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This work assesses the factors affecting a firm’s adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the transport and logistics (T&L) industry. This study uses mixed methods research to explore the determinants of IoT. First, we gathered information on firms’ structural characteristics through a questionnaire. Then, we used an OLS regression analysis to determine which factors drive IoT adoption. The results suggested that the level of IoT technologies’ adoption within firms in T&L is positively affected by firm size, the firm’s absorptive capacity, and entrepreneurs’ perception of the benefits of related technologies. Implications and limitations of the study are also provided.

Substantial research has focused on how innovation is influenced by geography from a macro perspective (e.g., at the country, state, or metropolitan level). However, less attention has been paid to how innovation is configured within a cluster from a micro perspective (e.g., at the district or firm level within a city), i.e., the “micro-geographical proximity” within a cluster. With this paper, we aim to “zoom into” a technology cluster to study the role of the inter-organizational micro-geographical proximity for the establishment of knowledge transfer relationships. Specifically, we analyse whether and how the micro-geographical proximity is related to the formation of three different types of inter-organizational relationships: venture capital (VC) deals, intellectual property (IP) transfer agreements, and R&D strategic alliances. We take empirical evidence from the biopharma cluster in the Greater Boston Area. Our findings suggest the importance of micro-geographical proximity for the establishment of VC deals and IP transfer agreements, which emphasizes the importance of adopting a micro-geographical perspective to highlight this “neighbourhood effect”, which would not be possible when considering spatial proximity at the macro level.

This editorial for the special issue of FutureS is not intended to provide a comprehensive, analytical overview of the future of health care; rather, it collects the perspectives on which scholars have focused most. There is a danger that what we report will quickly become obsolete for numerous reasons; think of the speed of current technological progress or the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic could further stress health care systems around the world. However, we would like to outline some of the current topics explored in the literature and focus on the scenarios envisioned by practitioners. We write this piece being interested in the innovative impulses of all the actors belonging to the "renewed" health care ecosystem, aware of the fact that there are significant differences between the countries of the North and South of the world and, consequently, between their health care systems. What we can say with certainty is that the healthcare and life sciences are the protagonists of an unparalleled revolution. The aging population and changing needs, the increasingly common occurrence of chronic disorders, and digitization are some of the challenges facing the sector. The technological change of the fourth industrial revolution is disruptive and changes the logic of the market, not only that of healthcare but also that of adjacent markets. Because of the intensity with which insiders have to face these new trends, the topic has been the focus of interest of scholars and practitioners in recent years. The big players in consulting, as well as the scholars, have deepened the issues of healthcare of the future, focusing on what will be the major challenges in 10 years and imagining potential scenarios that will reconfigure the way health care is delivered and used. In the next 10 years, there will be profound demographic changes and the healthcare system will necessarily have to reconfigure the supply of the necessary services and the methods of delivery (KPMG, 2018). Due to the aging of the population, there has already been a dramatic increase in chronic and degenerative diseases requiring complex treatment in recent years. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic that has been sweeping the world since 2019 has strained global health systems, revealed already existing weaknesses, even in the most advanced countries, and is representing an important moment of reflection for all policymakers. The whole world is questioning what will need to be done to foster greater effectiveness of national systems as well as better capacity to cope with shocks of such magnitude. In this document we explore what practitioners and scholars consider the main future challenges and the major changes that need to be made in the healthcare sector in order to embrace a new paradigm of care, based on the centrality of the patient, on prevention and not on cure, on technologies at the side of humans.

The frequency of Viburnum lantana L. plants showing visible foliar symptoms (VFS) was assessed in Trentino, north Italy in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2015. The assessment was based on a sub-sample (n = 10) of the Vibur NeT observation plots network installed in 2010 according to a stratified random design. Depending on the year, a range of 193–232 plants were assessed during August. The frequency of symptomatic plants varied from 20.7 to 50.6%. Mean May-July hourly ozone concentration measured by conventional monitors over the same area and period varied from 37.9 to 45.8 ppb. There was a consistent time pattern between ozone and VFS. Consistency is confirmed if also a pilot survey carried out in 2009 is taken into account. Results are promising and supportive of the use of V. lantana as in-situ bioindicator for monitoring ozone impact on vegetation in forest areas.

