Spettro trofico di due popolazioni sinantropiche di geco comune, Tarentola mauritanica (Linnaeus, 1758), in Sicilia sud-occidentale

The Moorish gecko (Tarentola mauritanica) is a lizard belonging to the Phyllodactylidae family, with circum-Mediterranean distribution. Despite the species is widespread in Sicily, there are very few studies on its feeding behaviour. This paper analyzes the diet of two synanthropic populations located in southwestern Sicily (province of Trapani) and exposed to different environmental conditions. Fecal remains were collected along the outer walls of an inhabited house in the coastal village of Triscina and in an uninhabited rural house, located near Castelvetrano town. The first study area has been constantly affected by artificial light sources, which are absent in the second study area. Results show in both cases that diets consist exclusively of arthropods, except for a single case of saurophagy on a juvenile Podarcis sp. detected in the \u2018Castelvetrano\u2019 sample. The two populations have significantly different trophic spectra and probably adopt two different foraging strategies. The \u2018Triscina\u2019 sample is characterized by the predominance of few categories of fliers prey generally concentrated by artificial light sources (Coleoptera 39.6%, Neuroptera 38.6%), suggesting the adoption of a \u2018sit-and-wait strategy\u2019. The \u2018Castelvetrano\u2019 sample is instead more varied and characterized by the prevalence of soil-related, and mostly wingless, prey (Dermaptera 36.7%, Formicidae 23.3%, Coleoptera 21.7%, spiders 11.7%), thus suggesting the adoption of an \u2018active foraging strategy\u2019

Census of the Sicilian rock partridge Alectoris graeca whitakeri population in ZPS ITA010029 Monte Cofano, Capo San Vito and Monte Sparagio

During the project "LIFE09 NAT/IT/000099-SICALECONS-Urgent actions for the conservation of Alectoris graeca whitakeri", this species was censused in the ZPS ITA010029 Monte Cofano, Capo San Vito and Monte Sparagio (Trapani province, Sicily) with playback technique between March and April 2011. Superimposing a UTM grid of 1 km mesh on the study area produced cells of 100 hectares. Using a GPS satellite receiver we reached, where possible, the centre of each cell from where the cospecific call was broadcasted. A total of 163 listening stations were implemented. Using software GIS ARCMAP 10.0 (ESRI) presence data were interpolated with vegetational and phytosociological maps (CORINE) to establish rock partridge's suitable area. The range of the rock partridge in the ZPS was calculated to be 9,893 hectares, corresponding to approximately 65% of the ZPS. A total of 29 individuals were counted, corresponding to 5 pairs and 19 calling males.The Sicilian rock partridge population in the ZPS was estimated to be 66 pairs. Density values in the ZPS were lower than those reported for other areas. In the ZPS highest density was observed in Zingaro Reserve, where poaching seems to be less frequent compared to other areas of ZPS and where burning has not been recorded for years. \ua9 2013 CISO - Centro Italiano Studi Ornitologici

Morphological variation of the newly confirmed population of the javelin sand boa, Eryx jaculus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Serpentes, erycidae) in Sicily, Italy

The presence of the Javelin sand boa in Sicily has recently been confirmed. Here the morphological characters and sexual dimorphism of the Sicilian population of Eryx jaculus are presented. Seven meristic and six metric characters in 96 specimens from Sicily were examined. The results show that tail length, snout-vent length, the distance between nostrils and the number of ventral and subcaudal scales are different between sexes. The characters found in the Sicilian population of the Javelin sand boa resemble those of the African population (ssp. jaculus) rather than the Eurasian population (ssp. turcicus), but biomolecular studies are necessary to understand its taxonomic identity

First record of brown long-eared bat Plecotus auritus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) for Sicily island (Italy)

The knowledge of the bat fauna of Sicily (Southern Italy) is scarce, fragmentary or sometimes even confusing. A recent review mentioned 20 species for the region, but it is likely that the checklist of bats of Sicily is still far from being exhaustive. To help fill this gap, in the past few years specific studies were carried out on the distribution of bat species in Sicily, especially in the woodlands of the Nebrodi Mountains. In the municipality of Caronia (Messina province) has captured a young female brown long-eared bat Plecotus auritus (Linneaus, 1758). The capture of P. auritus in Sicily represents the first record of brown long-eared bat Plecotus auritus for Sicily island, an interesting biogeographical record, as this bat is mostly known for the north and centre of the Italian peninsul

Downlink channel access performance of NR-U: Impact of numerology and mini-slots on coexistence with Wi-Fi in the 5 GHz band

