Thinning in black pine (Pinus nigra J.F. Arnold) forests: The economic sustainability of the wood-energy supply chain in a case study in Italy

In Italy, black pine has been largely used in reforestation projects in the past. Most of these reforestations are characterized by a high instability, vulnerability, and a limited resistance to atmospheric agents. In this situation, it is crucial to define silvicultural interventions able to increase the ecological stability of black pine stands and at the same time to guarantee the economic sustainability of the wood products obtained. Thinning in black pine forests can provide wood material for energy use. The main aim of the present study was to investigate the economic sustainability of a local wood-energy supply chain applying three different forest management options. The case study was Monte Morello forest, a degraded black pine forest located in Central Italy. The results show that the long-term economic sustainability of the wood-energy supply chain is ensured only when the use of bio-fuel is characterized by high energy efficiency. In addition, the results show that public contributions are fundamental to ensure that silvicultural interventions are realized with a positive economic balance and that to surmount this situation many loggings companies are organizing. Finally, the results highlighted the importance of the quantities of thermal energy sold to ensure the economic and environmental efficiency of the wood-energy supply chain

The usefulness of Decision Support Systems in participatory forest planning : a comparison between Finland and Italy

Peer reviewe

Multifuncionalidad en la planificación del paisaje forestal: una aplicación/un estudio de caso en el Sur de Italia

Forest Landscape Management Plan (FLMP) is intended to have an intermediate role between forest management plans on a regional level and forest management on a unit level. FLMP addresses long-term management issues, with special attention to social and environmental functions, normally not meticulously considered when working on a single forest property level. This paper presents a method to evaluate forest multifunctionality, in order to define management guidelines and support forest planning. A FLMP was conducted in a district of the Basilicata region (Italy). A total of 92 inventory plots comprising the main forest types: i) turkey oak, Hungarian oak, and sessile oak forests (Quercus cerris L. dominant), ii) downy oak forests (Quercus pubescens Willd. dominant), iii) Mediterranean evergreen oak forests (Quercus ilex L. dominant), were considered. Technicians evaluated the multifunctionality of each area by estimating — in the context of an Index of Importance of Function (I) — the capacity of each forest to fulfil different functions. The index was successively aggregated according to forest type and forest system (high forest and coppice). The results showed that the higher level of multifunctionality was found in the high forests. According to the synthetic indicators of multifunctionality, the turkey oak forests obtained the highest values among all forest types. The last part of the paper illustrates an approach to multi-functional forest management, analysing how different silvicultural systems are able to fulfil the main forest functions. This method, as shown in the results, seems to provide a useful support for technicians to evaluate multifunctionality related to forest types and different silvicultural treatments.El Plan de Manejo del Paisaje Forestal (PMPF) tiene un papel de intermediario entre los planes de manejo forestal a nivel nacional y regional y los planes de ordenación forestal a nivel de cada propiedad forestal. El PMPF toma en consideración de aspectos de gestión a largo plazo, con especial atención a las funciones sociales y ambientales, que por lo general no son consideradas cuidadosamente en caso de planificación a nivel de propiedad forestal individual. El trabajo presenta un método para evaluar la multifuncionalidad del bosque, con el fin de definir las directrices de gestión y de apoyar el proceso de planificación forestal. En un distrito de la región de Basilicata, en el Sur de Italia, un PMPF ha sido desarrollado y llevado a cabo. En el Plan se consideraron un total de 92 áreas de estudio que abarcan los principales tipos de bosques: i) bosques de roble turco, roble húngaro y roble albar (Quercus cerris L. dominante) ii) bosques de roble pubescente (Quercus pubescens Willd. dominante), y iii) bosques de robles mediterráneos siempre verdes (Quercus ilex L. dominante). Los técnicos evaluaron la multifuncionalidad de cada zona mediante la estimación — Índice de Importancia de la Función (I) — de la capacidad de cada bosque respectiva para cumplir diferentes funciones. El índice ha sido agrupado en función del tipo de bosque y del tipo de sistema forestal (monte alto y monte bajo). Los resultados de un estudio de técnicas que muestran el nivel más alto de la multifuncionalidad es para el monte alto en comparación con el monte bajo. Teniendo en cuenta el tipo de bosque los bosques de roble turco han obtenido los más altos valores de multifuncionalidad. La última parte del documento describe un caso de gestión forestal con un enfoque multifuncional y analiza cómo los diferentes sistemas silvícultural cumplen las principales funciones del bosque. De acuerdo con los resultados observados, el método parece ser de gran ayuda para los técnicos para evaluar la multifuncionalidad relacionados con diferentes tipos de bosques y tratamientos silvícolas

Semantic disambiguation and contextualisation of social tags

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28509-7_18This manuscript is an extended version of the paper ‘cTag: Semantic Contextualisation of Social Tags’, presented at the 6th International Workshop on Semantic Adaptive Social Web (SASWeb 2011).We present an algorithmic framework to accurately and efficiently identify the semantic meanings and contexts of social tags within a particular folksonomy. The framework is used for building contextualised tag-based user and item profiles. We also present its implementation in a system called cTag, with which we preliminary analyse semantic meanings and contexts of tags belonging to Delicious and MovieLens folksonomies. The analysis includes a comparison between semantic similarities obtained for pairs of tags in Delicious folksonomy, and their semantic distances in the whole Web, according to co-occurrence based metrics computed with results of a Web search engine.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (TIN2008-06566-C04-02), and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (CCG10-UAM/TIC-5877

Frontiers of light manipulation in natural, metallic, and dielectric nanostructures

AbstractThe ability to control light at the nanoscale is at the basis of contemporary photonics and plasmonics. In particular, properly engineered periodic nanostructures not only allow the inhibition of propagation of light at specific spectral ranges or its confinement in nanocavities or waveguides, but make also possible field enhancement effects in vibrational, Raman, infrared and fluorescence spectroscopies, paving the way to the development of novel high-performance optical sensors. All these devices find an impressive analogy in nearly-periodic photonic nanostructures present in several plants, animals and algae, which can represent a source of inspiration in the development and optimization of new artificial nano-optical systems. Here we present the main properties and applications of cutting-edge nanostructures starting from several examples of natural photonic architectures, up to the most recent technologies based on metallic and dielectric metasurfaces