Morphology of a new blister beetle (Coleoptera, Meloidae) larval type challenges the evolutionary trends of phoresy-related characters in the genus Meloe

The discovery of some specimens of a new first instar larval type in blister beetles, collected in Iran on Anthophora bees, confirms the existence of repetitive and parallel trends in morphological specialization to phoresy in distinct lineages of Meloidae and in particular in the subfamily Meloinae. The new Iranian larva, herein described and illustrated, shows several characters and a peculiar phoretic strategy that closely parallel that of the Meloe subgenus Lampromeloe, with similar modifications of the fronto-clypeal setae into strong lanceolate spines used to pierce the intersegmental membranes of the bees. Both parallel and shared derived evolution of these characters seem possible. The coexistence in this larva of characters in both primitive and derived state is of particular interest in order to analyse the different rates and trends of evolution of phoretic adaptations. A morphological comparison (SEM) of this new meloine larva (incertae sedis), tentatively assignable to Meloe, with the M. (Lampromeloe) larvae is carried out in order to discuss the evolutionary implications of its placement in Lampromeloe, and the relative characters that would support it, vs other possible alternative scenarios

Evidences for strong directional resonances in intensely deformed zones of the Pernicana fault, Mount Etna, Italy

In this paper we investigate ground motion properties in the western part of the Pernicana fault. This is the major fault of Mount Etna and drives the dynamic evolution of the area. In a previous work, Rigano et al. (2008) showed that a significant horizontal polarization characterizes ground motion in fault zones of Mount Etna, both during earthquakes and ambient vibrations. We have performed denser microtremor measurements in the NE rift segment and in intensely deformed zones of the Pernicana fault at Piano Pernicana. This study includes mapping of azimuth-dependent horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios along and across the fault, frequency–wave number techniques applied to array data to investigate the nature of ambient vibrations, and polarization analysis through the conventional covariance matrix method. Our results indicate that microtremors are likely composed of volcanic tremor. Spectral ratios show strong directional resonances of horizontal components around 1 Hz when measurements enter the most damaged part of the fault zone. Their polarization directions show an abrupt change, by 20° to 40°, at close measurements between the northern and southern part of the fault zone. Recordings of local earthquakes at one site in the fault zone confirm the occurrence of polarization with the same angle found using volcanic tremor. We have also found that the directional effect is not time-dependent, at least at a seasonal scale. This observation and the similar behavior of volcanic tremors and earthquake-induced ground motions suggest that horizontal polarization is the effect of local fault properties. However, the 1-Hz resonant frequency cannot be reproduced using the 1-D vertically varying model inferred from the array data analysis, suggesting a role of lateral variations of the fault zone. Although the actual cause of polarization is unknown, a role of stress-induced anisotropy and microfracture orientation in the near-surface lavas of the Pernicana fault can be hypothesized consistently with the sharp rotation of the polarization angle within the damaged fault zone

ICTs for Accessing, Understanding and Safeguarding Cultural Heritage: The Experience of INCEPTION and ROCK H2020 Projects

Today digital technologies offer great opportunities in the field of Cultural Heritage (CH). After a general overview of the European policy documents on CH digitisation, the paper aims to reflect on tools, procedures and methodologies in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a new way of visualization, application and data collection towards accessing, understanding and safeguarding our historic built environment. The focus will be on two ongoing H2020 projects, INCEPTION and ROCK, selected to address the problem of CH digitisation and the access to the corresponding digitized resources in relation to historic buildings and urban districts. Therefore, they are presented as inspiring good practices for tackling this issue considering its impacts both at the architectural and urban scale. Stressing the potentials of enabling technologies, such as 3D laser surveys, environment and climate sensors, large crowd monitoring tools and CH analytic, they are also able to orient future research beyond 2020

