Search results for "Spot"
showing 10 items of 371 documents
Nesting of the Spotless Starling, <em>Sturnus unicolor</em>, on the island of Favignana (Aegadian Islands, Sicily)
2021
The presence of the Spotless Starling in Sicily was reported for the first time at the beginning of the XIX century, although the first nests for the province of Trapani are reported almost at the end of the XX century. As a breeder, the Spotless Starling remained absent from all the circumsicilian islands until the first report for the island of Pantelleria, in 2012. In 2020, the nest of Spotless Starling was observed on the island of Favignana, within a hole on an antenna. The couple fed the chicks with Ligia italica crustacean isopod of the family Ligiidae. The nesting on the island of Favignana confirms the continuous expansion of the species in Sicily.
CLINICAL FEATURES AND TREATMENT OF MEDITERRANEAN SPOTTED FEVER IN CHILDREN: A PRACTICAL UPDATE FOR THE CLINICIAN
2004
Mediterranean spotted fever (MSF) is a tick-borne disease caused by Rickettsia conorii. It is characterized by the symptomatologic triad of fever, exanthema and «tache noire» – the typical eschar at the site of the tick bite. Oral or parenteral administration of tetracyclines or chloramphenicol represent the standard treatment; however, both these drugs may cause significant adverse effects in children. Recent studies indicate that oral clarithromycin and azithromycin may represent an acceptable alternative for the treatment of children with MSF. There are no data to indicate that antimicrobial prophylaxis is beneficial for tick-bitten patients to prevent MSF. However, in the presence of a …
Correcting the effect of stellar spots on ARIEL transmission spectra – II. The limb-darkening effect
2021
This paper is part of an effort to correct the transmission spectra of a transiting planet orbiting an active star. In Paper I (Cracchiolo et al. 2020) we have demonstrated a methodology to minimize the potential bias induced by unocculted star spots on the transmission spectrum, assuming a spot model parameterized by filling factor and temperature. In this work we introduce the limb darkening effect, therefore the position of the spot in the stellar disk and the impact parameter of the transiting planet now play a key role. The method is tested on simulations of planetary transits of three representative kinds of planetary systems, at ARIEL resolution. We find that a realistic treatment of…
Cross-Commodity Spot Price Modeling with Stochastic Volatility and Leverage For Energy Markets
2013
Spot prices in energy markets exhibit special features, such as price spikes, mean reversion, stochastic volatility, inverse leverage effect, and dependencies between the commodities. In this paper a multivariate stochastic volatility model is introduced which captures these features. The second-order structure and stationarity of the model are analyzed in detail. A simulation method for Monte Carlo generation of price paths is introduced and a numerical example is presented.
A model-based approach to Spotify data analysis: a Beta GLMM
2020
Digital music distribution is increasingly powered by automated mechanisms that continuously capture, sort and analyze large amounts of Web-based data. This paper deals with the management of songs audio features from a statistical point of view. In particular, it explores the data catching mechanisms enabled by Spotify Web API and suggests statistical tools for the analysis of these data. Special attention is devoted to songs popularity and a Beta model, including random effects, is proposed in order to give the first answer to questions like: which are the determinants of popularity? The identification of a model able to describe this relationship, the determination within the set of char…
Groundwater biodiversity in Europe
2009
18 páginas, 7 figuras, 4 tables et al
Solar influence on winter severity in central Europe
2012
[1] The last two winters in central Europe were unusually cold in comparison to the years before. Meteorological data, mainly from the last 50 years, and modelling studies have suggested that both solar activity and El Nino strength may influence such central European winter coldness. To investigate the mechanisms behind this in a statistically robust way and to test which of the two factors was more important during the last 230 years back into the Little Ice Age, we use historical reports of freezing of the river Rhine. The historical data show that 10 of the 14 freeze years occurred close to sunspot minima and only one during a year of moderate El Nino. This solar influence is underpinne…
ANALYSIS OF SUNSPOT NUMBER FLUCTUATIONS
2004
Monthly averages of the sunspot number visible on the sun, observed from 1749, Zurich Observatory, and from 1848 other observatories, have been analyzed. This time signal presents a frequency power spectra with a clear 1/fα behavior with α≃0.8±0.2. The well-known cycle of approximately 11 years, clearly present in the spectrum, does not produce a sensible distortion of that behavior. The eventual characterization of the sunspot time series as a fractal is analyzed by means of the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). The jump-size distribution of the signal is also studied.
Characterisation and detection of spoilage mould responsible for black spot in dry-cured fermented sausages.
2015
Moulds responsible for black spot spoilage of dry-cured fermented sausages were characterised. For this purpose, samples were taken from those dry-cured fermented sausages which showed black spot alteration. Most of the mould strains were first tentatively identified as Penicillium spp. due to their morphological characteristics in different culture conditions, with one strain as Cladosporium sp. The Cladosporium strain was the only one which provoked blackening in culture media. This strain was further characterised by sequencing of ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 rRNA and β-tubulin genes. This mould strain was able to reproduce black spot formation in dry-cured fermented sausage 'salchichon' throughout th…
Phenotype and function of monocyte derived dendritic cells in chronic hepatitis B virus infection.
2004
The antiviral T cell failure of patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection was suggested to be caused by a T cell stimulation defect of dendritic cells (DC). To address this hypothesis, monocyte derived DC (MDDC) of patients with chronic or resolved acute HBV infection and healthy controls were studied phenotypically by FACS analyses and functionally by mixed lymphocyte reaction, ELISA, ELISpot and proliferation assays of MDDC cultures or co-cultures with an allogeneic HBc-specific Th cell clone. HBV infection of MDDC was studied by quantitative PCR. MDDC from HBV patients seemed to be infected by the HBV, showed a reduced surface expression of HLA DR and CD40 and exhibited a r…