Search results for "Environmental studies"

Stone lines and heaps on south-western Niger plateaus as remains of ancient agricultural land

2011

Les plateaux de la rive occidentale du fleuve Niger sont recouverts de lignes et de tas de pierres sèches alors que ces surfaces tabulaires sont aujourd'hui dépourvues de toutes cultures. Le sol du plateau est constitué d'un horizon argilo-sableux visible uniquement dans la zone où ces structures sont présentes. Elles témoigneraient d'un épierrage pour faciliter le travail agricole du sol. Les matériaux extraits ont été disposés en ligne puis en tas si la quantité de blocs était trop élevée. Ce parcellaire pourrait être contemporain de l'activité métallurgique située au pied des plateaux et datée de la deuxième moitié du premier millénaire.

The french vineyard in the face of climate change: Developing an adaptation strategy based on prospective scenarios

2020

International audience

A view of extraterrestrial soils

2009

International audience; The nature of soils on celestial bodies other than Earth is a growing area of research in planetary geology. However, disagreement over the significance of these deposits arises in part due to the lack of a unified concept and definition of soil in the literature. The pragmatic definition “medium for plant growth” is taken by some to imply the necessity of biota for soil to exist, and has been commonly adopted in the planetary science community. In contrast, a more complex and informative definition bases on scientific theory: soil is the (bio)geochemically/physically altered material at the surface of a planetary body that encompasses surficial extraterrestrial tell…

Soil Heavy Metals Patterns in the Torino Olympic Winter Games Venue (E.U.)

2008

International audience; The city of Torino (45°N, 7°E NW Italy) has a long history of heavy industry. Additional sources of potential pollutants originate from transport such as car emissions. We selected an area potentially at high risk of contamination: it is sandwiched between roads, the circular Turin highway and the motorway which connects to France, and a landfill where special and hazardous solid wastes from industry are disposed of. Our main aim was i) to discriminate between these sources of heavy metals (HM) and ii) to assess a simplified HM transfer scenario. We started with air diffusion models (inputs were meteo and chemistry of the particulate), then we described topsoils (12 …

Fitness Trade-Offs Determine the Role of the Molecular Chaperonin GroEL in Buffering Mutations

2015

Molecular chaperones fold many proteins and their mutated versions in a cell and can sometimes buffer the phenotypic effect of mutations that affect protein folding. Unanswered questions about this buffering include the nature of its mechanism, its influence on the genetic variation of a population, the fitness trade-offs constraining this mechanism, and its role in expediting evolution. Answering these questions is fundamental to understand the contribution of buffering to increase genetic variation and ecological diversification. Here, we performed experimental evolution, genome resequencing, and computational analyses to determine the trade-offs and evolutionary trajectories of Escherich…

Potentiel de l’éco-acoustique pour l’étude des rythmes et paysages d’un socio-écosystème de montagne : le cas exploratoire de la vallée du Vicdessos

2022

ECR2 Economic Crisis: Resilience of Regions

2014

The picture of the economic situation in Europe resulting from the crisis that began in 2008 looks rather asymmetrical and diverse with regions that were not or hardly touched by the crises at all, with regions that were touched but that seem to recover rather progressively and with regions that still suffer quite a lot from the crisis. The fast and successful recovery of some particular regions strikes the eye and raises the question of what is behind this success. The economic crisis and recovery are at the core of all recent policy initiatives that set the framework for territorial development and cohesion policy. The objective of this project is to expose territorial evidence that suppo…

Repairing the living: ethics of ecological compensation

2017

The mechanism of ecological compensation has a paradox, it is denounced on the ethical level and consecrated on the legal level. While they are supposed to repair the environmental damages, the compensatory measures are accused of bad intentions: authorization to destroy biodiversity, financial drift of the management of nature... Despite these criticisms, ecological compensation can find a a profound moral issue if it is used like an accountability tool between human and nature, and more broadly, an instrument for dynamic management of territories.

The Valencia Eustress-Distress Appraisal Scale (VEDAS): Validation of the Italian Version

2018

© 2018 by the authors. The aim of this study is to validate the Italian version of the Valencia Eustress-Distress Appraisal Scale (VEDAS). Two hundred and thirty-two Italian workers were involved in the study. Dimensionality, reliability, and concurrent validity were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-dimensional structure. In addition, the Italian version of the scale showed good internal consistency and validity. The results indicate that the Italian version of the VEDAS is a valid instrument for measuring eustress and distress appraisal in the Italian context. ispartof: SUSTAINABILITY vol:10 issue:11 status: published

Spatio-temporal patterns of Holocene vegetation change in southern Sicily

2012

Few examples of natural forest remain near the Mediterranean coast. Therefore, it is difficult to study how coastal forests respond to climatic change or their resilience to human impact. We developed new sedimentary record of Holocene vegetation and fire history at Lago Preola, a coastal lake in southwestern Sicily (Italy). In order to verify the existence of forest at large scale on the coast, we compare pollen from Lago Preola, a medium-sized lake (33 ha), to Gorgo Basso, a small lake (3 ha) located nearby with the aim of separating local from extra-local vegetation dynamics through time using pollen percentages and influx. We then compare Lago Preola pollen to the record from Biviere di…