NEW BIOSTRATIGRAPHIC AND LITHOLOGICAL DATA ON THE NEOGENE AND QUATERNARY OF THE LIVORNO AREA (TUSCANY, CENTRAL ITALY)

Lithofacies analyses and datings using calcareous nannofossils, proved to be an excellent opportunity to understand the palaeoenvironmental evolution of the area of the Tuscan coast, washed up by the Ligurian Sea. A multidisciplinary approach, through lithological and micropaleontological data, collected from fifteen boreholes and one outcrop, permitted the characterization of ten stratigraphic units in the subsurface of the Livorno area. The correlations of these units depicted a stratigraphic architecture chronologically constrained. This study detected early Pliocene (Zanclean) and early Pleistocene (Gelasian) marine deposits, referable to the outer neritic zone that were dated to the calcareous nannofossil biozones MNN13, MNN14-15 and MNN18. In addition, early Pleistocene (Calabrian) marine deposits, dated to the calcareous nannofossil biozones MNN19b, MNN19d, MNN19e, which may be attributed to different bathymetric depths on the basis of benthic foraminifers and ostracods, highlighted sea level changes. Finally, the areal distribution and the stratigraphic architecture of these units permitted the recognition and the better constraining of the sedimentary dynamics impacted by major eustatic and tectonic changes. &nbsp

Correlação do Escore de Oxford Modificado com as Medidas Perineométricas em Pacientes Incontinentes

Introdução: diversas técnicas foram propostas para avaliação da musculatura do assoalho pélvico, porém, nenhum método mostrou-se capaz de medir as duas funções desses músculos: elevação e força de compressão. Na rotina de avaliação clínica é comumente empregada a palpação vaginal e, especialmente, o escore de Oxford modificado; entretanto, alguns trabalhos questionam a sensibilidade da escala de Oxford e sua correlação com medidas objetivas de força de contração muscular.Objetivo: neste estudo, propõe-se correlacionar as variáveis medidas na perineometria com o escore de Oxford modificado.Métodos: foram incluídas no estudo 45 pacientes com incontinência urinária que procuraram o ambulatório de Uroginecologia do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre. As pacientes foram submetidas à palpação vaginal, realizada por uma fisioterapeuta treinada na escala de Oxford, e a medição da força de compressão da musculatura pélvica por meio de balonete conectado a transdutor de pressão. As duas avaliações foram realizadas no mesmo dia.  Resultados: encontrou-se correlação significativa (

Correlation between the modified oxford scale and perineometry measurements in incontinent patients

Introdução: Diversas técnicas foram propostas para avaliação da musculatura do assoalho pélvico, porém, nenhum método mostrou-se capaz de medir as duas funções desses músculos: elevação e força de compressão. Na rotina de avaliação clínica é comumente empregada a palpação vaginal e, especialmente, o escore de Oxford modificado; entretanto, alguns trabalhos questionam a sensibilidade da escala de Oxford e sua correlação com medidas objetivas de força de contração muscular. Objetivo: Neste estudo, propõe-se correlacionar as variáveis medidas na perineometria com o escore de Oxford modificado. Métodos: Foram incluídas no estudo 45 pacientes com incontinência urinária que procuraram o ambulatório de Uroginecologia do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre. As pacientes foram submetidas à palpação vaginal, realizada por uma fisioterapeuta treinada na escala de Oxford, e a medição da força de compressão da musculatura pélvica por meio de balonete conectado a transdutor de pressão. As duas avaliações foram realizadas no mesmo dia. Resultados: Encontrou-se correlação significativa (P <0,001) entre o escore de Oxford e as variáveis pressão máxima de contração e tempo de ativação muscular com coeficientes de Pearson de 0,69 e -0,532, respectivamente. Contudo, observa- se uma superposição entre as medidas perineométricas e do escore de Oxford entre categorias adjacentes. Conclusões: Os resultados mostram que apesar de estar incorporada a rotina clínica de avaliação, deve haver restrições quanto ao uso do escala de Oxford com propósitos científicos.Background: Several techniques have been proposed for the assessment of pelvic floor muscles; however, none of them were able to measure the two main functions of these muscles: lifting and compressive force. Vaginal palpation and especially the Modified Oxford Scale (MOS) are frequently used during routine clinical evaluation, but some studies have questioned the sensitivity of the MOS and its correlation with objective measurements of muscle contraction force. Aim: The objective of this study is to correlate perineometry measurements with the MOS. Methods: Forty-five patients with urinary incontinence treated at the Urogynecology Outpatient Clinic of Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre were included. The patients were submitted to vaginal palpation performed by a physical therapist trained in the MOS. The compression force of their pelvic muscles was measured by means of an air-filled ballonet connected to a pressure transducer. Both tests were carried out on the same day. Results: We found significant correlation (P <0.001) between the MOS and the variables maximum contraction pressure and muscular activation time with Pearson's coefficients of 0.69 and -0.532, respectively. However, we found overlapping results between the perineomtry measurements and the MOS scores in neighboring categories. Conclusions: These findings show that, although incorporated into routine clinical evaluation, there should be restrictions to the use of the MOS for scientific purposes

