Continental degassing of helium in an active tectonic setting (northern Italy): the role of seismicity

In order to investigate the variability of helium degassing in continental regions, its release from rocks and emission into the atmosphere, here we studied the degassing of volatiles in a seismically active region of northern Italy (MwMAX = 6) at the Nirano-Regnano mud volcanic system. The emitted gases in the study area are CH4–dominated and it is the carrier for helium (He) transfer through the crust. Carbon and He isotopes unequivocally indicate that crustal-derived fluids dominate these systems. An high-resolution 3-dimensional reconstruction of the gas reservoirs feeding the observed gas emissions at the surface permits to estimate the amount of He stored in the natural reservoirs. Our study demonstrated that the in-situ production of 4He in the crust and a long-lasting diffusion through the crust are not the main processes that rule the He degassing in the region. Furthermore, we demonstrated that micro-fracturation due to the field of stress that generates the local seismicity increases the release of He from the rocks and can sustain the excess of He in the natural reservoirs respect to the steady-state diffusive degassing. These results prove that (1) the transport of volatiles through the crust can be episodic as function of rock deformation and seismicity and (2) He can be used to highlight changes in the stress field and related earthquakes

Test of the τ-model of Bose–Einstein correlations and reconstruction of the source function in hadronic Z-boson decay at LEP

Bose–Einstein correlations of pairs of identical charged pions produced in hadronic Z decays are analyzed in terms of various parametrizations. A good description is achieved using a Lévy stable distribution in conjunction with a model where a particle’s momentum is correlated with its space–time point of production, the τ-model. Using this description and the measured rapidity and transverse momentum distributions, the space–time evolution of particle emission in two-jet events is reconstructed. However, the elongation of the particle emission region previously observed is not accommodated in the τ-model, and this is investigated using an ad hoc modification

Coastal Groundwater Bodies Modelling Using Geophysical Surveys: The Reconstruction of the Geometry of Alluvial Plains in the North-Eastern Sicily (Italy)

The integration of various geophysical methodologies is considered a fundamental tool for accurately reconstructing the extent and shape of a groundwater body and for estimating the physical parameters that characterize it. This is often essential for the management of water resources in areas affected by geological and environmental hazards. This work aims to reconstruct the pattern and extent of two groundwater bodies, located in the coastal sectors of the North-Eastern Sicily, through the integrated analysis and interpretation of several geoelectrical, seismic and geological data. These are the Sant’Agata-Capo D’Orlando (SCGWB) and the Barcelona-Milazzo (BMGWB) Groundwater Bodies, located at the two ends of the northern sector of the Peloritani geological complex. These two studied coastal plains represent densely populated and industrialized areas, in which the quantity and quality of the groundwater bodies are under constant threat. At first, the resistivity models of the two groundwater bodies were realized through the inversion of a dataset of Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES), constrained by stratigraphic well logs data and other geophysical data. The 3D resistivity models obtained by spatially interpolating 1D inverse VES models have allowed for an initial recognition of the distribution of groundwater, as well as a rough geological framework of the subsoil. Subsequently, these models were implemented by integrating results from active and passive seismic data to determine the seismic P and S wave velocities of the main lithotypes. Simultaneous acquisition and interpretation of seismic and electrical tomographies along identical profiles allowed to determine the specific values of seismic velocity, electrical resistivity and chargeability of the alluvial sediments, and to use these values to constrain the HVSR inversion. All this allowed us to recognize the areal extension and thickness of the various lithotypes in the two investigated areas and, finally, to define the depth and the morphology of the base of the groundwater bodies and the thickness of the filling deposits

Social Protection and Foundational Cognitive Skills During Adolescence: Evidence from a Large Public Works Programme

Many low- and middle-income countries have introduced Public Works Programmes (PWPs) to fight poverty. PWPs provide temporary cash-for-work opportunities to boost poor households’ incomes and to provide better infrastructure to local communities. While PWPs do not target children directly, the increased demand for adult labour may affect children’s development through increasing households’ incomes and changing household members’ time uses. This paper expands on a multidimensional literature showing the relationship between early life circumstances and learning outcomes and provides the first evidence that children from families who benefit from PWPs show increased foundational cognitive skills (FCS). We focus on four child FCS: inhibitory control, working memory, long-term memory, and implicit learning. Our results, based on unique tablet-based data collected as part of a 20-year longitudinal survey, show positive associations of family participation in the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia during childhood on long-term memory and implicit learning, with weaker evidence for working memory. These associations appear to be strongest for children whose households were still PSNP participants in the year of data collection. We find suggestive evidence that, the association with implicit learning may be operating through children’s time reallocation away from unpaid labour responsibilities, while the association with long-term memory may be due to the programme’s success in remediating nutritional deficits caused by early life rainfall shocks. Our results suggest that policy interventions such as PWPs may be able to mitigate the effects of early poverty on cognitive skills formation and thereby improve children’s potential future outcomes

How Early Nutrition and Foundational Cognitive Skills Interconnect? Evidence from Two Developing Countries

We use unique data collected in Ethiopia and Peru as part of the Young Lives Study to investigate the relationship between early undernutrition and four foundational cognitive skills, the first two of which measure executive functioning: working memory, inhibitory control, long-term memory, and implicit learning. We exploit the rich longitudinal data available to control for potential confounders at the household level and for time-invariant community characteristics. We also exploit the availability of data for paired-siblings to obtain household fixed-effects estimates. Overall, we find robust evidence that stunting is negatively related with the development of executive functions, predicting reductions in working memory and inhibitory control by 12.6% and 5.8% of a standard deviation. Our results shed light on the mechanisms that explain the relationship between early nutrition and school achievement tests suggesting that good nutrition is an important determinant of children’s learning capacities

