Search results for "mediterranean"
showing 10 items of 3196 documents
Surface sediment dynamics along the Tunisian coast at Skhira (Gulf of Gabès, south-eastern Tunisia)
2015
Abstract An investigation was conducted in the summer of 2012 at 24 study stations along the Tunisian coast near Skhira (south-eastern Mediterranean Sea) through high resolution of analyses, grain size and mineral composition of surface sediment. An Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler showed Skhira's main coastal current to follow a direction 60°E, with its main axis south-west/north-east parallel to the coastline and its minor axis east-west. Current speeds were approximately 13 cm s−1 and 4.5 cm s−1 for the major and minor axes, respectively. Parallel to the coast, currents were generally mild to moderate, but often exceeded 20 cm s−1. An Argonaut meter recorded the dominant current directi…
Biochemical Responses of European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.) to the Stress Induced by Off Shore Experimental Seismic Prospecting
1999
The paper reports the results of an experimental seismic survey in the open sea by an air gun, carried out to evaluate the effects of air gun acoustic waves on marine animals. Air gun blast exposition was found to have a marked influence on confined Dicentrarchus labrax. Our data, in fact, demonstrated a biochemical response to acoustic stress induced by air gun blasts. Variations of cortisol, glucose, lactate, AMP, ADP, ATP and cAMP in different tissues of D. labrax, indicate that fish have a typical primary and secondary stress response after air gun detonations. Radiography indicates that air gun blasts do not induce any macroscopic effect on skeletal apparatus. The variations of biochem…
Uncertainties in shoreline position analysis: the role of run-up and tide in a gentle slope beach
2017
Abstract. In recent decades in the Mediterranean Sea, high anthropic pressure from increasing economic and touristic development has affected several coastal areas. Today the erosion phenomena threaten human activities and existing structures, and interdisciplinary studies are needed to better understand actual coastal dynamics. Beach evolution analysis can be conducted using GIS methodologies, such as the well-known Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS), in which error assessment based on shoreline positioning plays a significant role. In this study, a new approach is proposed to estimate the positioning errors due to tide and wave run-up influence. To improve the assessment of the wave…
The Residences of the Kings of Sicily, from Martin of Aragon to Ferdinand the Catholic
2016
In the context of the capital cities of the Aragonese Kindom, it would be necessary to examineand compare the cerimonial practices, behavioral codes, and uses made of the royal residences. At the same time it seems increasingly evident that, during the 15th century, the mobility of the royal court - as well as that of the aristocrats, merchants, and master builders - slowly shaped a modern, homogeneous common language which is currently defined as "Mediterranean Gothic". This paper analyzes the contribution of Sicily through the study of a number of significant buildings : the royal palace of Palermo and the Steri of Chiaromonte , the castle Maniace of Syracuse .
Los Reinos Mediterraneos y la defensa de la Monarquia de Felipe III
2020
Since some decades a renewed attention to the Mediterranean area in the seventeenth century has allowed a more concrete analysis of the political and military dynamics that involved the Iberian and Italian kingdoms in the years of Philip III and Philip IV. Overcoming the idea that the "great history" had left the Mare Nostrum to affect exclusively the Atlantic front, the role of the kingdoms of the Habsburg monarchy was redefined, with the use of human and material resources, in the management of the international policy. Thus, the geostrategic function covered by each territory in the new type of conflict was highlighted: the kingdom of Granada, like that of Sicily or Naples, were involved…
La Sicilia nel Mediterraneo di Cervantes da Lepanto a Capo Corvo (1571-1613)
2018
Il saggio delinea il ruolo militare e strategico svolto dal regno di Sicilia nel Mediterraneo tra Cinque e Seicento, e focalizza l’attenzione sulle grandi questioni – già dibattute dai contemporanei – circa il rapporto tra difesa terrestre e difesa dal mare, strutture statiche e unità di movimento, contestualizzandole sul caso siciliano nel periodo compreso tra l’impresa di Lepanto (1571) e quella di Capo Corvo (1613). The essay outlines the military- strategic role played by the Kingdom of Sicily in the Mediterranean between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and focuses on the major issues – already debated by contemporaries – regarding the relationship between land defense and sea …
Fluttuazioni commerciali tra Nord Africa e Sicilia meridionale: il VI e il VII secolo. Cignana come caso studio
2021
This essay will examine the trend in imports of African potteries – notably amphorae and fine wares – in a rural zone of southern Sicily. We are dealing with the region of Cignana, not far from the coastline, where archaeological excavations documented a large settlement that experienced a big growth between the 5th and 6th centuries AD. During this period, a shift in the ceramic supply from the Zeugitana towards the Byzacena occurred. Nevertheless, the positive trend in imports persists until the last decades of the 6th century. Thereafter, it shows a decrease until the apparent interruption after the mid-7th century. New changes in the Mediterranean trading system seem to undermine the pr…
Sicilian Temporary Ponds: An Overview of the Composition and Affinities of their Crustacean Biota
2009
Available data on Sicilian entomostracans allowed an initial characterization of the freshwater crustacean biota of the island and to formulate some hypotheses on its origin.The absence of supra-specific endemic taxa and the current regional distriburion of the investigated species suggest a late Pleistocene colonisation of the island by temperate taxa with a northern affinity, currently confined to the coolest areas of the island, followed by a Holocene arrival of thermophilous species coming from the Maghreb, which is still in progress. The importance of Sicily as a "crossroad" for the faunas of the circum-Mediterranean countries is thus confirmed.Unfortunately, and in spite of the EU dir…
New Energy Corridors in the Euro-Mediterranean Area: The Pivotal Role of Sicily
2018
The present paper deals with the new opportunities deriving from the interconnections of the European and North African transmission systems. In order to achieve a single international market for electricity exchanges, interconnections between networks in different countries are becoming increasingly important and Sicily, for its geographical position in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, will undoubtedly play an important role as an electrical bridge between Europe and the North Africa in the near future. The paper, presenting the actual electro-energetic context of Tunisia, reports the new important interconnection already realized in South Italy (in particular in Sicily) and describe t…
Silene crassiuscula (Caryophyllaceae), a new species from Sicily
2015
Silene crassiuscula,, a new species of S. sect. Dipterosperma, is described and illustrated from North-Western Sicily. It is an annual halophyte with succulent growing on carbonatic or calcarenitic rocks of coastal stands. From the morphological point of view , S. crassiuscula appears to be similar to the species belonging to the S. colorata group especially to S. nummica, from Sardinia, from which it differs in several features chiefly regarding the habit, leaves, inflorescences, floral pieces and seed micro-morphology. An analytical key of the taxa belonging to this section is also provided.