Search results for "cost"
showing 10 items of 5421 documents
Millstone coastal quarries of the Mediterranean: A new class of sea level indicator
2014
The coasts of Italy still preserve several remnants of coastal quarries built in antiquity, that now provide insights into the intervening sea-level changes occurred during the last millennia. In this paper, we show and discuss a new class of sea level indicator consisting of millstones carved along the rocky coast of southern Italy since 2500 BP, that are currently submerged. They were extracted from beachrocks, sandstones or similar sedimentary rocks, easier for carving by ancient carving tools. Our study focuses on 10 coastal sites located at Capo d'Orlando, Avola, and Letojanni, in Sicily; Soverato, Tropea, and Capo dell'Armi, in Calabria; Castellabate, Palinuro, and Scario, in Campania…
Abundance and Distribution Patterns of Thunnus albacares in Isla del Coco National Park through Predictive Habitat Suitability Models
2016
Information on the distribution and habitat preferences of ecologically and commercially important species is essential for their management and protection. This is especially important as climate change, pollution, and overfishing change the structure and functioning of pelagic ecosystems. In this study, we used Bayesian hierarchical spatial-temporal models to map the Essential Fish Habitats of the Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) in the waters around Isla del Coco National Park, Pacific Costa Rica, based on independent underwater observations from 1993 to 2013. We assessed if observed changes in the distribution and abundance of this species are related with habitat characteristics, fis…
Prediction of soil texture distributions using VNIR-SWIR reflectance spectroscopy
2013
Abstract Reflectance spectroscopy provides an alternate method to non-destructively characterize key soil properties. Different approaches, including chemometrics techniques or specific absorption features, have been proposed to estimate soil properties from visible and near-infrared (VNIR, 400-1200 nm) and shortwave infrared (SWIR, 1200-2500 nm) reflectance domains. The main goal of this study was to test the performance of two distinct methods for soil texture estimation by VNIR-SWIR reflectance measurements: i) the Continuum Removal (CR) technique that was used to correlate specific spectral absorption features with clay, silt and sand content, and ii) the Partial Least-Squares Regressio…
Tetti verdi multistrato per lo sviluppo sostenibile di città resilienti: quattro casi studio italiani
2021
Negli ultimi anni le inondazioni in ambito urbano sono state sempre più frequenti, provocando notevoli danni sia livello sociale che a livello economico. Questo fenomeno è in parte determinato da un aumento di urbanizzazione causato dalla crescita della popolazione, che tende sempre più a spostarsi dalle zone rurali alle aree urbane, che si espandono molto velocemente, spesso con infrastrutture idrauliche inadeguate. Inoltre, a causa di cambiamenti climatici, soprattutto nelle aree mediterranee, si può osservare un aumento di lunghi periodi di siccità, intervallati da piogge di breve durata, ma di sempre più forte intensità e frequenza. La presenza di questi fenomeni di pioggia intensa, in …
2021
In humans and mammals, effort-based decision-making for monetary or food rewards paradigms contributes to the study of adaptive goal-directed behaviours acquired through reinforcement learning. Chronic distress modelled by repeated exposure to glucocorticoids in rodents induces suboptimal decision-making under uncertainty by impinging on instrumental acquisition and prompting negative valence behaviours. In order to further disentangle the motivational tenets of adaptive decision-making, this study addressed the consequences of enduring distress on relevant effort and reward-processing dimensions. Experimentally, appetitive and consummatory components of motivation were evaluated in adult C…
Chronic Distress in Male Mice Impairs Motivation Compromising Both Effort and Reward Processing With Altered Anterior Insular Cortex and Basolateral …
2021
AbstractIn humans and mammals, effort-based decision-making for monetary or food rewards paradigms contribute to the study of adaptive goal-directed behaviours acquired through reinforcement learning. Chronic distress modelled by repeated exposure to glucocorticoids in rodents induces suboptimal decision-making under uncertainty by impinging on instrumental acquisition and prompting negative valence behaviours. In order to further disentangle the motivational tenets of adaptive decision-making, this study addressed the consequences of enduring distress on relevant effort and reward processing dimensions. Experimentally, appetitive and consummatory components of motivation were evaluated in …
Risk factors for cognitive impairment in subjects with Behçet's disease
2004
In the present study we evaluated the prevalence and risk factors for cognitive impairment in subjects with Behçet's Disease (BD). The following risk factors were studied: age, education, disease duration, activity of disease, prednisone dosage, and anxiety and depression levels. Twenty-six BD out-patients without overt neurological involvement and 26 sex-matched controls completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Compared to controls, BD subjects were significantly impaired on tasks evaluating long-term verbal and nonverbal memory, and visuospatial skills. Cognitive impairment was evident in 46.1% of BD patients compared with none of control subjects (p<.0001), with memory repr…
An elastic-damage nonlocal interface model
2005
A nonlocal elastic damage interface model is proposed