The coherence of Łukasiewicz assessments is NP-complete

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Wild bees in Southern Italy: impact of landscape management

ItGli impollinatori sono essenziali per il mantenimento degli ecosistemi, e i tre quarti delle principali colture alimentari del mondo necessitano dell'impollinazione animale per la produzione di frutti e semi. Negli ultimi decenni però stiamo assistendo ad un costante declino di questi importantissimi insetti in tutto il mondo, con un conseguente deficit nella produzione agricola. Se da un lato l'agricoltura è strettamente legata agli impollinatori, dall'altro è una delle cause del loro declino. Per questo motivo, in Italia, è nato il progetto "BeeNet", con lo scopo di valutare lo stato di salute degli ecosistemi agricoli italiani attraverso il monitoraggio delle api da miele e delle api selvatiche. In questo studio vengono presentati i dati del primo anno del progetto, 2021, sulle api selvatiche in due regioni meridionali (Campania e Puglia), comparando due ecosistemi agricoli diversi: uno intensivo e l'altro semi-naturale. Una volta al mese, da febbraio a ottobre, in entrambe le regioni ed entrambi gli ecosistemi, abbiamo campionato le api mediante un transetto (200 × 2 metri) percorso alla mattina e al pomeriggio. Inoltre, nelle stesse giornate abbiamo registrato tutte le specie botaniche mellifere presenti sul transetto. Le differenze riscontrate tra i due tipi di ecosistema indicano che l'agro-ecosistema intensivo ha in generale una biodiversità più bassa e una comunità di api più spostata verso specie generaliste. Questo risultato indica che l'uso di pratiche agricole più impattanti e l'omogeneità dell'ambiente influenzano fortemente, e negativamente, questi insetti e le piante spontanee di cui hanno bisogno per sopravvivere. Tuttavia, le differenze tra le ricchezze di specie e le abbondanze di specie tra i due tipi di ecosistema non sono risultate significative, e una possibile ragione di ciò potrebbe risiedere nell'irrigazione degli ecosistemi intensivi, che forse ha ridotto le differenze. È necessario quindi, in questi ambienti, attuare misure per la tutela degli impollinatori come richiesto dalla Comunità Europea, attraverso strategie mirate come ad esempio la nuova PAC 2023-2027.EnIn 2021, in two southern Italian regions (Campania and Puglia) we compared the biodiversity of both Apoidea and plants between intensive and semi-natural agro-ecosystems, aiming to evaluate the impacts of the agro-environment and agricultural practices on wild bees and spontaneous plant communities in southern Italy. Monthly, from February to October, we performed bee samplings (200 × 2 metres fixed transects) and botanical surveys in each site and region. We found no statistical differences between the two environments, probably because the two intensive agro-ecosystems were irrigated that year. However, the semi-natural agro-ecosystem was characterised by a higher biodiversity (bees and plants) and a higher rate of specialised bee species than the intensive agro-ecosystem, indicating that biodiversity benefits of agro-ecological practices and a more heterogeneous landscape

Plant-syrphid interactions in an urban farm matrix

Insect biodiversity is being lost at a staggering rate. One of the largest contributors of global insects declines is urban development and expansion (Maxwell et al., 2020). This is because natural and semi-natural landscapes are converted into areas dominated by built features and impervious ground cover, leading to habitat loss and degradation and ultimately, insect and pollinator extinction or replacement (McKinney, 2006). Urban agricultural sites are a growing component of cities to improve food security and reintroduce ‘green spaces’ that could potentially revitalise dull city centres that are otherwise depauperate in vegetation and biodiversity. However, it is still unclear how urban agriculture contributes to biodiversity and whether it beneficially impacts pollinator communities

Exploring the hidden riches: Recent remarkable faunistic records and range extensions in the bee fauna of Italy (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Anthophila)

The area sourrounding the Mediterranean basin is recognised as a major biodiversity hotspot for bees, and Italy is amongst the European countries with the highest bee species richness. Detailed knowledge of bee distribution is crucial for understanding bee biology and designing tailored conservation strategies, but is still insufficient in southern European countries, especially in Italy.We report recent finds of 48 bee species that yield significant novelties for the Italian bee fauna. Eight species, namely Andrena confinis Stöckhert, Anthidiellum breviusculum Pérez, Coelioxys alatus Foerster, Lasioglossum algericolellum Strand, Megachile lapponica Thomson, Megachile opacifrons Pérez, Megachile semicircularis auct. nec Zanden and Trachusa integra Eversmann are reported as new for Italy. In addition, Andrena binominata Smith, Andrena compta Lepeletier, Colletes acutus Pérez, Lasioglossum strictifrons Vachal, Rhodanthidium siculum Spinola and Rhodanthidium sticticum Fabricius are newly recorded from mainland Italy, Osmia heteracantha Pérez from Sardegna and Nomada flavopicta Kirby from Sicilia. We also report significant range extensions for other bee species and recent records of species that had long gone unrecorded in Italy. The combination of morphology and DNA barcoding provided reliable identifications even for the most challenging specimens. As several of our records come from areas neglected by bee experts in the past, this study stands out as a key indicator of a bee faunistic richness still awaiting discovery and hopefully it will stimulate the interest of taxonomists and stakeholders in pursuing bee research in Italy in the near future

