Europe needs initiative and leadership to overcome the crisis

This paper applies the interpretative scheme “crisis-initiative-leadership” - developed with reference to the European unification process as a whole – to the current crises to analyse if and how the crises are being exploited by adequate initiative and leadership in the EU

The dynamic development of the European Communities (and then Union) and the relationship with EFTA and the Council of Europe

Federalism, neo-functionalism and realism-intergovernmentalism offer different visions of European unity, evident in different European organizations such as the Council of Europe to the ECSC, EEC/EC/EU, and EFTA. The paper develops two heuristic schemes that help explain the success of the ECSC, EEC/EC/EU over other European organizations. The neo-functionalist initial success deeply influenced and shaped following developments

The early years of Bruno Maximovich Pontecorvo at Dubna

At the beginning of September 1950, while on a short vacation in Italy with his family, Bruno Pontecorvo suddenly disappeared. Nobody knew of him until 4th March 1955, when he gave a press conference in Moscow at the Academy of Sciences where he explained the motivations that had led him to decide to live in Russia. He arrived in Moscow in September 1950 and at the end of October of the same year he moved in Dubna and started his research work at the Institute of Nuclear Problems where, at the time,the most powerful particle accelerator in the world was in operation. A historical reconstruction of the early years of his scientific activity is done through the pages of his first logbook. This “laboratory notebook”, dated November 1, 1950, contains unpublished notes, ideas and considerations that Bruno wrote by hand, mostly in English, at the beginning of his work in Russia

Soil is a net source of methane in tropical African forests

Research Highlights: Monitoring of soil CH4 fluxes in African tropical forest conducted run for almost two years, contributing to the scant information on greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes from forests available from this region. Data showed that the forest soil acted as a net yearly source of CH4. Hotspots of CH4 emissions were measured both in upland and lowland areas of the forest, and on an annual basis they overcame the soil CH4 sink during drier periods or in well‐drained areas. Background and Objectives: Atmospheric studies indicate that tropics are a strong CH4 source. Regional budgets attribute the majority of this source to wetland ecosystems and flooded lowland forests, whereas un‐flooded forests are considered net CH4 sinks, although few studies in tropical forests, in particular in Africa, are available. The present work aims to contribute to this knowledge gap. Materials and Methods: Monitoring campaigns were conducted along the year in the tropical forest of the Ankasa National Park, Ghana, in two contrasting environments, uphill and downhill, using close static chambers coupled with gas chromatography. Results: The uphill area was a net weak CH4 sink with mean daily fluxes ranging from −1.29 to 0.44 mg CH4 m−2 d−1. The downhill area was a significant CH4 source with mean daily fluxes ranging from −0.67 to 188.09 mg CH4 m−2 d−1 and with peaks up to 1312 mg CH4 m−2 d−1 in the wet season. Conclusions: The net annual soil CH4 budget for the Ankasa Park, normalizing the proportion of downhill areas over the whole park surface, was a source of about 3.3 kg CH4 ha−1 yr−1. Overlooking such areas might lead to underestimates of the total CH4 source strength of forested areas

Theoretical status of Bs-mixing and lifetimes of heavy hadrons

We review the theoretical status of the lifetime ratios τB+/τBd, τBs/τBd, τΛb/τBd and τBc and of the mixing quantities ΔMs, ΔΓs and ϕs. ΔMs and ΔΓs suffer from large uncertainties due to the badly known decay constants, while the ratio ΔΓs/ΔMs can be determined with almost no non-perturbative uncertainties, therefore it can be used perfectly to find possible new physics contributions in the mixing parameters. We suggest a very clear method of visualizing the bounds on new physics and demonstrate this by combining the latest experimental numbers on the mixing quantities quantities with theory – one already gets some hints for new physics contributions, but more precise experimental numbers are needed to draw some definite conclusions. We conclude with a ranking list of all the discussed quantities according to their current theoretical uncertainties and point out possible improvements

An Unusual Case of Adrenal Metastasis from Colorectal Cancer: Computed Tomography and Fluorine 18-Fluoro-Deoxy-Glucose Positron Emission Tomography-Computed Tomography Features and Literature Review

Incidentally discovered adrenal masses are a common diagnostic problem. While computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging can adequately characterize most benign or malignant adrenal masses, in some cases the results are indeterminate. We report and discuss a case of an adrenal metastasis with misleading clinical and CT features, in which an abnormal metabolic uptake detected through fluorine 18-fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET)-CT raised the suspicion of adrenal metastasis relatively early compared with apparently normal results on repeated follow-up CT examinations

Long tree-ring chronologies provide evidence of recent tree growth decrease in a central african tropical forest