L’evento “Lago-Mare” del Messiniano superiore: studio sistematico, paleoecologico e biostratigrafico di ostracofaune dell’area mediterranea.

Nell’ambito di due progetti multidisciplinari sono state condotte analisi micropaleontologiche, geochimiche e ciclostratigrafiche su tre sezioni, dell’area mediterranea, che hanno permesso di giungere alle seguenti conclusioni: La Sezione di Migliarino è stata suddivisa in due intervalli: L'intervallo inferiore è stato riferibile alla fase evaporitica messiniana, l'analisi delle ostracofaune ha permesso di definire l'ambiente deposizione come ambiente marino litorale con caratteristiche stressanti. Le alternanze gesso/pelite, sono state interpretate come indicative di una ciclicità precessionale che controlla le oscillazioni climatiche caldo-umide. Sono stati riconosciuti 11 cicli nella sezione e 12 cicli nell’intervallo evaporitico toscano. E' stato fissato il tetto della deposizione evaporitica a 5.69 Ma. L'intervallo superiore è stato riferito relativo fase post-evaporitica, grazie al rinvenimento di un'associazione ad ostracodi costituita da Cyprideis agrigentina e dalla specie paratetidea Loxoconcha muelleri che ricade nella Zona a Loxocorniculina djafarovi (Carbonnel, 1978) ed è indicativa dell'intervallo di “lago-mare”. La stessa associazione permette di riferire il paleoambiente deposizionale ad un ambiente continentale con acque mesoaline poco profonde. E' da sottolineare che viene individuata, a Cava Migliarino, la prima comparsa delle biofacies paratetidee post-evaporitiche nell'area mediterranea. In questo intervallo superiore non è stato possibile il riconoscimento di una periodicità. Nella Sezione di Cava Serredi sono stati riconosciuti quattro intervalli stratigrafici principali: Per quanto concerne l'intervallo inferiore la scarsità delle associazioni microfaunistiche, fanno supporre un ambiente poco ossigenato. L'ostracofauna (associazione a Candona e Cyprideis) e la tipologia di sedimentazione, frequenti laminiti, sono indicativi di un ambiente lacustre con profondità limitate. I caratteri sedimentoogici, paleontologici e stratigrafici, rilevati nell' Intervallo medio, indicano un ambiente continentale di acque basse, interessato da frequenti apporti terrigeni. Nell' Intervallo superiore della porzione messiniana la deposizione, come dimostrato dall'analisi condotta sulle associazioni ad ostracodi, avviene in ambiente continentale, con acque basse a salinità compresa fra l'oligoalino-mesoalino, soggetto a periodici eventi di emersione (“paleosuoli”). Lo studio delle ostracofaune mostra delle variazioni qualitative e quantitative delle associazioni, determinate da oscillazioni batimetriche e da cambiamenti dei parametri chimici delle acque, che hanno permesso di riconoscere 19 intervalli. Le analisi geochimiche, effettuate per Mg e Sr, hanno mostrato, nei vari grafici, una distribuzione circoscritta dei valori e un probabile mixing fra acque dolci e mesoaline. Inoltre sembra escluso un qualsiasi contatto con acque marine. L'intervallo pliocenico è caratterizzato da associazioni microfaunistiche indicative di un ambiente marino riferibile alla zona neritica. Il passaggio al Pliocene è rapido, ed avviene in ambiente sempre sommerso (“acqua su acqua”). Le curve di variazione dei record climatici e quelle relative di frequenza dei records fossili, hanno permesso di riconoscere 14 cicli della precessione nei depositi d lago-mare espressi nella sezione di Cava Serredi. Per quanto riguarda la Sezione di Cuevas del Almanzora sono stati riconosciuti tre intervalli caratterizzati da un diverso contenuto microfaunistico. Procedendo dalla base della sezione verso l’alto, incontriamo un primo intervallo compreso fra 0 e 4,40 m nel quale l’ostracofauna è rappresentata da specie ad affinità paratetidea indicative dell’intervallo di “Lago-Mare” del Messiniano terminale. Questo permette di riferire la parte bassa della sezione alla Zona a L. djafarovi (Carbonnel, 1978). L'analisi, qualitativa e quantitativa delle associazioni ha permesso di riferire tale intervallo ad un ambiente continentale con acque basse ipoaline. L’intervallo intermedio, transizionale, che si estende da 4,50 m a 5,45 m, è caratterizzato dall’associazione di specie marine e a cui si associano esemplari del genere Cyprideis. Nell'intervallo superiore, e fino al tetto della sezione, le associazioni ad ostracodi indicano un ambiente francamente marino e rappresentato da specie di acque profonde (batiale). Considerando le diverse profondità degli ambienti pliocenici individuati a Cava Serredi e nella sezione di Sezione di Cuevas del Almanzora, sembra verosimile ipotizzare che durante il Messiniano terminale si siano impostati diversi bacini endoreici posti a quote differenti. Per quanto riguarda l’analisi sistematica, effettuata sui campioni delle tre sezioni studiate, sono state determinate 59 specie alcune delle quali mai segnalate in letteratura

