Azadirachta indica as a public health tool for the control of malaria & other vector-borne diseases.

Neem-based products from Azadirachta indica have been successfully used for biological control of pest insects, mites, fungi and soil-borne nematodic root parasites. A large amount of scientific evidence is available on the potential of A. indica as a source for the development of human and animal health products. The authors champion the potential of neem-based products for the control of malaria in endemic countries, where these products are traditionally used. Neem-based larvicides and/or insecticides could complement other malaria control interventions in an integrated approach

The use of impregnated curtains does not affect antibody responses against Plasmodium falciparum and complexity of infecting parasite populations in children from Burkina Faso

Abstract In Burkina Faso, where malaria is hyper-endemic and transmission intensity is very high, the majority of malaria-related morbidity and mortality occurs in children less than 5 years of age. A control measure such as the use of insecticide-treated curtains (ITC) significantly reduces transmission of malaria infection. Concerns remain whether reduced transmission intensity may lead to a delay in the development of immunity in younger children and even to a partial loss of already acquired immunity. In this study, the levels of P. falciparum-specific IgG subclasses, the number of infecting parasite clones determined by PCR-based genotyping of the msp2 gene and the parasite density were analysed in 154 asymptomatic children (3–6 years) living in 16 villages (8 with and 8 without ITC) in the vicinity of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. In addition, the parasite inhibitory effects of Ig fractions, prepared from selected children, in co-operation with normal human monocytes were studied. Blood samples from asymptomatic ITC-users showed a significant decrease in P. falciparum prevalence as well as in parasite density. However, no significant difference was observed in P. falciparum-specific antibodies or in parasite multiplicity of infection between the two groups. Furthermore, Ig fractions from children of both groups showed similar levels of inhibitory activity against autologous parasite growth both on their own and in co-operation with monocytes. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Wild isolate of P. falciparum; Insecticide-treated curtains; Immunit

A Service-Defined Approach for Orchestration of Heterogeneous Applications in Cloud/Edge Platforms

Edge Computing is moving resources toward the network borders, thus enabling the deployment of a pool of new applications that benefit from the new distributed infrastructure. However, due to the heterogeneity of such applications, specific orchestration strategies need to be adopted for each deployment request. Each application can potentially require different optimization criteria and may prefer particular reactions upon the occurrence of the same event. This paper presents a Service- Defined approach for orchestrating cloud/edge services in a distributed fashion, where each application can define its own orchestration strategy by means of declarative statements, which are parsed into a Service-Defined Orchestrator (SDO). Moreover, to coordinate the coexistence of a variety of SDOs on the same infrastructure while preserving the resource assignment optimality, we present DRAGON, a Distributed Resource AssiGnment and OrchestratioN algorithm that seeks optimal partitioning of shared resources between different actors. We evaluate the advantages of our novel Service-Defined orchestration approach over some representative edge use cases, as well as measure convergence and performance of DRAGON on a prototype implementation, assessing the benefits compared to conventional orchestration approaches

A Distributed Orchestration Algorithm for Edge Computing Resources with Guarantees

Edge Computing brings flexibility and scalability of virtualization technologies at the edge of the network, enabling service providers to deploy new applications over a richer network infrastructure. However, the coexistence of such variety of applications on the same infrastructure exacerbates the already challenging problem of coordinating resource allocation while preserving the resource assignment optimality. In fact, (i) each application can potentially require different optimization criteria due to their heterogeneous requirements, and (ii) we may not count on a centralized orchestrator due to the highly dynamic nature of edge networks. To solve this problem, we present DRAGON, a Distributed Resource AssiGnment and OrchestratioN algorithm that seeks optimal partitioning of shared resources between different applications running over a common edge infrastructure.We designed DRAGON to guarantee both a bound on convergence time and an optimal (1-1/e)-approximation with respect to the Pareto optimal resource assignment. We evaluate convergence and performance of DRAGON on a prototype implementation, assessing the benefits compared to traditional orchestration approaches

