Simultaneously, we need not look far for examples of the perils involved, as content industries have moved to protect their busi- ness models and neutralize the inherent ability of their digital ..."Read/Only" tokens to become "Read/Write," to borrow Lawrence Lessig's terminology, to anyone with a com- puter, broadband access, and the will to do so.1 In the digital audio economy, as else- where, it has become commonplace for the content industry to lump together as piracy the activities of the amateur musician, the remix artist, the audio archivist, and the user of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing net- works. SoundCloud has been the benefactor of several generous injections of venture capital, and recently announced partnerships with some unlikely suspects (Red Bull, Blue Mic, and Blue Bottle Coffee, for starters) have fed speculation that the service is investigating advertise- ments as an additional revenue stream.5 Functionality and Navigation In the most current iteration of the site, clicking on the SoundCloud URL will take the registered user to the Stream page.
Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, regulates the sleep-wake cycle and is effective in restoring biological rhythms. Prolonged-release melatonin (PRM) is designed to mimic the natural ...physiological pattern of melatonin release. In circadian medicine, PRM can be used to treat sleep and circadian rhythm disorders, as well as numerous organic diseases associated with sleep disorders.
This systematic review analyzed 62 studies and adhered to the PRISMA guidelines, examining the effectiveness of PRM in organic pathologies and mental disorders.
The main evidence concerns primary insomnia in subjects over the age of 55, showing significant improvements in sleep quality. In neurodevelopmental disorders, there is evidence of a positive impact on sleep quality and quality of life for patients and their caregivers. PRM shows efficacy in the treatment of sleep disorders in mood disorders, schizophrenia, and neurocognitive disorders, but requires further confirmation. The additional use of PRM is supported for the withdrawal of chronic benzodiazepine therapies. The tolerability and safety of PRM are excellent, with ample evidence supporting the absence of tolerance and dependence.
Overall, PRM in circadian medicine is an effective chronopharmaceutical for restoring the sleep-wake rhythm in patients with insomnia disorder. This efficacy may also extend to sleep disorders associated with mood, neurodevelopmental and neurocognitive disorders, suggesting a further potential role in insomnia associated with various organic diseases.
A user-friendly and affordable broad-band digital Near Infrared (NIR) camera (Canon PowerShot S110 NIR) was compared with a narrow-band reflectance spectrometer (USB2000, Ocean Optics) at leaf scale ...for monitoring changes in response to drought of three ecologically contrasting
Quercus
species (
Q. robur
,
Q. pubescens
, and
Q. ilex
). We aimed to (a) compare vegetation indices (VIs; that is: NDVI, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index; GNDVI, Green NDVI and NIRv, near-infrared reflectance of vegetation) retrieved by NIR-camera and spectrometer in order to test the reliability of a simple, low-cost, and rapid setup for widespread field applications; (b) to assess if NIR-camera VIs might be used to quantify water stress in oak seedlings; and (c) to track changes in leaf chlorophyll content. The study was carried out during a water stress test on 1-year-old seedlings in a greenhouse. The camera detected plant status in response to drought with results highly comparable to the visible/NIR (VIS/NIR) spectrometer (by calibration and standard geometry). Consistency between VIs and morpho-physiological traits was higher in
Q. robur
, the most drought-sensitive among the three species. Chlorophyll content was estimated with a high goodness-of-fit by VIs or reflectance bands in the visible range. Overall, NDVI performed better than GNDVI and NIRv, and VIs performed better than single bands. Looking forward, NIR-camera VIs are adequate for the early monitoring of drought stress in oak seedlings (or small trees) in the post-planting phase or in nursery settings, thus offering a new, reliable alternative for when costs are crucial, such as in the context of restoration programs.
Model-assisted estimation of forest wood volume is approached exploiting the wall-to-wall information available from satellite data and partial information achieved from airborne laser scanning (ALS) ...covering a portion of the survey area. If the portion covered by ALS is selected by a probabilistic sampling scheme, two-phase estimators are considered in which the two sources of information are exploited by means of linear and non-linear models. If the portion covered by ALS is fixed because purposively selected, the two sources of information are exploited by the double-calibration estimator. The performance of the proposed strategies is checked by a simulation study from two study areas in Southern and Northern Italy.
One of the most important obstacles for taking advantage of forest resources in the Italian Alps is represented by the high level of private properties fragmentation and by their small size. Thus, ...there is an urgent need for tools to support single or multi-forest owners to gain reliable and updated information on their forest stands so that the proper silvicultural activities following all the existing regulations can be adopted. The present research was aimed at promoting a shared management of small private forest properties in the mountainous area of Friuli Venezia Giulia (NE Italy) through the implementation of a new WebGIS tool to support forest decisions and management at different spatial scales. This new tool was developed updating and merging together different available information sources (e.g., tree species composition, the presence of protected areas, forest roads, etc.) with ad-hoc elaborated layers (e.g., standing volume, annual increment of volume, forest accessibility, etc.), also elaborating a cost analysis related to the different possible harvesting methods. The tool allows queries at the level of either a single or a group of cadastral parcels to obtain data in a format, which can be used for filling in the planning document requested by the regional authorities.
