Nutrizione e concimazione azotata degli ortaggi da foglia: il caso dello spinacio della Val di Cornia

Lo spinacio (Spinacea oleracea L.) da consumo fresco costituisce una voce importante per l’economia agricola della Val di Cornia. La tipicità dello Spinacio della Val di Cornia è data dall'influenza dell'ambiente su questo ortaggio, che viene coltivato in questa valle da quasi 40 anni. Con gli anni c'è stato un miglioramento della tecnica di coltivazione attraverso il controllo delle operazioni fondamentali, quali la concimazione e la difesa, al fine di ottenere un prodotto di qualità esente da residui chimici e conforme alle norme sanitarie e ridurre il più possibile l’impatto ambientale. L’obiettivo della tesi è stato quello di esaminare l’influenza dell’epoca di semina e del livello di concimazione azotata sulla crescita e sull’assorbimento di azoto dello spinacio. Le prove sono state condotte nel 2008 e nel 2009 presso un’azienda commerciale (Az. Fratelli Monelli) ubicata nel Comune di Piombino con alcuni appezzamenti compresi nella zona dichiarata vulnerabile ai sensi della Direttiva nitrati (CEE) 91/676. Nelle prove sono state messe a confronto quattro (2008) o due (2009) dosi di azoto (compreso un trattamento di controllo non concimato) prevedendo un apporto massimo 120 kg/ha secondo quando previsto dal Piano di Azione della Regione Toscana per le zone vulnerabili ai sensi della già citata Direttiva nitrati. Con i dati raccolti è stato sviluppato un modello di crescita e di assorbimento di azoto da implementare in un sistema esperto per la razionalizzazione della concimazione azotata dello spinacio

Trifolium mutabile as new species of annual legume for mediterranean climate zone: First evidences on forage biomass, nitrogen fixation and nutritional characteristics of different accessions

The present study evaluated the forage production, nitrogen fixation and the qualitative characteristics of different accessions of Trifolium mutabile, a new species of annual clover, collected in southern Italy. Forage traits were assessed by harvesting plants at the vegetative stage (stem elongation) and the subsequent regrowth at the flowering stage (inflorescence emergence-main shoot). From results, significant differences were found among the accessions of T. mutabile in terms of forage biomass production (from 5.1 to 8.2 t ha−1 dry matter), capacity of nitrogen fixation (58.2–76.8% Ndfa) and forage nutritional characteristics. Besides the high forage yield, the investigated accessions showed favourable values of production and quality, representing also worthy germplasm for selection programs as well as the application for possible plant cultivar registration. Moreover, it is interesting to underline that T. mutabile may represent a valuable alternative to commonly cultivated annual clover species due to its prolonged vegetative cycle. However, further investigations are needed to assess the self-reseeding capacity of T. mutabile when utilized as pasture species

Effects of weed control practices on plant diversity in a homogenous olive-dominated landscape (South-east of Italy)

Olive groves represent an important economic, agro-ecological, and cultural resource in the Mediterranean Basin. Weed management plays a fundamental role in their sustainable management. The aim of this work was to characterize and assess the plant diversity associated with different weed control practices, in a homogeneous olive-dominated landscape in the South-East of Italy. Sixty-five vegetation plots were sampled in orchards treated with different weed control practices: mowing, tillage, and use of chemical herbicides. The multi-response permutation procedure was used to test the hypothesis of no difference among the treatments. The relationships between plots were visualized by means of non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination. A generalized linear mixed model was used to analyze the relationships between weed control practices and life forms, chorotypes, and diversity indexes. The results showed that the three weed control practices determined slightly different plant communities. Chemically weeded orchards showed an impoverished floristic composition and the lowest diversity, whereas mowing and tillage yielded similar values. These latter two treatments differed for the percentages of hemicryptophytes and therophytes. Moreover, different from other studies, we did not find plant species of particular concern for biodiversity conservation. We hypothesize that this result is due to the monotonous structure of the agro-landscape we investigated, where natural elements are almost lacking. From this point of view, a correct management of agro-districts should consider both the agronomic practices at the level of the individual olive groves and the structure of the agro-landscape

The Intracellular Localization of ID2 Expression Has a Predictive Value in Non Small Cell Lung Cancer