The human-driven spread of Invasive Alien Species is a major concern for conservation biologists. Since hunters are spreading invasive Eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus) in Italy, we investigated their beliefs about the species through semi-qualitative questionnaires in Tuscany, an area where cottontails have been occurring since 2000. Most respondents regarded invasive cottontails as a subspecies of the native European wild rabbit. Native European hares were highly valued as a game and perceived as a declining species, whereas no clear reason explained the hunting of cottontails and their population trend. We found no relationship between perceiving hares as a declining game and supporting the introduction of cottontails, or hunting cottontails. Respondents supported or opposed the eradication of cottontails according to their beliefs about the negative impact of the species over native hares. Hunters seem to have unclear ideas about cottontails and their impact and hold stable and positive attitudes towards the conservation of native hares. Cottontails are unlikely to replace hares as a game in the short term but may become a substitute game in case of a severe reduction in the abundance of hares. Our results could enable wildlife managers to plan eradication schemes to counteract invasive cottontails without fearing any strong opposition by hunters, provided that effective conservation plans are available for native game species. Hunters could also be engaged in large-scale monitoring programs based on hunting bags, as an encouraging number of respondents record killed cottontails on their hunting card. Future studies should broaden the investigation of hunters’ and angler’s perception of invasive alien species, as these two leisure activities are responsible for their spread worldwide.

This paper aims to evaluate the environmental management systems of ports by employing a multistep strategy based on official data for 24 Italian ports in 2016. In the first step, two original composite indicators are proposed to evaluate i) environmental quality related to greenhouse gas emissions due to port activity (i.e., the undesirable output), and ii) the efforts of port authorities to pursue a pro-environmental path. In the second step, port relative efficiency is evaluated by means of the DEA method with the main objective of investigating the persistence of economic efficiency when it is adjusted for environmental costs and pro-environmental commitments. The findings of this study suggest that to avoid partial judgements, the use of a comprehensive framework is pivotal in jointly assessing ports’ environmental and economic performance. The process is optimised when economic performance, the minimisation of the undesirable output and the adoption of green port policies have an appropriate balance. An interesting result for managers and policy makers is that efficiency converges towards the optimal target when ports feature a high pro-environmental attitude by implementing proactive green policies.

Tree crown defoliation is the most widespread indicator of forest health and vitality in Europe. It is part of the ICP Forests Pan-European survey and it is adopted for reporting under Forest Europe. It is readily understandable and can count on fairly harmonized, long-term, large-scale data series across Europe. On the other hand, it is unspecific with respect to possible causes of damage, and its relation with tree functioning remains unclear. This study focused on European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), Turkey oak (Quercus cerris L.), and holm oak (Quercus ilex L.), three important broadleaved forest species in southern Europe. We investigated whether and to what extent morpho-physiological (functional) leaf traits and other indicators of foliar, branch and stem health condition are associated with tree defoliation. We tested the relationship between defoliation and leaf-, branch- and stem attributes, and whether indicators of damage and functional leaf traits significantly differ (Mann-Whitney U Test) between defoliated (defoliation > 25%) and undefoliated trees (defoliation ≤ 25%). For each species, we considered one site (three to five plots each) and n = 11–19 randomly selected trees. For each tree, the following indicators were measured: crown condition (defoliation; leaf-, branch- and stem damage, in terms of extent and intensity of damage), leaf morphology (leaf thickness, leaf area, lamina length, fluctuating asymmetry, specific leaf area, damaged leaf surface), leaf physiology and chemistry (chlorophyll a fluorescence, chlorophyll content, carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes composition δ13C, δ15N, carbon/nitrogen ratio). Results show that, for the selected trees of all the three species, defoliation was positively related to the extent of damage on branches. While increasing defoliation in European beech was also accompanied by several significant differences at leaf level (i.e., leaf damage, leaf volume, dry weight, carbon/nitrogen ratio and photosynthetic efficiency), for Turkey oak and holm oak the significant differences between defoliated and undefoliated trees were limited to damage on branches (both species).