Forest planning, forest management, and forest policy require updated, reliable, and harmonized spatial datasets. In Italy a national geographic Forest Information System (FIS) designed to store and ...facilitate the access and analysis of spatial datasets is still missing. Among the different information layers which are useful to start populating a FIS, two are essential for their multiple use in the assessment of forest resources: (i) forest mapping, and (ii) data from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS). Both layers are not available wall-to-wall for Italy, though different local sources of information potentially useful for their implementation already exist. The objectives of this work were to: (i) review forest maps and ALS data availability in Italy; (ii) develop for the first time a high resolution forest mask of Italy which was validated against the official statistics of the Italian National Forest Inventory; (iii) develop the first mosaic of all the main ALS data available in Italy producing a consistent Canopy Height Model (CHM). An on-line geographic FIS with free access to both layers from (ii) and (iii) was developed for demonstration purposes. The total area of forest and other wooded lands computed from the forest mask was 102.608.82 km2 (34% of the Italian territory), i.e., 1.9% less than the NFI benchmark estimate. This map is currently the best wall-to-wall forest mask available for Italy. We showed that only the 63% of the Italian territory (the 60% of the forest area) is covered by ALS data. These results highlight the urgent need for a national strategy to complete the availability of forest data in Italy.
Carbon assimilation and wood production are influenced by environmental conditions and endogenous factors, such as species auto-ecology, age, and hierarchical position within the forest structure. ...Disentangling the intricate relationships between those factors is more pressing than ever due to climate change’s pressure. We employed the 3D-CMCC-FEM model to simulate undisturbed forests of different ages under four climate change (plus one no climate change) Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios from five Earth system models. In this context, carbon stocks and increment were simulated via total carbon woody stocks and mean annual increment, which depends mainly on climate trends. We find greater differences among different age cohorts under the same scenario than among different climate scenarios under the same age class. Increasing temperature and changes in precipitation patterns led to a decline in above-ground biomass in spruce stands, especially in the older age classes. On the contrary, the results show that beech forests will maintain and even increase C-storage rates under most RCP scenarios. Scots pine forests show an intermediate behavior with a stable stock capacity over time and in different scenarios but with decreasing mean volume annual increment. These results confirm current observations worldwide that indicate a stronger climate-related decline in conifers forests than in broadleaves.
We investigated the potential performance of air pollution removal by the green infrastructures and urban forests in the city of Florence, central Italy, with a focus on the two most detrimental ...pollutants for human health: particulate (PM10) and ozone (O3). The spatial distribution of green infrastructures was mapped using remote sensing data. A spatial modeling approach using vegetation indices, Leaf Area Index, and local pollution concentration data was applied to estimate PM10 and O3 removal. The results are discussed to highlight the role and potential of green infrastructures and urban forests in improving air quality in Southern European cities.
Key message
The outcome of the present study leads to the application of a spatially explicit rule-based expert system (RBES) algorithm aimed at automatically classifying forest areas according to ...the European Forest Types (EFT) system of nomenclature at pan-European scale level. With the RBES, the EFT system of nomenclature can be now easily implemented for objective, replicable, and automatic classification of field plots for forest inventories or spatial units (pixels or polygons) for thematic mapping.
Context
Forest Types classification systems are aimed at stratifying forest habitats. Since 2006, a common scheme for classifying European forests into 14 categories and 78 types (European Forest Types, EFT) exists.
Aims
This work presents an innovative method and automated classification system that, in an objective and replicable way, can accurately classify a given forest habitat according to the EFT system of nomenclature.
Methods
A rule-based expert system (RBES) was adopted as a transparent approach after comparison with the well-known Random Forest (RF) classification system. The experiment was carried out based on the information acquired in the field in 2010 ICP level I plots in 17 European countries. The accuracy of the automated classification is evaluated by comparison with an independent classification of the ICP plots into EFT carried out during the BioSoil project field survey. Finally, the RBES automated classifier was tested also for a pixel-based classification of a pan-European distribution map of beech-dominated forests.
Results
The RBES successfully classified 94% of the plots, against a 92% obtained with RF. When applied to the mapped domain, the accuracy obtained with the RBES for the beech forest map classification was equal to 95%.
Conclusion
The RBES algorithm successfully automatically classified field plots and map pixels on the basis of the EFT system of nomenclature. The EFT system of nomenclature can be now easily and objectively implemented in operative transnational European forest monitoring programs.
PDF
