Rural landscape valuation in a cross-border region

The rural landscape is one of the most valuable agricultural externalities and it is often affected by modifications in the agricultural production process. Moreover, some rural areas are deteriorating due to the depopulation process while others are being transformed owing to socio-economic pressures. However, should agricultural policies concerning landscape preservation only be considered as cost items or should they be seen as sources of social benefits able to justify economic support? On this basis two surveys were carried out in order to study the economic value of the rural landscape, focusing in particular on viticulture. Both studies covered quality wine-producing areas on the Italian/Slovenian border: The Controlled Denomination of Origin zones of ‘Collio’ and ‘Colli Orientali del Friuli’ in Italy, and the municipality of Brda in Slovenia. Both surveys assessed the economic value of the rural landscape in order to estimate the social benefit that populations attach to landscape preservation measures. Despite the fact that similar methods were applied, results differed. The peculiar backgrounds affected our results in two ways. Firstly we found that there was a considerable difference in the way Italians and Slovenes valued the rural landscape. While Italians considered the development and extension of vineyards to be very important in counteracting the abandonment of rural areas, Slovenes preferred “traditional” landscapes (orchards, grasslands and vineyards). Secondly, in Slovenia it was difficult to apply the contingent valuation method, which is based on a hypothetical market scenario. More research should be carried out in order to study the methods that best fitthe preferences for rural landscape.rural landscape, contingent valuation method, Collio (Italy), Colli orientali del Friuli (Italy), Brda

Deep Information Networks

We describe a novel classifier with a tree structure, designed using information theory concepts. This Information Network is made of information nodes, that compress the input data, and multiplexers, that connect two or more input nodes to an output node. Each information node is trained, independently of the others, to minimize a local cost function that minimizes the mutual information between its input and output with the constraint of keeping a given mutual information between its output and the target (information bottleneck). We show that the system is able to provide good results in terms of accuracy, while it shows many advantages in terms of modularity and reduced complexity

Dynamic link budget simulation

A new simulator named DLBS (Dynamic Link Budget Simulator) was written to simulate the time-varying communication link between a vehicle that re-enters the atmosphere from the outer space, and a ground station. During the vehicle descent trajectory, communications blackouts typically occur due to the effects of plasma that forms around the vehicle. A companion simulator, AIPT (Antenna In Plasma Tool), evaluates the electric field at the input of the ground station antenna, taking into consideration the vehicle structure, its antenna, the characteristics of plasma at some specified points along the vehicle trajectory, and the obtained values are stored in a file. DLBS processes the data read from the AIPT output file and evaluates the corresponding channel transfer functions. DLBS then allows to simulate the typical telemetry and telecommand links, using both CCSDS standardised and some non standard channel encoding schemes and modulations. For each generated frame, DLBS uses a channel transfer function obtained by adequately interpolating the two nearest transfer functions evaluated in the initial phase. DLBS includes realistic frame, frequency, phase and bit synchronisation, so that synchronisation errors are also included as source of performance degradation, and measures both the average bit and frame error rates, and the bit error rate at frame level, so that it is possible to appreciate the dynamic system behaviour. The paper will show the results obtained for a case stud

Giulia Giacchetti Boico, Giulio Vignoli: La tragedia sconosciuta degli Italiani di Crimea, Kerc, s.n., 2007, pp.302

Giulia Giacchetti Boico, Giulio Vignoli: La tragedia sconosciuta degli Italiani di Crimea, Kerc, , 2007, pp.30

Franco Colombo: La campagna istriana nel medioevo. Trieste, Circolo di culturaistro-veneta "Istria", 2005, pp. 115

Franco Colombo: La campagna istriana nel medioevo, Trieste, Circolo di cultura istro-veneta "Istria", 2005, pp. 11

Andrej Novak: L\u27Istria nella prima età bizantina. Collana degli Atti, n. 27, Rovigno - Fiume - Trieste, Centro di ricerche storiche - Unione italiana - Università popolare, 2007, pp. 198

Andrej Novak: L\u27Istria nella prima eta bizantina. Collana degli Atti, n. 27, Rovigno - Fiume - Trieste, Centro di ricerche storiche - Unione italiana - Universita popolare, 2007, pp. 19

Quasilinear hyperbolic equations with hysteresis

ABSTRACT. – Plasticity, ferromagnetism, ferroelectricity and other phenomena lead to quasi-linear hyperbolic equations of the for

Livio Aragona (a cura di): Luigi Dallapiccola - Massimo Mila. Tempus aedificandi. Carteggio 1933-1975. Milano, Accademia nazionale di santa Cecilia- Fondazione ricordi, 2005

Livio Aragona (a cura di): Luigi Dallapiccola - Massimo Mila. Tempus aedificandi. Carteggio 1933-1975. Milano, Accademia nazionale di santa Cecilia- Fondazione ricordi, 2005, pp. 42