Allevamento, transumanza, lanificio: tracce dall'alto e dal pieno Medioevo veneto

All the research on the Venetoâs medieval sheep farm are based on few evidences, provided mostly by written documentation (available just for the Veronese territory). Furthermore, the existence of mountain pasture on the Lessini, the possession of tools for the sheep shearing, inventories of possessions (including animals), archeozoological data (thanks to recent excavations) help to build a picture of the Veneto farming situation for the late Middle Ages. More problematic is, however, the reconstruction of the âmanufacturing processâ before the 12th and 13th centuries. For the late Medieval ages the availability of documentation allowed, and still allows, more exhaustive researches on the Venetian Mainland sheep farm. These studies demonstrate a strong evolution of the wool mill, that became at this time a manufacture of international standards. Despite that, it is difficult to interrelate information regarding the antique era and High Medieval Ages with those present for the following centuries, even if some elements of continuity are present and may suggest some kind of continuity. These elements of permanence may be found in a wide use of sedentary farming since the antique era to the Early Modern Ages (as demonstrated by some recent research for the Padua territory). Therefore, the sheep farm is characterised not only by transhumance, but even by sedentary raised herds

Deriving the respiratory sinus arrhythmia from the heartbeat time series using Empirical Mode Decomposition

Heart rate variability (HRV) is a well-known phenomenon whose characteristics are of great clinical relevance in pathophysiologic investigations. In particular, respiration is a powerful modulator of HRV contributing to the oscillations at highest frequency. Like almost all natural phenomena, HRV is the result of many nonlinearly interacting processes; therefore any linear analysis has the potential risk of underestimating, or even missing, a great amount of information content. Recently the technique of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) has been proposed as a new tool for the analysis of nonlinear and nonstationary data. We applied EMD analysis to decompose the heartbeat intervals series, derived from one electrocardiographic (ECG) signal of 13 subjects, into their components in order to identify the modes associated with breathing. After each decomposition the mode showing the highest frequency and the corresponding respiratory signal were Hilbert transformed and the instantaneous phases extracted were then compared. The results obtained indicate a synchronization of order 1:1 between the two series proving the existence of phase and frequency coupling between the component associated with breathing and the respiratory signal itself in all subjects.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Will be published on "Chaos, Solitons and Fractals

Cognitive modulation of psychophysical, respiratory and autonomic responses to cold pressor test

In healthy subjects with high hypnotisability (highs) under hypnosis, subjectively effective suggestions for analgesia abolish the increases in blood pressure associated with cold pressor test (cpt) by reducing the peripheral vascular resistance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of the suggestions of analgesia on the responses to cpt in healthy highs (n = 22) and in low hypnotisable participants (lows, n = 22) out of hypnosis. Cpt was administered without (CPT) and with suggestions for analgesia (CPT+AN). Psychophysical (pain intensity, pain threshold, cpt duration (time of immersion) and pain tolerance, defined as the difference between cpt duration and pain threshold), respiratory (amplitude and frequency) and autonomic variables (tonic skin conductance, mean RR interval (RR = 1/heart rate), blood pressure, skin blood flow) were studied. The suggestions for analgesia increased cpt duration and RR in both groups, but decreased pain intensity and enhanced pain threshold only in highs; in both groups they did not modulate systolic blood pressure, tonic skin conductance and skin blood flow; thus, increased parasympathetic activity appears responsible for the heart rate reduction induced by suggestions in both groups. In conclusion, our findings show that suggestions modulate pain experience differentially in highs and lows, and are partially effective also in lows. We hypothesize that the mechanisms responsible for the efficacy of suggestions in healthy lows may be involved also in their efficacy in chronic pain patients with low hypnotisability

Free electron lifetime achievements in Liquid Argon Imaging TPC

A key feature for the success of the liquid Argon imaging TPC (LAr-TPC) technology is the industrial purification against electro-negative impurities, especially Oxygen and Nitrogen remnants, which have to be continuously kept at an exceptionally low level by filtering and recirculating liquid Argon. Improved purification techniques have been applied to a 120 liters LAr-TPC test facility in the INFN-LNL laboratory. Through-going muon tracks have been used to determine the free electron lifetime in liquid Argon against electro-negative impurities. The short path length here observed (30 cm) is compensated by the high accuracy in the observation of the specific ionization of cosmic ray muons at sea level as a function of the drift distance. A free electron lifetime of (21.4+7.3-4.3) ms, namely > 15.8 ms at 90 % C.L. has been observed over several weeks under stable conditions, corresponding to a residual Oxygen equivalent of about 15 ppt (part per trillion). At 500 V/cm, the free electron speed is 1.5 m/ms. In a LAr-TPC a free electron lifetime in excess of 15 ms corresponds for instance to an attenuation of less than 15 % after a drift path of 5 m, opening the way to the operation of the LAr-TPC with exceptionally long drift distances.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures; Accepted for publication in JINS

A hardware implementation of Region-of-Interest selection in LAr-TPC for data reduction and triggering

Large Liquid Argon TPC detectors in the range of multikton mass for neutrino and astroparticle physics require the extraction and treatment of signals from some 105 wires. In order to enlarge the throughtput of the DAQ system an on-line lossless data compression has been realized reducing almost a factor 4 the data flow. Moreover a trigger system based on a new efficient on-line identification algorithm of wire hits was studied, implemented on the actual ICARUS digital read- out boards and fully tested on the ICARINO LAr-TPC facility operated at LNL INFN Laboratory with cosmic-rays. Capability to trigger isolated low energy events down to 1 MeV visible energy was also demonstrated.Comment: 26 pages, 26 Figure; to be submitted to JINS

A local trigger system for the large LAr-TPC detector

A special dedicated double-rebinning algorithm has been successfully developed in order to extract the physical hit signal from the TPC wires. This solution has been implemented on digital boards, allowing to realize a local trigger able to identify even localized low-energy small events

Data Integration in Cardiac Surgery Health Care Institution: Experience at G. Pasquinucci Heart Hospital

During the last ten years the Hospital Information System (HIS) was developed at the Institute of Clinical Physiology of National Research Council (IFC-CNR), recently reorganized on clinical side into the "Gabriele Monasterio Foundation" (FGM) by joint efforts of CNR, Tuscany Region and Universities. At G.Pasquinucci Heart Hospital (GPH), currently FGM\u27s section in Massa, the HIS was adapted and extended to Cardiac Surgery and Pediatric Cardiology. Data archiving and middleware integration through HIS network, connecting GPH with head institution in Pisa, allowed to achieve full secure access to patient information from any workstation within hospital or outside. PACS was developed using Open Source DICOM utilities. Electronic Medical Record is daily used since 2005 on both inpatients and outpatients. Recently telediagnosis was set up between Balkan countries and GPH in Massa

Measurement of a large electron lifetime in a liquid argon TPC

An unprecedentedly high value of electron lifetime in a liquid argon TPC, about 21ms, has been measured in a test facility at INFN-LNL. This results opens the way to the future development of TPCs with very long drift distances