Advanced Virgo Plus: Future Perspectives

While completing the commissioning phase to prepare the Virgo interferometer for the next joint Observation Run (O4), the Virgo collaboration is also finalizing the design of the next upgrades to the detector to be employed in the following Observation Run (O5). The major upgrade will concern decreasing the thermal noise limit, which will imply using very large test masses and increased laser beam size. But this will not be the only upgrade to be implemented in the break between the O4 and O5 observation runs to increase the Virgo detector strain sensitivity. The paper will cover the challenges linked to this upgrade and implications on the detector's reach and observational potential, reflecting the talk given at 12th Cosmic Ray International Seminar - CRIS 2022 held in September 2022 in Napoli

Virgo Detector Characterization and Data Quality during the O3 run

The Advanced Virgo detector has contributed with its data to the rapid growth of the number of detected gravitational-wave signals in the past few years, alongside the two LIGO instruments. First, during the last month of the Observation Run 2 (O2) in August 2017 (with, most notably, the compact binary mergers GW170814 and GW170817) and then during the full Observation Run 3 (O3): an 11 months data taking period, between April 2019 and March 2020, that led to the addition of about 80 events to the catalog of transient gravitational-wave sources maintained by LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA. These discoveries and the manifold exploitation of the detected waveforms require an accurate characterization of the quality of the data, such as continuous study and monitoring of the detector noise. These activities, collectively named {\em detector characterization} or {\em DetChar}, span the whole workflow of the Virgo data, from the instrument front-end to the final analysis. They are described in details in the following article, with a focus on the associated tools, the results achieved by the Virgo DetChar group during the O3 run and the main prospects for future data-taking periods with an improved detector.Comment: 86 pages, 33 figures. This paper has been divided into two articles which supercede it and have been posted to arXiv on October 2022. Please use these new preprints as references: arXiv:2210.15634 (tools and methods) and arXiv:2210.15633 (results from the O3 run

Virgo Detector Characterization and Data Quality: results from the O3 run

The Advanced Virgo detector has contributed with its data to the rapid growth of the number of detected gravitational-wave (GW) signals in the past few years, alongside the two Advanced LIGO instruments. First during the last month of the Observation Run 2 (O2) in August 2017 (with, most notably, the compact binary mergers GW170814 and GW170817), and then during the full Observation Run 3 (O3): an 11-months data taking period, between April 2019 and March 2020, that led to the addition of about 80 events to the catalog of transient GW sources maintained by LIGO, Virgo and now KAGRA. These discoveries and the manifold exploitation of the detected waveforms require an accurate characterization of the quality of the data, such as continuous study and monitoring of the detector noise sources. These activities, collectively named {\em detector characterization and data quality} or {\em DetChar}, span the whole workflow of the Virgo data, from the instrument front-end hardware to the final analyses. They are described in details in the following article, with a focus on the results achieved by the Virgo DetChar group during the O3 run. Concurrently, a companion article describes the tools that have been used by the Virgo DetChar group to perform this work.Comment: 57 pages, 18 figures. To be submitted to Class. and Quantum Grav. This is the "Results" part of preprint arXiv:2205.01555 [gr-qc] which has been split into two companion articles: one about the tools and methods, the other about the analyses of the O3 Virgo dat

The Advanced Virgo+ status

The gravitational wave detector Advanced Virgo+ is currently in the commissioning phase in view of the fourth Observing Run (O4). The major upgrades with respect to the Advanced Virgo configuration are the implementation of an additional recycling cavity, the Signal Recycling cavity (SRC), at the output of the interferometer to broaden the sensitivity band and the Frequency Dependent Squeezing (FDS) to reduce quantum noise at all frequencies. The main difference of the Advanced Virgo + detector with respect to the LIGO detectors is the presence of marginally stable recycling cavities, with respect to the stable recycling cavities present in the LIGO detectors, which increases the difficulties in controlling the interferometer in presence of defects (both thermal and cold defects). This work will focus on the interferometer commissioning, highlighting the control challenges to maintain the detector in the working point which maximizes the sensitivity and the duty cycle for scientific data taking

Virgo Detector Characterization and Data Quality: tools

Detector characterization and data quality studies -- collectively referred to as {\em DetChar} activities in this article -- are paramount to the scientific exploitation of the joint dataset collected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA global network of ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. They take place during each phase of the operation of the instruments (upgrade, tuning and optimization, data taking), are required at all steps of the dataflow (from data acquisition to the final list of GW events) and operate at various latencies (from near real-time to vet the public alerts to offline analyses). This work requires a wide set of tools which have been developed over the years to fulfill the requirements of the various DetChar studies: data access and bookkeeping; global monitoring of the instruments and of the different steps of the data processing; studies of the global properties of the noise at the detector outputs; identification and follow-up of noise peculiar features (whether they be transient or continuously present in the data); quick processing of the public alerts. The present article reviews all the tools used by the Virgo DetChar group during the third LIGO-Virgo Observation Run (O3, from April 2019 to March 2020), mainly to analyse the Virgo data acquired at EGO. Concurrently, a companion article focuses on the results achieved by the DetChar group during the O3 run using these tools.Comment: 44 pages, 16 figures. To be submitted to Class. and Quantum Grav. This is the "Tools" part of preprint arXiv:2205.01555 [gr-qc] which has been split into two companion articles: one about the tools and methods, the other about the analyses of the O3 Virgo dat

Supplement: "Localization and broadband follow-up of the gravitational-wave transient GW150914" (2016, ApJL, 826, L13)

This Supplement provides supporting material for Abbott et al. (2016a). We briefly summarize past electromagnetic (EM) follow-up efforts as well as the organization and policy of the current EM follow-up program. We compare the four probability sky maps produced for the gravitational-wave transient GW150914, and provide additional details of the EM follow-up observations that were performed in the different bands