Geology and wines of Pachino - Portopalo area : preliminary outlines

This research, still in a developmental phase, analyses geological peculiarities and the relation- ships between them and the vineyards typical to the Pachino-Portopalo area. The actual knowledge does not yet allow the drawing of tourist routes from which a geo-tourist would be able to join together Geosites and Oenosites. This will be one of the main topics of future research, oriented to produce substantial contributions to the sustainable development of this area.peer-reviewe

Optical and plasmonic properties of twisted bilayer graphene: Impact of interlayer tunneling asymmetry and ground-state charge inhomogeneity

We present a theoretical study of the local optical conductivity, plasmon spectra, and thermoelectric properties of twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) at different filling factors and twist angles $\theta$. Our calculations are based on the electronic band structures obtained from a continuum model that has two tunable parameters, $u_0$ and $u_1$, which parametrize the intra-sublattice inter-layer and inter-sublattice inter-layer tunneling rate, respectively. In this Article we focus on two key aspects: i) we study the dependence of our results on the value of $u_0$, exploring the whole range $0\leq u_0\leq u_1$; ii) we take into account effects arising from the intrinsic charge density inhomogeneity present in TBG, by calculating the band structures within the self-consistent Hartree approximation. At zero filling factor, i.e. at the charge neutrality point, the optical conductivity is quite sensitive to the value of $u_0$ and twist angle, whereas the charge inhomogeneity brings about only modest corrections. On the other hand, away from zero filling, static screening dominates and the optical conductivity is appreciably affected by the charge inhomogeneity, the largest effects being seen on the intra-band contribution to it. These findings are also reflected by the plasmonic spectra. We compare our results with existing ones in the literature, where effects i) and ii) above have not been studied systematically. As natural byproducts of our calculations, we obtain the Drude weight and Seebeck coefficient. The former displays an enhanced particle-hole asymmetry stemming from the inhomogeneous ground-state charge distribution. The latter is shown to display a broad sign-changing feature even at low temperatures ($\approx 5~{\rm K}$) due to the reduced slope of the bands, as compared to those of single-layer graphene.Comment: 28 pages, 16 figures, 6 appendice

On the input/output behavior of argumentation frameworks

This paper tackles the fundamental questions arising when looking at argumentation frameworks as interacting components, characterized by an Input/Output behavior, rather than as isolated monolithical entities. This modeling stance arises naturally in some application contexts, like multi-agent systems, but, more importantly, has a crucial impact on several general application-independent issues, like argumentation dynamics, argument summarization and explanation, incremental computation, and inter-formalism translation. Pursuing this research direction, the paper introduces a general modeling approach and provides a comprehensive set of theoretical results putting the intuitive notion of Input/Output behavior of argumentation frameworks on a solid formal ground. This is achieved by combining three main ingredients. First, several novel notions are introduced at the representation level, notably those of argumentation framework with input, of argumentation multipole, and of replacement of multipoles within a traditional argumentation framework. Second, several relevant features of argumentation semantics are identified and formally characterized. In particular, the canonical local function provides an input-aware semantics characterization and a suite of decomposability properties are introduced, concerning the correspondences between semantics outcomes at global and local level. The third ingredient glues the former ones, as it consists of the investigation of some semantics-dependent properties of the newly introduced entities, namely S-equivalence of multipoles, S-legitimacy and S-safeness of replacements, and transparency of a semantics with respect to replacements. Altogether they provide the basis and draw the limits of sound interchangeability of multipoles within traditional frameworks. The paper develops an extensive analysis of all the concepts listed above, covering seven well-known literature semantics and taking into account various, more or less constrained, ways of partitioning an argumentation framework. Diverse examples, taken from the literature, are used to illustrate the application of the results obtained and, finally, an extensive discussion of the related literature is provided

Evaluating cardiovascular risk in metabolic steatosis with precision medicine non-invasive approaches: insights from a cohort study

Metabolic associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is the most common liver condition. It is associated with increased liver-related morbidity and mortality, and also with high risk of cardiovascular events (CVD), representing itself an independent risk factor for it. This makes MASLD a presentation of high interest for internal medicine, also because of its association with metabolic syndrome (MetS). It is crucial to assess its risks in a noninvasive way. With the aim of finding specific risk profiles for CVD development in MASLD by performing a noninvasive assessment of: (1) preclinical signs of endothelial dysfunction (ED); (2) clinical assessment of CVD risk by Framingham Heart Risk Score (FHRs); (3) genomic characterization of MASLD associated polymorphisms; (4) specific untargeted metabolomic profiles, we enrolled 466 MASLD patients non-invasively classified in 4 group of liver fibrosis severity (group-A: low-fibrosis risk, group-B: high-fibrosis risk, group-C: MASLD-cirrhosis, group-D: MASLD-HCC) and 73 healthy controls. FHRs was similar in controls and low-fibrosis group and significantly higher in high-fibrosis patients, cirrhosis, and HCC, increasing among classes. At a multivariable regression, FHRs was associated with liver disease severity and diabetes. 38.2% of patients had altered EndoPAT, resembling ED. Patients with high FHRs (> 40%) and ED had different metabolomics compared to those without ED. Our study reveals that a deep, non-invasive characterization of MASLD patients through precision medicine approaches (untargeted metabolomics, SNPs, ED assessment) was able to show a peculiar pattern in MASLD patients with increased CVD risk, mostly correlated with liver disease severity.[GRAPHICS

