4,048 research outputs found
Noto, Vicentina D.
No full textCentro Asturiano membership record of Vicentina D. Noto; Socio Number: 603.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/asturiano_membership/4700/thumbnail.jp
Climate Change in the Mediterranean Basin (Part II): A Review of Challenges and Uncertainties in Climate Change Modeling and Impact Analyses
No full textThe Mediterranean basin is particularly prone to climate change and vulnerable to its impacts. One of the most relevant consequences of climate change, especially for the southern Mediterranean regions, is certainly water scarcity as result of a reduction of surface runoff and groundwater levels. Despite the progress achieved in recent years in the field of climate change and its impact on water resources, results and outcomes should be treated with due caution since any future climate projection and derived implications are inevitably affected by a certain degree of uncertainty arising from each different stage of the entire modeling chain. This work offers a comprehensive overview of recent works on climate change in the Mediterranean basin, mainly focusing on the last ten years of research. Past and future trends on different components of the hydrological balance are discussed in a companion paper (Noto et al. 2022), while the present paper focuses on the problem of water availability and water scarcity. In addition, the work aims to discuss the most relevant sources of uncertainty related to climate change with the aim to gain awareness of climate change impact studies interpretation and reliability
Exploring the linkage between dew point temperature and precipitation extremes: A multi-time-scale analysis on a semi-arid Mediterranean region
No full textUnderstanding warming climate implications on precipitation is of crucial importance, especially for areas particularly subjected to climate changes and land use/cover modifications, which could be extremely vulnerable to phenomena typically caused by rainfall extremes, such as floods and landslides. Past decade has been witnessing an increasing interest on simple modeling approaches based on the observation of commonly available meteorological variables and their physical linkages. In particular, based on the well-known thermodynamic Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) equation, it was widely investigated the scaling relation between rainfall extremes and variables representative of the near surface humidity, typically the surface air temperature, through the use of general regression models. In some cases, conventional approaches have shown some evident limitations related to the use of surface temperature as covariate, limited size of the analyzed datasets and some climatic peculiarities of the investigated areas, especially for tropical, arid and semi-arid environments. The use of quantile regression instead of general regression and dew point temperature instead of surface temperatures have recently revealed promising potentialities for overcoming some of the above limitations for wet areas, while it has been scarcely tested in arid and semi-arid regions. The purpose of this study is to analyze the suitability of a quantile regression-based approach in a semi-arid Mediterranean region and to explore the impact of different modeling choices on the estimation of the scaling rate. More specifically, the sensitivity of extreme precipitation to dew point temperature is investigated through a multi-time-scale analysis, performed on a wide regional dataset of Sicily (Italy) including high temporal resolution climatic data from 86 gauges. The role of the considered rainfall accumulation period, conditional quantile and time-lag between precipitation-dew point temperature paired data is investigated considering different spatial and temporal data aggregation. The results reveal scaling rate values always below the theoretical CC-rate. Hourly and sub-hourly rainfall extremes are more sensitive to changes in dew point temperature than longer precipitation. The analysis of the driest and hottest season shows a dew point temperature dependence of extreme rainfall more complex than for the other seasons. Compared to the use of general regression, the scaling relationship observed with the quantile regression approach, here used, is more regular across different gauges and sub-regions, rainfall accumulation periods and seasons, with similar scaling rates, confirming promising potentialities areas also for semi-arid regions
Exploring the use of multi-gene genetic programming in regional models for the simulation of monthly river runoff series
No full textThe use of new data-driven approaches based on the so-called expert systems to simulate runoff generation processes is a promising frontier that may allow for overcoming some modeling difficulties related to more complex traditional approaches. The present study highlights the potential of expert systems in creating regional hydrological models, for which they can benefit from the availability of large database. Different soft computing models for the reconstruction of the monthly natural runoff in river basins are explored, focusing on a new class of heuristic models, which is the Multi-Gene Genetic Programming (MGGP). The region under study is Sicily (Italy), where a regression based rainfall-runoff model, here used as benchmark model, was previously built starting from the analysis of a regional database relative to several gauged watersheds across the region. In the present study, different models are created using the same dataset, including: six MGGPs generated considering different modeling set-up; a Multi-Layer Perceptron Artificial Neural Network (ANN); two new hybrid models (ANN-MGGP), combining a Classifier ANN and two MGGPs that simulate separately low and high runoff. Results show how all the soft computing models perform similarly and outperform the benchmark model, demonstrating that MGGP can be considered as a valid alternative to the much more consolidated ANN technique. The new introduced hybrid ANN-MGGP is the only model showing at least satisfactory performance (i.e. Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency above 0.5) over the full range of 38 watersheds explored, representing a useful regional tool for reconstructing monthly runoff series also at ungauged sites
Binding of spermine and putrescine to energized liver mitochondria.
