FROM THE CONCEPT OF MULTIFUNCTIONAL AGRICULTURE TO THE MEASURE OF MULTIFUNCTIONAL FARMING

The objective of this paper is to deeply analyze some of the theoretical and methodological implications linked to the definition, the characterization, the evaluation and the estimation of the economic results of a multifunction agricultural farm. A deep study of these aspects seems essential for two reasons. On one hand, society is pressing farms to enlarge the existing set of goods and services; on the other hand, sector policies offer to farms new opportunities, which regard the allocation of services linked to the different functions that agriculture is able to carry out. In these conditions, in order to make the entrepreneur able to decide which services to set in motion, considering the economical input that their activation could bring to the farm, it is fundamental to identify an analytic method that is capable to estimate and evaluate the economic results of a multifunction farm.Multifunctionality, Economic indicators, Rural development, Agribusiness, Labor and Human Capital, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Coupling centennial-scale shoreline change to sea-level rise and coastal morphology in the Gulf of Mexico using a Bayesian network

© The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Earth's Future 4 (2016): 143–158, doi:10.1002/2015EF000331.Predictions of coastal evolution driven by episodic and persistent processes associated with storms and relative sea-level rise (SLR) are required to test our understanding, evaluate our predictive capability, and to provide guidance for coastal management decisions. Previous work demonstrated that the spatial variability of long-term shoreline change can be predicted using observed SLR rates, tide range, wave height, coastal slope, and a characterization of the geomorphic setting. The shoreline is not sufficient to indicate which processes are important in causing shoreline change, such as overwash that depends on coastal dune elevations. Predicting dune height is intrinsically important to assess future storm vulnerability. Here, we enhance shoreline-change predictions by including dune height as a variable in a statistical modeling approach. Dune height can also be used as an input variable, but it does not improve the shoreline-change prediction skill. Dune-height input does help to reduce prediction uncertainty. That is, by including dune height, the prediction is more precise but not more accurate. Comparing hindcast evaluations, better predictive skill was found when predicting dune height (0.8) compared with shoreline change (0.6). The skill depends on the level of detail of the model and we identify an optimized model that has high skill and minimal overfitting. The predictive model can be implemented with a range of forecast scenarios, and we illustrate the impacts of a higher future sea-level. This scenario shows that the shoreline change becomes increasingly erosional and more uncertain. Predicted dune heights are lower and the dune height uncertainty decreases.This work was supported by the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program and the USGS Southeast Regional Assessment Project

Kaon physics with the KLOE detector

In this paper we discuss the recent finalized analyses by the KLOE experiment at DA$\Phi$NE: the CPT and Lorentz invariance test with entangled $K^0 \bar{K}^0$ pairs, and the precision measurement of the branching fraction of the decay ${ K^+} \rightarrow \pi^+\pi^-\pi^+(\gamma)$. We also present the status of an ongoing analysis aiming to precisely measure the $K^{\pm}$ mass

Scanning probe microscopy techniques for mechanical characterization at nanoscale

Three atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based techniques are reviewed that allow one to conduct accurate measurements of mechanical properties of either stiff or compliant materials at a nanometer scale. Atomic force acoustic microscopy, AFM-based depth sensing indentation, and torsional harmonic AFM are briefly described. Examples and results of quantitative characterization of stiff (an ultrathin SeSn film), soft polymeric (polyaniline fibers doped with detonation nanodiamond) and biological (collagen fibers) materials are reported

Atomic force microscopy techniques for nanomechanical characterization : a polymer case study

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a versatile tool to perform mechanical characterization of surface samples at the nanoscale. In this work, we review two of such methods, namely contact resonance AFM (CR-AFM) and torsional harmonics AFM (TH-AFM). First, such techniques are illustrated and their applicability on materials with elastic moduli in different ranges are discussed, together with their main advantages and limitations. Then, a case study is presented in which we report the mechanical characterization using both CR-AFM and TH-AFM of polyaniline and polyaniniline doped with nanodiamond particles tablets prepared by a pressing process. We determined the indentation modulus values of their surfaces, which were found in fairly good agreement, thus demonstrating the accuracy of the techniques. Finally, the determined surface elastic moduli have been compared with the bulk ones measured through standard indentation testing. INTRODUCTION In the field of nanotechnology, the development of innovative and nondestructive characterization techniques plays a crucial role. Indeed, the characterization of nanostructured hybrid materials (e.g., thin films and nanocomposites) and devices requires the capability of acquiring maps of the local mechanical properties at the nanoscale. Nanoindentation is the most common method for determining the mechanical properties of thin films. However, its applicability is strictly limited by the thickness of the sample. Furthermore, its poor spatial resolution does not allow the reconstruction of an accurate distribution of the sample surface mechanical properties. For this reason, alternative methods, based on atomic force microscopy (AFM), have been developed. By exploiting the high resolution of the AFM, maps of the surface mechanical properties (i.e., indentation modulus) can be achieved. Among these techniques, AFM nanoindentation1 is the simplest method used to evaluate the local mechanical properties o

Testosterone Enanthate: An In Vitro Study of the Effects Triggered in MG-63 Cells

