Grazing impact on soil chemical and biological properties under different plant cover types in a mountain area of Southern Italy.

Grazing can contribute to soil degradation by compaction due to roaming of livestock and loss of herbaceous cover, affecting also soil microbial community. Aim of this study was to assess grazing impact on soil microbial community and nutrient status under different plant cover types (i.e., fernery, chestnut wood, garigue). Grazed and ungrazed soils were analysed for water holding capacity, pH, organic carbon, N, S, K, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu content, microbial biomass, fungal mycelium and potential respiration. Moreover, some ecophysiological indices, as microbial quotient, coefficient of endogenous mineralization (CEM), metabolic quotient (qCO2) and fungal fraction of microbial carbon were calculated. The results of present study showed that a moderate intensity grazing had low or no impact on chemical characteristics of soils and affects microbial community mainly in grazed areas with lower vegetation cover and lower content of nutrient and organic carbon, compared to areas with a thick layer of vegetation

Coupled anharmonic oscillators: the Rayleigh-Ritz approach versus the collocation approach

For a system of coupled anharmonic oscillators we compare the convergence rate of the variational collocation approach presented recently by Amore and Fernandez (2010 Phys.Scr.81 045011) with the one obtained using the optimized Rayleigh-Ritz (RR) method. The monotonic convergence of the RR method allows us to obtain more accurate results at a lower computational cost.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

A Global well-posedness result for the Rosensweig system of ferrofluids

In this Paper we study a Bloch-Torrey regularization of the Rosensweig system for ferrofluids. The scope of this paper is twofold. First of all, we investigate the existence and uniqueness of Leray-Hopf solutions of this model in the whole space $\mathbb{R}^2$. In the second part of this paper we investigate both the long-time behavior of weak solutions and the propagation of Sobolev regularities in dimension tw

Global well-posedness and twist-wave solutions for the inertial Qian-Sheng model of liquid crystals

We consider the inertial Qian-Sheng model of liquid crystals which couples a hyperbolic-type equation involving a second-order material derivative with a forced incompressible Navier-Stokes system. We study the energy law and prove a global well-posedness result. We further provide an example of twist-wave solutions, that is solutions of the coupled system for which the flow vanishes for all times.Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 642768, Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0657

Human-in-the-Loop Model Predictive Control of an Irrigation Canal

Until now, advanced model-based control techniques have been predominantly employed to control problems that are relatively straightforward to model. Many systems with complex dynamics or containing sophisticated sensing and actuation elements can be controlled if the corresponding mathematical models are available, even if there is uncertainty in this information. Consequently, the application of model-based control strategies has flourished in numerous areas, including industrial applications [1]-[3].Junta de Andalucía P11-TEP-812