Search results for "Environmental constraints"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
The Impact of Climate, Resource Availability, Natural Disturbances and Human Subsistence Strategies on Sicilian Landscape Dynamics During the Holocene
2022
This paper presents a multidisciplinary summary of the most recent discoveries and hypotheses concerning factors driving the human subsistence economy and landscape shaping in Sicily during the Holocene. A number of scientific papers have recently pointed out the key role played by paleogeography, resource (water, food) availability and natural disturbances (volcanic eruptions, tsunamis) in local human activities. Modern anthropology and archaeology increasingly use biological remains (e.g. soils, bones, wood, plant macroremains, pollen) to better understand how human communities managed to survive and spread. Likewise, refined reconstructions of past human demographic fluxes and socio-econ…
Soil Bacterial Community Along an Altitudinal Gradient in the Sumaco, a Stratovolcano in the Amazon Region
2022
Our study is a pioneering exploration of the microbiome in the soil of the Sumaco stratovolcano and an assessment of the effects of an elevational gradient and related physicochemical soil parameters on richness and community structure. The Sumaco, as an isolated Amazonian stratovolcano, may be among one of the least studied ecosystems in Ecuador and perhaps the Amazon region. Universal patterns remain unresolved or available information inconclusive to establish a supported consensus on general governing processes by which elevation and its associated environmental gradients may determine the microbial richness and community structure. We tested a recent proposal on how microbial diversity…
A PSO highway alignment optimization algorithm considering environmental constraints
2013
In recent years, there has been a growing need to develop and delineate algorithms that quickly provide optimized highway alignments. The matter is very complex since it is dominated by several factors and engineers have to achieve different and relevant targets (such as minimization of construction and earthwork costs, compliance with environmental and right-of-way constraints, maximization of safety and comfort for users, conformity with geometric standards). The possible solutions of this problem are clearly infinite and only modern artificial intelligence techniques can really simplify and speed up the highway design process. In this study a search algorithm, based on a Swarm Artificial…
Seasonality of intra-specific cell size in the phytoplankton of Lake Kinneret
2015
A distinct pattern of seasonal fluctuations in intra-specific cell size and/or colony size was observed in a large number of phytoplankton species from Lake Kinneret, Israel. The same species showed larger cell size or colony size in late winter and smaller size in late summer, with intermediate sizes in the interim periods. This phenomenon was exhibited by species of chlorophytes, dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria that were abundant enough to be sampled (fortnightly) and measured throughout the year. The annual pattern of fluctuations in size repeated itself over 8 consecutive years (2004-2012). The size fluctuations were independent of the temporal changes observed in cell abundance of ea…