We present CMS, an algorithm used to search for geometric motifs in proteins.Complete cross-proteins analysis calls for parallel processing.Data parallel problem decomposition favors a shared-memory implementation.OpenMP implementation meets expectations, but scales only up to 8 threads.Hybrid OpenMP/MPI approach required for further analysis. The analysis of the 3D structures of proteins is a very important problem in life sciences, since the geometric set-up of proteins has a deep relevance in many biological processes. The complexity of the analysis and the continuous increase in the number of proteins whose 3D structure is known, call for efficient and quick algorithms. Parallel processing is becoming an enabling tool for such research. A key component in the geometric description of a protein is the structural motif, a 3D element which appears in a variety of molecules and is usually made of just a few simpler structures, the secondary structures elements (SSEs).This paper is an extended version of Ferretti and Musci (2013), and presents the Cross Motif Search (CMS) and the Complete CMS (CCMS) algorithms, two highly optimized and efficient parallel methods to detect the presence and location of all common motifs of secondary structures in a given protein pair (CMS) or across an arbitrary large dataset of proteins (CCMS). The analysis builds on existing approaches, such as Secondary Structure Co-Occurrences (SSC), based on the General Hough Transform (GHT) technique. The main difference between our proposal and the state of the art is the innovative focus that CMS puts on the geometric description of the structural motifs, which could be simply viewed as vectors in a 3D space, rather than on the topological/biological description employed by competing algorithms, such as ProSMoS, PROMOTIF or MASS. The advantage of a geometrical approach is that it enables to retrieve the exact location of the common substructures in a protein pair.The paper analyzes all possible forms of serial and parallelism optimization of the proposed algorithms, both shared memory and message passing. It introduces a complete parallel implementation of CMS, based on OpenMP, and discusses its scalability on shared-memory architectures. Both small-scale and medium-scale testing shows that the methods produces very interesting results in real applications, and scales nicely up to the eight-processor limit. More in-depth testing also shows that the scalability limit is due to the inner structure of the problem, and that the similarities among proteins and the chosen tolerance for the analysis highly affect the overall performance.

The presence of multilayered structures is common in such cultural artefacts as paintings, corroded metals, objects that underwent a whatever form of surface qualification. One of the most usual and complete ways to investigate such structures is observing a cross section, which requires sampling. There are however situations where at least part of the stratigraphic information can be derived non-destructively: the literature shows that X-ray fluorescence (XRF) has frequently been used, in recent years, for this purpose, with special regard to paintings and gilded metals. Aim of this paper is to further explore the suitability of XRF-based techniques to characterise multilayered structures. This is achieved by introducing improvements, with respect to previous works, in both equipment and data processing. The method, that has been developed for gilded and enamelled silver artefacts, relies on optimum excitation conditions provided for silver and on the relationship existing between the ratio AgKα/AgKβ of its fluorescence lines and the gilding thickness itself. The coating (gilding or enamel) thickness is derived by verifying the condition C Kα,Ag = C Kβ,Ag , where C Kα,Ag and C Kβ,Ag are the mass fractions of silver calculated on the lines AgKα and AgKβ, respectively. The calculations are carried out by PyMCA, a Fundamental Parameters code that implements the analysis of multilayered samples. As a case study we investigated in situ the four processional crosses of Borbona, Sant'Elpidio, Rosciolo and Forcella, made of a wood core with attached gilt and embossed silver sheets and enamelled silver plates. The analyses allowed to distinguish ancient restorations from original parts, to characterise the enamels and find their composition consistent with the dates of manufacturing and, as regards the cross of Rosciolo, to hypothesize the contribution of different “hands” in its manufacturing.

The Gonnesa Quaternary deposits have been cited since the end of the 19th century due to the discovery, during the construction of a railway, of an incomplete postcranial skeleton belonging to an endemic dwarfed elephant, afterward described by Major as a new species (“Elephas lamarmorae” Major, 1883). Although the remains have since been reported in the literature as coming from the aeolian deposits outcropping at Funtana Morimenta, the precise provenance of the findings and their chronostratigraphical setting remained uncertain. Taking into account the route of the now disused railway, the stratigraphical successions of the Morimenta area, and the fact that the elephant bones were actually collected during a number of excavations spanning several decades, the location of the fossiliferous site is most likely on the northeast end slope of Guardia Pisano hill (Gonnesa), where aeolianites correlate with the Funtana Morimenta Formation (FMF) outcrop. The FMF is supposed to predate the onset of the MIS 5e climatic event and the Tyrrhenian “Panchina” overlies equivalent deposits cropping out along the Gonnesa Gulf coast. Therefore, the hypothesis that the elephant remains found in the “Morimenta” area were retrieved from late Middle Pleistocene deposits cannot be ruled out. The anatomical features of the bones suggest they represent a single individual, perhaps partially exposed and damaged before the discovery. New evidence, including a thus far unpublished tusk fragment from the Guardia Pisano hill (Gonnesa), whose Schreger angles fall within the range of Mammuthus, supports the systematic attribution of the incomplete Morimenta skeleton to a dwarfed mammoth. The size reduction of this Sardinian dwarfed mammoth is discussed in light of body-mass changes undergone by insular endemic elephants.