The changing pattern of cohabitation: A sequence analysis approach

BACKGROUND During the last decades, nonmarital cohabitation has diffused throughout the industrialised world, although not uniformly. The Second Demographic Transition (SDT) predicts a convergence of cohabitation patterns towards a final stage in which cohabitation and marriage will be almost indistinguishable. OBJECTIVE This paper contributes to the literature on the convergence of cohabitation patterns across countries by testing whether countries are becoming more similar over time, as suggested by the SDT. METHODS We use sequence analysis and cluster analysis techniques to classify different patterns of cohabitation in France, Italy, Norway, Bulgaria, and the United States. Using data mainly stemming from the Gender and Generations Surveys (GGS), we analyse women's patterns of behaviour during the five years following the start of their first cohabitation, over a time span of three decades (1970s-2000s). RESULTS On the basis of sequencing the events of childbirth, marriage, and separation we are able to identify five different clusters corresponding to different ways of going through the cohabitation experience. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that there is a general decreasing trend of cohabitation as a premarital experience and an increasing trend of cohabitation as an alternative to marriage or as a free union. However, within this homogeneous trend, persistent peculiarities at the country level suggest that the selected countries are not simply at different stages of the same trajectory. CONTRIBUTION The classification that emerges from the data-driven approach combines several features of already existing typologies of cohabitation experience. Analysis of the data highlights country peculiarities in the development of the cohabitation experience, rather than the existence of a common path as predicted by the SDT

Antioxidant responses and NRF2 in synergistic developmental toxicity of PAHs in zebrafish

Author Posting. © The Authors, 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Oxford University Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Toxicological Sciences 109 (2009): 217-227, doi:10.1093/toxsci/kfp038.Early piscine life-stages are sensitive to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure, which can cause pericardial effusion and craniofacial malformations. We previously reported that certain combinations of PAHs cause synergistic developmental toxicity, as observed with co-exposure to the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) agonist β-naphthoflavone (BNF) and cytochrome P4501A inhibitor α-naphthoflavone (ANF). Herein, we hypothesized that oxidative stress is a component of this toxicity. We examined induction of antioxidant genes in zebrafish embryos (Danio rerio) exposed to BNF or ANF individually, a BNF+ANF combination, and a pro-oxidant positive control, tert-butylhydroperoxide (tBOOH). We measured total glutathione, and attempted to modulate deformities using the glutathione synthesis inhibitor buthionine sulfoxamine (BSO) and increase glutathione pools with N-acetyl cysteine (NAC). In addition, we used a morpholino to knockdown expression of the antioxidant response element transcription factor NRF2 to determine if this would alter gene expression or increase deformity severity. BNF+ANF co-exposure significantly increased expressions of superoxide dismutase1 and2, glutathione peroxidase 1, pi class glutathione-s-transferase, and glutamate cysteine-ligase to a greater extent than tBOOH, BNF, or ANF alone. BSO pretreatment decreased some glutathione levels, but did not worsen deformities, nor did NAC diminish toxicity. Knockdown of NRF2 increased mortality following tBOOH challenge, prevented significant upregulation of antioxidant genes following both tBOOH and BNF+ANF exposures, and exacerbated BNF+ANF‐related deformities. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that antioxidant responses are a component of PAH synergistic developmental toxicity, and that NRF2 is protective against prooxidant and PAH challenges during development.This work was supported by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciencessupported Duke University Superfund Basic Research Program (P42 ES10356), National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences‐supported Duke University Integrated Toxicology & Environmental Health Program (TS ES07031), United States Environmental Protection Agency STAR fellowship (to A.T.‐L.), Duke University RJR‐Leon Golberg Memorial Postdoctoral Training Program in Toxicology (to A.T.‐L.), and the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the J. Seward Johnson Fund and The Walter A. and Hope Noyes Smith Chair (to A.T‐L)

Chronostratigraphic study of the Grottaperfetta alluvial valley in the city of Rome (Italy): investigating possible interaction between sedimentary and tectonic processes

We carried out geomorphologic and geological investigations in a south-eastern tributary valley of the Tiber River in Rome, the Grottaperfetta valley, aimed to reconstruct its buried geometry. Since results of the geomorphologic study evidenced anomalies of the stream beds, we performed geoelectric and boreholes prospecting to check whether recent faulting, rather than an inherited structural control, possibly contributed to the evolution of the alluvial valley. Vertical offsets of the stratigraphic horizons across adjacent boreholes were evidenced within the Late Pleistocene-Holocene alluvium and its substratum. In order to rule out the effects of irregular geometry of the alluvial deposits, we focussed on sectors where vertical offsets affected all the stratigraphic horizons (alluvium and pre-Holocene substratum), showing an increasing displacement with depth. We identified a site where repeated displacements occur coupled with a lateral variation of soil resistivity, and we drilled an oblique borehole aimed to cross and sample the possible fault zone affecting the terrain. A 7 cm thick granular layer, inclined 50°÷70° on the horizontal, was recovered 5 m b.g., and it was interpreted as the filling material of a fracture. The convergence of the reported features with independent evidence from geoelectric and geomorphologic investigations leads to hypothesize the presence of a faulting zone within the Holocene alluvial terrains and to propose the excavation of a trench to verify this hypothesis

