Exploring the landscapes of power: space, people and power in Tara Hategului, Romania

Conceptul de putere și relațiile sale cu spațiul pot fi analizate din perspectiva așa numitor peisaje ale puterii. Articolul se concentreză pe Țara Hațegului, regiunea din sud-vestul Transilvaniei cunoscută pentru evoluția sa particulară din punct de vedere socio-politic. Absența unor importante intervenții maghiare alături de prezența unei puternici elite locale a generat un peisaj cultural specific. Regiunea este recunoscută pentru numărul mare de biserici medievale, fortărețe și conace care s-au conservat până în prezent. De-a lungul timpului, au fost întreprinse numeroase studii cu privire la locația, funcția și arhitectura acestor monumente. Articolul prezent cercetează localizarea și dinamica funcțiilor edificiilor și încercă să ofere o altă persectivă utilizând conceptul de peisaje ale puterii. Relația dintre oameni, spațiu și putere este regândită, analizând amprenta peisagistică a acestor structuri.The concept of power and its relations with different spaces could be analysed in the form of landscapes of power. The article concentrates on Țara Hațegului, the south-western region of Transylvania, known for its particular evolution from a socio-political perspective. The absence of important Hungarian interventions, in conjunction with the powerful local elite, generated a specific cultural landscape. The region is renowned for the large number of medieval churches, fortresses and manors which have survived until present. Various studies have been made concerning the location, the functionality and the architecture of these landmarks. Focusing on the monuments' location and dynamics, the paper attempts to offer a new interpretation using the concept of landscapes of power. The relation between the people, the space and the power is put under a new light by analysing the imprint left by the structures in the landscape

Erosion and use of the Coast in the Northern Sardinia (Italy)

AbstractThe study provides an overview of coastal erosion of northern Sardinia, indicating the causes and the effects of the most relevant and identifies critical areas to the possible scenarios of extreme events. The knowledge of the state of natural balance of the coasts is essential for planning and protection in the medium-long term and requires careful evaluation of the risks and potential dangers, obtainable through geomorphological, sedimentological and meteomarine data interpretation, and degree and the human settlement type. Many of sardinians waterways are torrential and have poor solids discharges due to existence of the dams, was 393 (56 large reservoirs and 336 small reservoirs) that remove sediment to natural beach nourishment. It is enough to calculate the volume of sediment trapped from the reservoir to have a phenomenon dimension, total 4,372,933.5 m3 for Cedrino in use from 1989 to 1,085,700.0 m3 for Cixerri in activity since 1992 and 2498.226,2 m3 for Bidighinzu in use since 1959. An interference with such significant contributions to the sea involves a sedimentary deficit in the system which leads to an inevitable retreat of shorelines. For the evaluation of the areas with greater sensitivity and vulnerability, it is over considered the human load resulting from the infrastructure presence and activities along the coast and next to the river banks. It has also been decided through a questionnaire meant to assess the value of an environmental asset (in this case a stretch of coastline) which is understood as a "sense of well received" by the people, because it has become clear that the remediation or enhancement cannot be delegated to a mere technical-scientific approach but there has to be shared with the community. The integrated analysis of these factors helped to identify critical situations and vulnerabilities along the coasts of Northern Sardinia that led to the mapping of areas at risk

Sub-Maxwellian Source Injection and Negative Differential Transconductance in Decorated Graphene Nanoribbons

The precise engineering of the graphene crystal structure at the atom level, enabled by the recent advances in approaches to synthesis, has driven a renewed surge of interest in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), the electronic properties of which can be tuned by the arrangement of atoms at their edges. This technological option opens up the possibility of devising alternative devices based on carrier transport through topological states. In this work, by means of multiscale calculations, we investigate field-effect transistors based on topological GNRs with shaped edges, demonstrating the possibility of obtaining large negative differential transconductance effects, beating the Boltzmann limit for thermionic injection