To evaluate the spatial variability of ozone concentrations, two studies were undertaken in the montane environment of Trentino region, northern Italy, in 2007. In the first study, a 225 km 2 area was considered. Here, a randomized design was used to evaluate the variability of ozone concentration at 1 and 225 km 2 scale. Measurements were carried out by passive samplers between May and June 2007. In a second study, the whole 6207 km 2 area of Trentino was considered. The area is covered by five grid cells of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP). A systematic 15 × 15 km grid was used to allocate 15 passive samplers over the entire province, resulting into 1–4 samplers for each of the 5 EMEP grid cells (2500 km 2 each) overlapping the study area. Measurements were carried out between June and September 2007. Accuracy of passive samplers was checked by direct comparison with conventional ozone analysers. Significant differences ( P = 0.034) were found in ozone concentration among 1 × 1 km quadrates within the 225 km 2 study area, while variability within the 1 × 1 km grid cells (coefficient of variation, CV′ = 0.12) slightly exceed the measurement error (CV′ = 0.08). At larger scales (225, 2500 and 6207 km 2 ), ozone concentration shows much higher variability (CV′ from 0.18 to 0.28, with peak values at 0.40). Reported differences lead to very different AOT40 estimates even within the same EMEP grid cell. These findings suggest that 1 × 1 km resolution seems appropriate for ozone concentration modelling. On the other hand, significant sub-grid variation may exist at the resolution adopted by the EMEP model. Coupled with the likely variability of other important meteorological, soil and vegetation variables, our findings suggest that ozone risk assessment for vegetation based on large-scale modelled AOT40 and flux needs to be considered with great caution. The evidence reported in this paper asks for more detailed national-scale modelling, and the development of methods to incorporate local scale variations into large-scale models.

The impact of ozone on forest ecosystems in Italy is monitored within the CONECOFOR programme. Ozone levels are measured in 30 plots using passive samplers. Response parameters used are: crown condition (transparency), BAI (basal area increment), and visible symptoms on spontaneous vegetation. Levels of AOT40 are above the concentration-based critical level of 5 ppmh in all sites, but the evidence of impact on forest vegetation remains limited. Ozone is a predictor of crown transparency residuals in beech sites over two consecutive years, but the variance explained amounts to less than 10%. The relation between BAI reduction and ozone is even less certain. Transparency and BAI are more readily explainable in terms of ecological conditions of the site and climate fluctuations. The interpretation of visible symptoms is doubtful, and is conditioned by the prevailing ecological factors in the areas.

Prior to 2000 a network of conventional ozone (O 3 ) analysers existed in the Province of Firenze (Tuscany, central Italy). Between 2000 and 2004 the network was extended to incorporate a newly designed bioindicator network of tobacco plants ( Nicotiana tabacum Bel W3). The objective was to set-up an integrated monitoring system to obtain estimates of ground-level O 3 concentrations over the whole study area (3513 km 2 ) in order to fill data gaps and cover reporting requirements. The existing conventional monitors were purposefully located mainly in urban areas. A total of 45 biomonitoring sites were selected using a systematic design to cover the target area. Two to five additional biomonitoring sites were co-located with conventional O 3 analysers for calibration purposes, and five more sites for independent validation of modelled O 3 concentrations. Visible Leaf Injury Index (LII) on the tobacco plants was significantly correlated ( P : 0.018 ÷ 0.0014) with a series of O 3 exposure variables (mean of weekly 1-hour maxima, M1; mean of 7-hour means, M7; 24-hour mean, M24; and weekly AOT40). LII was found to be a significant predictor of weekly means of the O 3 exposure variables with a standard error of estimates between 13.6 and 24.3 μg m − 3 (absolute values). LII was mapped with an ad-hoc spatial model over the study area at a 2 ⁎ 2 km grid resolution, and mapped values were used to predict O 3 concentrations by means of a first order linear model. Results showed that high estimates of O 3 (up to 188 μg m − 3 as mean of weekly maxima, M1) occurred more frequently in hilly and mountainous areas, with a spatial pattern changing on an annual basis. Predicted O 3 concentrations were not significantly different from the measured concentrations ( P : 0.34), although marked differences were observed for individual sites and years. The study provided evidence that integration of monitoring networks using different methods can be a viable option to obtain estimates of O 3 concentrations over large areas.

