Sustainability actions in Mediterranean Countries through cooperation partnership: the case of the project PAMLED

In the recent years the involvement of the third countries in achieving the environmental Policy objectives set up by the European Union are becoming more and more important. Several Programs of cooperation co-fund activities and actions to improve the state of the Environment of third Mediterranean partners in order to achieve a global improvement of the environment. This paper aims to present the results of the project PAMLED co-funded by the Med-Pact Programme of the EU. The project will complete its course at the end of April and it aims to develop and strengthen the capabilities of three Mediterranean cities (City of Marrakech - Morocco, Sin El Fil – Lebanon and Bodrum -Turkey) in managing and promoting their local sustainable development, as well as implementing innovative different action fields. The strengthening of the capabilities of these Mediterranean partners was mainly based on the ‘collective learning’, achieved by the constitution of a partnerships with five European partners (Municipalities of: Prato, Lucca, Brtonigla, Rio Marina and Skopje). Needs and priorities of each Mediterranean partner were identified and pilot actions were specifically elaborated in order to promote the sustainable development and the exploitation of local resources, with particular respect to environmental protection, the enhancement of local tangible and intangible assets, economic support and an overall sustainable development The paper will show the outputs of several pilot actions carried out in the three Mediterranean cities involved. The Municipality of Bodrum carried out innovative pilot actions in the field of urban waste management; Sin El Fil developed a pilot project titled “Youth development plan”, while the City of Marrakech carried out a pilot project aimed at sensitizing the local communities and the actors of the touristic sector (e.g. hotels, hammams) on the importance to reduce water consumption.

Study of RPC gas mixtures for the ARGO-YBJ experiment

The ARGO-YBJ experiment consists of a RPC carpet to be operated at the Yangbajing laboratory (Tibet, P.R. China), 4300 m a.s.l., and devoted to the detection of showers initiated by photon primaries in the energy range 100 GeV - 20 TeV. The measurement technique, namely the timing on the shower front with a few tens of particles, requires RPC operation with 1 ns time resolution, low strip multiplicity, high efficiency and low single counting rate. We have tested RPCs with many gas mixtures, at sea level, in order to optimize these parameters. The results of this study are reported.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. To be published in Nucl. Instr. Meth. A, talk given at the "5th International Workshop on RPCs and Related Detectors", Bari (Italy) 199

Thymus and Bursal Ribosomes in the Developing Chicken

Abstract The ultracentrifugal analysis of thymus and bursal ribosomes in the developing chicken shows single ribosomes, dimers and polysomes in both organs. This pattern does not change until 60 days after hatching. On the 100th day the thymus ribosomes remain unchanged whereas the bursal pattern shows only trace amounts of monomers and dimers. Possible relationships between the ribosomal patterns and the functions of the two organs have been discussed

Model-following control for an oblique-wing aircraft

A variable-skew oblique wing offers a substantial aerodynamic performance advantage for aircraft missions that require both high efficiency in subsonic flight and supersonic dash or cruise. The most obvious characteristic of the oblique-wing concept is the asymmetry associated with wing-skew angle which results in significant aerodynamic and inertial cross-coupling between the aircraft longitudinal and lateral-directional axes. A technique for synthesizing a decoupling controller while providing the desired stability augmentation. The proposed synthesis procedure uses the cncept of explicit model following. Linear quadratic optimization techniques are used to design the linear feedback system. The effectiveness of the control laws developed in achieving the desired decoupling is illustrated for a given flight condition by application to linearized equations of motion, and also to the nonlinear equations of six degrees of freedom of motion with nonlinear aerodynamic data

Unraveling the Effect of Carbon Nanotube Oxidation on Solid-State Decomposition of Ammonia Borane/Carbon Nanotube Composites