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the androgenic hormone testosterone enanthate (TE) on human MG-63 cells. MG-63 were cultured for 24 h in the presence of TE at increasing concentrations to assess its lethal dose. Therefore, the suitable concentration for a prolonged use of TE in vitro was assessed by viability assay over 9 days. Finally, MG-63 were exposed to TE for 14 days and assayed for differentiation by qPCR and Alizarin Red S staining. TE in the amount of 100 µM resulted as the maximum dose tolerated by MG-63 cells after 24 h. However, a prolonged exposure in culture TE in the amount of 100 µM showed a cytostatic effect on cell proliferation. On the contrary, TE 10 µM was tolerated by the cells and did not boost cell proliferation, but did enhance new bone formation, as revealed by COL1A1, ALPL, BGLAP, and IBSP gene expression after 3, 7, and 14 days, and calcium deposition by Alizarin Red S staining after 14 days. Based on the current study, 10 µM is the critical dose of TE that should be used in vitro to support bone differentiation of MG-63 cells

Vitamin A, cancer treatment and prevention: The new role of cellular retinol binding proteins

Retinol and vitamin A derivatives influence cell differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis and play an important physiologic role in a wide range of biological processes. Retinol is obtained from foods of animal origin. Retinol derivatives are fundamental for vision, while retinoic acid is essential for skin and bone growth. Intracellular retinoid bioavailability is regulated by the presence of specific cytoplasmic retinol and retinoic acid binding proteins (CRBPs and CRABPs). CRBP-1, the most diffuse CRBP isoform, is a small 15 KDa cytosolic protein widely expressed and evolutionarily conserved in many tissues. CRBP-1 acts as chaperone and regulates the uptake, subsequent esterification, and bioavailability of retinol. CRBP-1 plays a major role in wound healing and arterial tissue remodelling processes. In the last years, the role of CRBP-1-related retinoid signalling during cancer progression became object of several studies. CRBP-1 downregulation associates with a more malignant phenotype in breast, ovarian, and nasopharyngeal cancers. Reexpression of CRBP-1 increased retinol sensitivity and reduced viability of ovarian cancer cells in vitro. Further studies are needed to explore new therapeutic strategies aimed at restoring CRBP-1-mediated intracellular retinol trafficking and the meaning of CRBP-1 expression in cancer patients' screening for a more personalized and efficacy retinoid therapy

Detonation nanodiamonds tailor the structural oeder of PEDOT chains in conductive coating layers of hybrid nanoparticles

Solid layers of PEDOT–detonation nanodiamond based nanoparticles with an exceptional structural order were produced by means of a template-free polymerization technique. As an efficient multifunctional filler, the nanocrystalline diamond has been shown to possess a high catalytic activity on the monomer polymerization rate as well as to play a fundamental role as a 3D arrangement-directing agent of the PEDOT chains at the micro- and nano-scale. SEM, TEM and TED analyses highlighted the mutual organization between PEDOT oligomers and nanodiamond grains, and the produced hierarchical effects on the arrangement of the backbones of the final polymer. Optical and Raman spectroscopy, used together with XRD diffraction to study the molecular structure and crystallographic features of the hybrid materials, pointed out that the adopted synthetic strategy enables highly conjugated and doped hybrid systems to be generated. The spatial distribution of the filler inside the polymeric matrix and the mutual connectivity of nanodiamond crystals and PEDOT segments are found to strongly improve the functional properties of the host polymer. Mechanical characterizations by advanced AFM-based techniques revealed that both indentation modulus and hardness of PEDOT/nanodiamond materials are 3 times higher than the pure PEDOT polymer, while electrical characterizations by a 4-probe method gave sheet resistance values of 1 106 U sq 1 for the nanocomposite particle

Self-assembling of calcium salt of the new DNA base 5-carboxylcytosine

Supramolecular architectures involving DNA bases can have a strong impact in several fields such as nanomedicine and nanodevice manufacturing. To date, in addition to the four canonical nucleobases (adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine), four other forms of cytosine modified at the 5 position have been identified in DNA. Among these four new cytosine derivatives, 5-carboxylcytosine has been recently discovered in mammalian stem cell DNA, and proposed as the final product of the oxidative epigenetic demethylation pathway on the 5 position of cytosine. In this work, a calcium salt of 5-carboxylcytosine has been synthesized and deposited on graphite surface, where it forms self-assembled features as long range monolayers and up to one micron long filaments. These structures have been analyzed in details combining different theoretical and experimental approaches: X-ray single-crystal diffraction data were used to simulate the molecule-graphite interaction, first using molecular dynamics and then refining the results using density functional theory (DFT); finally, data obtained with DFT were used to rationalize atomic force microscopy (AFM) results

Use of standard CMOS pixel imagers as ionizing radiation detectors

The recent developments in the domain of the standard CMOS imagers for visible light, mainly in the reduction of the pixel size, has led us to investigate the suitability of some of these devices as ionizing radiation detectors. A standard 640x480 imager with 5.6x5.6 micrometer pixel size (Micron product type MT9V011) has been characterized with both photons ( 55Fe and 8 keV X-ray tube) than charged particles sources ( 500 MeV electrons). The main results obtained are: a small pixel multiplicity (4–5), for the detection of either X-ray or charged particles; a good linearity of the response; a S/N ratio ≫ 30 for a Minimum Ionizing Particle and an estimated sensitivity down to about 2 keV