Il Fontanon di Timau (Paluzza, Udine, Italia): dati preliminari sulle caratteristiche idrogeologiche della sorgente

Il presente articolo* espone i dati preliminari di un lavoro ancora in corso riguardante l’idrogeologia della sorgente del Fontanon di Timau. Gli studi sono stati patrocinati da SECAB società cooperativa di Paluzza in occasione del centenario della sua fondazione. Il presente articolo è stato in parte pubblicato sulla recente monografia “Alta Valle del But: una storia scandita dalle acque nel tempo” a cura di Corrado Venturini.This article presents the preliminary results of on-going research on the hydrogeology of the Fontanon di Timau spring. The studies were sponsored by the SECAB cooperative society of Paluzza, on the occasion of the centenary of its foundation. A section of this article was published in the recent monograph “Alta Valle del But: una storia scandita dalle acque nel tempo” (Alta Valle del But: a history marked by the waters over time) by Corrado Venturini

Il CSIF nel XXI secolo: la divulgazione quale mezzo per la salvaguardia del territorio

L’attività del Circolo Speleologico Idrologico Friulano è stata incentrata, sin dalla sua nascita nel 1897, tanto nell’esplorazione quanto nella diffusione delle conseguenti informazioni acquisite. Mentre nei primi decenni quest’opera si svolgeva attraverso la stampa (Mondo Sotterraneo, giornali e riviste varie) e la propaganda diretta (conferenze, escursioni) oggi si avvale anche della pubblicazione di monografie specifiche e quaderni didattici nonché dell’uso dei mezzi messi a disposizione dall’informatica. Questa opera, volta al futuro, è integrata dalla messa a disposizione del pubblico dei consistenti archivi formatisi in oltre un secolo di lavoro: biblioteca di duemila volumi e 400 riviste, Catasto storico con documenti su oltre 3500 grotte del Friuli, archivio documentale.Since its foundation in 1897, the activity of the Circolo Speleologico Idrologico Friulano has been focused both on exploration and on consequent acquired information diffusion. While in the first years this work was carried out through the press (Mondo Sotterraneo and other newspapers and magazines) and the direct propaganda (conferences, excursions), today it also makes use of specific monographs and educational notebooks publication and, in addition, of informatics devices. This work, that it’s looking into the future, includes the thick records created in a over one century work and available for the public: a library with over 2000 volumes and 400 magazines, historical “Catasto” with documents about more than 3500 caves in Friuli, document archive

An adaptive hierarchical control for aerial manipulators

This paper addresses the trajectory tracking control problem for a quadrotor aerial vehicle, equipped with a robotic manipulator (aerial manipulator). The controller is organized in two layers: in the top layer, an inverse kinematics algorithm computes the motion references for the actuated variables; in the bottom layer, a motion control algorithm is in charge of tracking the motion references computed by the upper layer. To the purpose, a model-based control scheme is adopted, where modelling uncertainties are compensated through an adaptive term. The stability of the proposed scheme is proven by resorting to Lyapunov arguments. Finally, a simulation case study is proposed to prove the effectiveness of the approach

6D physical interaction with a fully actuated aerial robot

This paper presents the design, control, and experimental validation of a novel fully-actuated aerial robot for physically interactive tasks, named Tilt-Hex. We show how the Tilt-Hex, a tilted-propeller hexarotor is able to control the full pose (position and orientation independently) using a geometric control, and to exert a full-wrench (force and torque independently) with a rigidly attached end-effector using an admittance control paradigm. An outer loop control governs the desired admittance behavior and an inner loop based on geometric control ensures pose tracking. The interaction forces are estimated by a momentum based observer. Control and observation are made possible by a precise control and measurement of the speed of each propeller. An extensive experimental campaign shows that the Tilt-Hex is able to outperform the classical underactuated multi-rotors in terms of stability, accuracy and dexterity and represent one of the best choice at date for tasks requiring aerial physical interaction