FORTI EFFETTI DI AMPLIFICAZIONE DEL MOTO IN ZONA DI FAGLIA DURANTE LA SEQUENZA SISMICA DEL 2009 IN ABRUZZO

Negli anni 1997-1998, durante la sequenza dell’Umbria-Marche, la stazione accelerometrica di Nocera Umbra superò ripetutamente, per terremoti di magnitudo > 5, il picco di accelerazione di 0.5 g. Tali valori furono i maggiori mai registrati in Italia, e apparvero subito inusuali per terremoti di faglia normale a magnitudo moderate. Una serie di studi del sito della stazione permise di attribuire l’ampiezza anomala a un forte effetto di amplificazione locale prodotto dalle variazioni verticali della velocità delle onde di taglio nella roccia danneggiata di una faglia sub-verticale in prossimità della stazione. Anche durante i terremoti della sequenza Aquilana si sono trovate evidenze di effetti analoghi. La stazione a banda larga FAGN, in prossimità della faglia di San Demetrio, ha mostrato una accentuata variabilità dell’ampiezza delle sue registrazioni, con valori che superano fino ad un fattore 10 le ampiezze delle stazioni vicine. Mediante un’analisi su 350 terremoti si è trovato che le massime amplificazioni avvengono per terremoti localizzati a sud-ovest della stazione, in posizione favorevole alla propagazione nella zona di faglia dalla sorgente al ricevitore. Utilizzando metodi sia analitici che numerici è stato possibile attribuire gli effetti osservati alle eterogeneità di una zona di faglia larga 300-400 m e profonda 3 km, approssimativamente, con una riduzione di velocità di circa il 30% rispetto alla roccia non deformata. Anche il forte impulso di spostamento di 40 cm picco-picco registrato durante la scossa principale a Castello d’Ocre da una stazione GPS (CADO) con campionamento a 10 Hz non trova giustificazione plausibile se non modellando un effetto di risonanza in prossimità dello strumento. In questo caso è possibile generare modelli che riproducano l’osservazione usando valori della larghezza della zona di faglia di qualche centinaio di metri con forti riduzioni della velocità delle onde di taglio rispetto ai blocchi rigidi adiacenti. Queste osservazioni confermano la potenziale pericolosità del territorio in prossimità delle zone di faglia, nonostante non siano emerse durante il terremoto dell’Aquila chiare evidenze di anomalie del danno persistenti lungo le faglie. Recenti studi in California sembrano mettere in luce l’estrema variabilità delle onde intrappolate nelle zone di faglia, per cui l’effetto appare sporadicamente sia per quanto riguarda le stazioni di registrazione lungo la faglia che per quanto riguarda le zone-sorgenti nella faglia capaci di generare onde intrappolate.PublishedPrato3.1. Fisica dei terremotiope

Performance of the diamond active target prototype for the PADME experiment at the DAΦ\PhiNE BTF

The PADME experiment at the DA$\Phi$NE Beam-Test Facility (BTF) is designed to search for the gauge boson of a new $\rm U(1)$ interaction in the process e$^+$e$^-\rightarrow\gamma$+$\rm A'$, using the intense positron beam hitting a light target. The $\rm A'$, usually referred as dark photon, is assumed to decay into invisible particles of a secluded sector and it can be observed by searching for an anomalous peak in the spectrum of the missing mass measured in events with a single photon in the final state. The measurement requires the determination of the 4-momentum of the recoil photon, performed by a homogeneous, highly segmented BGO crystals calorimeter. A significant improvement of the missing mass resolution is possible using an active target capable to determine the average position of the positron bunch with a resolution of less than 1 mm. This report presents the performance of a real size $\rm (2x2 cm^2)$ PADME active target made of a thin (50 $\mu$m) diamond sensor, with graphitic strips produced via laser irradiation on both sides. The measurements are based on data collected in a beam test at the BTF in November 2015.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figure