Go East? Il perno asiatico degli equilibri mondiali come dilemma per l’Alleanza Atlantica

L’ascesa della Repubblica Popolare Cinese ha indotto gli Stati Uniti ad un ripensamento dei propri obiettivi e priorità strategiche, tra cui particolare rilievo ha assunto il riorientamento del baricentro della loro politica estera verso il quadrante Indo-pacifico. Nonostante alcuni Stati europei della Nato stiano iniziando a tributare maggior interesse alle dinamiche di sicurezza dell’area, le priorità strategiche dell’Alleanza Atlantica rimangono profondamente ancorate in Europa, lungo quel fianco est su cui si affaccia la Federazione Russa e quel fianco sud esposto all’ormai decennale instabilità degli Stati nord-africani. Il mutamento in corso, tuttavia, impone alla Nato di interrogarsi sul proprio futuro e sul dilemma strategico cui esso si trova intimamente legato: continuare ad essere un’alleanza con un raggio d’azione poco più che regionale oppure trasformarsi in un attore compiutamente globale che si confronta con il revisionismo cinese, ovvero con la grande sfida strategica del XXI secolo

An application of data-driven analysis in road tunnels monitoring

In order to comply with the minimum safety requirements imposed by the Directive 2004/54/EC it is of paramount mportance to correctly manage the operation and maintenance of road tunnels. This research describes how Artificial Intelligence techniques can play a supportive role both for maintenance operators in monitoring tunnels and for safety managers in operation. It is possible to extract relevant information from large volumes of data from sensor equipment in an efficient, fast, dynamic and adaptive way and make it immediately usable by those who manage machinery and servicesto aid quick decisions. Carrying out an analysis based on sensors in motorway tunnels, represents an important technological innovation, which would simplify tunnels management activities and therefore the detection of any possible deterioration, while keeping the risk within tolerance limits. The idea involves the creation of an algorithm for the detection of faults by acquiring data in real time from the sensors of tunnel sub-systems and using them to help identify the service state of the tunnel. The AI models are trained on a period of 6 months with one hour time series granularity measured on a road tunnel part of the Italian motorway systems. The verification has been done with reference to a number of recorded sensor faults

Gastroenteritis Outbreak at Holiday Resort, Central Italy

Gastroenteritis Outbreak at Holiday Resort, Central Ital

Default Mode Network Structural Integrity and Cerebellar Connectivity Predict Information Processing Speed Deficit in Multiple Sclerosis

Cognitive impairment affects about 50% of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, but the mechanisms underlying this remain unclear. The default mode network (DMN) has been linked with cognition, but in MS its role is still poorly understood. Moreover, within an extended DMN network including the cerebellum (CBL-DMN), the contribution of cortico-cerebellar connectivity to MS cognitive performance remains unexplored. The present study investigated associations of DMN and CBL-DMN structural connectivity with cognitive processing speed in MS, in both cognitively impaired (CIMS) and cognitively preserved (CPMS) MS patients. 68 MS patients and 22 healthy controls (HCs) completed a symbol digit modalities test (SDMT) and had 3T brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans that included a diffusion weighted imaging protocol. DMN and CBL-DMN tracts were reconstructed with probabilistic tractography. These networks (DMN and CBL-DMN) and the cortico-cerebellar tracts alone were modeled using a graph theoretical approach with fractional anisotropy (FA) as the weighting factor. Brain parenchymal fraction (BPF) was also calculated. In CIMS SDMT scores strongly correlated with the FA-weighted global efficiency (GE) of the network [GE(CBL-DMN): ρ = 0.87, R2 = 0.76, p < 0.001; GE(DMN): ρ = 0.82, R2 = 0.67, p < 0.001; GE(CBL): ρ = 0.80, R2 = 0.64, p < 0.001]. In CPMS the correlation between these measures was significantly lower [GE(CBL-DMN): ρ = 0.51, R2 = 0.26, p < 0.001; GE(DMN): ρ = 0.48, R2 = 0.23, p = 0.001; GE(CBL): ρ = 0.52, R2 = 0.27, p < 0.001] and SDMT scores correlated most with BPF (ρ = 0.57, R2 = 0.33, p < 0.001). In a multivariable regression model where SDMT was the independent variable, FA-weighted GE was the only significant explanatory variable in CIMS, while in CPMS BPF and expanded disability status scale were significant. No significant correlation was found in HC between SDMT scores, MRI or network measures. DMN structural GE is related to cognitive performance in MS, and results of CBL-DMN suggest that the cerebellum structural connectivity to the DMN plays an important role in information processing speed decline

