How do research intensive systems emerge in less developed areas? The case of mechatronics in the Italian southern region Apulia

Regional innovation systems (RISs) are increasingly emerging in less developed areas. Based on the case study of the mechatronic cluster in the Italian southern region, Apulia, this paper analyses how institutions have managed to promote the establishment of a RIS in disadvantaged areas. Through a longitudinal analysis over more than half a century, the Apulian case study shows that the creation of this RIS in less developed areas is the result of a dynamic process characterised by a multi-level governance, initially promoted by the central government through a top-down logic, and then integrated by action of local actors through a bottom-up approach. A key role is played by the regionalisation of innovation policies and by the strategic action of regional public institutions to promote the interaction among enterprises and universities. Our analysis highlights that several ingredients should simultaneously occur for a regional innovation policy to be effective. Any regional innovation strategy significantly lacking one of these core pre-conditions and ingredients is risky. Policy-makers should carefully study the opportunities and challenges arising from local contexts before embarking in ambitious place-based innovation strategies

The SUCCESSO-TERRA project: A lesson of sustainability from the terramare culture, middle bronze age of the po plain (Northern Italy)

This backstory article deals with the SUCCESSO-TERRA Project (2017–2020), an interdisciplinary research program aiming at reconstructing the land-use transformations that occurred during the development of the Terramare culture in the southern-central Po Plain of Northern Italy. Topics include climate-environment changes, human impact and exploitation of natural resources that are interconnected topics in human ecology and environmental sciences. These topics can only be understood in a long-term perspective integrating archaeology, geology, botany and other sciences. The text includes the theoretical basis, the research strategy and the main methodological approaches given by geoarchaeology and palynology, the two research sides constituting the partnership of the project

Bactericidal Action of Photogenerated Singlet Oxygen from Photosensitizers Used in Plaque Disclosing Agents

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been suggested as an efficient clinical approach for the treatment of dental plaque in the field of dental care. In PDT, once the photosensitizer is irradiated with light of a specific wavelength, it transfers the excitation energy to molecular oxygen, which gives rise to singlet oxygen., a major causative pathogen of caries, followed by erythrosine and phloxine, both of which showed activity similar to each other. One of the reasons for the discrepancy between the singlet oxygen generating ability and bactericidal activity was the incorporation efficiency of the photosensitizers into the bacterial cells. The incorporation rate of rose bengal was the highest among the three photosensitizers examined in the present study, likely leading to the highest bactericidal activity. Meanwhile, the addition of L-histidine, a singlet oxygen quencher, cancelled the bactericidal activity of any of the three photoactivated photosensitizers, proving that singlet oxygen was responsible for the bactericidal action.It is strongly suggested that rose bengal is a suitable photosensitizer for the plaque disclosing agents as compared to the other two photosensitizers, phloxine and erythrosine, when used for PDT

MEDLEM database, a data collection on large elasmobranchs in the Mediterranean and Black Seas

The Mediterranean Large Elasmobranchs Monitoring (MEDLEM) database contains more than 3,000 records (with more than 4,000 individuals) of large elasmobranch species from 21 different countries around the Mediterranean and Black seas, observed from 1666 to 2017. The principal species included in the archive are the devil ray (1,868 individuals), the basking shark (935 individuals), the blue shark (622 individuals), and the great white shark (342 individuals). In the last decades, other species such as the thresher shark (187 individuals), the shortfin mako (180 individuals), and the spiny butterfly ray (138) were reported with increasing frequency. This was possibly due to increased public awareness on the conservation status of sharks, and the consequent development of new monitoring programs. MEDLEM does not have homogeneous reporting coverage throughout the Mediterranean and Black seas and it should be considered as a database of observed species presence. Scientific monitoring efforts in the south-eastern Mediterranean and Black seas are generally lower than in the northern sectors and the absence of some species in our database does not imply their actual absence in these regions. However, the available data allowed us to analyse the frequency and spatial distribution of records, the size frequencies for a few selected the available data allowed us to analyse the frequency and spatial distribution of records, the size frequencies for a few selected species, the overall area coverage, and which species are involved as bycatch by different fishing gears

The Eurasian Modern Pollen Database (EMPD), version 2

The Eurasian (nee European) Modern Pollen Database (EMPD) was established in 2013 to provide a public database of high-quality modern pollen surface samples to help support studies of past climate, land cover, and land use using fossil pollen. The EMPD is part of, and complementary to, the European Pollen Database (EPD) which contains data on fossil pollen found in Late Quaternary sedimentary archives throughout the Eurasian region. The EPD is in turn part of the rapidly growing Neotoma database, which is now the primary home for global palaeoecological data. This paper describes version 2 of the EMPD in which the number of samples held in the database has been increased by 60% from 4826 to 8134. Much of the improvement in data coverage has come from northern Asia, and the database has consequently been renamed the Eurasian Modern Pollen Database to reflect this geographical enlargement. The EMPD can be viewed online using a dedicated map-based viewer at https://empd2.github.io and downloaded in a variety of file formats at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.909130 (Chevalier et al., 2019).Peer reviewe