The Pleistocene fauna of Sicily includes two endemic elephant taxa of different body sizes: the dwarf Palaeoloxodon falconeri and the medium-sized Palaeoloxodon mnaidriensis. P. mnaidriensis is the younger of the two elephant taxa and occurs in faunal assemblages dated from the late Middle to the late Pleistocene. This paper presents a systematic and morphometric study of P. mnaidriensis based on material from the late Middle Pleistocene Puntali Cave (Carini), representing the largest and best preserved sample of this taxon. The morphological revision supports the hypothesis that P. mnaidriensis from Sicily is indeed a separate species with respect to mainland Palaeoloxodon antiquus and not just a smaller insular form of the latter. P. mnaidriensis from Puntali Cave has a mean estimated shoulder height of about 1.8 m and a mean body weight of about 1100 kg, representing a body mass reduction of nearly 90% with respect to the ancestral form. The observed morphological differences between P. mnaidriensis and P. antiquus are in part related to dwarfing but also suggest a different ecological adaptation of the insular form. The grouping of P. mnaidriensis with Palaeoloxodon recki atavus , Palaeoloxodon recki recki , Palaeoloxodon naumanni , P. antiquus and Palaeoloxodon namadicus in the monophyletic genus Palaeoloxodon is supported by three cranial synapomorphies.

This paper reports the results of a measurement campaign performed at the National Museum of Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria (Italy). Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrumentation allowed in situ analysis of several bronze pieces belonging to the group of the so-called Porticello Bronzes. The find occurred at sea, off the village of Porticello (Reggio Calabria) in 1969 and consists of a number of fragments, including a bearded head, pertaining to at least two statues. The use of X-Ray Fluorescence and Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy techniques allowed for a classification of the fragments according to their elemental composition. The fragments appear to belong to at least two different statues; although, in general, the compositional classification agrees well with the stylistic analysis of the fragments, significant improvements with respect to previous achievements emerge from the joint results of the two techniques used.

Results are based on ten hyoid characters of seven proboscidean taxa; four belong to the subfamily Elephantinae. Using PAUP we generated six equally parsimonious trees. The consensus tree yields two polytomies: in the basal polytomy the relationships among Mammut, gomphotheres, Stegodon, and Loxodonta are not resolved; in the other polytomy Palaeoloxodon, Mammuthus, and Elephas are grouped in a cluster. The joining of Palaeoloxodon and Mammuthus has not been suggested previously, and there are ample non-hyoid data of grouping Loxodonta, Elephas, and Mammuthus. For this reason and since a major focus of this study has been to test relationships among Loxodonta, Elephas, and Mammuthus, we relied on studies of other workers and rearranged the consensus cladogram to unite Loxodonta with other members of Elephantinae (Palaeoloxodon, Elephas, and Mammuthus). The hypothesis that Mammuthus is more closely related to Elephas than to Loxodonta is more parsimonious (by two evolutionary steps) than when Loxodonta joins Mammuthus. This finding is provisional and should be retested with additional data, especially with taxa with small sample size, and with specimens of extinct Elephantinae taxa. Results also corroborate other findings that Palaeoloxodon is a bona fide elephant genus; we classify it in the new subtribe Palaeoloxodontina Zhang and Zong [1983. Genus Palaeoloxodon of China. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 21(4), 301–312].

Ozone (O 3 ) exposure at Italian background sites exceeds UN/ECE concentration-based critical levels (CLe c ), if expressed in terms of AOT40. Yet the occurrence of adverse effects of O 3 on forests and crops is controversial. Possible reasons include (i) ability of response indicators to provide an unbiased estimate of O 3 effects, (ii) setting of current CLe c in terms of cut-off value and accumulation level, (iii) response functions adopted to infer a critical level, (iv) environmental limitation to O 3 uptake and (v) inherent characteristics of Mediterranean vegetation. In particular, the two latter points suggest that critical levels based on accumulated stomatal flux (CLe f ) can be a better predictor of O 3 risk than CLe c . While this concept is largely acknowledged, a number of factors may limit its applicability for routine monitoring. This paper reviews levels, uptake and vegetation response to O 3 in Italy over recent years to discuss value, uncertainty and feasibility of different approaches to risk assessment.

