La difesa del suolo: un connubio tra sostenibilità ed etica

È ormai aumentata, presso l’opinione pubblica, la percezione del grave problema rappresentato dall’inquinamento ambientale. Un inquinamento, sempre più grave e diffuso, determinato dalle attività umane, cresciute in maniera esponenziale negli ultimi decenni, con conseguente sfruttamento delle risorse rinnovabili e non rinnovabili del pianeta e con l’impatto sempre meno sostenibile dell’inquinamento a tutti i livelli (aria, acqua e suolo). Le molteplici attività dell’uomo infatti, alterano l’ambiente e gli ecosistemi naturali, mettendone a dura prova le capacità omeostatiche di risposta alle modificazioni, ed alterando in maniera sempre meno reversibile equilibri che il sistema aveva stabilito nel corso dei secoli. L’idea che la natura non abbia limiti, che sia possibile manipolarla e sfruttarla senza vincoli, si scontra ormai con la realtà. L’importanza dell’aria e dell’acqua, componenti fondamentali della biosfera è un fatto radicato nella coscienza dell’uomo, in quanto la qualità dell’aria determina la salubrità dell’ambiente in cui egli vive e la qualità dell’acqua consente l’espletamento di tutti i fabbisogni di carattere igienico, agricolo, industriale e di tutti quegli altri legati allo sviluppo economico e sociale dell’uomo. Non altrettanto può dirsi del suolo, spesso considerato come la sede destinata ad accogliere rifiuti di ogni natura, compresi quelli provenienti dal disinquinamento dell’aria e dell’acqua. La purificazione dell’atmosfera può infatti avvenire per semplice deposizione di agenti inquinanti sulla superficie terrestre o anche attraverso le precipitazioni atmosferiche. La purificazione dell’acqua inquinata, realizzabile con svariati sistemi di trattamenti, porta a sua volta alla produzione di fanghi residui, che hanno come sede finale per il loro smaltimento proprio il suolo. In una visione poco chiara del disinquinamento dell’ambiente, il suolo va visto come la sede finale per lo smaltimento delle più svariate sostanze, senza considerare che proprio il suolo è la sede principale ed insostituibile per la produzione primaria. Solo una corretta gestione della biosfera ci porta a vedere il suolo come un sistema limitato di auto depurazione a disposizione della natura, o anche un sistema tampone che controlla il trasporto degli elementi e delle sostanze chimiche verso l’atmosfera, l’idrosfera e gli esseri viventi

Composting of olive mill pomace, agro‐industrial sewage sludge and other residues: Process monitoring and agronomic use of the resulting composts

The viability of co‐composting of olive mill pomace added to sewage sludge with other organic residues was evaluated and the agronomic use of the final composts was investigated. Two composting piles at different carbon‐nitrogen ratios were performed, in which olive mill pomace (OMP), sewage sludge from vegetable processing (SS), fresh residues from artichoke processing residues (AR), and wheat straw (WS) were used. The two composting piles were placed inside a spe-cially built greenhouse and a turning machine pulled by a tractor was used for turning and shred-ding the organic matrix (every 6 days) during the process. The humidity and temperature of organic matrices have been monitored and controlled during the entire composting process, which lasted 90 days. The process was also monitored to evaluate the microbiological safety of the final compost. The humidity of both piles was always kept just above 50% until the end of the thermophilic phase and the maximum temperature was about 50 °C during the thermophilic phase. The carbon‐nitro-gen ratio decreased from 21.4 and 28.2, respectively (initial value at day 1 in Pile A and B), to values ranging from 12.9 to 15.1, both composts that originated from the two different piles were microbi-ologically safe. During a two‐year period, the effects of different types of compost on the main qualitative parameters of processing tomato and durum wheat was evaluated. Five fertilization treatments were evaluated for tomato and durum wheat crops: unfertilized control (TR1); compost A (TR2); compost B (TR3); ½ mineral and ½ compost A (TR4); and mineral fertilizer commonly used for the two crops (TR5). Concerning the processing tomato yield, TR5 and TR4 showed the best results (2.73 and 2.51 kg, respectively). The same trend was observed considering the marketable yield per plant. The only difference was related to the treatments that included the compost (2.32, 1.77, and 1.73 kg/plant for TR4, TR3, and TR2, respectively). As regards the qualitative parameters of to-mato, the highest average weight of the fruits was found in the TR5, TR4, and TR3 treatments (re-spectively, 73.67 g, 70.34 g, and 68.10 g). For durum wheat, only the protein component was differ-entiated between treatments. Furthermore, wheat grain yield parameters generally increased by combined application of mineral fertilizer and compost

Novel Reconstruction Errors for Saliency Detection in Hyperspectral Images

When hyperspectral images are analyzed, a big amount of data, representing the reflectance at hundreds of wavelengths, needs to be processed. Hence, dimensionality reduction techniques are used to discard unnecessary information. In order to detect the so called “saliency”, i.e., the relevant pixels, we propose a bottom-up approach based on three main ingredients: sparse non negative matrix factorization (SNMF), spatial and spectral functions to measure the reconstruction error between the input image and the reconstructed one and a final clustering technique. We introduce novel error functions and show some useful mathematical properties. The method is validated on hyperspectral images and compared with state-of-the-art different approaches

A resources ecosystem for digital and heritage-led holistic knowledge in rural regeneration

