Problematiche entomologiche dell'eucalipto in Sardegna e monitoraggio del fitofago di nuova introduzione Psilla lerp (<i>Glycaspis brimblecombei</i>)

Following the recent accidental introduction of the lerp psyllid Glycaspis brimblecombei (Moore) in Sardinia, entomological investigations on Eucalyptus were conducted during 2011-14. Field monitoring focused on the lerp psyllid G. brimblecombei (Moore), its specific parasitoid Psyllaephagus bliteus (Riek) and other phytophagous species like the Eucalyptus gall wasps Ophelimus maskelli (Ashmead) and Leptocybe invasa (Fisher and La Salle), employing yellow sticky traps to collect adults, and foliar sampling to detect preimaginal and parasitized stages of the psyllid and to assess the number of wasp galls. G. brimblecombei is currently the main pest of Eucalyptus in Sardinia where it reaches very high infestation levels (1070 adults/trap/month). P. bliteus density showed a bimodal trend, with the highest parasitism rates recorded in May (17%) and September (52%). The maximum number of O. maskellii galls per leaf were detected in April (78) while the minimum in July (7). In the case of L. invasa, instead, the greatest percentage of affected leaves per branch was recorded in September (17%) while the lowest in July (3%). Among other phytophagous species, Blastopsylla occidentalis, Polydrusus (Metallites) parallelus, Gonipterus sp., and Phoracantha spp. were also detected. In addition, the impact of the red gum psyllid on the honey production during the flowering period (June-July) in 2014, was evaluated in preliminary observations including also other wild pollinators.</br

Agonistic interactions between the honeybee (<i>Apis mellifera ligustica</i>) and the European wasp (<i>Vespula germanica</i>) reveal context-dependent defense strategies

Predator–prey relationships between sympatric species allow the evolution of defense behaviors, such as honeybee colonies defending their nests against predatory wasps. We investigated the predator–prey relationship between the honeybee (Apis mellifera ligustica) and the European wasp (Vespula germanica) by evaluating the effectiveness of attack and defense behaviors, which have coevolved in these sympatric species, as well as the actual damage and disturbance caused to the colonies under attack. Attack and defense behaviors were recorded in front of the hive to observe attacks at the hive entrance (68 attacks in 279 h) and at ground level on isolated and weakened honeybees close to the hive (465 attacks in 32 h). We found that V. germanica attacked the hive entrance infrequently due to the low success rate of this strategy and instead preferred a specialized attack method targeting adult honeybees at ground level, demonstrating opportunistic scavenger behavior. Individual honeybees usually responded effectively to an attack by recruiting an average of two nestmates, causing the wasp to flee, whereas collective balling behavior was only observed on four occasions. V. germanica does not appear to disrupt the foraging activity of the colonies under attack. We found that agonistic events supported by other nestmates were typically the most intense ones, involving physical combat and prolonged attacks at the entrance to the hive. These observations support the hypothesis that A. mellifera ligustica can adapt its behavior to match the severity of the threat and the context of the attack

“ASLX”: Semantic Analyzer for programming languages based on XML

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a language used to structure information in a document or any file containing text. An XML document is "well formed" if respects their basic syntactic structure, that is composed of elements, attributes, and specified as XML comments. Some ways to verify that an XML file is either formed is by: Document Type Definition (DTD) and XML Schemas. But these types of verification not include relevant aspects, such as, the semantic relationship between content attributes and tags, declarations of fields and check the scope of variables, among others. This raises the need for a tool for verifying programming languages based on XML in the semantic aspect. In addition to analyzing the scope and usability of the tool was used as a case study the NCL declarative language.V Workshop innovación en sistemas de softwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

ASLX:analizador semántico para lenguajes de programación basados en XML

Este trabajo tiene la finalidad de desarrollar una solución para validar semánticamente lenguajes de programación o similares basados en XML.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

PRELIMINARY RESULTS ON THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL VARIABILITYOF GLYCASPIS BRIMBLECOMBEI(HEMIPTERA PSYLLIDAE) POPULATIONSFROM A THREE-YEAR MONITORING PROGRAM IN SARDINIA (ITALY)

