91 research outputs found
La trasposizione videoludica del fumetto di Diabolik ed Eva Kant fra tradizione e innovazione narrativa
No full textFacilitated by digital technologies (Jenkins, 2014), the video game industry has seen an increasing expansion and convergence between different media. This process has allowed for the adaptation of comics such as Diabolik and Eva Kant into video games, films and television series. The serial form of Diabolik, in its Simulmondo series (1992-1993) in particular, offers an opportunity to study narrative dynamics in the transition between media. The theories of translation and transposition by Lefevere (1992) and of video game narratology by Juul (2005) are useful in this context. The Diabolik games rival Triple-A titles in terms of “scenario” structure and antihero philosophy (Bostic, 2006; Spicer, 2011), sometimes surpassing them in addressing political and social issues (Brancato, 2009). Our analysis will focus on the relationship between the comics and the videogame, exploring the challenges and opportunities of transposition, thus shedding light on the adaptation of an icon such as Diabolik in the videogame context
Ischia landslides (Italy): a multidisciplinary approach aimed to the knowledge of soil properties
No full textAn integrated approach (chemical, hydrological, mineralogical and micro-tomographic) has been used to study the soils of the landslides occurred in the Ischia island (Italy) on April 2006. The study has been carried out on three soil profiles sampled on representative detachment crowns. The main outcome indicates: (i) presence of volcanic soils, very rich in primary glass, characterised by the presence of poorly ordered kaolinite in all horizons and expandable clay minerals only in the deepest horizons (CBb and Cb), (ii) high values of water content near saturation for all soil horizons, (iii) a relevant vertical discontinuity of soil physical properties. In particular, the deep silty horizon (Cb) retains high amounts of water at low matric potential and shows the lowest value of the saturated hydraulic conductivity than the other horizons. The micro-tomographic analysis of this deep horizon indicates a very complex intra-aggregate pore space, which seems an important factor influencing the specific rheological behaviour of this sliding horizon.
In terms of pedogenetic processes, the soils of M. Vezzi northern slope are very different from those described for other catastrophic landslides of the Campania region (Sarno, Quindici, etc.), but they have in common the presence, along the soil profile, of marked physical discontinuities surely contributing to the initiation mechanisms of the landslides
A comparative analysis of the pore system in COST 622 volcanic soils by means of water retention measurements and image analysis
No full textThe quality and quantity of the soil pore system govern life in many terrestrial
ecosystems. In this regard the case of volcanic soils, and especially
Andosols, is of major interest since the unique properties of these soils,
such as high water retention, low bulk density, high smeariness, etc.,
mainly depend on the overall organisation of the pore system.
Given such importance, this chapter addresses the characterisation of the
porous system of the COST action 622 reference soils by means of twowell
established techniques, namely the water retention curve and image
analysis. This work will also attempt to address the complex issue of comparing
the results obtained by these two methods.
Water retention measurements on volcanic soils were carried out, especially
in soils of the circum-Pacific region, by Misono et al. (1953) for
Japanese soils, Colmet-Daage et al. (1967, 1970) for soils from the Carribean,
Central America and South America. Most of these measurements
were performed on few points of the water retention curve, generally 30
and 1500 kPa (Maeda et al. 1977, Nanzyo et al. 1993).
In Europe, only recently, detailed water retention characteristics were
measured on volcanic soils, although not emphasizing their distinct properties.
Ciollaro and Romano (1995) combined geostatistics and an inverse
method to derive hydraulic properties on a cultivated volcanic soil transect;
Basile et al. (2003a) applied the hysteresis concept to the fieldlaboratory
comparison.
More recently few authors took into account the distinct behaviour and
characteristics of volcanic soils: Basile and De Mascellis (1999) reported
results on the irreversible drying effect on water retention and transport parameters,
Basile et al. (2003b) applied a water flow deterministic model to
evaluate risk of debris flow triggering, Armas-Espinel et al. (2003) related
hydraulic properties to specific andic properties of cultivated soils, Fontes
et al. (2004) compared hydraulic properties in volcanic soils with different methods, and Ritter et al. (2004) analysed measurement strategies for the
inverse optimization of the hydraulic properties of a volcanic soil.
Soil pores range in size over several orders of magnitude. Many measurement
methods are available in order to quantify pore size distribution,
each giving best results in a specific pore size range. Nitrogen sorption at
–196°C (Sills et al. 1973), for example, is a well-established method for
determining specific surface area and pore size distribution in the range below
20 nm. Mercury intrusion porosimetry can rapidly provide pore size
distribution ranging from 10 nm to 100 mm (Pagliai 1988). Soil water retention
measurements allow estimation of equivalent pore size distribution
between 200 nm to 1 mm. Image analysis methods can also be applied after
using very different techniques (fluorescent resin impregnation, x-ray
Tomography, NMR, etc.) which allow pore space to be visualized. In this
latter case size limits depend on which technique is used.