Ostracods in archaeological sites along the Mediterranean coastlines: three case studies from the Italian peninsula

Ancient harbour basins, lagoons and coastal lake sediments buried beneath the Mediterranean delta plains can be considered as long-term archives of anthropogenic impacts. The benefits of a micropalaeontological approach in studying archaeological sites located in marginal marine environments are that the archaeologically biased picture can be strongly enriched by detailed palaeolandscapes information. In marginal marine environments, ostracods are known to be excellent indicators because: (1) many species have a well-known tolerance to salinity variations; (2) the analysis of population structure provides good indications about the autochthony of the assemblage; and (3) they react to even subtle environmental changes, both natural and anthropogenically forced, in terms of densities, distribution of selected species and phenotypic traits. Examples of ostracod studies will focus on three site typologies: buried landlocked harbours, fluvial harbours and coastal lagoons/lakes. In those studies, the use of different but complementary approaches (archaeology v. micropalaeontology) allowed the reconstruction of diachronic landscapes, linking the natural evolution of coastal and alluvial plains to regional population and settlement dynamics

Fourier optics approaches to enhanced depth-of-field applications in millimetre-wave imaging and microscopy

In the first part of this thesis millimetre-wave interferometric imagers are considered for short-range applications such as concealed weapons detection. Compared to real aperture systems, synthetic aperture imagers at these wavelengths can provide improvements in terms of size, cost, depth-of-field (DoF) and imaging flexibility via digitalrefocusing. Mechanical scanning between the scene and the array is investigated to reduce the number of antennas and correlators which drive the cost of such imagers. The tradeoffs associated with this hardware reduction are assessed before to jointly optimise the array configuration and scanning motion. To that end, a novel metric is proposed to quantify the uniformity of the Fourier domain coverage of the array and is maximised with a genetic algorithm. The resulting array demonstrates clear improvements in imaging performances compared to a conventional power-law Y-shaped array. The DoF of antenna arrays, analysed via the Strehl ratio, is shown to be limited even for infinitely small antennas, with the exception of circular arrays. In the second part of this thesis increased DoF in optical systems with Wavefront Coding (WC) is studied. Images obtained with WC are shown to exhibit artifacts that limit the benefits of this technique. An image restoration procedure employing a metric of defocus is proposed to remove these artifacts and therefore extend the DoF beyond the limit of conventional WC systems. A transmission optical microscope was designed and implemented to operate with WC. After suppression of partial coherence effects, the proposed image restoration method was successfully applied and extended DoF images are presented.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The late Messinian “Lago-Mare” event and the Zanclean Reflooding in the Mediterranean Sea: New insights from the Cuevas del Almanzora section (Vera Basin, South-Eastern Spain)

International audienc

An integrated methodology to define Protection Zones for groundwaterbased drinking water sources: an example from the Tuscany Region, Italy