The earliest occurrence of elephantines in Italy is in the middle Villafranchian (late Middle Pliocene; ca. 2.6 Ma), with a primitive representative of the mammoth lineage. In addition to this still poorly known taxon, four elephant species are clearly recognized in Plio-Pleistocene fossil mammal assemblages from the Italian peninsula: Mammuthus meridionalis, M. trogontherii, M. primigenius, and Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus. In Sicily, at least three different taxa are present during the Pleistocene: the dwarf E. falconeri, the medium sized E. (P.) “mnaidriensis”, and a third poorly known large sized taxon, represented by isolated findings, in some cases apparently associated with E. (P.) “mnaidriensis”. A number of specimens from Spinagallo and Luparello, of intermediate size between E. “mnaidriensis” and E. falconeri, suggest the occurrence in Sicily of a further elephant species. Sardinia records the only case of an endemic small sized Mammuthus species from the western Mediterranean. The Italian elephant fossil record clearly shows the influence of climatic, physiographic and paleogeographic conditions on the pattern of occurrence and dispersal of this mammal group in Southern Europe.

Sampling requirements related to lichen biomonitoring include optimal sampling density for obtaining precise and unbiased estimates of population parameters and maps of known reliability. Two available datasets on a sub-national scale in Italy were used to determine a cost-effective sampling density to be adopted in medium-to-large-scale biomonitoring studies. As expected, the relative error in the mean Lichen Biodiversity (Italian acronym: BL) values and the error associated with the interpolation of BL values for (unmeasured) grid cells increased as the sampling density decreased. However, the increase in size of the error was not linear and even a considerable reduction (up to 50%) in the original sampling effort led to a far smaller increase in errors in the mean estimates (

Long-term intensive monitoring in Europe is presently proceeding in more than 800 plots, where a number of investigations are carried out according to allegedly standardized protocols. While the potential of the program cannot be denied, certain aspects that are binding for data analysis may be a source of problems for future evaluation of program results. Here it is argued that: (i) current biological response indicators adopted by the program will not permit air pollution effects to be distinguished from effects due to other stressors and/or natural variation; (ii) the sampling strategy adopted to select monitoring sites does not enable European scale estimates of the status of attributes of interest or their changes; and that (iii) the sampling tactic suggested at plot level is ambiguous and cannot provide representative, unbiased estimates at plot scale. This latter point implies consequences when plot-level data are used in models, correlative studies and/or to infer cause-effect relationships.

Litterfall (leaves, flowers, fruits, twigs) was collected every month in two mixed Mediterranean forests of Quercus ilex (holm oak) in central Italy differing for their ecological features: a mesic site (Colognole, CL) and a xeric one (Cala Violina, CV). The survey period lasted 8 years (1992–2000) at CL and 4 years at CV. Chemical analysis of the litterfall was performed in 1997 and 1998. In these 2 years living leaves were also collected for chemical analysis. The main findings were: (i) the litter production was lower and the leaf percentage in the total litterfall was smaller at CV than at CL; (ii) the phenological behavior differed in the two sites and the leaves had greater longevity at CV, whereas at CL trees renewed their crown almost completely each spring; (iii) the chemical composition of the living leaves reflected the edaphic differences between the two sites; (iv) the chemical composition of the senescent leaves and the litter in the two sites was very different; (v) crown transparency and defoliation followed the same pattern of the leaf shedding; (vi) transparency was greater at CL, where the litter production was higher, because of the different shape of the crowns. The differences between the two study areas have been discussed in the light of the different ecology of the two sites, since leaf lifespan is greater in dry and infertile soils.

Summary Tree-rings are a unique source of long-term data and have often been used in studies aimed at understanding and quantifying the impact of air pollution on forests. A variety of approaches have been used, ranging from traditional dendrochronology to studies focussing on the chemical and physical properties of tree-rings. However, there are some issues to be considered when attempting to use tree-rings as a response indicator in air pollution studies and when inferences over large geographical scales are being made. These issues include the inherent ambiguity of tree-ring width as indicator of air pollution effects, the absence of reference data, the problems associated with integrating traditional dendrochronology with more complex ecosystem studies and the relatively poor attention paid to sound statistical design in some air pollution impact studies. Together with progress in specific disciplines like climatology, biochemistry, genetics, tree physiology, tree nutrition and soil science, the interdisciplinary and international collaboration in the analysis of environmental effects on tree growth will increase the research potential of tree-rings.

In this paper, we present a hierarchical indexing method based on texture characterization for image retrieval. The novelty of our contribution is the hierarchical structure of the index: it exploits the multiresolution formulation of Wavelet Transforms to define a new set of approximated versions of the images for each level of resolution. On this set, the algorithm extracts significant signatures by means of statistical correlations; the experimental results and the analysis of computational complexity have proved that the algorithm presents the best performance at the highest level of the indexing hierarchy, where the computational complexity is the lowest. Our method has been evaluated by the following methodologies: (a) the study of the computational complexity for signature generation; (b) the comparison with analogous methods based on texture analysis by reporting the performance obtained on the same database (Brodatz); and (c) the evaluation of the robustness of the hierarchical indexing in different color spaces, by querying the database with different versions of the original images obtained by noise addition (gaussian and scanner acquisition noise and lossy compression distortion), brightness and contrast enhancement, color and scale adjustment and rotation. Even if our method is designed for texture databases, experiments show satisfactory results also on a real heterogeneous photographic database. This confirms the possibility of exploiting our method as a low computational complexity indexing tool based on texture characterization in a broader system for hierarchical content-based retrieval.

