Applicazioni GIS all’archeologia urbana: il caso di Ravenna

Over the past few decades Geographical Information Systems in archaeological practice and above all in urban archaeology have become a standard tool for understanding the development of late antique towns. This paper analyses the city of Ravenna as a case-study, illustrating some standard and innovative GIS applications in a city characterised by non-systematic archaeological research. GIS helped us to systematize archaeological investigations and to guide city planning. New important excavations, in Piazza Kennedy, with the discovery of the 5th c. church of S. Agnese, and other smaller trenches in the city centre, add a fundamental collection of archaeological data. The creation of new chronological evaluation maps highlighted empty research zones in the old city, where urban archaeology should focus new excavations and archaeological evaluation projects

Territory and memory: The Landing of the Allies in Sicily in 1943

The concept of memory (memorial site) has gained crucial importance in recent years for the identification of places (areas) and in the affirmation of local identities. The memorial sites are areas where usually tragic events have occurred and resulted in a cultural change. In these places there are still signs of these historical events and/or tangible and intangible indications created by the society such as: monuments, obelisks, marble inscriptions, others. Sicily represents an ideal area for studying memorial sites; not only because of the number of dominations in the past centuries, but also for the significance of all places where the mafia has taken its root. These elements have caused several changes in the culture and in the landscape. Sicily is the land where \u201cOperation Husky\u201d began, in the summer of 1943. This agreement between the Americans and the British aimed at occupying Sicily, Italy after World War II. Seventy years after this operation the territory is still marked by testimonies of those tragic events. The bombing devastated buildings, which we can still acknowledge for their cultural significance. These memorial areas represent a strong testimony of the past. There are cemeteries, protecting bodies many of which are unknown; there are bunkers and other military garrisons well preserved throughout the territory. These signs must be rediscovered, to be replicated because of the contemporary geopolitical situation. As a result, in this paper we propose to identify the area of eastern Sicily suitable for a tourist itinerary in the cultural memory of the war of 1943. The idea is to encourage tourism that gives rise to real emotions and thoughts

High energy gamma-ray constraints on decaying Dark Matter

New bounds on decaying Dark Matter are derived from the gamma-ray measurements of (i) the isotropic residual (extragalactic) background by Fermi and (ii) the Fornax galaxy cluster by H.E.S.S. We find that those from (i) are among the most stringent constraints currently available, for a large range of dark matter masses and a variety of decay modes, excluding half-lives up to about 10^26 to few 10^27 seconds. In particular, they rule out the interpretation in terms of decaying dark matter of the e+/- spectral features in PAMELA, Fermi and H.E.S.S., unless very conservative choices are adopted. We also discuss future prospects for CTA bounds from Fornax which, contrary to the present H.E.S.S. constraints of (ii), may allow for an interesting improvement and may become better than those from the current or future extragalactic Fermi data.Comment: In Proceedings of the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2013), ID622, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil

Concentration of trace elements in raw milk from cows in the southeast of Córdoba province, Argentina

International audienceAbstractIn recent years, trace elements in cow milk have been considered good bioindicators of pollution in the agricultural environment. The aim of the study was to analyze the correlation between trace element content in livestock drinking water and cow milk from dairy farms located in the southeast of Córdoba province, Argentina. Groundwater is the main source of livestock drinking water. According to the results, trace elements were grouped in three categories: (a) those that were in high concentration in phreatic water and in low concentration in deep wells (As, V); (b) those which showed the opposite trend (Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn); and (c) those that were in very low concentrations in all water samples (Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, and Se). In elements from group (a), a positive correlation between As content in water and in milk was observed. For elements included in group (b), it was observed a higher concentration in milk samples from farms that use deep wells, related with their higher concentrations in water. Cr, Ni, Pb, and Se milk contents are within the ranges reported in other areas. Soil and forage trace element content may contribute to their presence in milk. Since information about transference of trace elements from environmental matrices to milk is very scarce, at national and international levels, further studies are necessary, including speciation in milk and dairy products, to guarantee food safety