Building Back Better: idee e percorsi per la costruzione di comunità resilienti

I saggi raccolti in questo volume richiamano l’attenzione su quanto è possibile fare sin d’ora, nel nostro paese, per mobilitare le migliori energie e attivare processi virtuosi nella direzione tracciata dalle Nazioni Unite nel Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-30. Si tratta certamente di “ricostruire meglio” (Building Back Better), ma servono anche azioni di prevenzione che diventano prioritarie in un contesto dove ai rischi naturali si aggiungono vulnerabilità sociali ed economiche. La comunità scientifica ha il dovere di partecipare alla creazione di condizioni che incrementino la resilienza dei territori e delle comunità a rischio o già colpiti. Solo un fecondo e concreto dialogo fra i numerosi saperi, competenze e responsabilità dei diversi attori coinvolti può consentire di intraprendere azioni adeguate per ottenere risultati incisivi e duraturi a sostegno dei territori e delle comunità. Un hub internazionale, caratterizzato da contributi multidisciplinari, può valorizzare una massa critica di ricerca e innovazione, come testimonia questo libro, attivando un proficuo confronto con i decisori politici per progettare e realizzare interventi concreti sui territori. Il volume raccoglie contributi di ricercatori di università italiane (Bologna, Camerino, Firenze, Macerata, Modena e Reggio Emilia, Politecnica delle Marche, Urbino), enti e centri di ricerca (Centro euromediterraneo di documentazione Eventi Estremi e Disastri, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Istituto nazionale di fisica nucleare, Istituto nazionale di geofisica e vulcanologia) e di ActionAid. La parte Strategie in azione raccoglie le interviste ai responsabili dell’Agenzia per la coesione territoriale, del Piano Casa Italia, della Protezione civile e di Loccioni Group

The socioeconomic impact of seismic events on animal breeding A questionnaire-based survey from Central Italy

This paper investigates the socioeconomic impact of two large earthquakes (1997 and 2016) that occurred in Central Italy on the agricultural sector, and in particular on animal husbandry. Through a questionnaire-based field survey, involving 55 farm holdings located in Umbria (Assisano district), this work points out: i) the farmers' perception of the damage suffered with regard to residential buildings, agricultural facilities and animal husbandry activities; ii) the interventions carried out in the emergency phases; and iii) the reconstruction phases, as experienced by the farming households. Major vulnerabilities of these agricultural holdings have emerged: small-scale family-based farming, increased householders average age, little on-farm and off-farm diversification, persisting economic marginalisation. Recall and perception of the impact of the earthquakes in the Assisano district - direct damage and reconstruction interventions - are compared with the perception in the nearby mountainous area of the Marche Region, largely affected by the 2016 earthquake. In both areas, the experienced earthquakes have not acted as triggers for agents' mobilisation and change. Rather, the situation calls for a drastic, farsighted change of development policies by national and regional governments and for a convinced prompting for holistic local “building back better” initiatives

Photon number statistics uncover the fluctuations in non-equilibrium lattice dynamics

Fluctuations of the atomic positions are at the core of a large class of unusual material properties ranging from quantum para-electricity to high temperature superconductivity. Their measurement in solids is the subject of an intense scientific debate focused on seeking a methodology capable of establishing a direct link between the variance of the atomic displacements and experimentally measurable observables. Here we address this issue by means of non-equilibrium optical experiments performed in shot-noise limited regime. The variance of the time dependent atomic positions and momenta is directly mapped into the quantum fluctuations of the photon number of the scattered probing light. A fully quantum description of the non-linear interaction between photonic and phononic fields is benchmarked by unveiling the squeezing of thermal phonons in $\alpha$-quartz.Comment: 7 pages (main text), 5 figures, 11 pages (supplementary information

Directional detection of light dark matter from three-phonon events in superfluid 4^4He

We present the analysis of a new signature for light dark matter detection with superfluid $^4$He: the emission of three phonons. We show that, in a region of mass below the MeV, the kinematics of this process can offer a way to reconstruct the dark matter interaction vertex, while providing background rejection via coincidence requirements and directionality. We develop all the necessary technology to deal with such an observable, and compute the associated differential distributions.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Version published in Physical Review

Pulsed homodyne Gaussian quantum tomography with low detection efficiency

Pulsed homodyne quantum tomography usually requires a high detection efficiency limiting its applicability in quantum optics. Here, it is shown that the presence of low detection efficiency ($<50\%$) does not prevent the tomographic reconstruction of quantum states of light, specifically, of Gaussian type. This result is obtained by applying the so-called "minimax" adaptive reconstruction of the Wigner function to pulsed homodyne detection. In particular, we prove, by both numerical and real experiments, that an effective discrimination of different Gaussian quantum states can be achieved. Our finding paves the way to a more extensive use of quantum tomographic methods, even in physical situations in which high detection efficiency is unattainable

Four-Quark Hadrons: an Updated Review

The past decade witnessed a remarkable proliferation of exotic charmonium-like resonances discovered at accelerators. In particular, the recently observed charged states are clearly not interpretable as q-qbar mesons. Notwithstanding the considerable advances on the experimental side, conflicting theoretical descriptions do not seem to provide a definitive picture about the nature of the so-called XYZ particles. We present here a comprehensive review about this intriguing topic, discussing both those experimental and theoretical aspects which we consider relevant to make further progress in the field. At this state of progress, XYZ phenomenology speaks in favour of the existence of compact four-quark particles (tetraquarks) and we believe that realizing this instructs us in the quest for a firm theoretical framework.Comment: 120 pages, 53 figures. Several typos corrected and some refs. added in v