This paper reviews the Hough transform hardware implementations, with a specific analysis of the architectures that explicitly address the “real-time” issue. The work presents an introduction for a critical assessment of the notion of “real-time”, especially for what concerns modern multimedia applications. The main contribution of this work is the proposal of a new metric for measuring the performance of Hough transform architectures against a given definition of “real-time”. The basic idea is that there is no single set of constraints that define “real-time” for every application domain, and that even the simplest case of Hough transform for line detection, must be properly characterized within a specific application domain. The architectures are classified and evaluated, after a proper characterization of the Hough transform complexity, in terms of dimensions of parameter space and time complexity.

The paper provides basic information about background, objectives and structure of O 3 SWE (Ozone at the permanent monitoring plots in South-Western Europe), an international co-operative project aimed at evaluating O 3 concentrations, cumulative exposure, uptake and effects on forest vegetation in four countries of South-Western Europe (France, Italy, Luxenbourg, Spain and Switzerland). The project covers a total of 83 permanent plots of the EU and UN/ECE intensive forest monitoring programme and span over three years of investigation (2000–2002). The O 3 SWE project aims to demonstrate how, using data collected routinely in an intensive forest monitoring network, O 3 exposure, flux and effects can be assessed and exceedances critically evaluated.

Epiphytic lichens and forest trees have been used as biomonitors of geothermal air pollution in the Travale-Radicondoli area (central Italy). The diversity of the lichen flora and the crown status of Quercus cerris were taken as active indicators of air quality, and both lichens Parmelia caperata and tree leaves were analyzed for their elemental content. The lichen survey pointed out a belt of about 500 m around the power plants as the area of highest contamination and boron as the main trace pollutant. As far as forest trees were concerned, crown thinness was affected mostly by the nature of the geological substrate, while reduction in leaf area and increase in specific dry weight were well correlated with the presence of the geothermal power plants. High levels of sulphur were detected in leaf tissues.

Explained and unexplained crown transparency (ECT and UCT, respectively) of 2090 beech trees were examined in 1994 and compared with site condition and other indices of tree status. No relationship was found between UCT, social class, age and diameter. Some relationships were found between UCT, canopy closure, the amount of discolored foliage, the growth pattern (a modified Roloff score), fruiting and regeneration. UCT increases with altitude and decrease with site quality. Short-term changes in UCT do not exceed 5 % in approximately 70 % of the observed beeches, although changes of 20 % or more in UCT scores has been recorded on 6 % of the beeches.

An unprecedented database concerning the apparent condition of forest trees has been created over the last decade. In particular, millions of data concern crown transparency and discoloration have been collected. Unfortunately, the subjectivity and poor specificity of the international data complicate their comparability and interpretation. A suite of other indices with species-specific relevance were also been used in various surveys. However, the development of suitable indices is incomplete and there is an urgent need for the improvement of definitions, training, data collection and reporting.

Over the last decades much of the work on the impact of air pollution on forests in Europe has concentrated on central and northern countries. The southern part of Europe has received far less attention, although air pollutants—especially the photochemical ones—can reach concentrations likely to have adverse effects on forest vegetation. Although international forest condition surveys present serious problems where data consistency is concerned, they reveal considerable year-by-year species-specific fluctuations rather than a large-scale forest decline. Cases of obvious decline related to environmental factors are well circumscribed: (1) the deterioration of some coastal forests due to the action of polluted seaspray; (2) the deterioration of reforestation projects, especially conifers, mainly due to the poor ecological compatibility between species and site; and (3) the decline of deciduous oaks in southern Italy and of evergreen oaks in the Iberian peninsula apparently due to the interaction of climate stresses and pests and diseases. However, besides obvious deterioration, changes in environmental factors can provoke situations of more subtle stress. The most sensitive stands are Mediterranean conifer forests and mesophile forests of the Mediterranean-montane plane growing at the edges of the natural ecological distribution. Evergreen sclerophyllous forests appear less sensitive to variations in climatic parameters, since they can adapt quite well to both drought and the action of UV-B rays. Several experiments were carried out to test the sensitivity of Mediterranean forest species to air pollutants. Most of those experiments used seedlings of different species treated with pollutant concentrations too high to be realistic, so it is difficult to derive adequate information on the response of adult trees in field conditions. Ozone has been proved to cause foliar injury in a variety of native forest species in different Southern European countries, while the effects of other pollutants (e.g. nitrogen, sulphur, acidic deposition) are less obvious and likely to be very localized. In the case of ozone, visible symptoms were almost completely missed by large-scale surveys and—at the same time—non-visible symptoms are suspected to be even more widespread than the visible ones. Owing to this and to the complex relationships existing between species sensitivity, ozone exposure and doses, length of the vegetative periods, influence of climatic and edaphic condition on the tree's response, the impacted areas are yet to be identified. Therefore, the large-scale impact of air pollutants on the forests of Southern Europe remains largely unknown, until more specific investigations are carried out.