Coexistence between cellular systems and Wi-Fi gained the attention of the research community when LTE License Assisted Access (LAA) entered the unlicensed band. The recent introduction of NR-U as part of 5G introduces new coexistence opportunities because it implements scalable numerology (flexible subcarrier spacing and OFDM symbol lengths), and non-slot based scheduling (mini-slots), which considerably impact channel access. This paper analyzes the impact of NR-U settings on its coexistence with Wi-Fi networks and compares it with LAA operation using simulations and experiments. First, we propose a downlink channel access simulation model, which addresses the problem of the dependency and non-uniformity of transmission attempts of different nodes, as a result of the synchronization mechanism introduced by NR-U. Second, we validate the accuracy of the proposed model using FPGA-based LAA, NR-U, and Wi-Fi prototypes with over-the-air transmissions. Additionally, we show that replacing LAA with NR-U would not only allow to overcome the problem of bandwidth wastage caused by reservation signals but also, in some cases, to preserve fairness in channel access for both scheduled and random-access systems. Finally, we conclude that fair coexistence of the aforementioned systems in unlicensed bands is not guaranteed in general, and novel mechanisms are necessary for improving the sharing of resources between scheduled and contention-based technologies

A Navigation and Augmented Reality System for Visually Impaired People

In recent years, we have assisted with an impressive advance in augmented reality systems and computer vision algorithms, based on image processing and artificial intelligence. Thanks to these technologies, mainstream smartphones are able to estimate their own motion in 3D space with high accuracy. In this paper, we exploit such technologies to support the autonomous mobility of people with visual disabilities, identifying pre-defined virtual paths and providing context information, reducing the distance between the digital and real worlds. In particular, we present ARIANNA+, an extension of ARIANNA, a system explicitly designed for visually impaired people for indoor and outdoor localization and navigation. While ARIANNA is based on the assumption that landmarks, such as QR codes, and physical paths (composed of colored tapes, painted lines, or tactile pavings) are deployed in the environment and recognized by the camera of a common smartphone, ARIANNA+ eliminates the need for any physical support thanks to the ARKit library, which we exploit to build a completely virtual path. Moreover, ARIANNA+ adds the possibility for the users to have enhanced interactions with the surrounding environment, through convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained to recognize objects or buildings and enabling the possibility of accessing contents associated with them. By using a common smartphone as a mediation instrument with the environment, ARIANNA+ leverages augmented reality and machine learning for enhancing physical accessibility. The proposed system allows visually impaired people to easily navigate in indoor and outdoor scenarios simply by loading a previously recorded virtual path and providing automatic guidance along the route, through haptic, speech, and sound feedback

Climate driven life histories: the case of the Mediterranean Storm petrel

Seabirds are affected by changes in the marine ecosystem. The influence of climatic factors on marine food webs can be reflected in long-term seabird population changes. We modelled the survival and recruitment of the Mediterranean storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus melitensis) using a 21-year mark-recapture dataset involving almost 5000 birds. We demonstrated a strong influence of prebreeding climatic conditions on recruitment age and of rainfall and breeding period conditions on juvenile survival. The results suggest that the juvenile survival rate of the Mediterranean subspecies may not be negatively affected by the predicted features of climate change, i.e., warmer summers and lower rainfall. Based on considerations of winter conditions in different parts of the Mediterranean, we were able to draw inferences about the wintering areas of the species for the first time

Living on the Edge: Assessing the Extinction Risk of Critically Endangered Bonelli’s Eagle in Italy

Background: The population of Bonelli’s eagle (Aquila fasciata) has declined drastically throughout its European range due to habitat degradation and unnatural elevated mortality. There are less than 1500 breeding pairs accounted for in Europe, and the species is currently catalogued as Critically Endangered in Italy, where the 22 territories of Sicily, represent nearly 95% of the entire Italian population. However, despite national and European conservation concerns, the species currently lacks a specific conservation plan, and no previous attempts to estimate the risk of extinction have been made. Methodology/Principal Findings: We incorporated the most updated demographic information available to assess the extinction risk of endangered Bonelli’s eagle in Italy through a Population Viability Analysis. Using perturbation analyses (sensitivity and elasticity), and a combination of demographic data obtained from an assortment of independent methods, we evaluated which demographic parameters have more influence on the population’s fate. We also simulated different scenarios to explore the effects of possible management actions. Our results showed that under the current conditions, Bonelli’s eagle is expected to become extinct in Italy in less than 50 years. Stand-alone juvenile mortality was the most critical demographic parameter with the strongest influence on population persistence with respect to other demographic parameters. Measures aimed at either decreasing juvenile mortality, adult mortality or decreasing both juvenile and adult mortality resulted in equivalent net positive effects on population persistence (population growth rate l.1). In contrast, changes aimed at increasing breeding success had limited positive effects on demographic trends. Conclusions/Significance: Our PVA provides essential information to direct the decision-making process and exposes gaps in our previous knowledge. To ensure the long-term persistence of the species in Italy, measures are urgently needed to decrease both adult mortality due to poaching and juvenile mortality due to nest plundering, the top ranking mortality causes.PLL is supported by a “Juan de la Cierva” postdoctoral grant of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (reference JCI-2011–09588)