Long-term effects of rainfall shocks on foundational cognitive skills: evidence from Peru

Global warming is changing precipitation patterns, harming communities strongly tied to agricultural production, particularly in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs). Whilst the long-term effects of being exposed to rainfall shocks early in life on school achievement tests are well-established, there is little population-based evidence from LMICs on the mechanisms through which these shocks operate. This paper analyses the effects of early exposure to rainfall shocks on four foundational cognitive skills (FCSs), including executive functions (EF) that have been found to be key predictors of educational success. These skills were measured via a series of tablet-based tasks administered in Peru as part of the Young Lives longitudinal study (YLS). We combine the YLS data with gridded data on monthly precipitation to generate monthly, community-level rainfall estimates. The key identification strategy relies on temporary climatic shocks being uncorrelated with other latent determinants of FCS development. Our results show significant negative effects of early life exposure to rainfall shocks on EF. We also find evidence of rainfall shocks decreasing households' abilities to invest in human capital, which may affect both FCS and domain-specific test scores. Interestingly, social policies providing affected households with additional resources partially offset the effects of the rainfall shocks

A landscape approach in the isotopic modeling of natural precipitations: two cases in Mediterranean mountain areas

The present paper proposes a method to simplify the very complex isotopic fractionation processes occurring during the water cycle. The method is constrained by a relatively small number of variables, with the precision needed in hydrological applications. After a theoretical introduction on the adopted interpolation criteria, two cases in the Mediterranean are presented. In both cases the evaluation of the “geometric complexity” of the systems appears to be the best tool to produce reliable isotopic models. If the complexity is low, it is apparently easier to fit different models; on the contrary the higher the complexity is, more difficult it is to find a reliable model but, at the same time, more difficult it is to find effective alternative models

Late-Childhood Foundational Cognitive Skills Predict Educational Outcomes Through Adolescence and Into Young Adulthood: Evidence from Ethiopia and Peru

We estimate the associations between a set of foundational cognitive skills (inhibitory control, working memory, long-term memory, and implicit learning) measured at age 12 and educational outcomes measured at ages 15 and 19-20 in Ethiopia and Peru (the Young Lives study). The estimates adjust for a rich set of lagged controls and include measurements of children’s general abilities. For a subset of the outcomes, we exploit within-household variation. Working memory and long-term memory are consistently and positively associated with subsequent domain-specific cognitive achievement tests in both countries, university enrolment in Peru (working memory) and lower secondary-school completion in Ethiopia (long-term memory). Inhibitory control predicts subsequent math-test scores in both countries, and grade attainment in Ethiopia. These results provide additional evidence to justify the importance of promoting investments in cognitive skills throughout childhood and adolescence, and these results potentially elucidate how investments in children impact their educational achievements

Molecular and isotopic composition of free hydrocarbon gases from Sicily, Italy

Chemical and isotopic data have been used as geochemical tracers for a genetic characterization of hydrocarbon gases from a total of eleven manifestations located in Eastern and Central-Southern Sicily (Italy). The molecular analysis shows that almost all the samples are enriched in methane (up to 93.2% Vol.), with the exception of four gas samples collected around Mt. Etna showing high mantle-derived CO2 content. Methane isotope signatures suggest that these are thermogenic gases or a mixture between thermogenic gases and microbial gases. Although samples from some mud volcanoes in Southern Sicily (Macalube di Aragona) show isotope signatures consistent with a mixing model between thermogenic and microbial, by combining the molecular compositions (C-1/(C-2 + C-3)) and the methane isotope ratios (delta(13)C(1)), such a process seems to be excluded. Therefore, the occurrence of secondary post-genetic processes should be invoked. Two main hypotheses have been considered: the first hypothesis includes that the gas is produced by microbial activity and altered post-genetically by microbial oxidation of methane, while according to the second hypothesis thermogenic gas have modified their molecular ratios due to vertical migration

Geophysical Constraints to Reconstructing the Geometry of a Shallow Groundwater Body in Caronia (Sicily)

The characterization of a groundwater body involves the construction of a conceptual model that constitutes the base knowledge for monitoring programs, hydrogeological risk assessment, and correct management of water resources. In particular, a detailed geological and geophysical approach was applied to define the alluvial Caronia Groundwater Body (CGWB) and to reconstruct a hydrogeological flow model. The analysis of the CGWB, located in north-eastern Sicily, was initially approached through a reanalysis of previous stratigraphic (boreholes) and geophysical (vertical electrical soundings and seismic refraction profiles) data, subsequently integrated by new seismic acquisitions, such as Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW) and horizontal-to-vertical seismic ratio (HVSR). The analysis and reinterpretation of geoelectrical data allowed the construction of a preliminary 3D resistivity model. This initial modeling was subsequently integrated by a geophysical data campaign in order to define the depth of the bottom of the shallow CGWB and the thickness of alluvial deposits. Finally, a preliminary mathematical model flow was generated in order to reconstruct the dynamics of underground water. The results show that integration of multidisciplinary data represent an indispensable tool for the characterization of complex physical systems