The red gum lerp psyllid Glycaspis brimblecombeiis an invasive insect species worldwide. Prolonged attacksby this psyllid may cause both direct and indirect damages to Eucalyptustrees, such as plant weakening, developmentalreductions and phylloptosis, resulting in death within 2-3 years. After the first report in Campania (Italy) in 2010 onEucalyptus camaldulensis trees, it quickly spread to all surrounding central-southern regions of Italy. In Sardinia, G.brimblecombeiwas first recorded in 2011, and is currently found throughout the island. From 2013 to 2015 amonitoring program was carried out in 11 locations throughout Sardinia in order to estimate the density pattern of bothits adults and preimaginal stages, as well as the general population trend of G. brimblecombeiover the years. Ananalysis of G. brimblecombei population abundance showed an almost stable level of infestation over the years, and aseasonal pattern with a population peak in the summer. However, an earlier peak of population abundance was detectedin 2015 compared to the previous years. A spatial heterogeneity of the level of infestation was observed throughout theisland, highlighting the potential effects of environmental conditions in regulating the populations of both G.brimblecombeiand its natural enemies

ASLX:analizador semántico para lenguajes de programación basados en XML

Este trabajo tiene la finalidad de desarrollar una solución para validar semánticamente lenguajes de programación o similares basados en XML.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

POPULATION DYNAMICS AND SEASONAL ABUNDANCE OF THAUMASTOCORISPEREGRINUSIN EUCALYPTUSPLANTATIONS IN SARDINIA (ITALY)

Thaumastocoris peregrinusis a eucalyptus pest native to Australia. It is currently the only species belonging to theThaumastocoridae family in Europe. In Italy, it was reported for the first time in Latium in 2011, whereas in Sardinia itwas detected in January 2015 on a Eucalyptus camaldulensis plantation located in the south of the island. Our researchteam carried out a monitoring program for two-years in order to verify its geographical distribution, the main periods ofinfestation, the flight peaks of the adults and to also detect the presence of unhatched eggs on leaves. During the firstyear, the occurrence of adults of T. peregrinuswas verified by yellow sticky traps placed in twelve areas distributedthroughout the island where Eucalyptus plantations were located. In the second year, the population dynamics and theoccurrence of eggs on leaves were evaluated only in three representative study areas, already included in the previousmonitoring program, located in the north, centre and south of the island, respectively. Field surveys showed thepresence of T. peregrinusin all the monitored locations. The highest adult population was observed from late summer toinitial autumn, with a significant increase in adults caught by yellow sticky traps from August, which reached its peakin September and gradually decreased in the following months. The presence of eggs of T. peregrinuson leaves fromJune to December also indicates that the insect is currently well established in the region

Sistema di misura ottico non a contatto.

