IRIDE: Interdisciplinary research infrastructure based on dual electron linacs and lasers

This paper describes the scientific aims and potentials as well as the preliminary technical design of RUDE, an innovative tool for multi-disciplinary investigations in a wide field of scientific, technological and industrial applications. IRIDE will be a high intensity "particles factory", based on a combination of high duty cycle radio-frequency superconducting electron linacs and of high energy lasers. Conceived to provide unique research possibilities for particle physics, for condensed matter physics, chemistry and material science, for structural biology and industrial applications, IRIDE will open completely new research possibilities and advance our knowledge in many branches of sci…

Assessing the biomass of shrubs typical of Mediterranean pre-forest communities

One of the most outstanding issues of current environmental research is the need of reliable assessments of carbon stock (i.e. above-ground (a.g.) and below-ground biomass, deadwood, litter, and organic soil matter) within forest ecosystems. Although shrub vegetation plays an important role in accumulating carbon in many Mediterranean environments, there is still very little knowledge on the carbon they store. In this article, we analyze the a.g. carbon stock of several Mediterranean shrubby communities in Sicily (Italy), dominated by Pistacia lentiscus, Chamaerops humilis, Euphorbia dendroides and Spartium junceum. Plant samples for each species were selected, and morphometric attributes (…

Fitting the Stocking Rate with Pastoral Resources to Manage and Preserve Mediterranean Forestlands: A Case Study

Pasture practices have affected Mediterranean forest ecosystems for millennia, and they are still quite widespread in mountainous areas. Nevertheless, in the last decades, the stability of forest ecosystems has been jeopardized due to the abandonment of traditional agro-pastoral practices, so that the gradual reduction of open areas due to progressive succession processes has caused a high increase of grazing pressure by livestock and wild ungulates feeding on forest areas. This paper aims at showing a methodological approach for evaluating the effect of applying measures in order to improve the grazing value of grasslands and ecotonal patches and lower the grazing impact on native woodland…

Design and Low-Cost Implementation of an Optimally Robust Reduced-Order Rotor Flux Observer for Induction Motor Control

The aim of this paper is to design and analyze reduced-order observers of the rotor flux of induction motors. The design is carried out in two steps. In the first step, a boundary of the stability region of the observation error is obtained corresponding to a chosen Lyapunov function. In the second step, the boundary is translated into a performance index that is minimized with respect to stator and rotor resistance variations and differences of voltages supplying the motor and those supplying the observer in order to obtain the largest stability region. Implementation of the observer on a low-cost fixed-point digital signal processor using look-up tables is described. Experimental results …

I fattori di rischio per la biodiversità forestale in Sicilia: il caso studio del cerro di Gussone

Il cerro di Gussone (Quercus Gussonei (Borzì) Brullo) è una specie endemica della Sicilia esclusiva della catena dei Nebrodi e del bosco della Ficuzza. Il presente studio ha esaminato la rinnovazione di questa pianta, nella Riserva Naturale Orientata “Bosco della Ficuzza, Rocca Busambra, Bosco del Cappelliere, Gorgo del Drago”. Si tratta di una formazione boschiva monoplana che mostra chiari segni di deperimento. Per isolare i fattori che influenzano la rinnovazione e la crescita delle giovani piantine è stato eseguito un piano di trattamenti. Il risultato dello studio ha confermato che la rinnovazione si afferma in parte e, soprattutto, le giovani piantine non si accrescono a causa della p…

Invariant NKT cells are expanded in peripheral blood but are undetectable in salivary glands of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome

OBJECTIVES: Invariant NKT (iNKT) cells play a role in regulating the function of autoreactive B cells before their entry into germinal centres. Absence and/or reduction of iNKT cells have been demonstrated in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) together with an increase of autoreactive B cell activity. Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a systemic autoimmune disease in which lymphocyte infiltration and organisation in lymphoid structures of inflamed salivary glands occurs. The aim of the study was to investigate the percentage and function of iNKT in the salivary glands and peripheral blood of patients with pSS. METHODS: Minor salivary gland biopsies were obtained from patient…

Ostrya carpinifolia Scop. (fam. Betulaceae) a Ficuzza (Monti Sicani, provincia di Palermo): note ecologiche e demografiche

First measurement of the helicity dependence of 3He photoreactions in the Δ(1232) resonance region

The first measurement of the helicity dependence of the total inclusive 3He photo-absorption cross section and of the partial cross sections for several reaction channels was carried out at MAMI (Mainz) in the photon energy range between 150 and 500 MeV. The experiment used the large acceptance Crystal Ball spectrometer, complemented by charged particle and vertex detectors, a circularly polarised tagged photon beam and a longitudinally polarised high-pressure 3He gas target. The results obtained give information on the GDH integral on 3He and on the neutron and allow an investigation of the modifications of nucleon properties inside 3He.