Among the routes to perform hydrogen release from ammonia in solid state, the nanoconfinement into a carbonaceous matrix or the use of carbon-supported catalysts for the thermal degradation of ammonia borane (AB) is the most interesting one. Oxidized carbon nanotubes (CNTs) represent a suitable choice for preparing AB mixtures or for anchoring catalysts for dehydrogenation. Nevertheless, literature lacks detailed study about the influence of CNT oxidation degree on the AB degradation/hydrogen release. In this study, we first described in a comprehensive way that the thermal degradation of AB mixed with CNTs by varying the CNT oxidation degree enlightens the degradative routes mainly active in each case. Using highly oxidized CNTs, we observed a decrement of activation energy of the degradative process up to around 53% and the activation/suppression of different pathways based on the amount of oxygen functionalities present in the mixtures. Furthermore, the presence of oxidized CNTs modulated the solid-state reactivity of AB reducing the release of nitrogen/boron species together with hydrogen. These findings lead the way for the design of new hydrogen storage materials

DefSLAM: Tracking and Mapping of Deforming Scenes from Monocular Sequences

Monocular simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms perform robustly when observing rigid scenes; however, they fail when the observed scene deforms, for example, in medical endoscopy applications. In this article, we present DefSLAM, the first monocular SLAM capable of operating in deforming scenes in real time. Our approach intertwines Shape-from-Template (SfT) and Non-Rigid Structure-from-Motion (NRSfM) techniques to deal with the exploratory sequences typical of SLAM. A deformation tracking thread recovers the pose of the camera and the deformation of the observed map, at frame rate, by means of SfT processing a template that models the scene shape-at-rest. A deformation mapping thread runs in parallel with the tracking to update the template, at keyframe rate, by means of an isometric NRSfM processing a batch of full perspective keyframes. In our experiments, DefSLAM processes close-up sequences of deforming scenes, both in a laboratory-controlled experiment and in medical endoscopy sequences, producing accurate 3-D models of the scene with respect to the moving camera

Metastatic Uterine Leiomyosarcoma in the Upper Buccal Gingiva Misdiagnosed as an Epulis

Uterine leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is a rare tumor constituting 1% of all uterine malignancies. This sarcoma demonstrates an aggressive growth pattern with an high rate of recurrence with hematologic dissemination; the most common sites are lung, liver, and peritoneal cavity, head and neck district being rarely interested. Only other four cases of metastasis in the oral cavity have been previously described. The treatment of choice is surgery and the use of adjuvant chemotherapy and radiation has limited impact on clinical outcome. In case of metastases, surgical excision can be performed considering extent of disease, number and type of distant lesions, disease free interval from the initial diagnosis to the time of metastases, and expected life span. We illustrate a case of uterine LMS metastasis in the upper buccal gingiva that occurred during chemotherapy in a 63-year-old woman that underwent a total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy for a diagnosis of LMS staged as pT2bN0 and that developed lung metastases eight months after primary treatment. Surgical excision of the oral mass (previously misdiagnosed as epulis at a dental center) and contemporary reconstruction with pedicled temporalis muscle flap was performed in order to improve quality of life. Even if resection was achieved in free margins, "local" relapse was observed 5 months after surgery

Seasonal cycle of benthic denitrification and DNRA in the aphotic coastal zone, northern Baltic Sea

Current knowledge on the seasonality of benthic nitrate reduction pathways in the aphotic, density stratified coastal zone of the Baltic Sea is largely based on data from muddy sediments, neglecting the potential contribution of sandy sediments. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of seasonality in this part of the Baltic Sea coast, we measured rates of benthic denitrification, anammox and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) monthly in the ice-free period of 2016 in both sandy and muddy aphotic sediments, northwestern Gulf of Finland. No anammox was observed. The seasonal cycle of denitrification in both sediment types was related to the hydrography-driven development of bottom water temperature. The seasonal cycle of DNRA was less clear and likely connected to a combination of bottom water temperature, carbon to nitrogen ratio, and substrate competition with denitrification. Denitrification and DNRA rates were 50-80 and 20% lower in the sandy than in the muddy sediment. The share of DNRA in total nitrate reduction, however, was higher in the sandy than in the muddy sediment, being (by similar to 50%) the highest DNRA share in sandy sediments so far measured. Our data add to the small pool of published studies showing significant DNRA in both cold and/or sandy sediments and suggest that DNRA is currently underestimated in the Baltic coastal nitrogen filter. Our results furthermore emphasize that the various environmental conditions of a coastal habitat (light regime, hydrography, and geomorphology) affect biogeochemical element cycling and thus need to be considered in data interpretation.Peer reviewe