Water is an essential economic and social resource. It is also finite and vulnerable. For Europe, this generally accepted understanding has been translated into the European and National Directive (2000/60/EC, D.Lgs. 152/2006). This law has led to an increased awareness of the role of the resource and its importance in the socioeconomic, cultural, and political realms. To protect this resource, safeguard zones for drinking water sources must be delineated. In Italy, a drinking water source such as a well or spring is to be protected by means of a three-level safeguard zone: an absolute safety zone close to the source, a respect zone depending on groundwater travel time, and a Protection Zone. The aim of this paper is to describe an integrated methodology used to define the Protection Zone. The work, developed within the framework of a project of the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources (IGG-CNR) and funded by the Tuscany Region Administration through “Consorzio Lamma”, focused on the delineation of the Protection Zones for several abstraction points located throughout the regional territory. The proposed methodology for protecting drinking water sources described in this paper integrates geological, hydrogeological, and hydrogeochemical methodologies. The approach includes a definition of the hydrostratigraphy of the aquifer systems, estimates of the water volume, and the quantification of inflows and outflows, as well their interrelationships. By means of this integrated methodology, fifteen Protection Zones were defined; each of these zones was divided in two areas according to their relative importance to supplying a drinking water source. The Protection Zones were further validated by means of hydrogeological and isotopic budget calculations

How can stratigraphy contribute to conservation paleobiology? Insights from a mid-Holocene to present-day transitional system of the Po coastal plain (N Italy)

International audienceThe definition of reference conditions has a major role for the understanding of the present-day and paleoecological quality status on transitional environments. The estuarine quality paradox and the paucity of unimpacted sites make the definition of reference conditions a challenging task. In this context, the integration of biological indicators with stratigraphic data is essential, as the vertical stacking pattern of facies composing the shallow subsurface of modern coastal plains reflects changes in physical-chemical parameters which, in turn, affect (paleo-)biotic communities. In the Po coastal plain (N Italy), the mid to late Holocene back-barrier succession of the Mezzano Lowland and the adjacent present-day Bellocchio Lagoon offer a unique example of pristine paralic system for comparing reference conditions defined in fossil and modern settings, respectively. Benthic foraminifers and ostracods from the Mezzano succession allowed us to investigate vertical (i.e., temporal) and lateral (i.e., spatial) changes in (paleo-)environmental conditions, in analogy to the lateral variations recorded at the Bellocchio Lagoon. Both sites present subtidal channel sands almost barren in autochthonous meiofauna and fine-grained lagoon sediments with abundant benthic foraminifers and ostracods mostly represented by euryhaline taxa recording the highest diversity. Intertidal muddy deposits are also recorded, including mud flat clays with abundant oligotypic assemblages dominated by highly-confined benthic foraminifers. In the present study, we demonstrate that changes in modern benthic foraminifer assemblages diversity and composition often interpreted as perturbations of ecological conditions in response to anthropogenic pressures also occur under natural state, as confirmed by paleoenvironmental conditions recorded by ostracods. This reflects the effects of authogenic processes at short time and geographic scales