No full textThe binding of spermidine and putrescine to mitochondrial membranes was studied by applying a thermodynamic model of ligand-receptor interactions developed both for equilibrium and far-from-equilibrium binding processes (V. Di Noto, L. Dalla Via, A. Toninello, and M. Vidali Macromol. Theory Simul. 5, 165-181, 1996). Results demonstrate the presence of two monocoordinated binding sites (S1 and S2) for spermidine and one monocoordinated binding site (S2) for putrescine, all exhibiting high capacity and low affinity. It is proposed that differences in the polyamines' flexibility and hydrophilicity perhaps contributes to the observed variations in their interactions with the two sites. A comparison of the binding parameters of these polyamines with those of spermine reveals differences in the specific function of the S1 and S2 sites, identified in studies of spermine binding (L. Dalla Via, V. Di Noto, D. Siliprandi, and A. Toninello Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1284, 247-252, 1996)
Corporatism
No full textOriginal contribution on Corporatism in its historical development following the western tradition since the Roman Empire to nowadays issues on neo corporatism. The essay suggests the interpretation of c. as the most spread economic attitude in economic history with some relevant case of a strong theoretical basis
Climate Change in the Mediterranean Basin (Part I): Induced Alterations on Climate Forcings and Hydrological Processes
No full textIn the last years, the Mediterranean basin has been widely recognized as one of the most vulnerable areas in the world to climate change; because of its high concentration of urban and industrial settlements, it is one of the most impacted areas of the world in terms of water scarcity. The present paper aims at reviewing the main observed and predicted effects of climate change on hydrological processes directly related to water availability in the Mediterranean Basin, mainly focusing on the last ten years of research. While an in-depth discussion about possible future water scarcity problem in the Mediterranean area and the sources of uncertainty affecting future climate projections and impact assessments is presented in a companion paper (Noto et al., 2022), this study highlights how most of the more recent studies for the Mediterranean region are concordant and recognize a general increasing future trajectory in both the mean and extreme values of air temperatures. On the contrary, there is much less agreement about the intensity and directions of future projections for other variables, such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, and runoff, whose changes are less evident and variable in space
Anonimi, “Ges al meu grat non sui joglar” (BdT 461.126), “Per zo no·m voil desconortar” (BdT 461.193), “Va, cobla: al Juge de Galur” (BdT 461.246), “Seigner Juge, ben aug dir a la gen” (BdT 461.217), “Ges per li diz non er bons prez sabuz” (BdT 461.133)
No full textMy paper provides a new critical edition, with critical apparatus, comment and translation of a set of anonymous ‘coblas’, copied as a sequence in the anthology present at ff. 55-66 in chansonnier P: BdT 461.126; BdT 461.193; BdT 461.246; BdT 461.217; BdT 461.133 (all of which are unica). I will examine in particular the attributions suggested so far for one or more of these ‘coblas’ (a name that has frequently been put forward is that of Paolo Lanfranchi da Pistoia, author of the sonnet in ‘cobla’ form copied in P immediately preceding the poems discussed here) and address the hypothesis put forward by several scholars (and upheld with convincing evidence by Stefano Asperti) that the sequence under consideration points to the strong presence of a Tuscan tradition in chansonnier P, clearly contributing, among other things, to outline a “fundamental coherence” (Asperti) between some aspects of Dante’s literary culture and this particular songbook
Dal falsario all'instant author: esempi di falsificazione e autorialità nel cinema italiano degli anni Sessanta.
No full textIl saggio si pone l'obiettivo di combinare le nozioni di falso e di autorialità, mettendole alla prova di alcuni casi specifici tratti dalla storia del cinema italiano. Il periodo preso in esame va dalla metà alla fine degli anni Sessanta; i film in questione sono i primi lavori di registi come Tinto Brass, Roberto Faenza, Salvatore Samperi: "Chi lavora è perduto - In capo al mondo" (1963), "Escalation" (1968), "Grazie zia" (1967) e "Cuore di mamma" (1968). L'ipotesi che si cerca di dimostrare è che in queste pellicole si manifesti una particolare forma di autorialità, richiesta e ottenuta attraverso i mezzi della falsificazione testuale. Tale procedimento è reso possibile dalla particolare natura del cinema d'autore della seconda metà degli anni Sessanta, costruito come una sorta di macrogenere dal quale i giovani registi possono estrarre facilmente protocolli di falsificazione e di rielaborazione
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