Annual sea level variability of the coastal ocean: The Baltic Sea-North Sea transition zone

The annual cycle is a major contribution to the non-tidal variability in sea level. Its characteristics can vary substantially even at a regional scale, particularly in an area of high variability such as the coastal ocean. This study uses previously validated coastal altimetry solutions (from ALES dataset) and the reference ESA Sea Level Climate Change Initiative dataset to improve the understanding of the annual cycle during the Envisat years (2002-2010) in the North Sea - Baltic Sea transition area. This area of study is chosen because of the complex coastal morphology and the availability of in-situ measurements. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the improvements brought by coastal satellite altimetry to the description of the annual variability of the sea level have been evaluated and discussed. The findings are interpreted with the help of a local climatology and wind stress from a reanalysis model. The coastal amplitude of the annual cycle estimated from ALES altimetry data is in better agreement with estimations derived from in-situ data than the one from the reference dataset. Wind stress is found to be the main driver of annual cycle variability throughout the domain, while different steric contributions are responsible for the differences within and among the sub-basins. We conclude that the ALES coastal altimetry product is a reliable dataset to study the annual cycle of the sea level at a regional scale and the strategy described in this research can be applied to other areas of the coastal ocean where the coverage from the tide gauges is not sufficient

Potential energy savings from circular economy scenarios based on construction and agri-food waste in Italy

In this study, our aim was to explore the potential energy savings obtainable from the recycling of 1 tonne of Construction and Demolition Waste (C&DW) generated in the Metropolitan City of Naples. The main fraction composing the functional unit are mixed C&DW, soil and stones, concrete, iron, steel and aluminium. The results evidence that the recycling option for the C&DW is better than landfilling as well as that the production of recycled aggregates is environmentally sustainable since the induced energy and environmental impacts are lower than the avoided energy and environmental impacts in the life cycle of recycled aggregates. This LCA study shows that the transition to the Circular Economy offers many opportunities for improving the energy and environmental performances of the construction sector in the life cycle of construction materials by means of internal recycling strategies (recycling C&DW into recycled aggregates, recycled steel, iron and aluminum) as well as external recycling by using input of other sectors (agri-food by-products) for the manufacturing of construction materials. In this way, the C&D sector also contributes to realizing the energy and bioeconomy transition by disentangling itself from fossil fuel dependence

THE REASONS OF THE VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE FOR THE REGULATION OF CONTEMPORARY INTERVENTIONS. TWO EXAMPLES OF RURAL ARCHITECTURE ON DANUBE DELTA AND THE VESUVIUS

Abstract. The development and growth of the territory has for centuries been conditioned by the availability of resources on site. The minor architecture which is presented as a vast and varied repertoire of unique architectural forms, perfected over time to meet the needs of living places, is the repository of the formal and cultural testimonies that represent the integration between man and environment, which took place in a constant process of adaptation and enhancement of limits and resources in terms of climate, materials, soil morphology and geology. The "not only formal" result of this growth process is a consolidated iconography that summarizes the profound reasons for building through techniques developed according to the characteristics of the available materials and the needs of life and daily work, an absolute synthesis between form and function that gives rise to the repertoire of the lexicon of the architecture of a place and of the landscape. Starting from these reflections, the proposed study seeks to investigate the reasons for the constructive lexicon of some examples of vernacular architecture related to different contexts, identifying the reasons for the constructive choices in terms of relationships between the function of technical elements and construction characteristics; the purpose of this approach is to regulate constructive interventions in consolidated settlements of vernacular architecture by proposing a study methodology that highlights the rules and reasons for those constructive choices so that purely formal distortions and misunderstandings do not occur in current practices. The selected case studies are the rural settlements of Terzigno, a municipality in the province of Naples (Italy) on the slopes of Vesuvius and some of the rural settlements in the Danube Delta, in Romania

Coastal altimetry products in the strait of Gibraltar

This paper analyzes the availability and accuracy of coastal altimetry sea level products in the Strait of Gibraltar. All possible repeats of two sections of the Envisat and AltiKa ground-tracks were used in the eastern and western portions of the strait. For Envisat, along-track sea level anomalies (SLAs) at 18-Hz posting rate were computed using ranges from two sources, namely, the official SGDRs and the outputs of a coastal waveform retracker, the ALES retracker; in addition, SLAs at 1 Hz were obtained from CTOH, France. For AltiKa, along-track SLA at 40 Hz was also computed both from SGDR and ALES ranges. The quality of these altimeter products was validated using two tide gauges located on the southern coast of Spain. We observed an improvement of about 20% in the accuracy of the Envisat SLAs from ALES compared to the standard (SGDR) and the reprocessed CTOH data sets. AltiKa shows higher accuracy, with no significant differences between SGDR and ALES

