Search results for "Native"
showing 10 items of 1727 documents
Plant landscape and phytodiversity in the ancient town of Erice (NW Sicily)
2018
The The town of Erice, in the province of Trapani, is an environmental unicum in the context of the ancient settlements of western Sicily. Its history, substrates, and particular climate, generated by its geo-orographic position, make it a particular hotspot of natural and cultural biodiversity. Located on the top of Mount San Giuliano, in addition to natural habitats with their specific florulas, the town shows small gardens and among the few inhabitants there is a widespread green culture. A tourist des- tination by its various architectural and landscape historical peculiarities, Erice presents a residential center made up by small stone buildings, with small courtyards or “bagli” often …
Coltivazione della Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) nell’Orto botanico di Palermo.
2013
Vengono illustrati i risultati delle prove di coltivazione della Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) condotte nel 2010 e 2011 nell'Orto botanico di Palermo
Functional traits of two co-occurring sea urchins across a barren/forest patch system
2013
Abstract Temperate rocky reefs may occur in two alternative states (coralline barrens and erect algal forests), whose formation and maintenance are often determined by sea urchin grazing. The two sea urchin species Paracentrotus lividus and Arbacia lixula are considered to play a similar ecological role despite their differing morphological traits and diets. The patchy mosaic areas of Ustica Island, Italy, offer an ideal environment in which to study differences in the performance of P. lividus and A. lixula in barren versus forest states. Results show that the two sea urchin species differ in diet, trophic position, grazing adaptation, movement ability and fitness in both barren and forest…
How do non-indigenous species affect native species and habitats?
Biological invasions are a key driver of global change, affecting biodiversity and natural ecosystem functioning. Non-indigenous species (NIS) with significant established and expanding populations have the potential to become invasive, with serious environmental, socio-economic, and/or human health consequences. Mediterranean Islands (including Marine Protected Areas “MPAs”), important hotspots of biodiversity, are particularly vulnerable to NIS invasions. Understanding the effects of NIS species on biodiversity, as well as their current distribution and expansion trends, is therefore critical for creating effective conservation strategies. Here, we present three different case studies fro…
NEUROINFLAMMATION AND SYNAPTIC IMBALANCE IN ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
2020
Production of innovative energies and conservation of the territorial values: a possible synergy?
2008
ALTERNATIVE MODELS FOR BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT
2020
The research activity carried out during the three years of the PhD course attended, at the Engineering Department of the University of Palermo, was aimed at the identification of an alternative predictive model able to solve the traditional building thermal balance in a simple but reliable way, speeding up any first phase of energy planning. Nowadays, worldwide directives aimed at reducing energy consumptions and environmental impacts have focused the attention of the scientific community on improving energy efficiency in the building sector. The reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions for heating and cooling needs of buildings is an important challenge for the European Union, be…
TURBINA EOLICA A PALE OSCILLANTI AD ELEVATO RENDIMENTO
2010
Il presente brevetto ha per oggetto una turbina eolica ad asse verticale caratterizzata da pale che oscillando consentono di massimizzare il rendimento nella trasformazione dell’energia eolica in energia meccanica, successivamente trasformabile in energia elettrica. Grazie al particolare disegno costruttivo le pale si orientano automaticamente in modo da opporre al vento la massima superficie possibile delle pale che si muovono nella direzione del vento minimizzando al tempo stesso la superficie delle pale che si muovono controvento. La presenza di una elevata superficie esposta all’azione del vento, non contrastata da una azione frenante dovuta alle pale controvento, consente di ottenere s…
Valutazioni tecniche ed economiche sull'uso degli inseguitori solari
2009
I processi di antropizzazione connessi allo sviluppo del settore energia hanno determinato delle “impronte” sul nostro pianeta ormai indelebili. Non resta che provare a ridurre i consumi energetici e affidare la produzione dell’energia ad un mix equilibrato di fonti. In questo contesto, con particolare riferimento alla produzione dell’energia elettrica, lo sfruttamento della risorsa solare ha assunto un ruolo di primo ordine. Gran parte delle attività di ricerca e sviluppo del settore si è concentrata sulle tecniche e sulle metodologie innovative di conversione della fonte in energia elettrica. Accanto a queste, a parità di tecnologia di conversione adottata, altre attività di ricerca e svi…
Hankelet-based dynamical systems modeling for 3D action recognition
2015
This paper proposes to model an action as the output of a sequence of atomic Linear Time Invariant (LTI) systems. The sequence of LTI systems generating the action is modeled as a Markov chain, where a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is used to model the transition from one atomic LTI system to another. In turn, the LTI systems are represented in terms of their Hankel matrices. For classification purposes, the parameters of a set of HMMs (one for each action class) are learned via a discriminative approach. This work proposes a novel method to learn the atomic LTI systems from training data, and analyzes in detail the action representation in terms of a sequence of Hankel matrices. Extensive eval…