This paper presents a digital resources ecosystem prototype of integrated tools and resources to support heritage-led regeneration of rural regions, thanks to a deeper understanding of the complexity of cultural natural landscapes throughout their historical and current development. The ecosystem is conceived as a distributed software platform establishing data ecosystem and open standards for the management of information, aimed at providing different services and applications to address the needs of the various end-users identified. The platform has been conceived and realised in the framework of a Horizon 2020 research project, with a view to building a set of holistic knowledge about rural regions and their cultural and natural heritage and making it available for long-lasting heritage-led territorial processes of change. It is the product of a multidisciplinary collaboration amongst heritage, digital humanities and ICTs experts, and combines data and methodologies from a range of approaches to humanities together with the customisation of effective digital tools. It has been designed for deployment also in cloud systems compliant with the Infrastructure-as-a-Service paradigm. All data is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR data). It hosts and integrates different tools, making the data gathered with/for local stakeholders usable and making the same data re-usable within the tools’ functions, generating integrated heritage knowledge. It comprises data on 19 rural pilot territories, where the tools and their integration have been developed and tested, while 62 more are partially included as additional territories which participate in certain activities within the project. The main testers for this platform and its functions are the local stakeholders of these territories. The paper describes and analyses the platform and its impact, discussing the integration of tools as an innovative approach that goes beyond the use of individual tools in shaping a multidimensional vision. It also offers an analysis of the potential of an integrated digital ecosystem in evidence-based and place-based regeneration strategies. Some reflections for developments and cooperation during the pandemic are also presented

Predictions of COVID-19 dynamics in the UK : short-term forecasting and analysis of potential exit strategies

Efforts to suppress transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK have seen non-pharmaceutical interventions being invoked. The most severe measures to date include all restaurants, pubs and cafes being ordered to close on 20th March, followed by a "stay at home" order on the 23rd March and the closure of all non-essential retail outlets for an indefinite period. Government agencies are presently analysing how best to develop an exit strategy from these measures and to determine how the epidemic may progress once measures are lifted. Mathematical models are currently providing short and long term forecasts regarding the future course of the COVID-19 outbreak in the UK to support evidence-based policymaking. We present a deterministic, age-structured transmission model that uses real-time data on confirmed cases requiring hospital care and mortality to provide up-to-date predictions on epidemic spread in ten regions of the UK. The model captures a range of age-dependent heterogeneities, reduced transmission from asymptomatic infections and produces a good fit to the key epidemic features over time. We simulated a suite of scenarios to assess the impact of differing approaches to relaxing social distancing measures from 7th May 2020 on the estimated number of patients requiring inpatient and critical care treatment, and deaths. With regard to future epidemic outcomes, we investigated the impact of reducing compliance, ongoing shielding of elder age groups, reapplying stringent social distancing measures using region based triggers and the role of asymptomatic transmission. We find that significant relaxation of social distancing measures from 7th May onwards can lead to a rapid resurgence of COVID-19 disease and the health system being quickly overwhelmed by a sizeable, second epidemic wave. In all considered age-shielding based strategies, we projected serious demand on critical care resources during the course of the pandemic. The reintroduction and release of strict measures on a regional basis, based on ICU bed occupancy, results in a long epidemic tail, until the second half of 2021, but ensures that the health service is protected by reintroducing social distancing measures for all individuals in a region when required. Our work confirms the effectiveness of stringent non-pharmaceutical measures in March 2020 to suppress the epidemic. It also provides strong evidence to support the need for a cautious, measured approach to relaxation of lockdown measures, to protect the most vulnerable members of society and support the health service through subduing demand on hospital beds, in particular bed occupancy in intensive care units

Multiethnic Cities in the Mediterranean World. History, culture, heritage

The book deals with the mutiethinicity of cities of Mediterranean world under a diacronical and multidisciplinary perspective. It collects many articles of different authors focusing on case studies. It includes two introductory essays of the authors

Inhibition enhances the coherence in the Jacobi neuronal model

The output signal is examined for the Jacobi neuronal model which is characterized by input-dependent multiplicative noise. The dependence of the noise on the rate of inhibition turns out to be of primary importance to observe maxima both in the output firing rate and in the diffusion coefficient of the spike count and, simultaneously, a minimum in the coefficient of variation (Fano factor). Moreover, we observe that an increment of the rate of inhibition can increase the degree of coherence computed from the power spectrum. This means that inhibition can enhance the coherence and thus the information transmission between the input and the output in this neuronal model. Finally, we stress that the firing rate, the coefficient of variation and the diffusion coefficient of the spike count cannot be used as the only indicator of coherence resonance without considering the power spectrum

Reproducing Real World Emission Tests with a Traffic Simulator

This investigation analyzes the feasibility of using a traffic simulator, and in particular the open source software SUMO (Simulation of Urban Mobility) to reproduce speed profiles acquired under Real Driving Emission (RDE) tests. The first step of the investigation describes the experimental tests performed in Lecce to obtain RDE cycles with a Class3b vehicle. Several tests are executed with the same vehicle over the same route with the same driver. The plots of Relative Positive Acceleration versus vehicle obtained in these tests are used to tune and validate SUMO together with the qualitative speed time histories and emissions of carbon dioxide. The experimental tests also revealed the possibility to correlate CO2 emissions with either the specification of the cycle (speed and acceleration of the vehicle) or the engine working points (load and speed). This means that the proposed traffic simulator tool has the potentiality to be used for the estimation and minimization of CO2 emissions over RDE driving conditions in conventional and advanced power systems. However, the preliminary results shown in this paper reveal that SUMO needs a fine tuning and some improvements before being used for this scope