Search results for " trees."
showing 10 items of 207 documents
Postoperative Costs Associated With Outcomes After Cardiac Surgery With Extracorporeal Circulation: Role of Antithrombin Levels
2012
Objective: To study the impact on postoperative costs of a patient's antithrombin levels associated with outcomes after cardiac surgery with extracorporeal circulation. Design: An analytic decision model was designed to estimate costs and clinical outcomes after cardiac surgery in a typical patient with low antithrombin levels (= 63.7%). The data used in the model were obtained from a literature review and subsequently validated by a panel of experts in cardiothoracic anesthesiology. Setting: Multi-institutional (14 Spanish hospitals). Participants: Consultant anesthesiologists. Measurements and Main Results: A sensitivity analysis of extreme scenarios was carried out to assess the impact o…
Geo-Epidemiology of Age-Related Macular Degeneration: New Clues Into the Pathogenesis
2015
Abstract PURPOSE: To evaluate the demographic, geographic, and race-related variables that account for geographic variability in prevalence rates of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). DESIGN: Systematic review, meta-regression, and decision-tree analysis. METHODS: A systematic literature review of PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, and Embase databases identified population-based studies on the prevalence of AMD published before May 2014. Only population-based studies that took place in a spatially explicit geographic area that could be geolocalized, and used retinal photographs and standardized grading classifications, were included. Latitude and longitude data (geolocalization) and the…
Efficient Pruning LMI Conditions for Branch-and-Prune Rank and Chirality-Constrained Estimation of the Dual Absolute Quadric
2014
International audience; We present a new globally optimal algorithm for self- calibrating a moving camera with constant parameters. Our method aims at estimating the Dual Absolute Quadric (DAQ) under the rank-3 and, optionally, camera centers chirality constraints. We employ the Branch-and-Prune paradigm and explore the space of only 5 parameters. Pruning in our method relies on solving Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) feasibility and Generalized Eigenvalue (GEV) problems that solely depend upon the entries of the DAQ. These LMI and GEV problems are used to rule out branches in the search tree in which a quadric not satisfy- ing the rank and chirality conditions on camera centers is guarantee…
Climate Aridity and the Geographical Shift of Olive Trees in a Mediterranean Northern Region
2021
Climate change leverages landscape transformations and exerts variable pressure on natural environments and rural systems. Earlier studies outlined how Mediterranean Europe has become a global hotspot of climate warming and land use change. The present work assumes the olive tree, a typical Mediterranean crop, as a candidate bioclimatic indicator, delineating the latent impact of climate aridity on traditional cropping systems at the northern range of the biogeographical distribution of the olive tree. Since the olive tree follows a well-defined latitude gradient with a progressive decline in both frequency and density moving toward the north, we considered Italy as an appropriate case to i…
Olive Yield and Future Climate Forcings
2013
Abstract The rainfall reduction and the temperature increase forecasted for Mediterranean regions would likely increase the vegetation water stress and decrease productivity in rainfed agriculture. Olive trees, which have traditionally been grown under rainfed conditions, are one of the most characteristic tree crops from the Mediterranean not only for economical importance but also for minimizing erosion and desertification and for improving the carbon balance of these areas. In order to simulate how climatic change could alter soil moisture dynamics, biomass growth and fruit productivity, a water driven crop model is used in this study. The model quantitatively links olive yield to climat…
Genetic Structure of Wild and Cultivated Olives in the Central Mediterranean Basin
2006
Background and Aims: Olive cultivars and their wild relatives (oleasters) represent two botanical varieties of Olea europaea subsp. europaea (respectively europaea and sylvestris). Olive cultivars have undergone human selection and their area of diffusion overlaps that of oleasters. Populations of genuine wild olives seem restricted to isolated areas of Mediterranean forests, while most other wild-looking forms of olive may include feral forms that escaped cultivation. Methods: The genetic structure of wild and cultivated olive tree populations was evaluated by amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers at a microscale level in one continental and two insular Italian regions. Key…
Olive agroforestry systems in Sicily: Cultivated typologies and secondary succession processes after abandonment
2011
The first part of this study provides an overview on Sicilian olive systems. Subsequently, the study describes the different typologies of cultivated agroforestry systems present in South-Eastern Sicily employing olive trees in association with other Mediterranean tree species, in particular for the production of firewood, coal and animal food (downy or pubescent oak, holm oak, cork oak), but also in association with forage or grazing species (oat, barley, vetch, etc.) or cereals. The study shows that Sicilian agroforestry systems are much more diversified than it was known so far. In the second part, the study describes the spontaneous colonization processes by plants, observed in abandone…
Automated Extraction of Motivic Patterns and Application to the Analysis of Debussy’s Syrinx
2009
A methodology for automated extraction of repeated patterns in discrete time series data is presented, dedicated to the discovery of musical motives in symbolic music representations. The basic principle of the approach consists in a search for closed patterns in a multi-dimensional parametric space, comprising various features related to melodic and rhythmic aspects, which can be organized into note-based and interval-based descriptions. The pattern description is further reduced through a lossless pruning of the sequence description. This requires in particular a detailed estimation of the specificity relations between patterns. For instance, a pattern is more specific than its suffix, an…
I grandi alberi dei Nebrodi
2012
In questo libro sono presentati i risultati di una ricerca portata avanti dagli Autori, botanici del Dipartimento di Biologia ambientale e Biodiversità dell’Università di Palermo. L’indagine ha riguardato sia ambienti di tipo forestale sia di tipo agricolo tradizionale ed ha messo in luce un ricco patrimonio arboreo di tipo monumentale. Significative sono le immagini relative ai grandi aceri, ai ragguardevoli individui di due specie endemiche dei Nebrodi (Pyrus vallis-demonis e Malus crescimannoi) e al faggio di Fago scuro che rappresenta il patriarca di tutti i faggi d’Italia. Dopo il 150° dell’Unità d’Italia non poteva mancare il Grande Pino piantato in concomitanza dello sbarco di Giusep…
Monumenti della natura: i castagni dell'Etna - Natural monuments: Mount Etna's chestnut trees
2017
L’articolo premette l’importanza che hanno le antiche essenze arboree nel paesaggio italiano. si sofferma poi sulla necessità di un censimento continuo della conoscenza, della conservazione e della loro messa in valore e cita alcune delle normative esistenti nel territorio nazionale. Infine, tra i monumenti dal ‘naturale portento’, il saggio si sofferma sui castagni dell’Etna, che tanta meraviglia hanno suscitato tra i viaggiatori del sec. XVIII e che continuano ancora oggi a stupire ed emozionare. The article addresses the importance of ancient tree crops in the Italian landscape. It dwells on the need for a long-standing census on knowledge, preservation and promotion of these trees and q…