Search results for "fall"
showing 10 items of 964 documents
Full-scale validation of bio-recycled asphalt mixtures for road pavements
2019
Abstract Recycling of asphalt has become a well-established practice in many countries, however the road pavement industry remains a bulk consumer of extracted raw materials. Novel solutions that find root in circular economy concepts and life-cycle approaches are needed in order to enable optimisation of infrastructure resource efficiency, starting from the design stage and spanning the whole value chain in the construction sector. Itis within this framework that the present study presents a full-scale validation of asphalt mixtures specifically designed to ensure durability of flexible road pavements and at the same time enabling the reuse of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) through the i…
Brevi considerazioni su piogge intense e potenzialità di produzione del deflusso superficiale in Sicilia
2013
Vengono presentati i metodi aggiornati per la stima delle precipitazioni intense massime annue di fissato tempo di ritorno in Sicilia. Dall‟osservazione della distribuzione spaziale dei parametri assunti nei modelli di stima emergono aree a maggior rischio riguardo l‟intensità di pioggia, qui commentate. Il richiamo a recenti studi che riguardano la produzione del deflusso superficiale a scala media annua o a scala di evento, consente di avanzare alcune considerazioni di tipo spaziale, con particolare attenzione all‟area del messinese, su questa importante propensione idrologica notoriamente fonte di dissesto idrogeologico e di pericolo alluvionale. The updated methods for the estimation of…
IL PIANO DEL CONSUMATORE SOVRAINDEBITATO: TENTATIVI DI RIFORMA E PROSPETTIVA EUROPEA
2016
Social Inclusion and responsible lending seem to became the main policy roots along which a new regulatory framework for households credit and particularly for consumer credit is being shaped at Europeanlevel;throughtheinterplaybetweenthetwo,non-economic goals such as fighting poverty spread and promoting social cohesion can be combined with properly economic ones, such as the systemic risks prevention arising from weak credit access filter mechanism. Proofs of that come from political documents as well as from proper sources of law: suffice to mention the 2016 Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on “Fighting poverty”, on the one hand, and the Directive 2014/17 EU on credit a…
Holocene climate variability in Sicily from a discontinuous stalagmite record and the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition
2006
AbstractFabric and stable isotopic composition of a Holocene stalagmite (CR1) from a cave in northern Sicily record changes in paleorainfall in the early Holocene. High δ13C stable isotope values in the calcite deposited from ca. 8500 to ca. 7500 yr ago are interpreted as reflecting periods of high rainfall. The wet phase was interrupted by two periods of multi-century duration characterized by relatively cool and dry winters centered at ca. 8200 and ca. 7500 yr ago, highlighted by low δ13C and δ18O values. A high variability of δ13C values is recorded from ca. 7500 to ca. 6500 yr ago and indicates that the transition from a pluvial early Holocene to the present-day climate conditions was p…
Textural features and isotope geochemistry of the Scillato travertine (north-central Sicily): genetic implications.
2015
The travertine deposit, outcropping near the Scillato town (north-central Sicily), was originated by precipitation of calcium carbonate from the Scillato springs, documented as bicarbonate-enriched waters due to dissolution of the Madonie mountains carbonate rocks. This deposit is today well represented by the Travertine Cave, essentially constituted by stalactites and stalagmites in which travertine typically appears laminated with alternation of light and dark laminae. Mineralogical analysis have revealed the almost exclusive presence of calcite and observation under the polarized-light microscope showed different textural features, like presence of debris and porous portions, micritic po…
Short-term response of the Ca cycle of a montane forest in Ecuador to low experimental CaCl2 additions
2013
The tropical montane forests of the E Andean cordillera in Ecuador receive episodic Sahara-dust inputs particularly increasing Ca deposition. We added CaCl2 to isolate the effect of Ca deposition by Sahara dust to tropical montane forest from the simultaneously occurring pH effect. We examined components of the Ca cycle at four control plots and four plots with added Ca (2 x 5kg ha(-1) Ca annually as CaCl2) in a random arrangement. Between August 2007 and December 2009 (four applications of Ca), we determined Ca concentrations and fluxes in litter leachate, mineral soil solution (0.15 and 0.30 m depths), throughfall, and fine litterfall and Al concentrations and speciation in soil solutions…
Spatial throughfall heterogeneity in a montane rain forest in Ecuador: Extent, temporal stability and drivers
2009
Summary The drivers of spatial throughfall heterogeneity are still not fully understood. At an undisturbed forest site in the Ecuadorian Andes with ca. 2600 mm of annual rainfall we determined the accuracy of throughfall measurements by comparing Hellmann-type funnel gauges with troughs. At the same undisturbed and a managed, selectively-logged forest site we determined spatial variability of throughfall, temporal stability of spatial variability and the controls of spatial throughfall variability using a 4-year dataset in weekly resolution. There were no systematic differences between the collected volumes of funnel gauges and troughs. Based on the statistical distribution of annual throug…
Spatio-temporal variation of throughfall in a hyrcanian plain forest stand in Northern Iran
2018
Abstract Elucidating segregation of precipitation in different components in forest stands is important for proper forest ecosystems management. However, there is a lack of information on important rainfall components viz. throughfall, interception and stemflow in forest watersheds particularly in developing countries. We therefore investigated the spatiotemporal variation of important component of throughfall for a forest stand in a Hyrcanian plain forest in Noor City, northern Iran. The study area contained five species of Quercus castaneifolia, Carpinus betulus, Populus caspica and Parrotia persica. The research was conducted from July 2013 to July 2014 using a systematic sampling method…
What are the effects of the aging of the neuromuscular system on postural stability?
2015
International audience; Aging is frequently associated with a decreased postural stability, essentially after 60 years, leading to an increased risk of falling. In this article we propose to highlight the influence of the aging of the neuromuscular system on postural stability when standing upright. To maintain balance while standing upright, human needs to control the activity of ankle muscles and particularly the plantar flexors. During the aging process, the performance of these muscles are strongly altered. It is commonly observed large deficits in elderly people with history of falls. Some authors reported an inverse correlation between the amplitude of postural sway and the capacity o…
Urban water quality modelling: a parsimonious holistic approach for a complex real case study
2010
In the past three decades, scientific research has focused on the preservation of water resources, and in particular, on the polluting impact of urban areas on natural water bodies. One approach to this research has involved the development of tools to describe the phenomena that take place on the urban catchment during both wet and dry periods. Research has demonstrated the importance of the integrated analysis of all the transformation phases that characterise the delivery and treatment of urban water pollutants from source to outfall. With this aim, numerous integrated urban drainage models have been developed to analyse the fate of pollution from urban catchments to the final receiving …