Historical and Instrumental Seismicity of the Sansepolcro Basin, Northern Apennines, Italy

In this work we analyse the most important earthquakes of the 20th century occurred in the Altotiberina Valley in 1917, 1918, 1919 and 1948; in particular instrumental relocation and Ms magnitude estimation are re-evaluated. The area investigated, the Sansepolcro basin, is characterized by the presence of important earthquakes in the past with estimated intensity even larger than IX MCS (the 1352 Monterchi earthquake, the 1389 Boccaserriola, the 1458 Citta' di Castello, the 1781 Cagliese and the 1917 Monterchi-Citerna earthquakes, CPTI Working Group, 2004) and by a surprisingly scarce instrumental seismicity compared to the adjacent areas struck by high seismicity (Castello et al., 2005; Ciaccio et al., 2006). In particular, the area north of Sansepolcro has been struck in recent years by four minor sequences, occurred between 1987 and 2001 with magnitude ranging from Ml3.0 to Mw4.7. The relocation of these earthquakes is particularly critical and in an important issue. An instrumental and precise location is critical for the complexity of the problems associated with the study of seismograms prior to the rst half of the twentieth century and is relevant because in the surrounding regions higher seismicity is observed. Regarding this peculiarity of the area, it’s very important to detect the localization of the historical earthquakes: in particular, the 1917 event is often associated to the possibility that the regional low angle Altotiberina Fault (Barchi et al., 1998) is able or not to nucleate large- or moderate-magnitude events, being historically located close to its surface (Boncio and Lavecchia, 2000)

15N-Labelled Fertilizer Recovery by Sweet Sorghum in Mediterranean Climate

A 15N-labelled fertilization trial was carried out on sweet sorghum, grown in semi-arid environments of southern Europe with the aim to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of the N-fertilisation technique under irrigation and different nitrogen fertilization rates, in factorial combination. A rainfed condition was compared with a full irrigation treatment (100% restoration of total crop water consumption), in a similar way, an unfertilized control was tested with respect to N application rates of 60 and 120 Kg ha-1, respectively. The fertilisation efficiency measured directly through the isotope discrimination technique was on average equal to 15%. The aliquot of nitrogen released by the fertiliser into the soil and not absorbed by the plant becomes part of the different components of the soil nitrogen balance, regardless of its origin

Color stabilization of apulian red wines through the sequential inoculation of starmerella bacillaris and saccharomyces cerevisiae

Mixed fermentation using Starmerella bacillaris and Saccharomyces cerevisiae has gained attention in recent years due to their ability to modulate the qualitative parameters of enological interest, such as the color intensity and stability of wine. In this study, three of the most important red Apulian varieties were fermented through two pure inoculations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains or the sequential inoculation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae after 48 h from Starmerella bacillaris. The evolution of anthocyanin profiles and chromatic characteristics were determined in the produced wines at draining off and after 18 months of bottle aging in order to assess the impact of the different fermentation protocols on the potential color stabilization and shelf-life. The chemical composition analysis showed titratable acidity and ethanol content exhibiting marked differences among wines after fermentation and aging. The 48 h inoculation delay produced wines with higher values of color intensity and color stability. This was ascribed to the increased presence of compounds, such as stable A-type vitisins and reddish/violet ethylidene-bridge flavonol-anthocyanin adducts, in the mixed fermentation. Our results proved that the sequential fermentation of Starmerella bacillaris and Saccharomyces cerevisiae could enhance the chromatic profile as well as the stability of the red wines, thus improving their organoleptic quality

Evidence of non-seed transmission of viruses in grapevine breeding material

The vertical transmission of viruses is an important phenomenon affecting a wide range of viruses and host plants. Nevertheless, the presence of virus in a seed does not always lead to seedling infection. In grapevine, seed transmission has been reported for many nepoviruses, but little is known about Leafroll, Rugose wood complex and Fleck diseases. Thus, the aim of this study is to monitor the virological condition of seedlings obtained by crosses between infected parents, analyzing the sanitary status of seedlings after the transfer in experimental fields. It was observed that, although the viral state of parents was quite compromised, viruses were not detected in any of the 150 progeny plants, demonstrating that the main grapevine viruses are at low risk for seed transmission

Transcriptomic and genomic structural variation analyses on grape cultivars reveal new insights into the genotype-dependent responses to water stress

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is importantly cultivated worldwide for table grape and wine production. Its cultivation requires irrigation supply, especially in arid and semiarid areas. Water deficiency can affect berry and wine quality mostly depending on the extent of plant perceived stress, which is a cultivar-specific trait. We tested the physiological and molecular responses to water deficiency of two table grape cultivars, Italia and Autumn royal, and we highlighted their different adaptation. Microarray analyses revealed that Autumn royal reacts involving only 29 genes, related to plant stress response and ABA/hormone signal transduction, to modulate the response to water deficit. Instead, cultivar Italia orchestrates a very broad response (we found 1037 differentially expressed genes) that modifies the cell wall organization, carbohydrate metabolism, response to reactive oxygen species, hormones and osmotic stress. For the first time, we integrated transcriptomic data with cultivar-specific genomics and found that ABA-perception and –signalling are key factors mediating the varietal-specific behaviour of the early response to drought. We were thus able to isolate candidate genes for the genotype-dependent response to drought. These insights will allow the identification of reliable plant stress indicators and the definition of sustainable cultivar-specific protocols for water management

Transcriptomic and genomic structural variation analyses on grape cultivars reveal new insights into the genotype-dependent responses to water stress

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is importantly cultivated worldwide for table grape and wine production. Its cultivation requires irrigation supply, especially in arid and semiarid areas. Water deficiency can affect berry and wine quality mostly depending on the extent of plant perceived stress, which is a cultivar-specific trait. We tested the physiological and molecular responses to water deficiency of two table grape cultivars, Italia and Autumn royal, and we highlighted their different adaptation. Microarray analyses revealed that Autumn royal reacts involving only 29 genes, related to plant stress response and ABA/hormone signal transduction, to modulate the response to water deficit. Instead, cultivar Italia orchestrates a very broad response (we found 1037 differentially expressed genes) that modifies the cell wall organization, carbohydrate metabolism, response to reactive oxygen species, hormones and osmotic stress. For the first time, we integrated transcriptomic data with cultivar-specific genomics and found that ABA-perception and –signalling are key factors mediating the varietal-specific behaviour of the early response to drought. We were thus able to isolate candidate genes for the genotype-dependent response to drought. These insights will allow the identification of reliable plant stress indicators and the definition of sustainable cultivar-specific protocols for water management

Testing the performance of a blind burst statistic

In this work we estimate the performance of a method for the detection of burst events in the data produced by interferometric gravitational wave detectors. We compute the receiver operating characteristics in the specific case of a simulated noise having the spectral density expected for Virgo, using test signals taken from a library of possible waveforms emitted during the collapse of the core of Type II Supernovae.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Talk given at the GWDAW2002 worksho