Effect of human chorionic gonadotrophin administration 2 days after insemination on progesterone concentration and pregnancy per artificial insemination in lactating dairy cows

peer-reviewedThe aim of this study was to examine the effect of a single administration of human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) during the establishment of the corpus luteum (CL) on progesterone (P4) concentration and pregnancy per artificial insemination (P/AI) in lactating dairy cows. Postpartum spring-calving lactating dairy cows (n = 800; mean ± SD days in milk and parity were 78.5 ± 16.7 and 2.3 ± 0.8, respectively) on 3 farms were enrolled on the study. All cows underwent the same fixed-time AI (FTAI) protocol involving a 7-d progesterone-releasing intravaginal device with gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) administration at device insertion, prostaglandin at device removal followed by GnRH 56 h later, and AI 16 h after the second GnRH injection. Cows were blocked on days postpartum, body condition score, and parity and randomly assigned to receive either 3,000 IU of hCG 2 d after FTAI or no further treatment (control). Blood samples were collected on d 7 and 14 postestrus by coccygeal venipuncture on a subset of 204 cows to measure serum P4 concentration, and pregnancy was diagnosed by ultrasonography approximately 30 and 70 d after FTAI. Administration of hCG caused an increase in circulating P4 concentrations compared with the control treatment on d 7 (+22.2%) and d 14 (+25.7%). The P/AI at 30 d after FTAI was affected by treatment, farm, body condition score, and calving to service interval. Overall, administration of hCG decreased P/AI (46.3% vs. 55.1% for the control). Among cows that did not become pregnant following AI, a greater proportion of control cows exhibited a short repeat interval (≤17 d) compared with cows treated with hCG (8.6% vs. 2.8%, respectively). In addition, the percentages of cows pregnant at d 21 (59.6% vs. 52.0%) and d 42 (78.3% vs. 71.9%) were greater in control than in hCG-treated cows. The overall incidence of embryo loss was 10.7% and was not affected by treatment. There was a tendency for an interaction between treatment and CL status at synchronization protocol initiation for both P4 concentration and P/AI. In conclusion, administration of hCG 2 d after FTAI increased circulating P4 concentrations. Unexpectedly, cows treated with hCG had lower fertility; however, this negative effect on fertility was manifested primarily in cows lacking a CL at the onset of the synchronization protocol

Morfologia e morfometria del settore ionico del Golfo di Taranto.

Il versante Ionico del Golfo di Taranto \ue8 caratterizzato dalla presenza di alti strutturali e bacini che rappresentano l\u2019espressione morfologica di sistemi di faglie pleistoceniche transpressive. La dorsale di Amendolara si estende per 45 Km in direzione N130\ub0E, ed \ue8 caratterizzato dalla presenza di tre alti batimetrici minori (denominati Amendolara, Rossano e Cariati). Verso NE, la dorsale di Capo Spulico si estende per 40 Km in direzione !N115\ub0E. Durante la Campagna Oceanografica \u201cTeatioca\u201d sono stati acquisiti 1100Km2 di dati batimetrici multibeam e profili sismici monocanale ad alta (Sparker) ed altissima risoluzione (Subbottom Chirp). L\u2019analisi integrata dei nuovi dati ha consentito di ottenere una sintesi morfostrutturale preliminare dell\u2019area sud-orientale del Golfo di Taranto [Santoro et al., 2012]. L\u2019insieme dei dati morfometrici evidenzia un ruolo chiave nell\u2019attivit\ue0 traspressiva della faglia che borda a SW la dorsale di Amendolara, in quanto la regolarit\ue0 dei pendii rivolti a S \ue8 legata alla deformazione e sollevamento dei versanti, che tende a superare l\u2019effetto dei processi erosivi (versanti a controllo morfostrutturale). Il processo di basculamento guidato dall\u2019azione della faglia sembra essere all\u2019originedei processi responsabili dell\u2019erosione gravitazionale canalizzata sui pendii esposti a nord (versanti a controllo morfosedimentario). Sette ordini di terrazzi sono stati riconosciuti sul top del Banco di Amendolara, attraverso tecniche di analisi dei picchi nel diagramma di distribuzione delle quote [Passaro et al., 2011]. Tale dato e le statistiche sui profili estratti dal DTM testimoniano la presenza di tassi differenziali di sollevamento ed un complessivo tilt (verso E) del settore frontale ionico dell\u2019Appennino Meridionale, in accordo con quanto suggerito in letteratura [Ferranti et al., 2009]. Bibliografia Ferranti, L., Santoro, E., Mazzella, M.E., Monaco, C., Morelli, D., (2009). Active transpression in the northern Calabria Apennines, southern Italy. Tectonophysics, 476 (1-2), 226-251. Passaro, S., Ferranti, L., de Alteriis, G., (2011). The use of high resolution elevation histograms for mapping submerged terraces: a test from the Eastern Tyrrhenian Sea and the Eastern Atlantic Ocean. Quat. Int., 232, 1-2, 238-249. Santoro, E., Ferranti, L., Passaro, S., Burrato, P., Morelli, D., (2012). Morphometric analysis in the offshore of the southern Taranto Gulf: unveiling the structures controlling the Late Pleistocene-Holocene bathymetric evolution. Rend. On. Soc. Geol. It., 21 (2), 1132-1135