La presente invenzione ha per oggetto un sistema di misura ottico non a contatto ed in particolare un sistema di misura non a contatto 3D in luce strutturata. In ambito medico scientifico è usuale testare l’efficacia di farmaci anti-5 tumorali, sia con esperimenti pre-clinici che clinici in vitro ed in vivo. Per accertare la reale efficacia del farmaco, è necessario utilizzare i cosiddetti modelli sperimentali della malattia. Si tratta di sistemi biologici in cui vengono ricreate sperimentalmente le stesse caratteristiche della patologia: si possono usare colture di cellule fatte crescere in laboratorio, i cosiddetti modelli in vitro, oppure si può ricorrere agli animali da laboratorio, per esempio topi, ed in questo caso si parla di modelli in vivo. I tumori sono inducibili nel topo mediante iniezione (intraperitoneale, intramuscolare, sottocutanea) di cellule tumorali. In questi modelli il principale parametro di valutazione dell’efficacia del farmaco è il volume tumorale dei topi trattati. Una volta che le cellule tumorali vengono inoculate, i topi sono trattati con farmaci antitumorali da soli e/o in combinazione dopodiché vengono seguite le fasi di crescita e proliferazione tumorale, misurando periodicamente, ad esempio giornalmente, le variazioni della forma e delle dimensioni del tumore. Questa misura viene fatta generalmente utilizzando un calibro a scorsoio con il quale vengono misurati la lunghezza “L” e la larghezza “W” del tumore e dalle quali si deriva il volume V della massa tumorale. Usualmente si approssima tale massa a quella di un ellissoide di rivoluzione il cui volume è espresso dalla formula V =p 6× L×W ×W ipotizzando che l’altezza sia pari alla larghezza (W). Questo tipo di misura del volume, presenta numerosi errori che dipendono sia dall'approssimazione nel calcolo del volume, dallo strumento di misura utilizzato ma anche dall'operatore stesso che la effettua. Si tratta infatti di misurare dei volumi molto piccoli, dell'ordine massimo di qualche centinaio di mm3 in cui come accennato la forma viene molto grossolanamente approssimata da un ellissoide di rivoluzione. In realtà, i tumori hanno generalmente delle forme abbastanza irregolari per cui l'approssimazione delle stesse con degli ellissoidi introduce errori nella misura del volume che possono essere dell'ordine del 20% e più. Il calibro a scorsoio ha una lettura millimetrica, con un nonio nel quale si può apprezzare visivamente il decimo di millimetro. Durante la misura con il calibro però le lunghezze da misurare vengono modificate dal processo di misura stesso, in quanto le masse tumorali sono costituite da tessuti molli che possono venire deformati a seconda dalla pressione con cui si chiude il calibro stesso, introducendo errori dell'ordine del 5%. Inoltre l'operatore che effettua la misura sceglie a priori le sezioni della massa da misurare in cui rilevare la lunghezza e la larghezza della stessa, per cui i valori registrati possono variare di diversi punti percentuali, non per un effettivo aumento o diminuzione del volume ma semplicemente per una differente scelta delle sezioni in cui effettuare le misurazioni a causa della forma irregolare delle masse di interesse. L'aumento giornaliero del volume della massa tumorale può essere dell'ordine del 5% a seconda dello stadio della malattia e considerati gli errori descritti in precedenza, l’analisi dell'efficacia di un farmaco rispetto ad un altro possono risultare falsate. Al fine di ovviare ai citati inconvenienti, sono stati sviluppati sistemi ottici non a contatto per misurare il volume dei tumori iniettati nei topi. Un esempio di sistema di misura ottico non a contatto è descritto nella domanda internazionale WO2005033620A2 a nome Biopticon Corporation. Tale sistema effettua sull’oggetto da misurare una scansione con una linea laser e contemporaneamente acquisisce le immagini con una camera sincronizzata. Il software del sistema riconosce la linea e calcola il volume, in quanto ogni immagine contiene solo una linea ed è quindi facilmente ricostruibile. Un importante inconveniente in tale tipo di sistema è che l’animale da laboratorio su cui condurre le misura deve essere tenuto fermo per un tempo dell’ordine di alcuni secondi mentre, in generale, i topi non si riescono a tenere fermi per più di un secondo. In questo contesto, compito tecnico precipuo della presente invenzione è proporre un sistema di misura ottico non a contatto che sia esente dai citati inconvenienti. Uno scopo della presente invenzione è proporre un sistema di misura ottico non a contatto che sia competitivo rispetto ad altri sistemi di misura noti. Un altro scopo della presente invenzione è proporre un sistema di misura ottico non a contatto che richieda un minore tempo di acquisizione delle informazioni morfometriche dei corpi indagati rispetto alle soluzioni note

Surface treatments on 3D printed Ti6Al4V biomedical plates to enhance corrosion resistance in simulated physiological solutions and under inflammatory conditions

Ti6Al4V biomedical plates were fabricated by Laser Powder Bed Fusion using different process parameters. A slight influence of the laser energy density on mechanical properties and microstructure was revealed. Chemical etching allowed to make the surface of 3D samples uniform removing also spheres of unfused material. After etching some samples were anodized in calcium acetate and beta-glycerolphosphate containing solution to grow a Ca and P containing porous TiO2 layers. The chemical etching improved the corrosion resistance of the alloy in simulated body fluid, while only after anodizing the alloys resulted to be corrosion resistant under inflammatory and severe inflammatory conditions

Estimates of system noise temperature in W-band at SRT and effects of beam truncation due to the Gregorian radome

We report on system noise temperature estimates from the SRT site in W-band (70-116 GHz) based on recorded atmospheric data at four specific days, three-months apart, in the period 15 Oct. 2019-15 July 2020. The estimates are based on the atmospheric model described in [1] and on the feed-horn beams model and receiver noise specification of the W-band multibeam receiver being built for the Gregorian focus of the SRT. We used different values for the antenna forward efficiency ηf to estimate the impact of such parameter on overall system noise Tsys. The beam truncation due to the 1 m diameter SRT Gregorian focus radome, which protects the receiver cabin from the atmospheric agents, is evaluated assuming that the cabin surrounding the radome contributes with a 293 K thermal noise (greater than the sky noise). The beams from the W-band receiver will be slightly truncated by the radome, especially at the lowest frequencies, where the beams are larger. We conclude that the effects of truncation on Tsys are negligible even in the scenario of lowest thermal emission from the sky, expected during winter season. The estimated seasonal variations of the atmospheric conditions at the SRT show that, for the four specific days for which the system noise temperature was calculated, the Tsys have broad minima near the 3 mm band atmospheric window, around 85-105 GHz and achieves values of order 100 K or lower during winter. The system noise increases towards the W-band receiver band edges at 70 GHz and 116 GHz; the highest Tsys is obtained at the highest frequency of the band, 116 GHz, and reaches values beyond 200 K the 15th of October, 2019 and the 15th of July, 2020