Image analysis methods are generally laborious and time consuming but
they can provide details about shape and arrangement of pore space that
are not given by other methods (Marshall et al. 1996). Nevertheless, a pore
system cannot be adequately characterized by using a single method (Lawrence
1977). Only a comparison of different types of measurements can
give more complete representation of the soil structure. Moreover, measurements
of the pore size distribution in volcanic soils taking into account
their distinctive properties are scarce (Mele et al. 2000).
In the present chapter pore size distributions from water retention curves
and from image analysis of resin impregnated soil blocks are compared for
the representative soils of the COST action 622
Calibrazione del metodo fisico di separazione della SOM nelle frazioni libera, occlusa negli aggregati e stabilizzata dai minerali in Andosuoli campani
No full textScaling Approach to Deduce Field Unsaturated Hydraulic Properties and Behavior from Laboratory Measurements on Small Cores
No full textHydraulic properties should be determined at the scale of the process
modeled. The methods to hydraulically characterize a soil in situ
remain extremely difficult to implement, requiring measurements of
water content and pressure head with adequate time–depth resolution.
We recently proposed a method that reduced the number of field
measurements required for complete field hydraulic characterization.
In this paper, we extend the previous method to cases where the
only available information consists of laboratory hydraulic properties,
along with a measurement of the maximum water content in the field,
whose value depends on the way the wetting of the porous medium is
performed. Specifically, the field hydraulic parameters were estimated
with a scaling procedure accounting for the ratio between the total
porosity estimated by the maximum water content in the laboratory
and the partial porosity effectively involved in the field, as estimated
by the field-measured maximum water content. The scaling method
was evaluated with data from four soils (three volcanic sandy loam
soils and one silty clay loam soil). Soil hydraulic properties were measured
both in situ by a field internal drainage test and in the laboratory
in an evaporation experiment (Wind’s method). Scaling-based hydraulic
properties were also compared with those estimated by applying
a simplified method based on the unit-gradient water flow
assumption where only water content measurements performed during
the internal drainage test were of concern. The hydraulic properties
estimated with the scaling method were compared with the
measured ones and with those from the unit-gradient method in terms
of the Relative Mean Error (RME) and Relative Root Square Mean
Error (RRMSE). The scaling method proved to be especially effective
when applied to the three sandy loam soils, where scaled retention and
hydraulic conductivity curves to a large extent reproduced those measured
in the field. For the silty clay loam soil, appropriate results were
observed only for the water retention curve, while poorer scaled hydraulic
conductivity was obtained
Methodological issues in combining pores micromorphometry and hydraulic functions in soil
No full text
Volcanic soils and landslides: a case study of the island of Ischia (southern Italy) and its relationship with other Campania events
No full textAn integrated investigation was carried out on the volcanic soils involved in
the landslide phenomena that occurred in 2006 at Mt. Vezzi on the island of
Ischia (southern Italy). Chemical (soil pH, organic carbon content,
exchangeable cations and cation exchange capacity, electrical conductivity,
Na adsorption ratio and Al, Fe and Si forms), physical (particle and pore
size distribution, pore structure), hydrological (soil water retention,
saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity), mineralogical and
micromorphological analyses were carried out for three soil profiles selected
in two of the main head scarps.
The studied soils showed a substantial abrupt discontinuity in all the
studied properties at the interface with a buried fine ash layer (namely, the
2C horizon), that was only marginally involved in the sliding surface of the
landslide phenomena. When compared to the overlying horizons, 2C showed
(i) fine grey ash that is almost pumice free, with the silt content
increasing by 20 %; (ii) ks values 1 order of magnitude
lower; (iii) a pore distribution concentrated into small
(15–30 μm modal class) pores characterised by a very low
percolation threshold (approximately 15–25 μm); (iv) the
presence of expandable clay minerals; and (v) increasing Na content in the
exchange complex. Most of these properties indicated that 2C was a lower
permeability horizon compared to the overlying ones. Nevertheless, it was
possible to assume this interface to be an impeding layer to vertical water
fluxes only by the identification
of a thin (6.5 mm) finely
stratified ash layer, on top of 2C,
and of the hydromorphic features (e.g. Fe / Mn concretions) within and on
top of the layer. Although Mt. Vezzi's soil environment has many properties
in common with those of other Campania debris-mudflows (e.g. high gradient,
north-facing slope, similar forestry, and volcanic origin of the parent
material), the results of this study suggest a more complex relationship
between soil properties and landslides and emphasise the role of vertical
discontinuities as noteworthy predisposing factors
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