It is still unclear whether the exponential rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration has produced a fertilization effect on tropical forests, thus incrementing their growth rate, in the last two centuries. As many factors affect tree growth patterns, short -term studies might be influenced by the confounding effect of several interacting environmental variables on plant growth. Long-term analyses of tree growth can elucidate long-term trends of plant growth response to dominant drivers. The study of annual rings, applied to long tree-ring chronologies in tropical forest trees enables such analysis. Long-term tree-ring chronologies of three widespread African species were measured in Central Africa to analyze the growth of trees over the last two centuries. Growth trends were correlated to changes in global atmospheric CO2 concentration and local variations in the main climatic drivers, temperature and rainfall. Our results provided no evidence for a fertilization effect of CO2 on tree growth. On the contrary, an overall growth decline was observed for all three species in the last century, which appears to be significantly correlated to the increase in local temperature. These findings provide additional support to the global observations of a slowing down of C sequestration in the trunks of forest trees in recent decades. Data indicate that the CO2 increase alone has not been sufficient to obtain a tree growth increase in tropical trees. The effect of other changing environmental factors, like temperature, may have overridden the fertilization effect of CO2.It is still unclear whether the exponential rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration has produced a fertilization effect on tropical forests, thus incrementing their growth rate, in the last two centuries. As many factors affect tree growth patterns, short -term studies might be influenced by the confounding effect of several interacting environmental variables on plant growth. Long-term analyses of tree growth can elucidate long-term trends of plant growth response to dominant drivers. The study of annual rings, applied to long tree-ring chronologies in tropical forest trees enables such analysis. Long-term tree-ring chronologies of three widespread African species were measured in Central Africa to analyze the growth of trees over the last two centuries. Growth trends were correlated to changes in global atmospheric CO2 concentration and local variations in the main climatic drivers, temperature and rainfall. Our results provided no evidence for a fertilization effect of CO2 on tree growth. On the contrary, an overall growth decline was observed for all three species in the last century, which appears to be significantly correlated to the increase in local temperature. These findings provide additional support to the global observations of a slowing down of C sequestration in the trunks of forest trees in recent decades. Data indicate that the CO2 increase alone has not been sufficient to obtain a tree growth increase in tropical trees. The effect of other changing environmental factors, like temperature, may have overridden the fertilization effect of CO2

A multi-indicator approach to compare the sustainability of organic vs. integrated management of grape production

Sustainable agricultural practices are increasingly becoming a strategic asset for global and national environmental policies and economy. A big challenge is the selection of appropriate indicators to describe the complexity of the agroecosystem management. In the present work, the sustainability of grape production, in vineyard trials of Pinot blanc and Rhine Riesling, managed with integrated (INT) and organic management (organic, with cattle manure ORG1 and organic with green manure ORG2), was compared using a multi-indicator approach. The experiment was set in 2011 (1.5 ha in Trento, Italy) and carbon footprint (CF), nitrogen footprint (NF), water footprint (WF), soil microbial diversity (alpha diversity of bacteria, fungi, oomycetes communities) and soil C stock change, were evaluated in 2018. The CF was 0.213—0.227 kg CO2-eq/kg in the INT, 0.144—0.168 kg CO2-eq/kg in ORG1 and 0.134—0.147 kg CO2-eq/kg in ORG2. The NF was around 1 g Nr/kg for the INT, 0.4 g Nr/kg for ORG1 and 0.5 g Nr/kg for ORG2. The WF, excluding the pesticides impact on grey water, was 666—708 L/kg for INT, 605—655 L/kg for ORG1 and 529—580 L/kg for ORG2. The impact of farming practices on soil microbial alpha diversity showed no significant difference among treatments for oomycetes and significantly higher indexes for fungi and bacteria in the ORG1, with INT and ORG2, being similar. No difference in bulk organic C were observed among treatments. Overall, the multi-indicator approach allowed to demonstrate that the organic management was more beneficial for most of the environmental spheres of the agroecosystem compared to integrated management, without affecting the grape yiel

Long tree-ring chronologies provide evidence of recent tree growth decrease in a central african tropical forest

It is still unclear whether the exponential rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration has produced a fertilization effect on tropical forests, thus incrementing their growth rate, in the last two centuries. As many factors affect tree growth patterns, short -term studies might be influenced by the confounding effect of several interacting environmental variables on plant growth. Long-term analyses of tree growth can elucidate long-term trends of plant growth response to dominant drivers. The study of annual rings, applied to long tree-ring chronologies in tropical forest trees enables such analysis. Long-term tree-ring chronologies of three widespread African species were measured in Central Africa to analyze the growth of trees over the last two centuries. Growth trends were correlated to changes in global atmospheric CO2 concentration and local variations in the main climatic drivers, temperature and rainfall. Our results provided no evidence for a fertilization effect of CO2 on tree growth. On the contrary, an overall growth decline was observed for all three species in the last century, which appears to be significantly correlated to the increase in local temperature. These findings provide additional support to the global observations of a slowing down of C sequestration in the trunks of forest trees in recent decades. Data indicate that the CO2 increase alone has not been sufficient to obtain a tree growth increase in tropical trees. The effect of other changing environmental factors, like temperature, may have overridden the fertilization effect of CO2