The economic performance of urban gardening in three European cities – examples from Ljubljana, Milan and London

Urban gardening is not a new phenomenon but it has received considerably more practical and academic interest in recent years. Studies on economic aspects such as crop yields, inputs and outputs of production, productivity, gross margins and the contribution to home economics are rare, especially in Europe. While urban gardening plays an important role in the Global South, its role in Western Europe for food productivity and home eco- nomics is currently under-researched. The aim of this study is to analyse European urban gardeners\u2019 economic performance and self-sufficiency on a household level, as well as to reach a better understanding of their con- tribution to food self-provision and food security in the metropolitan areas. In a study carried out in 2014 with on-site personal and with online questionnaires participated 180 urban gardeners from three case study cities (Ljubljana, Milan, and London). Results from the economic analysis showed that although for most urban gar- deners, profit is not their main motivation, the economic calculation shows that productivity in small urban plots can be comparable to market garden production. Urban gardeners are saving money, especially when, compared to retail prices for regular produce or organic produce, their input is included in the gross margin calculation. We conclude that, in the case-study cities, the self-provisional potential of urban gardeners\u2019 households to ade- quately cover the annual vegetable need of five-a-day servings can be met under three conditions: (1) sufficient garden size; (2) increased area productivity, and (3) sufficient labour-hour inputs

El enfoque sistémico de la Geomorfología y los paradigmas de la percepción remota.

El trabajo analiza la influencia de los paradigmas que se emplean en la interpretación de imágenes sensoriales remotas y el empleo de los Sistemas de Información Geográfica en los resultados obtenidos. Especialmente se consideran el de la Síntesis analítica y el Sistémico, el Catastrofismo y el Uniformitarismo, dentro del marco de las Teorías General de Sistemas y de la Bio- Rexistasia. La enorme potencia de los recursos informáticos ha hecho olvidar, en algunos casos, que es el cerebro el cual interpreta o decide los procedimientos y algoritmos de interpretación, lo cual ya ocurrió cuando se introdujo la interpretación de las fotografías aéreas. Las conclusiones se basan en trabajos realizados en una superficie de más de 400.000 Km2 de las llanuras argentinas, a lo largo de más de 30 años, por el autor y el personal del Centro de Geociencias Aplicadas de la UNNE y del Instituto Correntino del Agua

Laboratory experiments on cosmic dust analogues: the structure of small carbon grains

In this paper we present new results of our experiments aimed to study the internal structure of cosmic analogue carbon grains. The samples, produced by arc discharge between two carbon electrodes in an argon atmosphere, were annealed in the temperature range 250-780°C in order to produce modification of the internal grain structure. These changes were monitored by analysing the variations of the extinction profile between 190 and 2600 nm and of the optical gap as a function of the annealing temperature. The shift of the UV peak position towards longer wavelengths. the overall increase of the extinction coefficient and the closing of the gap as the temperature increases are all consistent with the evolution of carbon grains outlined by Mennella et al. (Astrophys. J., 444, 288, 1995 ; Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 100, 149, 1995). It provides a growth in number and size of the sp2 clusters forming the grains during the annealing. The relevance of the electronic structure of the aromatic clusters in the extinction processes and the dependence of the energy Ï transitions on their size are confirmed by the present results. These results may be relevant in the context of interstellar bump attribution, as they show that the internal structure of small carbon grains is dominant in extinction processes. © 1995

The spatial association between environmental pollution and long-term cancer mortality in Italy

Tumours are nowadays the second world-leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases. During the last decades of cancer research, lifestyle and random/genetic factors have been blamed for cancer mortality, with obesity, seden-tary habits, alcoholism, and smoking contributing as supposed major causes. However, there is an emerging consensus that environmental pollution should be considered one of the main triggers. Unfortunately, all this preliminary scien-tific evidence has not always been followed by governments and institutions, which still fail to pursue research on can-cer's environmental connections. In this unprecedented national-scale detailed study, we analyzed the links between cancer mortality, socio-economic factors, and sources of environmental pollution in Italy, both at wider regional and finer provincial scales, with an artificial intelligence approach. Overall, we found that cancer mortality does not have a random or spatial distribution and exceeds the national average mainly when environmental pollution is also higher, despite healthier lifestyle habits. Our machine learning analysis of 35 environmental sources of pollution showed that air quality ranks first for importance concerning the average cancer mortality rate, followed by sites to be reclaimed, urban areas, and motor vehicle density. Moreover, other environmental sources of pollution proved to be relevant for the mortality of some specific cancer types. Given these alarming results, we call for a rearrangement of the priority of cancer research and care that sees the reduction and prevention of environmental contamination as a priority action to put in place in the tough struggle against cancer

A ten-year (2009–2018) database of cancer mortality rates in Italy

In Italy, approximately 400.000 new cases of malignant tumors are recorded every year. The average of annual deaths caused by tumors, according to the Italian Cancer Registers, is about 3.5 deaths and about 2.5 per 1,000 men and women respectively, for a total of about 3 deaths every 1,000 people. Long-term (at least a decade) and spatially detailed data (up to the municipality scale) are neither easily accessible nor fully available for public consultation by the citizens, scientists, research groups, and associations. Therefore, here we present a ten-year (2009–2018) database on cancer mortality rates (in the form of Standardized Mortality Ratios, SMR) for 23 cancer macro-types in Italy on municipal, provincial, and regional scales. We aim to make easily accessible a comprehensive, ready-to-use, and openly accessible source of data on the most updated status of cancer mortality in Italy for local and national stakeholders, researchers, and policymakers and to provide researchers with ready-to-use data to perform specific studies

CONFRONTO DEI PARAMETRI GEOTECNICI E GEOFISICI PRE E POST BLAST TEST PRESSO IL SITO SPERIMENTALE DI MIRABELLO (FE)

L'articolo presenta alcuni risultati preliminari derivanti dal primo esperimento di liquefazione indotta tramite blast test realizzato in Italia, presso Mirabello (FE), comune fortemente colpito da fenomeni di liquefazione durante la sequenza sismica verificatasi in Emilia-Romagna nel 2012. In particolare diverse indagini in sito con tecniche invasive e non invasive sono state eseguite prima e dopo le detonazioni per confrontare la variazione dei parametri geotecnici e geofisici nel tempo