Carta de restauração dos fósseis

A Itália é um país com forte tradição no campo da restauração. Não surpreende, portanto, que a Carta de Restauração dos Fósseis tenha nascido em contexto italiano. O documento, publicado em 1998, organiza e sistematiza informações sobre cada atividade que possa influenciar na longevidade do fóssil, desde a escavação até o momento de guarda em uma instituição. Apesar de muitos dos pontos abordados serem intrínsecos do “fazer paleontologia”, algumas questões nos parecem relevantes para profissionais que queiram tratar de fósseis. Algo importante a enfatizar, por exemplo, é a inclusão de informações de campo, de preparação e conservação na documentação do registro na coleção científica – dados já apontados para uma documentação museológica. Outro ponto importante a destacar é a necessidade das instituições de prover laboratórios de preparação, restauração e conservação para os vários objetos de pesquisa, com profissionais qualificados nas diversas áreas de conhecimento necessárias para estas atividades. Infelizmente, isso ocorre pontualmente em certas instituições. Acreditamos que as normas de restauração e de conservação de fósseis, normalmente dispersas em várias bibliografias, foram habilmente sintetizadas na presente carta, favorecendo o conhecimento dos princípios básicos dos critérios de base e normas a serem seguidas para a coleta, preparação, restauração e conservação de material fóssil. E, ainda que a realidade italiana seja diversa da brasileira em muitos aspectos, as boas práticas indicadas no texto têm o potencial de servir de norte para políticas de gestão de coleções paleontológicas. Por fim, agradecemos ao Dr. Vittorio Borselli, coordenador da presente Carta, por conceder a autorização para tradução do documento, e assim, proporcionar sua difusão abrangente entre os profissionais que trabalham com a curadoria de material paleontológico no Brasil

Updated Italian Tetrapod Ichnology Reference List

We provide a list of contribution by Italian scientists to tetrapod ichnology with papers on both material from Italy and abroad. Foreign author’s contributions on tetrapod ichnology based on material from Italy are also considered. The list updates the previous one published by D’Orazi Porchetti et al. (2008) and, as a result, includes works from 1869 up to now. Following the previous reference list, papers of non-Italian researchers on foreign material are reported when the material was found on Italian territory at the time of publication

Italian natural history museums on the verge of collapse?

The Italian natural history museums are facing a critical situation, due to the progressive loss of scientific relevance, decreasing economic investments, and scarcity of personnel. This is extremely alarming, especially for ensuring the long-term preservation of the precious collections they host. Moreover, a commitment in fieldwork to increase scientific collections and concurrent taxonomic research are rarely considered priorities, while most of the activities are addressed to public events with political payoffs, such as exhibits, didactic meetings, expositions, and talks. This is possibly due to the absence of a national museum that would have better steered research activities and overall concepts for collection management. We here propose that Italian natural history museums collaborate to instate a “metamuseum”, by establishing a reciprocal interaction network aimed at sharing budgetary and technical resources, which would assure better coordination of common long-term goals and scientific activities

Social cognition impairment in genetic frontotemporal dementia within the GENFI cohort

A key symptom of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is difficulty interacting socially with others. Social cognition problems in FTD include impaired emotion processing and theory of mind difficulties, and whilst these have been studied extensively in sporadic FTD, few studies have investigated them in familial FTD. Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) and Faux Pas (FP) recognition tests were used to study social cognition within the Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Initiative (GENFI), a large familial FTD cohort of C9orf72, GRN, and MAPT mutation carriers. 627 participants undertook at least one of the tasks, and were separated into mutation-negative healthy controls, presymptomatic mutation carriers (split into early and late groups) and symptomatic mutation carriers. Groups were compared using a linear regression model with bootstrapping, adjusting for age, sex, education, and for the FP recognition test, language. Neural correlates of social cognition deficits were explored using a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) study. All three of the symptomatic genetic groups were impaired on both tasks with no significant difference between them. However, prior to onset, only the late presymptomatic C9orf72 mutation carriers on the FER test were impaired compared to the control group, with a subanalysis showing differences particularly in fear and sadness. The VBM analysis revealed that impaired social cognition was mainly associated with a left hemisphere predominant network of regions involving particularly the striatum, orbitofrontal cortex and insula, and to a lesser extent the inferomedial temporal lobe and other areas of the frontal lobe. In conclusion, theory of mind and emotion processing abilities are impaired in familial FTD, with early changes occurring prior to symptom onset in C9orf72 presymptomatic mutation carriers. Future work should investigate how performance changes over time, in order to gain a clearer insight into social cognitive impairment over the course of the disease