Seasonal and bathymetric effects on macrofouling invertebrates' primary succession in a mediterraenan non-indigenous species hotspot area

The present study investigates macrofouling development in the Mar Grande of Taranto (Central Mediterranean Sea), a wide confined area that has attracted considerable attention in recent years due to the establishment of numerous non-indigenous species (NIS). Different starting times of a yearly primary succession on artificial substrates were tracked so as to investigate the matching of the development pattern with contingency and/or convergence models, identifying NIS's structural role in the community endpoint. Our results show that during the experiment all assemblages tended to converge towards multiple contingent communities according to starting times and depths. The differences are due to propagule availability which influence further species interactions. Thus the endpoint patterns are defined by a contingent community development determined by the seasonal species pool, their phenologies, pre- and post-settlement events, and species interactions. The most important structuring species was Mytilus galloprovincialis, which was present in almost all the endpoint assemblages, in particular when it recruits at early stages of the community development. Another abundant species at the endpoint was the alien Branchiomma boholense; which was a persistent structural component contributing to an alternative state in which Mytilus galloprovincialis loses its structural importance and where B. boholense becomes dominant, leading to an increase in fouling biodiversity of the endpoint assemblage

Blockchain e smart contracts: sfide e opportunità di un futuro già presente

Questo lavoro analizza i cd. smart contracts, o contratti intelligenti, strumenti che incorporano regole e capacità interpretativa del sistema legale, in un’architettura hardware e software dotata di capacità di esecuzione di un contratto in modo autonomo rispetto alle parti contraenti. Speciale enfasi è dedicata alla caratterizzazione degli smart contracts nell’analisi economica del diritto. La parte iniziale introduce alcune informazioni di contesto sulla tecnologia blockchain, per poi proseguire con la caratterizzazione degli smart contracts nell’analisi economica del diritto e con una loro puntuale definizione normativa. Viene evidenziato, inoltre, il legame tecnologico tra smart contracts e blockchain, insieme ad alcune prospettive di sviluppo legate alla Internet of Things. Dopo un rapido cenno alle tipologie di atti interessati dagli smart contracts e la presentazione di un breve modello di codice, utilizzato per fornire un esempio di implementazione concreta di tali contratti, si passano in rassegna alcuni aspetti critici relativi alla loro applicazione, osservati sotto il profilo degli operatori professionali del diritto. In ultimo, si accenna al vasto dibattito esistente sugli aspetti etici e sociali relativi alla diffusione e all’applicazione della tecnologia blockchain, uno dei paradigmi più rilevanti dell’era digitale in corso e sugli smart contracts, in particolare

Non-indigenous polychaetes along the coasts of Italy: a critical review

Non-indigenous species (NIS) represent one of the most relevant threats to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and human activities, and their occurrence and spread have been the subject of numerous works and revisions. However, the information available is rather confused for several taxa, including polychaetes, which are characterised by having a high number of cryptogenic and questionable species. This work aims at providing a revised checklist of alien polychaetes occurring along the coasts of Italy, based on the examination of newly collected and deposited material and on the critical analysis of published and gray literature, and whenever possible on the re-examination of historical material. Of the 86 polychaete species reported as NIS in Italian waters, 25 are confirmed as alien species, while 3 are cryptogenic, and 40 should be considered questionable. Finally, 18 species were excluded from non-indigenous species checklists, either because they are native, or because they represent misidentifications of other species. The high number of cryptogenic and questionable species points at the need of molecular studies and taxonomic revisions for the majority of polychaete taxa reported as NIS, in order to clarify their taxonomy, origin, introduction pathways and spreading patterns

An Integrated Big and Fast Data Analytics Platform for Smart Urban Transportation Management

(c) 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.[EN] Smart urban transportation management can be considered as a multifaceted big data challenge. It strongly relies on the information collected into multiple, widespread, and heterogeneous data sources as well as on the ability to extract actionable insights from them. Besides data, full stack (from platform to services and applications) Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions need to be specifically adopted to address smart cities challenges. Smart urban transportation management is one of the key use cases addressed in the context of the EUBra-BIGSEA (Europe-Brazil Collaboration of Big Data Scientific Research through Cloud-Centric Applications) project. This paper specifically focuses on the City Administration Dashboard, a public transport analytics application that has been developed on top of the EUBra-BIGSEA platform and used by the Municipality stakeholders of Curitiba, Brazil, to tackle urban traffic data analysis and planning challenges. The solution proposed in this paper joins together a scalable big and fast data analytics platform, a flexible and dynamic cloud infrastructure, data quality and entity matching algorithms as well as security and privacy techniques. By exploiting an interoperable programming framework based on Python Application Programming Interface (API), it allows an easy, rapid and transparent development of smart cities applications.This work was supported by the European Commission through the Cooperation Programme under EUBra-BIGSEA Horizon 2020 Grant [Este projeto e resultante da 3a Chamada Coordenada BR-UE em Tecnologias da Informacao e Comunicacao (TIC), anunciada pelo Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao (MCTI)] under Grant 690116.Fiore, S.; Elia, D.; Pires, CE.; Mestre, DG.; Cappiello, C.; Vitali, M.; Andrade, N.... (2019). An Integrated Big and Fast Data Analytics Platform for Smart Urban Transportation Management. IEEE Access. 7:117652-117677. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2936941S117652117677

