The genesis and the hydrogeological features of the Turin Po Plain fontanili,typical lowland springs in Northern Italy

The fontanili are typical lowland springs that occur in Northern Italy along the transition zone from high to low plain (the “fontanili line”), due to changes in both the slope surface and the sediment grain size. These resurgences of phreatic water were investigated in the western sector of the Po Plain in the Turin Province. Although the available bibliographic data through 2005 reveal the occurrence of 111 fontanili in the study area, only 51 preserved fontanili have been identified in field surveys. The main morphological and geological features of these resurgences were recorded and entered into a database. In addition, the small-scale hydrogeologic framework of these fontanili was clarified by means of lithostratigraphic cross-sections. Taking into account the drastic decrease in the number of these particular springs, ten fontanili were selected for detailed investigation based on their state of preservation and accessibility. A geological map of each emergence was constructed to explain its origin. The main hydrochemical and physical variables and parameters were measured every month for a period of one year. Only three sources provided water throughout the entire year, and their flow rates reached 60–80 l/S during the summer due to recharge from irrigation channels. All other fontanili remained dry during different periods of the year. The hydrochemical data revealed a Ca–Mg bicarbonate composition. The electrical conductivity increased from the north (100–300 μS/cm) to the south (300–600 μS/cm), and nitrate concentrations were below the limits imposed by Italian law (50 mg/l). This study should be considered as the basis of a proposal to the local government for the protection of a subset of these springs as sites of special geological interest (geo-sites).     

Can the revolution be optimised? Oh yes it can! But,maybe not. Report on the one day symposium on “Varieties of Enactivism”

The “Varieties of Enactivism: A Conceptual Geography” 4th April 2014, was a one day symposium which took place at Goldsmith University, London. The symposium had the explicit aim of clarifying the status of enactive cognitive science both as a unified paradigm for cognitive science and in relation to the broader embodied cognition framework. In what follows I offer a brief summery of the various talks followed by some thoughts on the current state of play within enactivism.     

Deformation mechanism of aluminum–magnesium alloys at elevated temperatures

The study concentrates on the formulation of a reliable constitutive equation for plastic forming of Al–Mg-based alloys above 400 °C and at strain rates above 10^?3 s^?1. The deformation mechanisms of two coarse-grained Al–Mg alloys, also known as AA5182, with grain sizes 21 and 37 μm were investigated. They exhibited optimum extension at 10^?2 s^?1 and at T equal to 425 °C and above 475 °C, respectively, with uniform elongation above 300 %. The strain-rate sensitivity and the stress exponent were equal to 0.25 and 4, respectively, suggesting that the deformation is controlled by the solute drag of gliding dislocations whereas dislocation climb occurs also in grains whose orientation renders them hard. Grain boundary sliding may contribute to a small extent in the deformation process. The threshold stress was found to be small and the activation energy lies between 144 and 136 kJ mol^?1, i.e., that of Al self-diffusion and Mg diffusion in Al. It is concluded that coarse-grained materials may well fulfill the industrial requirements of forming and within this scope, the use of the low purity coarse-grained Al–Mg-based alloys of the AA5182 type would constitute the next step in the course for further cost reduction.     

Identification of quasi-optimal regions in the design space using surrogate modeling

The use of Surrogate Based Optimization (SBO) is widely spread in engineering design to find optimal performance characteristics of expensive simulations (forward analysis: from input to optimal output). However, often the practitioner knows a priori the desired performance and is interested in finding the associated input parameters (reverse analysis: from desired output to input). A popular method to solve such reverse (inverse) problems is to minimize the error between the simulated performance and the desired goal. However, there might be multiple quasi-optimal solutions to the problem. In this paper, the authors propose a novel method to efficiently solve inverse problems and to sample Quasi-Optimal Regions (QORs) in the input (design) space more densely. The development of this technique, based on the probability of improvement criterion and kriging models, is driven by a real-life problem from bio-mechanics, i.e., determining the elasticity of the (rabbit) tympanic membrane, a membrane that converts acoustic sound wave into vibrations of the middle ear ossicular bones.     