In this paper we present the results of a research activity which addresses the problem of high-quality image compression. The approach consists of embedding a model of the human visual system into the framework of the biorthogonal wavelet expansion. After a brief overview on the application of wavelets on image compression and a comparison with other transform-based approaches, we describe the mathematical aspect of the algorithm and the coding method used in the compression scheme. Some examples of the experimental results we have obtained end the paper.

This work analyzes the computational complexity of the Generalized Hough Transform (GHT) on a mesh-connected (MCC) and introduces practical algorithms for bidimensional shape recognition useful in real situations, and not just in asymptotic cases. This paper shows how to map such a transform onto a massive parallel computer that consists of a mesh of 4-connected processing elements (PEs). While a class of algorithms relying on general purpose data movements techniques has time complexity O ( Rn log n ) on an n × n MCC under the SIMD bit model, R being the number of points used to describe the shape, an important criterion implicitly embedded in the transform is not reflected in such implementations: namely, the locality of the transform with respect to the input image. Indeed, most shapes are bound by a circle having a radius d usually much smaller than the linear dimension of the mesh. This paper shows how an efficient implementation of the GHT can be obtained using this geometric constraint. Two classes of algorithms are introduced; both exhibit an asymptotic complexity O ( Rd 2 log n ) which is a function of the region enclosing the sought for shape. The derivation of exact time costs both for the standard implementations and for the new ones establishes the break-even point for any problem size. The proposed algorithms outperform the standard ones in all practical situations.

Stratification of sampling with the consequent reduction of variables and the separation of samples by single species and homogeneous areas have been used for inventory of forest damage in Tuscany. The principal elements which resulted are: (1) a large increase in the percentile of damaged trees, especially in the classes of moderate and severe damage, following a trend which seems to be confirmed throughout a great part of Europe (the damage appears severe both in the montane and Mediterranean areas, with high peaks in Pinus pinea, Fagus sylvatica and Quercus pubescens); (2) the worrisome situation of F. sylvatica and Ostrya carpinifolia with respect to the symptomatology; (3) the intense decline of P. pinea in the Mediterranean area; (4) the serious situation of Q. pubescens; (5) a particular forest decline in the Mediterranean area; (6) the lessening of damage at the rise of altitude. The decline seems to be increased in the montane areas by the worst site conditions while in the Mediterranean zones it appears to be influenced by environmental factors of coastal origin.

Previous investigation has shown evidence of damage to forest vegetation throughout Tuscany, especially in the coastal areas. In 1989 a specific survey was carried out in a 400 km2 region which has a number of major emission sources. Two hundred sampling plots were selected on a 1 km X 1 km grid; 5193 trees were assessed and 306 leaf samples and 198 soil samples were collected. Results show that: (1) evergreen species (both conifers and broadleaves) are the most affected: (2) damage seems more intense nearer to the emission sources where crown density is significantly reduced; (3) N, Ca, K and Cu contents in leaves are often at a critical level or deficient; (4) geographical distribution of Pb in the surface soil and Na in the leaves coincides in part with the more damaged zone.

A new approach to shape detection through the generalized Hough transform is introduced. The method is based on a limited memory implementation of the transform, that reduces its cost and makes it suitable for hardware implementation. The rationale of the method is that a shape is bound by a circle whose radius is, in most practical situations, much smaller than the dimensions of the image processed. This a priori knowledge can be used during the vote collection phase of the transform to guide flushing operations against a filled memory. The method is tested in the simple case of circles detection and in more practical situations of IC inspection.