.003) and the clinical severity (ICARS: R = 0.494; p = 0.044; SARA: R = 0.680; p = 0.003). Conclusion. These findings demonstrate that the use of inertial sensors is effective in evaluating gait and balance impairment among ataxic patients

Connections between masserie and historical roads system in Apulia

A precise category of Apulian farmsteads, known as masserie, is a significant example of rural buildings featuring relevant architectural and landscape characteristics. Their territorial distribution is diversified and often depend on the close relationship between the building and its adjacent agricultural lot. Moreover, owing to their specific role in overseeing the territory and asserting land tenure rights, Apulian masserie distribution may have genetic origins influenced by other elements, too. The aim of this work is to investigate the existing relationships between masserie and historic roads crossing the Apulia region (Roman roads and sheep's paths called tratturi), considering both their mutual distance and the individual rural buildings importance. Overlay mapping procedures allow to quantify the amount of masserie falling within the catchment areas of the aforementioned historical roads, while historical and territorial in-depth analysis helped to identify those elements characterising the most interesting masserie from cultural and architectural points of view. The research provided interesting qualitative and quantitative information on the existing relations between these assets, leading to further considerations on the possibility to enhance them through the promotion of their integrated recovery

Three-dimensional structure of human cyclooxygenase (hCOX)-1

The beneficial effects of Cyclooxygenases (COX) inhibitors on human health have been known for thousands of years. Nevertheless, COXs, particularly COX-1, have been linked to a plethora of human diseases such as cancer, heart failure, neurological and neurodegenerative diseases only recently. COXs catalyze the first step in the biosynthesis of prostaglandins (PGs) and are among the most important mediators of inflammation. All published structural work on COX-1 deals with the ovine isoenzyme, which is easier to produce in milligram-quantities than the human enzyme and crystallizes readily. Here, we report the long-sought structure of the human cyclooxygenase-1 (hCOX-1) that we refined to an R/Rfree of 20.82/26.37, at 3.36 Å resolution. hCOX-1 structure provides a detailed picture of the enzyme active site and the residues crucial for inhibitor/substrate binding and catalytic activity. We compared hCOX-1 crystal structure with the ovine COX-1 and human COX-2 structures by using metrics based on Cartesian coordinates, backbone dihedral angles, and solvent accessibility coupled with multivariate methods. Differences and similarities among structures are discussed, with emphasis on the motifs responsible for the diversification of the various enzymes (primary structure, stability, catalytic activity, and specificity). The structure of hCOX-1 represents an essential step towards the development of new and more selective COX-1 inhibitors of enhanced therapeutic potential

Possible Evidence of Disoriented Chiral Condensates from the Anomaly in Omega and AntiOmega Abundances at the SPS

No conventional picture of nucleus-nucleus collisions has yet been able to explain the abundance of Omega and AntiOmega in central collisions between Pb nuclei at 158 A GeV at the CERN SPS. We argue that such a deviation from predictions of statistical thermal models and numerical simulations is evidence that they are produced as topological defects in the form of skyrmions arising from the formation of disoriented chiral condensates. The estimated domain size falls in the right range to be consistent with the so far non-observation of DCC from the distribution of neutral pions.Comment: paper presented at the ICPAQGP-2001, Jaipur, Indi

Clocking hadronization in relativistic heavy ion collisions with balance functions

A novel state of matter has been hypothesized to exist during the early stage of relativistic heavy ion collisions, with normal hadrons not appearing until several fm/c after the start of the reaction. To test this hypothesis, correlations between charges and their associated anticharges are evaluated with the use of balance functions. It is shown that late-stage hadronization is characterized by tightly correlated charge/anticharge pairs when measured as a function of relative rapidity.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Strangeness enhancement from strong color fields at RHIC

In ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, early stage multiple scatterings may lead to an increase of the color electric field strength. Consequently, particle production - especially heavy quark (and di-quark) production - is greatly enhanced according to the Schwinger mechanism. We test this idea via the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics model (UrQMD) for Au+Au collisions at the full RHIC energy ($\sqrt{s} = 200$ AGeV). Relative to p+p collisions, a factor of 60, 20 and 7 enhancement respectively, for $\Omega$ ($sss$), $\Xi$ ($ss$), and $\Lambda$, $\Sigma$ ($s$) is predicted for a model with increased color electric field strength