RAPPRESENTAZIONE IN CARTA DELLE CARATTERISTICHE DEI SENTIERI AI FINI DELLA MITIGAZIONE DEL RISCHIO GEOMORFOLOGICO

L’ambiente naturale di alcuni particolari ambiti geografici è in rapida evoluzione non solo per quanto riguarda le sue variabili, legate alle tendenze climatiche in atto, ma anche in relazione all’aumentata frequentazione turistica. La maggiore diffusione dei mezzi di risalita in montagna e di navigazione lungo le coste, rende possibile l’accesso anche a siti altrimenti difficilmente raggiungibili: ciò porta ad un contatto rapido e diretto con ambienti talvolta mutevoli in tempi brevi. La crescente richiesta di una maggiore conoscenza dell’ambiente naturale, che si esplica per lo più attraverso la frequentazione della rete sentieristica, implica la necessità di abbinare alle proposte di percorsi ed itinerari, note illustrative e carte tematiche di immediata lettura, che evidenzino sia i siti di interesse naturalistico - culturale sia le possibili situazioni di rischio e di difficoltà di percorrenza degli itinerari stessi. Esistono infatti alcuni elementi morfologici del territorio che di per sé non costituiscono una pericolosità in senso stretto ma che, a seconda delle capacità del fruitore, possono essere fonte indiretta di danno, in quanto rendono difficile l’attraversamento di alcuni punti specifici o la percorrenza di particolari tratti di sentiero. Contemporaneamente la stagionalità in alcune regioni climatiche e la variabilità meteorologica possono incrementare sia la pericolosità sia la vulnerabilità e di conseguenza il rischio per il frequentatore. Obiettivo del presente lavoro è quello di proporre una simbologia adeguata da inserire sulle carte dei sentieri, e più specificatamente su quelle geoturistiche, per una rapida e facile identificazione di specifiche situazioni riscontrabili lungo itinerari: questi simboli, che dovranno riferirsi solo alla percorribilità dell’itinerario e non alla valorizzazione naturalistica dello stesso, andranno rappresentati su base topografica separata, al fine di non appesantire la lettura dell’elaborato cartografico principale e dovranno fornire solo informazioni oggettive che saranno poi interpretate dal fruitore dell’itinerario. La simbologia e le note terranno conto sia delle caratteristiche costanti dei sentieri che degli elementi variabili, in funzione anche delle condizioni climatiche o stagionali, a seconda dei diversi ambienti interessati

Hyaluronic acid-based nanocomplexes as novel drug-nanocarriers to treat myotonic dystrophy

Hyaluronic acid-based nanocomplexes have been developpend as novel drug-nanocarriers to treat myotonic dystroph

Satellite Evidence of Hurricane-Induced Phytoplankton Blooms in an Oceanic Desert

The physical effects of hurricanes include deepening of the mixed layer and decreasing of the sea surface temperature in response to entrainment, curl-induced upwelling, and increased upper ocean cooling. However, the biological effects of hurricanes remain relatively unexplored. In this paper, we examine the passages of 13 hurricanes through the Sargasso Sea region of the North Atlantic during the years 1998 through 2001. Remotely sensed ocean color shows increased concentrations of surface chlorophyll within the cool wakes of the hurricanes, apparently in response to the injection of nutrients and/or biogenic pigments into the oligotrophic surface waters. This increase in post-storm surface chlorophyll concentration usually lasted 2-3 weeks before it returned to its nominal pre-hurricane level

The Role of the Indian Ocean Sector for Prediction of the Coupled Indo-Pacific System: Impact of Atmospheric Coupling

Indian Ocean (IO) dynamics impact ENSO predictability by influencing wind and precipitation anomalies in the Pacific. To test if the upstream influence of the IO improves ENSO validation statistics, a combination of forced ocean, atmosphere, and coupled models are utilized. In one experiment, the full tropical Indo-Pacific region atmosphere is forced by observed interannual SST anomalies. In the other, the IO is forced by climatological SST. Differences between these two forced atmospheric model experiments spotlight a much richer wind response pattern in the Pacific than previous studies that used idealized forcing and simple linear atmospheric models. Weak westerlies are found near the equator similar to earlier literature. However, at initialization strong easterlies between 30 deg. S to 10 deg. S and 0 deg. N to 25 deg. N and equatorial convergence of the meridional winds across the entire Pacific are unique findings from this paper. The large-scale equatorial divergence west of the dateline and northeasterly-to-northwesterly cross-equatorial flow converging on the equator east of the dateline in the Pacific are generated from interannual IO SST coupling. In addition, off-equatorial downwelling curl impacts large-scale oceanic waves (i.e., Rossby waves reflect as western boundary Kelvin waves). After 3 months, these downwelling equatorial Kelvin waves propagate across the Pacific and strengthen the NINO3 SST. Eventually Bjerknes feedbacks take hold in the eastern Pacific which allows this warm anomaly to grow. Coupled forecasts for NINO3 SST anomalies for 1993-2014 demonstrate that including interannual IO forcing significantly improves predictions for 3-9 month lead times

Hetonic quartets in a two-layer quasi-geostrophic flow : V-states and stability

M.A.S. and X.C. were supported by RFBR/CNRS (PRC Grant No. 16-55-150001/1069). M.A.S. was supported also by RFBR (Grant No. 16-05-00121), RSF (Grant No. 14-50-00095, geophysical applications) and MESRF (Grant No. 14.W.03.31.0006, numerical simulation, vortex dynamics).We investigate families of finite core vortex quartets in mutual equilibrium in a two- layer quasi-geostrophic flow. The finite core solutions stem from known solutions for discrete (singular) vortex quartets. Two vortices lie in the top layer and two vortices lie in the bottom layer. Two vortices have a positive potential vorticity anomaly while the two others have negative potential vorticity anomaly. The vortex configurations are therefore related to the baroclinic dipoles known in the literature as hetons. Two main branches of solutions exist depending on the arrangement of the vortices: the translating zigzag-shaped hetonic quartets and the rotating zigzag- shaped hetonic quartets. By addressing their linear stability, we show that while the rotating quartets can be unstable over a large range of the parameter space, most translating quartets are stable. This has implications on the longevity of such vortex equilibria in the oceans.PostprintPeer reviewe

Increasing compliance with wearing a medical device in children with autism

Health professionals often recommend the use of medical devices to assess the health, monitor the well-being, or improve the quality of life of their patients. Children with autism may present challenges in these situations as their sensory peculiarities may increase refusals to wear such devices. To address this issue, we systematically replicated prior research by examining the effects of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) to increase compliance with wearing a heart rate monitor in 2 children with autism. The intervention increased compliance to 100% for both participants when an edible reinforcer was delivered every 90 s. The results indicate that DRO does not require the implementation of extinction to increase compliance with wearing a medical device. More research is needed to examine whether the reinforcement schedule can be further thinned