A chemical survey of exoplanets with ARIEL

Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25–7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10–100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN, H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed – using conservative estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant noise sources in the measurement – using a list of potential ARIEL targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL – in line with the stated mission objectives – will be able to observe about 1000 exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Planck intermediate results XXIV : Constraints on variations in fundamental constants

Any variation in the fundamental physical constants, more particularly in the fine structure constant, a, or in the mass of the electron, me, affects the recombination history of the Universe and cause an imprint on the cosmic microwave background angular power spectra. We show that the Planck data allow one to improve the constraint on the time variation of the fine structure constant at redshift z - 10(3) by about a factor of 5 compared to WMAP data, as well as to break the degeneracy with the Hubble constant, H-0. In addition to a, we can set a constraint on the variation in the mass of the electron, me, and in the simultaneous variation of the two constants. We examine in detail the degeneracies between fundamental constants and the cosmological parameters, in order to compare the limits obtained from Planck and WMAP and to determine the constraining power gained by including other cosmological probes. We conclude that independent time variations of the fine structure constant and of the mass of the electron are constrained by Planck to Delta alpha/alpha = (3.6 +/- 3.7) x 10(-3) and Delta m(e)/m(e) = (4 +/- 11) x 10(-3) at the 68% confidence level. We also investigate the possibility of a spatial variation of the fine structure constant. The relative amplitude of a dipolar spatial variation in a (corresponding to a gradient across our Hubble volume) is constrained to be delta alpha/alpha = (-2.4 +/- 3.7) x 10(-2).Peer reviewe

Assessment of listing and categorisation of animal diseases within the framework of the Animal Health Law (Regulation (EU) No 2016/429): bluetongue

A specific concept of strain was developed in order to classify the BTV serotypes ever reported in Europe based on their properties of animal health impact: the genotype, morbidity, mortality, speed of spread, period and geographical area of occurrence were considered as classification parameters. According to this methodology the strain groups identified were (i) the BTV strains belonging to serotypes BTV-1–24, (ii) some strains of serotypes BTV-16 and (iii) small ruminant-adapted strains belonging to serotypes BTV-25, -27, -30. Those strain groups were assessed according to the criteria of the Animal Health Law (AHL), in particular criteria of Article 7, Article 5 on the eligibility of bluetongue to be listed, Article 9 for the categorisation according to disease prevention and control rules as in Annex IV and Article 8 on the list of animal species related to bluetongue. The assessment has been performed following a methodology composed of information collection, expert judgement at individual and collective level. The output is composed of the categorical answer, and for the questions where no consensus was reached, the different supporting views are reported. The strain group BTV (1–24) can be considered eligible to be listed for Union intervention as laid down in Article 5(3) of the AHL, while the strain group BTV-25–30 and BTV-16 cannot. The strain group BTV-1–24 meets the criteria as in Sections 2 and 5 of Annex IV of the AHL, for the application of the disease prevention and control rules referred to in points (b) and (e) of Article 9(1) of the AHL. The animal species that can be considered to be listed for BTV-1–24 according to Article 8(3) are several species of Bovidae, Cervidae and Camelidae as susceptible species; domestic cattle, sheep and red deer as reservoir hosts, midges insect of genus Culicoides spp. as vector species

Planck intermediate results XIV : Dust emission at millimetre wavelengths in the Galactic plane

Peer reviewe

Planck Intermediate Results. XXXVI. Optical identification and redshifts of Planck SZ sources with telescopes at the Canary Islands Observatories

We present the results of approximately three years of observations of Planck Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) sources with telescopes at the Canary Islands observatories as part of the general optical follow-up programme undertaken by the Planck collaboration. In total, 78 SZ sources are discussed. Deep-imaging observations were obtained for most of these sources; spectroscopic observations in either in long-slit or multi-object modes were obtained for many. We effectively used 37.5 clear nights. We found optical counterparts for 73 of the 78 candidates. This sample includes 53 spectroscopic redshift determinations, 20 of them obtained with a multi-object spectroscopic mode. The sample contains new redshifts for 27 Planck clusters that were not included in the first Planck SZ source catalogue (PSZ1).Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in A&