Quenching and Partitioning (Q&P) Processing of Martensitic Stainless Steels

Austenite was stabilized in the martensitic stainless steel grade AISI 420 by means of quenching and partitioning (Q&P) processing. The effects of quenching temperature on the microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated. The specimens processed at low quench temperatures (regime I) had a microstructure consisting of tempered martensite and retained austenite. At high quench temperatures (regime II), fresh martensite was present too. The highest austenite fraction of about 0.35 was obtained at the quench temperature delineating regimes I and II. The amount of carbon in retained austenite increased as the quench temperature decreased. The carbon level of austenite was, however, much lower than the carbon concentrations expected from full partitioning assumption. This was mainly due to the extensive cementite formation in the partitioning step. Stabilization of austenite by Q&P processing was found not to be purely chemical. Austenite stabilization was also assisted by locking, because of local carbon enrichment, of potential martensite nucleation sites in the austenite/martensite boundaries and in austenite defects. The importance of the latter stabilization mechanism increased at higher martensite fractions. According to the tensile test results, the Q&P processed specimen with the highest austenite fraction was not associated with the best combination of strength and ductility. The mechanical stability of austenite was found to increase with its carbon concentration being the highest at the lowest quench temperature. The thermal stability, on the other hand, was almost inversely proportional to the retained austenite fraction, being low at intermediate quench temperatures where the retained austenite fraction was high.     

The spatial correlates of wildlife distribution around Garamba National Park,Democratic Republic of Congo

This study explores the relationship between human activity and the distribution of wildlife populations in north-eastern Congo. It is hypothesized that the presence of agricultural communities, proximity to urban markets and conservation practices affect three characteristics of wildlife distribution: the presence (range), abundance and community structure of large mammal populations. The area studied was extensive and required the use of wildlife sampling and remote sensing techniques to generate data on wildlife distribution and the explanatory factors. The results show that wildlife protection is associated with high animal abundance. However, the presence of agricultural populations is not associated with low animal abundance.     

Swelling properties of amino acid containing cross-linked polymeric organogels and their respective polyelectrolytic hydrogels with pH and salt responsive property

Amino acid based superabsorbent polymer (SAP) organogel library has been synthesized from Boc-glycine/alanine/valine/leucine/isoleucine/phenylalanine methacryloyl-oxyethyl ester (Boc-Gly/Ala/Val/Leu/Ilu/Phe-HEMA), which can switch over to corresponding hydrogels by simple one step Boc deprotection method. Swelling behaviour of organogels is investigated in various organic solvents (dielectric constant (ε) between 2.25 and 46.7), shows superabsorbent property in nonpolar organic solvents (2.25 ≤ ε ≤ 10.26) and moderate degree of swelling in polar aprotic solvents like acetone, N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), acetonitrile, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), etc. Swelling property of organogels is greatly influenced by the –R group of pendant amino acids and increases as bulkiness and hydrophobicity of –R increased. Organogels release absorbed volatile organic compounds (VOCs) very rapidly at room temperature and bulkiness of –R group accelerate the deswelling kinetic. Deprotection of Boc groups in the organogel network converts them to superabsorbent cationic polyelectrolyte hydrogels with high degree of swelling (∼518 for hydrogel from leucine) due to the presence of –NH₃⁺ ion functionality, and the swelling ratio of hydrogels is drastically affected by the –R group of amino acids moiety, pH of aqueous medium and ionic strength of the solutions.     

SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS FOR α-STABILITY OF LINEAR TIME-DELAY SYSTEMS

The asymptotic stability of time-delayed systems subject to multiple bounded point delays has received important attention in past years (see, for instance, Bourles, H. 1994. International Journal of Control , 59(2): 529-541; De la Sen, M. 2000. Electronics Letters , 36(4): 373-374; Xu, B. 2000. Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications , 282: 484-494). It is basically proved that the local f -stability in the delays (i.e., all the eigenvalues have prefixed strictly negative real parts located in Re s h - f < 0) may be tested for a set of admissible delays including possible zero delays either through a set of Lyapunov matrix inequalities or, equivalently, by checking that an identical number of matrices related to the delayed dynamics are all stability matrices. The result may be easily extended to check the k -asymptotic stability, independent of the delays; that is, for all the delays having any values, the eigenvalues are stable and located in Re s h k M 0 - (De la Sen, 2000; Xu, 2000). This number is 2 r for a set of r distinct point delays and includes all possible cases of alternate signs for summations for all the matrices of delayed dynamics (Xu, 2000).     

Intrinsic Ferromagnetic Impurity Phases in SmFeAsO1−x F x Detected by μSR

We report μSR measurements on SmFeAsO_1−x F _x which helped us to identify the signature of diluted ferromagnetic inclusions, ubiquitous in the iron pnictides. These impurities are characterized by a Curie temperature close to room temperature and they seem responsible for a non negligible magnetic relaxation of the implanted muons, which should not be confused with intrinsic pnictide properties.