Acute Delta Hepatitis in Italy spanning three decades (1991–2019): Evidence for the effectiveness of the hepatitis B vaccination campaign

Updated incidence data of acute Delta virus hepatitis (HDV) are lacking worldwide. Our aim was to evaluate incidence of and risk factors for acute HDV in Italy after the introduction of the compulsory vaccination against hepatitis B virus (HBV) in 1991. Data were obtained from the National Surveillance System of acute viral hepatitis (SEIEVA). Independent predictors of HDV were assessed by logistic-regression analysis. The incidence of acute HDV per 1-million population declined from 3.2 cases in 1987 to 0.04 in 2019, parallel to that of acute HBV per 100,000 from 10.0 to 0.39 cases during the same period. The median age of cases increased from 27 years in the decade 1991-1999 to 44 years in the decade 2010-2019 (p < .001). Over the same period, the male/female ratio decreased from 3.8 to 2.1, the proportion of coinfections increased from 55% to 75% (p = .003) and that of HBsAg positive acute hepatitis tested for by IgM anti-HDV linearly decreased from 50.1% to 34.1% (p < .001). People born abroad accounted for 24.6% of cases in 2004-2010 and 32.1% in 2011-2019. In the period 2010-2019, risky sexual behaviour (O.R. 4.2; 95%CI: 1.4-12.8) was the sole independent predictor of acute HDV; conversely intravenous drug use was no longer associated (O.R. 1.25; 95%CI: 0.15-10.22) with this. In conclusion, HBV vaccination was an effective measure to control acute HDV. Intravenous drug use is no longer an efficient mode of HDV spread. Testing for IgM-anti HDV is a grey area requiring alert. Acute HDV in foreigners should be monitored in the years to come

The cumacean genus Iphinoe (Crustacea: Peracarida) from Italian waters and I. daphne n. sp. from the northwestern Adriatic Sea, Mediterranean

Mazziotti, Cristina, Lezzi, Marco (2020): The cumacean genus Iphinoe (Crustacea: Peracarida) from Italian waters and I. daphne n. sp. from the northwestern Adriatic Sea, Mediterranean. Zootaxa 4766 (2): 331-357, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4766.2.

On Diversity Order and Coding Gain of Multi−Source Multi−Relay Cooperative Wireless Networks with Binary Network Coding

International audienc

Error Performance and Diversity Analysis of Multi-Source Multi-Relay Wireless Networks with Binary Network Coding and Cooperative MRC

International audienceIn this paper, we contribute to the theoretical understanding, the design, and the performance evaluation of multi-source multi-relay network-coded cooperative diversity protocols. These protocols are useful to counteract the spectral inefficiency of repetition-based cooperation. We provide a general analytical framework for analysis and design of wireless networks using the Demodulate-and-Forward (DemF) protocol with binary Network Coding (NC) at the relays and Cooperative Maximal Ratio Combining (C-MRC) at the destination. Our system model encompasses an arbitrary number of relays which offer two cooperation levels: i) full-cooperative relays, which postpone the transmission of their own data frames to help the transmission of the sources via DemF relaying and binary NC; and ii) partial-cooperative relays, which exploit NC to transmit their own data frames along with the packets received from the sources. The relays can apply NC on different subsets of sources, which is shown to provide the sources with unequal diversity orders. Guidelines to choose the packets to be combined, i.e., the network code, to achieve the desired diversity order are given. Our study shows that partial-cooperative relays provide no contribution to the diversity order of the sources. Theoretical findings and design guidelines are validated through extensive Monte Carlo simulations

Settlement and population dynamics of the alien invasive Branchiomma bairdi (Annelida: Sabellidae) in the Mediterranean Sea: two years of observations in the Gulf of Taranto (Italy)

Since the first discovery along the Italian coasts in 2004 of the polychaete Branchiomma bairdi, it has spread very quickly, reaching some localities in very high densities. In order to monitor its colonization, recruitment was investigated by means of PVC panels immersed in the Mar Grande of Taranto (Ionian Sea). Panels were monitored every three months from April 2013 to January 2015. The species showed the ability to settle on bare panels as well as on panels with a developed fouling community. Two years of monitoring identified two different cohorts, with recruits appearing in both years on panels submersed from July to October. Based on these observations B. bairdi is a short-lived species (no more than one year), reproducing at a temperature ranging from 20 to 29°C and reaching sexual maturity three months after recruitment. Oocytes were found in the coelom only in the warmest months and oogenesis was not synchronous either within each individual or within the population. Total annual secondary production was estimated at 43.42 g m−2 year−1. Annual mean biomass was 20.03 g m−2. The corresponding P/B ratio was 2.1678. This study may explain the invasiveness of B. bairdi; indeed, a rapid generation turnover coupled with a short lifespan, rapid growth and early maturity are common traits in most invasive species