Laser-Beam-Patterned Topological Insulating States on Thin Semiconducting MoS2

Identifying the two-dimensional (2D) topological insulating (TI) state in new materials and its control are crucial aspects towards the development of voltage-controlled spintronic devices with low-power dissipation. Members of the 2D transition metal dichalcogenides have been recently predicted and experimentally reported as a new class of 2D TI materials, but in most cases edge conduction seems fragile and limited to the monolayer phase fabricated on specified substrates. Here, we realize the controlled patterning of the 1T′ phase embedded into the 2H phase of thin semiconducting molybdenum-disulfide by laser beam irradiation. Integer fractions of the quantum of resistance, the dependence on laser-irradiation conditions, magnetic field, and temperature, as well as the bulk gap observation by scanning tunneling spectroscopy and theoretical calculations indicate the presence of the quantum spin Hall phase in our patterned 1T′ phasesThe work carried out at Aoyama Gakuin University was partly supported by a grant for private universities and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (JP15K13277) awarded by MEXT. The work at the University of Tokyo was partly supported by Grantin-Aid for Scientific Research (JP17K05492, JP18H04218 and JP19H00652). J. J. P. and S. P. acknowledge Spanish MINECO through Grant No. FIS2016-80434-P, the Fundación Ramón Areces, the María de Maeztu Program for Units of Excellence in R&D (MDM-2014- 0377), the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid through NANOMAGCOST Program, and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No. 604391 Graphene Flagship. S. P. acknowledges the computer resources and assistance provided by the Centro de Computación Científica of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. S. P. was also supported by the VILLUM FONDEN via the Center of Excellence for Dirac Materials (Grant No. 11744). D. M. and E. G.-M. gratefully acknowledge support from the Graphene Flagship Graphene Core2 Contract No. 785219. E. G.-M also acknowledges IJCI-2017-32297 from Spanish MINECO/AE

Vulnerability Analysis of the Cultural Heritage Sites—The Roman Edifice with Mosaic, Constanta, Romania

Heritage monuments are religious, historical, strategic, or civil edifices and could be deteriorated or even damaged due to their exposure to natural and anthropogenic hazards. The Roman Edifice with Mosaic (II-IV A.D.), the largest civil edifice (2040 m2) in Eastern Europe, is an ancient civil edifice built on the steep cliff in the western part of the Black Sea, Constanta, Romania, and is exposed to geomorphological and hydrogeological processes, which are affected by degradation. The main objective of this paper is to assess the current state of this ancient historical site in relation to environmental instability and offer scientific support for the rehabilitation process through interdisciplinary and non-destructive methods. Geophysical methods had been applied to comparatively analyze the spatial variations and flows of groundwater around the Roman Edifice with Mosaic in 2008 and 2019. Geomorphological hazards had already been inventoried and mapped. The results emphasize the state of degradation of the Roman mosaic pavement and ancient walls, mainly through high variations in the deposits’ moisture due to poor maintenance, which caused suffosion, and slip processes, bringing the mosaic into a high vulnerability range. The vulnerability map of the Roman Edifice with Mosaic environment is a necessary tool for continuously improving risk management because it clearly emphasizes the sectors that still have hazards

Systemic and functional effects of continuous azithromycin treatment in patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and frequent exacerbations

BackgroundContinuous treatment with azithromycin may lead to fewer acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD), but little is known of its impact on systemic and functional outcomes in real-life settings. MethodsThis was a multicenter prospective observational study of patients with severe COPD who started treatment with azithromycin. Tests were compared at baseline and after 3 and 12 months of treatment. These included lung function tests, a 6-min walking test (6MWT), and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays of serum and sputum markers, such as interleukins (IL-6, IL-8, IL-13, IL-5), tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2), and inflammatory markers. Incidence rate ratios (IRR) and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) are reported. ResultsOf the 478 eligible patients, the 42 who started azithromycin experienced reductions in AECOPDs (IRR, 0.34; 95% CI, 0.26-0.45) and hospitalizations (IRR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.28-0.49). Treatment was also associated with significant improvement in the partial arterial pressure of oxygen (9.2 mmHg, 95% CI 1.4-16.9) at 12 months. While TNFR2 was reduced significantly in both serum and sputum samples, IL-13 and IL-6 were only significantly reduced in serum samples. Moreover, an elevated serum and sputum IL-8 level significantly predicted good clinical response to treatment. ConclusionContinuous azithromycin treatment in a cohort of patients with severe COPD and frequent exacerbations can significantly reduce the number and severity of exacerbations and improve gas exchange. Treatment changes the pattern of microorganism isolates and decreases the inflammatory response. Of note, IL-8 may have utility as a predictor of clinical response to azithromycin treatment