Prototypes of productivity tools for the jadescript programming language

Jadescript is an agent-oriented programming language built on top of JADE. So far, the focus of the development of the language was on design choices, on syntax refinements, and on the introduction of expressions and constructs for agent-related abstractions and tasks. In this paper, a proposal to achieve the crucial goal of making Jadescript suitable for professional use is presented. The success of Jadescript, as a solid language to build real-world agent-based software systems, is necessarily related to its effective integration with mainstream development tools. In this paper, some of the productivity tools developed to integrate Jadescript with a mainstream development environment are presented as a way to promote the successful adoption of the language towards the community of JADE users

Economic sustainability of pig slaughtering firms in the production chain of denomination of origin hams in italy

Pork meat in Italy is one of the largest agri-food chains in Italy. In the swine production chain, slaughter plays an important role, because it has an impact on animal welfare, food safety and the sustainability of the agri-food chain. These companies also deal with pigs destined for typical Denomination of Origin products and therefore play an important role in the production chain of typical products and in the field of EU agricultural policy. In this context, the research aims to analyze the economic sustainability of the major pig slaughter firms in Italy, through data analysis of the annual account statement (AAS) on a sample of eight companies analyzed over a ten-year historical series. Financial ratios and margins (FRM) analysis is applied in the research. FRM analysis shows that firms have the largest absorption of financial resources in the net working capital cycle. The research highlights the high incidence of raw materials in companies in the sector. Consequently, the profit margins of the companies in the sample are modest and in some cases are lower than the cost of debt, suggesting a moderate capacity to attract capital. This result appears as a negative signal of the economic sustainability of the companies in the sector. The research, now limited to a small number of large companies, opens a line of research that can be developed by expanding the sample to small and medium-sized enterprises of the chain of Denomination of Origin hams in Italy to suggest improvement interventions, in particular for rural or marginal areas of production

Development and validation of a real-time PCR assay for detection and quantification of Tuber magnatum in soil

Background: Tuber magnatum, the Italian white truffle, is the most sought-after edible ectomycorrhizal mushroom. Previous studies report the difficulties of detecting its mycorrhizas and the widespread presence of its mycelium in natural production areas, suggesting that the soil mycelium could be a good indicator to evaluate its presence in the soil. In this study a specific real-time PCR assay using TaqMan chemistry was developed to detect and quantify T. magnatum in soil. This technique was then applied to four natural T. magnatum truffires located in different regions of Italy to validate the method under different environmental conditions. Results: The primer/probe sets for the detection and quantification of T. magnatum were selected from the ITS rDNA regions. Their specificity was tested in silico and using qualitative PCR on DNA extracted from 25 different fungal species. The T. magnatum DNA concentration was different in the four experimental truffires and higher in the productive plots. T. magnatum mycelium was however also detected in most of the non-productive plots. Ascoma production during the three years of the study was correlated with the concentration of T. magnatum DNA. Conclusions: Taken together, these results suggest that the specific real-time PCR assay perfected in this study could be an useful tool to evaluate the presence and dynamics of this precious truffle in natural and cultivated truffi\ue9re

Dissipation and Decoherence in Nanodevices: a Generalized Fermi's Golden Rule

We shall revisit the conventional adiabatic or Markov approximation, which --contrary to the semiclassical case-- does not preserve the positive-definite character of the corresponding density matrix, thus leading to highly non-physical results. To overcome this serious limitation, originally pointed out and partially solved by Davies and co-workers almost three decades ago, we shall propose an alternative more general adiabatic procedure, which (i) is physically justified under the same validity restrictions of the conventional Markov approach, (ii) in the semiclassical limit reduces to the standard Fermi's golden rule, and (iii) describes a genuine Lindblad evolution, thus providing a reliable/robust treatment of energy-dissipation and dephasing processes in electronic quantum devices. Unlike standard master-equation formulations, the dependence of our approximation on the specific choice of the subsystem (that include the common partial trace reduction) does not threaten positivity, and quantum scattering rates are well defined even in case the subsystem is infinitely extended/has continuous spectrum.Comment: 6 pages, 0 figure

Dissipation and Decoherence in Nanodevices: a Generalized Fermi's Golden Rule

We shall revisit the conventional adiabatic or Markov approximation, which --contrary to the semiclassical case-- does not preserve the positive-definite character of the corresponding density matrix, thus leading to highly non-physical results. To overcome this serious limitation, originally pointed out and partially solved by Davies and co-workers almost three decades ago, we shall propose an alternative more general adiabatic procedure, which (i) is physically justified under the same validity restrictions of the conventional Markov approach, (ii) in the semiclassical limit reduces to the standard Fermi's golden rule, and (iii) describes a genuine Lindblad evolution, thus providing a reliable/robust treatment of energy-dissipation and dephasing processes in electronic quantum devices. Unlike standard master-equation formulations, the dependence of our approximation on the specific choice of the subsystem (that include the common partial trace reduction) does not threaten positivity, and quantum scattering rates are well defined even in case the subsystem is infinitely extended/has continuous spectrum.Comment: 6 pages, 0 figure

