How Predictable are Temperature-series Undergoing Noise-controlled Dynamics in the Mediterranean

Mediterranean is thought to be sensitive to global climate change, but its future interdecadal variability is uncertain for many climate models. A study was made of the variability of the winter temperature over the Mediterranean Sub-regional Area (MSA), employing a reconstructed temperature series covering the period 1698 to 2010. This paper describes the transformed winter temperature data performed via Empirical Mode Decomposition for the purposes of noise reduction and statistical modeling. This emerging approach is discussed to account for the internal dependence structure of natural climate variability

Metastability of Logit Dynamics for Coordination Games

Logit Dynamics [Blume, Games and Economic Behavior, 1993] are randomized best response dynamics for strategic games: at every time step a player is selected uniformly at random and she chooses a new strategy according to a probability distribution biased toward strategies promising higher payoffs. This process defines an ergodic Markov chain, over the set of strategy profiles of the game, whose unique stationary distribution is the long-term equilibrium concept for the game. However, when the mixing time of the chain is large (e.g., exponential in the number of players), the stationary distribution loses its appeal as equilibrium concept, and the transient phase of the Markov chain becomes important. It can happen that the chain is "metastable", i.e., on a time-scale shorter than the mixing time, it stays close to some probability distribution over the state space, while in a time-scale multiple of the mixing time it jumps from one distribution to another. In this paper we give a quantitative definition of "metastable probability distributions" for a Markov chain and we study the metastability of the logit dynamics for some classes of coordination games. We first consider a pure $n$-player coordination game that highlights the distinctive features of our metastability notion based on distributions. Then, we study coordination games on the clique without a risk-dominant strategy (which are equivalent to the well-known Glauber dynamics for the Curie-Weiss model) and coordination games on a ring (both with and without risk-dominant strategy)

Local models for rainstorm-induced hazard analysis on Mediterranean river-torrential geomorphological systems

Damaging hydrogeomorphological events are defined as one or more simultaneous phenomena (e.g. accelerated erosions, landslides, flash floods and river floods), occurring in a spatially and temporal random way and triggered by rainfall with different intensity and extent. The storm rainfall values are highly dependent on weather condition and relief. However, the impact of rainstorms in Mediterranean mountain environments depend mainly on climatic fluctuations in the short and long term, especially in rainfall quantity. An algorithm for the characterisation of this impact, called Rainfall Hazard Index (RHI), is developed with a less expensive methodology. In RHI modelling, we assume that the river-torrential system has adapted to the natural hydrological regime, and a sudden fluctuation in this regime, especially those exceeding thresholds for an acceptable range of flexibility, may have disastrous consequences for the mountain environment. RHI integrate two rainfall variables based upon storm depth current and historical data, both of a fixed duration, and a one-dimensionless parameter representative of the degree ecosystem flexibility. The approach was applied to a test site in the Benevento river-torrential landscape, Campania (Southern Italy). So, a database including data from 27 events which have occurred during an 77-year period (1926-2002) was compared with Benevento-station RHI_(24h), for a qualitative validation. Trends in RHIx for annual maximum storms of duration 1, 3 and 24h were also examined. Little change is observed at the 3- and 24-h duration of a storm, but a significant increase results in hazard of a short and intense storm (RHIx_(1h)), in agreement with a reduction in return period for extreme rainfall events

Promotion of cortico-cerebral precursors expansion by artificial miRNAs against the Emx2 locus

Emx2 encodes for a transcription factor implicated in several aspects of cerebral cortex development, such as morphogenetic field specification, arealization, and lamination. Its overexpression in cortico-cerebral precursors may promote stem cells self-renewal, inhibits their gliogenic commitment, protects neuronal progenitors and stimulates their differentiation, all activities of paramount relevance for purposes of genepromoted brain repair

Morphological types and seasonal variation in eggs of zooplankton species from bottom sediments in Bahia Blanca Estuary, Argentina

