Contribution to the floristic knowledge of the head of the Po Valley (Piedmont, north Italy)

In 2014, the annual field trip of the working group for Floristics, Systematics, and Evolution of the Italian Botanical Society was held in Piemonte (northern Italy), at the head of the Po Valley. This valley, at whose extremity is located the Monviso (3,841 m a.s.l.), belongs to the Cottian Alps about which very little is known from a floristic point of view. An inventory of the taxa of vascular plants collected during the field trip is reported here. The research led to the identification of 3,546 exsiccata, kept in nine public and nine private collections. A total of 669 taxa belonging to 79 plant families were recorded. Six taxa resulted endemic to Italy and three exclusive to Piemonte, while only nine alien species were detected; six taxa are new and five confirmed for the regional flora

First overview on the 4th Annex I Habitats Report in Italy: methods, criticality, results and future prospects

Like all the other EU/28 countries, in 2019 Italy developed the 4th Italian Report ex-Art. 17 on the conservation status of the Habitats of Annex I to the 92/43/EEC Directive. Institutional referent of the process, on behalf of the Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection (MATTM), was the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) with the scientific support of the Italian Botanical Society (SBI). A huge working group composed of thematic and territorial experts was formed with the task to collect, analyse, validate the data resulting from Annex I Habitat monitoring in Italy for the period 2013-2018, whose collection is in charge to the regional administrations. Data on 124 types of terrestrial and inland water Habitats present in Italy have been processed in order to assess their overall conservation status in the Biogeographic Regions of occurrence. The carried out activity led to the compilation of 278 assessment sheets. The work included a critical analysis of the data and a broad scientific confrontation aimed at finding methodologically robust solutions to fill the gaps. The work was structured so as to guarantee the traceability of the information and to allow the collection of "gray" literature and scientific articles, phytosociological surveys and unpublished material of the specialists, composing a substantial pool of data useful for starting a long-term process to support the next reporting cycles. Cartographic outcomes, associated databases and additional data used for the assessments will be available online on the ISPRA Portal as soon as the validation process by the European Commission will be completed. A freely accessible online archive of phytosociological surveys representative of the various Annex I Habitats in Italy is being set up within the national "VegItaly" database, managed by the Italian Society of Vegetation Science, by way of a dedicated archive named "HAB_IT". Such a long-term vision, oriented to the storage and enhancement of knowledge, represents an important innovative aspect and a significant progress towards the construction of an effective monitoring system for the conservation of Annex I Habitats in Italy

Proposal, project, practice, pause: developing a framework for evaluating smart domestic product engagement

Smart homes are fast becoming a reality, with smart TVs, smart meters and other such “smart” devices/systems already representing a substantial household presence. These, which we collectively term “smart domestic products” (SDPs), will need to be promoted, adopted, and normalized into daily routines. Despite this, the marketing canon lacks a substantive discourse on pertinent research. We look to help correct this by melding ideas from organizational sociology, innovation diffusion and appropriation studies, and service dominant logic. Consequently, we suggest a framework for research that responds directly to the specific characteristics of SDPs. Using the SDP eco-system as a context, our framework emphasizes the interplay of embeddedness, practice, value and engagement. It comprises a four-stage horizontal/ longitudinal axis we describe as proposal, project, practice and pause. Cross-sectionally we focus on value, and combine aspects of existing thought to suggest how this impacts each stage of our engagement continuum. We subsequently identify perceived personal advantage as the resultant of these two axes and propose this as the key for understanding consumer and SDP sociomaterial engagement. This article also advances a definition of SDPs and ends with an agenda for further research

Particle size and compositional retrievals of the Chaiten volcanic ash from spaceborne, high spectral resolution infrared AIRS and IASI measurements

info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe

Mt. Etna sulfur dioxide flux monitoring using ASTER-TIR data and atmospheric observations

This work is aimed at estimating the sulfur dioxide emission of Mt. Etna volcano (Sicily, Italy) using the thermal infrared images remotely sensed by the Advanced Spacebome Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). A new procedure (named FUN) is presented based on approximating functions which represent the atmospheric terms of the radiative transfer equation: transmittance, up-welling and down-welling radiances. The parameters of the approximating functions have been computed through the MODTRAN simulations performed using atmospheric monthly mean profiles measured at Trapani (1989-2003). Trapani (WMO station 16429) is located at the western tip of Sicily and is the closest station to Mt. Etna volcano. With these functions MODTRAN is no longer necessary to compute the SO2 abundance in the plume emitted from Mt. Etna and seen by ASTER. Only an atmospheric radiosounding and a digital elevation model (DEM) registered to the ASTER image are required. This new procedure is compared with the known look-up tables (LUT) procedure proposed by other authors. An interesting aspect of the FUN procedure derives from its combined use with a split window (SW) algorithm. In this case only radiosounding is required to compute the SO2 map. The FUN procedure presented in this paper is a rapid, simple and accurate means of generating SO2 map estimates from the ASTER view of Mt. Etna. The proposed scheme can easily be adapted to another sensor and another volcano. In this paper the results from two ASTER images, 19 July 2003 and 29 July 2001, are presented. In July 2003, a ground truth campaign was deployed, SO2 emission was very low (10-25 kg s(-1); Etna baseline is about 50 kg s(-1)). In July 2001, Mt. Etna erupted and a strong SO2 emission (about 140 kg s(-1)) was measured