Dissipation and Decoherence in Nanodevices: a Generalized Fermi's Golden Rule

We shall revisit the conventional adiabatic or Markov approximation, which --contrary to the semiclassical case-- does not preserve the positive-definite character of the corresponding density matrix, thus leading to highly non-physical results. To overcome this serious limitation, originally pointed out and partially solved by Davies and co-workers almost three decades ago, we shall propose an alternative more general adiabatic procedure, which (i) is physically justified under the same validity restrictions of the conventional Markov approach, (ii) in the semiclassical limit reduces to the standard Fermi's golden rule, and (iii) describes a genuine Lindblad evolution, thus providing a reliable/robust treatment of energy-dissipation and dephasing processes in electronic quantum devices. Unlike standard master-equation formulations, the dependence of our approximation on the specific choice of the subsystem (that include the common partial trace reduction) does not threaten positivity, and quantum scattering rates are well defined even in case the subsystem is infinitely extended/has continuous spectrum.Comment: 6 pages, 0 figure

Is Tuber brumale a threat to T. melanosporum and T. aestivum plantations?

True truffles in the genus Tuber are the most valuable ectomycorrhizal fungiand their cultivation has become widespread around the world. Competition with other ectomycorrhizal fungi and especially with undesired Tuber species, like T. brumale, can threaten the success of a truffle plantation. In this work, the competitiveness of T. brumale towards T. melanosporum and T. aestivum was assessed in a 14 year-old plantation carried out planting seedlings inoculated with these three truffle species in adjacent plots. Analyses of both truffle ectomycorrhizas and extra-radical mycelium were carried out in the transects separating the T. brumale plot from T. melanosporum and T. aestivum plots. The results confirm the competitiveness of T. brumale against T. aestivum and T. melanosporum due to its major ability to colonize the soil around its ectomycorrhizas. However, its competitiveness is limited to the transect areas and it was never found inside T. melanosporum plot. These results remark that, in presence of optimal conditions for T. melanosporum and T. aestivum, the greatest risk of contamination with T. brumale is due to wrong greenhouse activity

Characterization and pathogenicity of Colletotrichum spp. causing citrus anthracnose in Tunisia

In the winter and spring of 2014-2015, typical anthracnose symptoms were detected on different citrus varieties in Cap-Bon and Morneg-Tunis regions of Northern Tunisia. Surveys were conducted to determine the casual agents of these symptoms. A total of seven monosporic isolates were obtained from dark lesions on fruits, flowers, leaves and twigs of citrus from six orchards. One Colletotrichum karstii (from the C. boninense species complex) and six C. gloeosporioides isolates were identified through morphological analysis and sequencing of their ITS rDNA sequences. Pathogenicity tests with the seven isolates were performed on symptomless, detached citrus fruits (Valencia orange and Eureka lemon). All tested isolates caused anthracnose lesions after 1 week of incubation. Koch's postulates were fulfilled by re-isolation of pathogens from the inoculated fruits. This report elucidates the diversity of anthracnose pathogens in Tunisia. This is the first report of C. karstii from citrus in Tunisia

The role of pH on the thermodynamics and kinetics of muscle biochemistry: An in vivo study by 31P-MRS in patients with myo-phosphorylase deficiency

AbstractIn this study we assessed ΔG′ATP hydrolysis, cytosolic [ADP], and the rate of phosphocreatine recovery using Phosphorus Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in the calf muscle of a group of patients affected by glycogen myo-phosphorylase deficiency (McArdle disease). The goal was to ascertain whether and to what extent the deficit of the glycogenolytic pathway would affect the muscle energy balance. A typical feature of this pathology is the lack of intracellular acidosis. Therefore we posed the question of whether, in the absence of pH decrease, the rate of phosphocreatine recovery depends on the amount of phosphocreatine consumed during exercise. Results showed that at the end of exercise both [ADP] and ΔG′ATP of patients were significantly higher than those of matched control groups reaching comparable levels of phosphocreatine concentration. Furthermore, in these patients we found that the rate of phosphocreatine recovery is not influenced by the amount of phosphocreatine consumed during exercise. These outcomes provide experimental evidence that: i) the intracellular acidification occurring in exercising skeletal muscle is a protective factor for the energy consumption; and ii) the influence of pH on the phosphocreatine recovery rate is at least in part related to the kinetic mechanisms of mitochondrial creatine kinase enzyme