An Optimal Decision Procedure for MPNL over the Integers

Interval temporal logics provide a natural framework for qualitative and quantitative temporal reason- ing over interval structures, where the truth of formulae is defined over intervals rather than points. In this paper, we study the complexity of the satisfiability problem for Metric Propositional Neigh- borhood Logic (MPNL). MPNL features two modalities to access intervals "to the left" and "to the right" of the current one, respectively, plus an infinite set of length constraints. MPNL, interpreted over the naturals, has been recently shown to be decidable by a doubly exponential procedure. We improve such a result by proving that MPNL is actually EXPSPACE-complete (even when length constraints are encoded in binary), when interpreted over finite structures, the naturals, and the in- tegers, by developing an EXPSPACE decision procedure for MPNL over the integers, which can be easily tailored to finite linear orders and the naturals (EXPSPACE-hardness was already known).Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2011, arXiv:1106.081

Clinical characteristics and prognostic impact of atrial fibrillation in patients with chronic heart failure

AIMS: To assess the prevalence, clinical characteristics and independent prognostic impact of atrial fibrillation (AF) in chronic heart failure (CHF) patients, and the potential protective effect of disease-modifying medications, particularly beta-blockers (BB). METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the charts of patients referred to our center since January 2004, and collected all clinical information available at their first visit. We assessed mortality to the end of June 2015. We compared patients with and without AF, and assessed the association between AF and all-cause mortality by multivariate Cox regression and Kaplan-Meyer analysis, particularly accounting for ongoing treatment with BB. RESULTS: A total of 903 patients were evaluated (mean age 68\ub112 years, 73% male). Prevalence of AF was 19%, ranging from 10% to 28% in patients 6460 and 6577 years, respectively. Besides the older age, patients with AF had more symptoms (NYHA II-III 60 vs. 44%), lower prevalence of dyslipidemia (23 vs. 37%), coronary artery disease (28 vs. 52%) and left bundle branch block (9 vs. 16%). On the contrary, they more frequently presented with an idiopathic etiology (50 vs. 24%), a history of valve surgery (13 vs. 4%) and received overall more devices implantation (31% vs. 21%). The use of disease-modifying medications (i.e. BB and ACE inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers) was lower in patients with AF (72 vs. 80% e 71 vs. 79%, respectively), who on the contrary were more frequently treated with symptomatic and antiarrhythmic drugs including diuretics (87 vs. 69%) and digoxin (51 vs. 11%). At a mean follow-up of about 5 years, all-cause mortality was significantly higher in patients with AF as compared to those in sinus rhythm (45% vs. 34%, p value <0.05 for all previous comparisons). However, in a multivariate analysis including the main significant predictors of all-cause mortality, the univariate relationship between AF and death (HR 1.49, 95% CI 1.15-1.92) became not statistically significant (HR 0.98, 95% CI 0.73-1.32). Nonetheless, patients with AF not receiving BB treatment were found to have the worst prognosis, followed by patients with sinus rhythm not receiving BB therapy and patients with AF receiving BB therapy, who both had similarly worse survival when compared to patients with sinus rhythm receiving BB therapy. CONCLUSIONS: AF was highly prevalent and associated with older age, worse clinical presentation and underutilization of disease-modifying medications such as BB in a population of elderly patients with CHF. AF had no independent impact on mortality, but the underutilization of BB in this group of patients was associated to a worse long-term prognosis

First evidence of resistance to pyrethroid insecticides in Italian Aedes albopictus populations after 26 years since invasion

Aedes albopictus has spread during the last decades all over the world. This has increased significantly the risk of exotic arbovirus transmission (e.g. Chikungunya, Dengue, and Zika) also in temperate areas, as testified by the Chikungunya 2007- and 2017-outbreaks in north-east and central Italy. Insecticides represent a main tool for limiting the circulation of these mosquito-borne viruses. The aim of the present study is to start filling the current gap of knowledge on pyrethroid insecticide resistance of European Ae. albopictus populations focusing on populations from Italy, Albania and Greece