The Muon Portal Double Tracker for the Inspection of Travelling Containers

The Muon Portal Project has as its goal the design and construction of a real-size working detector prototype in scale 1:1, to inspect the content of travelling containers by means of the secondary cosmic-ray muon radiation and to recognize high-Z hidden materials (i.e. U, Pu). The tomographic image is obtained by reconstructing the input and output trajectories of each muon when it crosses the container and, consequently, the scattering angle, making use of two trackers placed above and below the container. The scan is performed without adding any external radiation, in a reasonable time (few minutes) and with a good spatial and angular resolution. The detector consists of 8 planes each segmented in 6 identical modules. Each module is made of scintillating strips with two WaveLength Shifting fibers (WLS) inside, coupled to Silicon photomultipliers. The customized read-out electronics employs programmable boards. Thanks to a smart read-out system, the number of output channels is reduced by a factor 10. The signals from the front-end modules are sent to the read-out boards, in order to convert analog signals to digital ones, by comparison with a threshold. The data are pre-analyzed and stored into a data acquisition PC. After an intense measurement and simulation campaign to carefully characterize the detector components, the first detection modules ( 1 ×3 m2) have been already built. In this paper the detector architecture, particularly focusing on the used electronics and the main preliminary results will be presented. <P /

Response to control of foliar diseases in environments with different levels of nitrogen

Algunos trabajos sostienen que ante un agregado de nitrógeno (N) puede verse favorecido el desarrollo de las enfermedades por diversas interacciones planta-patógeno, sin embargo existen evidencias que demuestran lo contrario. El objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar el impacto de dos estrategias de control de enfermedades foliares en cultivos de trigo creciendo en condiciones contrastantes de fertilización nitrogenada (alta y baja disponibilidad, N0 y N1 respectivamente). Para ello se realizaron dos experimentos con objetivos diferentes: (i) evaluar el control de las enfermedades foliares utilizando dos estrategias de control en ambientes de baja y de alta disponibilidad de nitrógeno; y (ii) evaluar el impacto fisiológico de dos grupos diferentes de fungicidas (triazoles y estrobilurinas) en ambientes de baja y de alta disponibilidad de nitrógeno. La principal enfermedad fue “roya de la hoja” (Puccinia tritici Eriksson), la que en la situación de N1 se inició antes respecto a N0. No existieron diferencias en los valores índices de verdor entre cultivos enfermos y sanos (tratamiento convencional). Sin embargo, las sucesivas aplicaciones de fungicida (control total) generaron diferencias en los valores de los índices de verdor en hoja respecto a los otros dos tratamientos. Existieron diferencias significativas en el rendimiento y en el número de granos tanto para la variable disponibilidad de N como para las diferentes estrategias de control de la enfermedad. En N1 se encontraron mayores valores de fotosíntesis. Sin embargo, ninguna diferencia estadísticamente significativa fue encontrada entre ambos principios activos en cuanto a los niveles de fotosíntesis foliar en hoja bandera a lo largo del llenado de los granos.Some studies argue that the addition of nitrogen (N) to a crop can favor the development of diseases due to various plant-pathogen interactions; however, there is evidence to the contrary. The objective of this work was to evaluate the impact of two foliar disease control strategies in wheat growing under contrasting conditions of nitrogen fertilization (high and low availability, N 0 and N respectively). Two experiments were carried out with 1 different objectives: (i) to evaluate the control of foliar diseases using two control strategies in environments with low and high nitrogen availability; (ii) to evaluate the physiological impact of two different groups of fungicides (triazoles and strobilurins) in low and high nitrogen a vailability environments. The main disease was "leaf rust". The disease started earlier in N than in N . 1 0 There were no differences in SPAD values between diseased and healthy cultures (conventional treatment). However, successive applications of fungicide (total control) resulted in differences in leaf SPAD values with respect to the other two treatments. There were significant differences in yield and number of grains for both the variable N availability and the different disease control strategies. Higher levels of photosynthesis were found in N .1 However, leaf photosynthesis levels showed no statistically significant difference between both active principles throughout the grain filling stage.Cátedra de Cerealicultura, Departamento de Producción Vegetal. Universidad de Buenos Aires y CONICE