ID2 is a member of a subclass of transcription regulators belonging to the general bHLH (basic-helix-loophelix) family of transcription factors. In normal cells, ID2 is responsible for regulating the balance between proliferation and differentiation. More recent studies have demonstrated that ID2 is involved in tumor progression in several cancer types such as prostate or breast

Web-based platform to collect, share and manage technical data of historical systemic architectures: the Telegraphic Towers along the Madrid-Valencia path

Considering the variety of architectural Cultural Heritage typologies, systemic architectures require specific attention in the recovery process. The dimensions of "extension" and "recurrence" at geographic and technological levels affect the complexity of their knowledge process; they require systematic ways for their categorisation and comprehension to guarantee correct diagnosis and suitable rehabilitation. Recent applications involving Internet of Things (IoT) for the built Cultural Heritage have demonstrated the potentialities of three-dimensional (3D) geographic information system (GIS) models and structured databases in supporting complex degrees of knowledge for technicians, as well as management for administrators. Starting from such experiences, the work presents the setting up of a web-based platform to support the knowledge and management of systemic architectures, considering the geographical distribution of fabrics, natural and anthropic boundary conditions, and technical and administrative details. The platform takes advantage of digital models, machine and deep learning procedures and relational databases, in a GIS-based environment, for the recognition and categorisation of prevalent physical and qualitative features of systemic architectures, the recognition and qualification of dominant and recurrent decays and the management of recovery activities in a semi-automatic way. Specifically, the main digital objects used for testing the applied techniques and setting up the platform are based on Red-Green-Blue (RGB) and mapped point clouds of the historical Telegraphic Towers located along the Madrid-Valencia path, resulting from the on-site investigations. Their choice is motivated by the high level of knowledge about the cases reached in the last years by the authors, allowing them to test rules within the decision support systems and innovative techniques for their decay mapping. As the experience has demonstrated, the systematisation of technical details and operative pipeline of methods and tools allow the normalisation and standardisation of the intervention selection process; this offers policymakers an innovative tool based on traditional procedures for conservation plans, coherent with a priority-based practice

CHILDHOOD BLEPHAROPTOSIS: A REVIEW OF 113 CASES

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ADJUSTABLE SUTURE STRABISMUS SURGERY: A REVIEW OF 850 CASES

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Management and particular ultrasonographic finding in childhood acute scrotal swelling and pain associated with Henoch-Schönlein purpura: A case report and review of the literature

Henoch–Schönlein purpura (HSP), also known as immunoglobulin A (IgA) vasculitis, is a systemic vasculitis of unknown cause, mostly affecting children, in which complexes of IgA and components of complement are deposited on arterioles, capillaries, and venules. It is characterized by nonthrombocytopenic palpable purpura, abdominal pain, and arthritis. While renal involvement is well-known and frequent, scrotal involvement is uncommon and, therefore, not easy to be interpreted. Here, we report a case of a 3-year-old boy hospitalized for HSP, presenting with bilateral acute scrotum, and discuss diagnosis and treatment

RGBM: regularized gradient boosting machines for identification of the transcriptional regulators of discrete glioma subtypes

We propose a generic framework for gene regulatory network (GRN) inference approached as a feature selection problem. GRNs obtained using Machine Learning techniques are often dense, whereas real GRNs are rather sparse. We use a Tikonov regularization inspired optimal L-curve criterion that utilizes the edge weight distribution for a given target gene to determine the optimal set of TFs associated with it. Our proposed framework allows to incorporate a mechanistic active biding network based on cis-regulatory motif analysis. We evaluate our regularization framework in conjunction with two non-linear ML techniques, namely gradient boosting machines (GBM) and random-forests (GENIE), resulting in a regularized feature selection based method specifically called RGBM and RGENIE respectively. RGBM has been used to identify the main transcription factors that are causally involved as master regulators of the gene expression signature activated in the FGFR3-TACC3-positive glioblastoma. Here, we illustrate that RGBM identifies the main regulators of the molecular subtypes of brain tumors. Our analysis reveals the identity and corresponding biological activities of the master regulators characterizing the difference between G-CIMP-high and G-CIMP-low subtypes and between PA-like and LGm6-GBM, thus providing a clue to the yet undetermined nature of the transcriptional events among these subtypes