Resting egg production is a survival mechanism in zooplankton species against adverse environmental conditions. Egg accumulation in the upper layer of the bottom sediments is fundamental to the resurgence of the populations of these species when conditions become more favourable. Rotifers, such as Synchaeta sp. and planktonic copepods such as Acartia tonsa and Eurytemora americana are commonly found in Bahía Blanca Estuary and they produce resting eggs. We studied eggs isolated from samples of bottom sediments obtained from two sites located within the inner part of Bahía Blanca Estuary (Cuatreros Port and Ing. White Port). The aims of our work were to describe the morphological types of eggs found in bottom sediments; to try to identify to which species they belong; to corroborate the identity of some of them by means of incubations; and to determine either the spatial or seasonal presence of morphological types according to the sampling site. Sediment samples were collected from Cuatreros Port on a monthly basis from January to December 2003 and samples from Ing. White Port were collected from the area close to the industrial zone only in April 2004. All samples were treated following the sugar flotation method of Onbé. The eggs were observed under stereomicroscope and light microscope. Besides, incubation experiments with eggs were sometimes carried out. Five morphological types of eggs (type A, B, C, D and E) were found in the sediments from Cuatreros Port whereas three types of eggs were found at Ing. White Port (F, G and H). Of the 8 morphological types of eggs found in this study, only those of the rotifer Synchaeta sp. in Cuatreros Port and the copepod A. tonsa in the two sampling sites were confirmed to be respectively diapausal and “delayed -hatching”. As regards the seasonal variation of the eggs found in the sediments from Cuatreros Port and the active forms of the populations of Synchaeta sp. and A. tonsa, our study confirms the presence of eggs in the sediment either in periods of time during which no active forms have been previously reported in the plankton or in periods of time during which only some active forms have been reported at very low densities. Concerning the spatial variation at Ing.White Port, the differences in the presence of eggs across the sampling areas may be due to sediment modifications produced by anthropic impact, where industrial effluents are discharged.Fil: Diodato, Soledad Lorena. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía; ArgentinaFil: Berasategui, Anabela Anhi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía; ArgentinaFil: Hoffmeyer, Monica Susana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; Argentin

Promoting Tourism Education in MENA Countries: Geopolitical Implications

Tourism development across the Middle East and North Africa is mostly based on low cost and mass beach leisure. This kind of tourism development generated, already in 1980s, a rapid conversion of the whole of the Mediterranean coast into a pleasure “periphery of Europe”. Despite this trend, a different scenario emerged already in the 1990s with the increasing of interests in the development of territorial resources and cultural heritage sites for tourism. This new development has been relevant in the process of Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, particularly for the social and cultural basket that includes the higher education policy of the European Union. But the current European malaise and the developments in the post-Arab Spring countries could transform Euro-Mediterranean relations. In order to open new windows of opportunity, a reshaping of the Erasmus Mundus program can be crucial.Le développement du tourisme à travers le Moyen-Orient et Afrique du Nord est principalement basé sur le faible coût et les loisirs de masse sur plage. Ce type de développement touristique a généré, déjà dans les années 1980, une conver-sion rapide de l'ensemble de la côte méditerranéenne en un loisir à la " périphé-rie de l'Europe ". Malgré cette tendance, un scénario différent est apparu déjà dans les années 1990 avec l'augmentation des intérêts dans le développement des ressources territoriales et des sites du patrimoine culturel pour le tourisme. Ce nouveau développement a été pertinent dans le processus de partenariat eu-ro-méditerranéen, en particulier pour le volet social et culturel qui comprend la politique de l'enseignement supérieur de l'Union européenne. Mais le malaise européen actuel et les développements dans les pays du post-printemps arabes pourraient transformer les relations euro-méditerranéennes. Afin d'ouvrir de nouvelles fenêtres d'opportunité, une refonte du programme Erasmus Mundus peut être crucialeتستند التنمية السياحية في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا غالبا على انخفاض التكلفة و الترفيه الشاطئي . ظهر هذا النوع من التنمية السياحية في 1980 مما ادى الى التحويل السريع لساحل البحر الأبيض المتوسط إلى متعة "محيط أوروبا". على الرغم من هذه النزعة برزت افكار مختلفة في 1990 تنص على تزايد المصالح في تنمية الموارد الإقليمية ومواقع التراث الثقافي للسياحة. وكان هذا التطور الجديد متعلق بعملية الشراكة الأوروبية المتوسطية, وخاصة لسلة الاجتماعية والثقافية التي تتضمن سياسة التعليم العالي في الاتحاد الأوروبي. لكن قلق التطورات الاوروبية الحالية لبلدان الربيع العربي يمكن ان يؤثر على العلاقات الأوروبية المتوسطية. فمن أجل فتح نوافذ جديدة من الفرص، يمكن لإعادة تشكيل برنامج إيراسموس موندوس ان تكون حاسمة

Chomsky and Lakoff: from cognition to language and politics, and back

The paper aims to compare two distant yet close conceptions of politics and political communication, that of Noam Chomsky, which matured since the second half of the last century, and that of George Lakoff, which came into vogue between the 1990s and 2000s. Chomsky and Lakoff are the heroes of the Linguistics Wars which redefined the physiognomy of US linguistics and cognitive science and also personify, each in his way, the figure of a public intellectual. Nevertheless, dealing with politics and communication, both fail to untangle the link between cognition, language, and propaganda: Chomsky moves, albeit contradictory, from heaven to earth, i.e., from the scientific investigation of language and mind to the non-scientific realm of historical events, whose analysis is entrusted to the citizen endowed with a Cartesian common-sense; Lakoff takes, instead, the reverse path, outlining a political mind that embrains the ideologies and consequently proposing cognitive activism which aims at reframing people’s brain. Both approaches flow into an outdated, reductionist communication model, entailed in both first and second-generation cognitive science, which does not ponder the complexity of political and communicative practices enacted by semiotic-political animals