third order bragg grating filters in small soi waveguides

Third order grating filters fabricated in small Silicon-on-Insulator rib waveguides are demonstrated. Variations in grating etch depth and duty cycle are considered, and a maximum experimental reflection of 42% is demonstrated for gratings of 1500 µm in length, with a grating period of approximately 689nm and an etch depth of 200nm. Agreement with modeling is shown to be good

CARMA1 is a novel regulator of T-ALL disease and leukemic cell migration to the CNS

No abstract available

Geometria e modellazione di un sistema di retro-scorrimenti attivosulla base di dati di geofisica marina ad alta risoluzione:la Dorsale di Amendolara (Golfo di Taranto).

Nuovi dati sismici ad alta (Sparker) ed altissima (Subbottm Chirp) risoluzione, acquisiti durante la Campagna Oceanografica “Teatioca_2010”, integrati da dati sismici multicanale ad alta penetrazione, pubblici disponibili sul sito www.videpi.com, calibrati con pozzi profondi, batimetrici multifascio e carotaggi, rivelano che la dorsale di Amendolara, estensione sottomarina della zona frontale del sistema a thrust dell’Appennino meridionale, è stata controllata nel Quaternario da un sistema di retro-scorrimenti e faglie transpressive (ATFS) che dislocano verso SW la catena mio-pliocenica NE-vergente. Il pacco di sequenze deposizionali attribuito, sulla base della facies sismica e della presenza di discordanze controllate dalle oscillazioni glacio-eustatiche, al Pleistocene medio-superiore risulta piegato in maniera consistente con le strutture desumibili dai profili multicanale. I dati morfometrici e sismici documentano che la dorsale, orientata NW-SE, è formata da 3 banchi lunghi ~10-20 km, cresciuti sopra rampe di sovrascorrimenti ciechi (~2 km) disposti en-echelon a formare un sistema segmentato. Sono stati individuati e modellati i segmenti di Amendolara a NW e Cariati a SE, collegati da una più piccola rampa laterale (segmento di Rossano). La modellazione numerica calibrata sui dati batimetrici e sismici indica che le rampe hanno inclinazione di ~45° e sono radicate a ~10 km di profondità a possibili scollamenti o strutture maggiori. I tassi di scorrimento negli ultimi 4-500 ka, calcolati per i segmenti sulla base degli strati di crescita nei bacini sin tettonici variano da 0.5-0-9 mm/a per il segmento di Amendolara a 0.35-0.5 mm/a per quello di Cariati. L’ATFS coincide con una fascia di moderata sismicità (Mw<4.7) con meccanismi focali inversi o transpressivi. L’orientazione degli assi di strain incrementale (sismico) e finito (geologico, come documentano i dati a terra) suggerisce per i segmenti dell’ATFS un movimento da inverso a obliquo sinistro. In base alla dimensione dei segmenti di faglia, nell’ipotesi di deformazione puramente elastica, si stima una magnitudo potenziale massima per l’ATFS di M~6.1-6.4, ma è verosimile che buona parte della deformazione sia asismica o microsismica. L’epicentro macrosismico del terremoto del 1988 (Mw=4.9) ricade su un tratto del segmento di Cariati che mostra rotture a fondo mare e possibile risalita di fluidi localizzata lungo strutture attive. La crescita dell’ATFS è stata verosimilmente controllata da un interfaccia meccanica tra la spessa crosta apula e la crosta ionica assottigliata o in parte oceanica, quando in tempi recenti la convergenza Adria-Europa ha prevalso sull’arretramento della cerniera della subduzione ionica