Rooting and acclimatization of micropropagatedHypericum perforatumL. native to Sicily

Hypericum perforatum L. is traditionally used as a medicinal plant because of its different bioactive compounds with documented antidepressant and antiinflammatory activities. Plantlets’ mass production with high content of these secondary metabolites has been enhanced through in vitro culture but the process has often been stopped at the multiplication phase. A study was conducted in order to set up an efficient in vitro rooting and acclimatization protocol of a H. perforatum Sicilian genotype well-adapted to south Mediterranean conditions. Aseptic nodal segments were cultured onto a Murashige and Skoog (MS) basal medium supplemented with 4.44 µM 6-benzyladenine for multiplication. Microsh…

Targeting IL-6 signalling in early rheumatoid arthritis is followed by Th1 and Th17 suppression and Th2 expansion.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the in vitro and ex-vivo effect of IL-6 inhibition on the balance between Th1, Th2, Th17 and Treg cells. METHODS: Ten consecutive adult patients with active early rheumatoid arthritis (ERA) and ten healthy volunteers were included in the study. The percentages of Th1, Th2, Th17 and Treg cells were analysed by flow cytometry in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells obtained from controls and from RA patients at the time of first evaluation and just before the third TCZ infusion. The in vitro effect of TCZ on the different subsets of CD4+ T cells and the expression levels of Th1, Th2, Th17 and Treg-related cytokines was also assessed. RESULTS: Treatment with TCZ, b…

One-nucleon transfer reactions induced by 32S on 34S AT Einc = 90.0 and 97.09 MeV

Abstract The one-proton and one-neutron transfer reactions in the interaction of 34 S with incident 32 S were studied in the 0–3.5 MeV excitation energy range of the exit nuclei. The experimental set-up (kinematic identification technique, implanted targets, etc.) has allowed an angular resolution of 0.2°, a mass resolution of 1.5% and a Q -value resolution of 0.35 MeV. Comparison with DWBA computations using an analytical approximation for the radial integral, with insertion of suitable recoil corrections, demonstrates the absorptive direct mechanisms of the reactions, even when double excitation of residual nuclei is present. The extracted values for the products of spectroscopic factors …

Climatic signals of tree-ring in Quercus gussonei (Borzì) Brullo in the Mediterranean region

Change in growth is among the primary response of trees to environmental variation. Tree-rings contain a wealth of information related to the climatic conditions. A dendroclimatic study on Quercus gussonei (Borzì) Brullo was carried out in the Nature Reserve of “Bosco della Ficuzza, Rocca Busambra, Bosco Del Cappelliere, Gorgo Del Drago” (southern Italy). Q. gussonei is an endemic deciduous oak and thermophilous form of Quercus cerris L. that is found only in Sicily, although with clear sign of decline. The knowledge of ecology of this species should help to establish criteria for forest conservation in the Mediterranean region. For definining the ecological character and understanding the …

Status of the Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos in Sicily

In the present work, we review all the relevant information since the first Regional Atlas of breeding birds (Massa 1985), and we add field data on the species occurrence and site occupancy relative to the period January 2014-December 2016, in order to update the species’ status in Sicily.

In vitro rooting and acclimatization of Sicilian Hypericum perforatum

Hypericum perforatum L. is traditionally used as a medicinal plant because of different bioactive compounds with documented antidepressant and anti-inflammatory activities. Plantlets mass production with high content of these secondary metabolites has been enhanced through in vitro culture but often the process has been stopped at the multiplication phase. A study was conducted in order to set up an efficient in vitro rooting and acclimatization protocol of a H. perforatum Sicilian genotype well-adapted to south Mediterranean conditions. Aseptic nodal segments were cultured on to a Murashige and Skoog (MS) basal medium supplemented with 4.44 μM 6-benzyladenine (BA) for multiplication. Micro…

Limit on the production of a light vector gauge boson in $\phi $ mesondecays with the KLOE detector

We present a new limit on the production of a light dark-force mediator with the KLOE detector at DAPHNE. This boson, called U, has been searched for in the decay phi --> eta U, U --> e+ e-, analyzing the decay eta --> pi0 pi0 pi0 in a data sample of 1.7 fb-1. No structures are observed in the e+e- invariant mass distribution over the background. This search is combined with a previous result obtained from the decay eta --> pi+ pi- pi0, increasing the sensitivity. We set an upper limit at 90% C.L. on the ratio between the U boson coupling constant and the fine structure constant of alpha'/alpha < 1.7x10^-5 for 30<M_U<400 MeV and alpha'/alpha < 8x10^-6 for the sub-region 50<M_U<210 MeV. This…

ROTOR FLUX OPTIMAL ESTIMATION FOR INDUCTION MOTOR CONTROL

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze and design reduced order observers of the rotor flux of induction motors. The design requirements are: a) the convergence rate of the rotor flux estimation error; b) a low sensitivity to stator and rotor resistance variations; c) a low sensitivity to errors due to the implementation of the observers on microprocessor-based systems. It is shown that, in order to satisfy the requirements a)-c), it is sufficient to solve a constrained optimization problem according to a criterion in which these requirements appear explicitly. The implementation of the observer is discussed. The observer is tested by simulation and experiments.

A new limit on the CP violating decay KS→3π0 with the KLOE experiment

We have carried out a new direct search for the CP violating decay K-S -> 3 pi(0) with 1.7 fb(-1) of e(+)e(-) collisions collected by the KLOE detector at the Phi-factory DA Phi NE. We have searched for this decay in a sample of about 5.9 x 10(8) KSKL events tagging the K-S by means of the K-L interaction in the calorimeter and requiring six prompt photons. With respect to our previous search, the analysis has been improved by increasing of a factor four the tagged sample and by a more effective background rejection of fake K-S tags and spurious clusters. We find no candidates in data and simulated background samples, while we expect 0.12 standard model events. Normalizing to the number of …