Italian Soil Research Articles

Sabotaj al cruciadei antiotomane sau necesitate politică italiană? Un raport al lui Leonardo Botta din 27 iulie 1475

On 27 July 1475, Leonardo Botta, Milan’s representative in Venice, wrote to his master, Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza. He informed him that he had convinced Florence’s envoy in the Laguna, Luigi Guicciardini, not to inform the Serenissima that his Signoria had received Pope Sixtus IV’ recent message. The Papal brief had been sent on 1 July, at the request of Venice in the support of Stephen III of Moldavia, the favourite of the republic. Botta’s task had been relatively easy. Guicciardini was a close associate of the Sforzas and former podestà of Milan. In all likelihood, he had been in possession of the Papal brief for some time. But Guicciardini had been in doubt whether or not to let Venice know that Sixtus IV had fulfilled her demand and written even to usually pro-Ottoman Florence. Nevertheless, Botta was not very comfortable with his actions. He conveyed a series of explanations to Sforza. For Italian reasons, the duke was highly interested in the events in the (South-) East, as well as sceptical of the real outcome of anti-Ottoman warfare (not to mention his – reasoned – reluctance towards crusading and crusader ideals and aims). Was Botta’s endeavour an act of sabotage of the anti-Ottoman crusade proclaimed by Sixtus IV or a diplomatic deed emerged from Italian political needs? Botta was otherwise highly supportive of anti-Ottoman warfare, as well as – genuinely – found of Stephen III. Botta felt that his action was sabotage. Nevertheless, the experienced Botta did it. Milan could not afford that Venice’s Italian standing is improved through crusading in the East. From Sforza’s perspective (whose response to Botta’s report remains unknown), Botta’s enterprise was acceptable (he did not “recall” Botta). Sforza had sympathy for Stephen and his anti-Ottoman resilience (in return, on both crusader and Italian soil, Sforza could not stomach Matthias Corvinus). Yet Italian matters took precedence. The duke could not take the chance that any (Papal) advantage was given to the double-dealing Serenissima. At that time, Venice had a six months truce with the Porte, made possible by the major anti-Ottoman victory of her protégé, Stephen, in January 1475. The truce had eased the Ottoman conquest of Genoese Caffa in the Crimea, in early June. The fall of Caffa had sent shock-waves – via Stephen too – across Italy, where Genoa was Milan’s dominium. Under these circumstances, it could be argued that Milan attempted to respond in kind to Venice’s policies by foiling/ sabotaging her own anti-Ottoman designs centred around Stephen III of Moldavia. Such a hypothesis requires however additional proof. At present, we know only of two – identical – messages sent by Sixtus IV, at Venice’s request, on 1 July 1475: to the Signoria of Florence (the fief of his soon to be mortal enemies, the Medici) and to Ludovico III il Turco, margrave of Mantua (whose son, Cardinal Francesco, was later to arbitrate the feud arisen between Matthias Corvinus, supported by Naples, and Stephen III, backed by Venice, over the allocation of Italian anti-Ottoman crusader funds).

Oxidative damage associated with exposure to heavy metals present in topsoils in central Chile.

Exposure to heavy metals may cause the overproduction of reactive oxygen species, generating oxidative stress and consequently, various harms to human health. The soil surrounding the Ventanas Industrial Complex, in Puchuncaví and Quintero municipal districts on the central Chilean coast, contains heavy metal concentrations (As, Cu, Pb, Zn, among others) that far exceed the maximum permissible levels established by Italian soil standards (used as a reference). This study aimed to investigate the potential association between heavy metal exposure in humans and the levels of oxidative stress biomarkers in inhabitants of these locations. We took blood samples from 140 adults living in sites with high concentrations of heavy metals in the soil and compared them with blood samples from 140 adults living in areas with normal heavy metal concentrations. We assessed lipid peroxidation, damage to genetic material, and Total Antioxidant Capacity in these blood samples. Our results indicate an association between oxidative damage and heavy metal exposure, where the inhabitants living in exposed areas have a higher level of DNA damage compared with those living in control areas. Given that DNA damage is one of the main factors in carcinogenesis, these results are of interest, both for public health and for public policies aimed at limiting human exposure to environmental pollution.

Medically assisted suicide in Italy: Recent legal developments on a controversial topic.

On 16th June 2022, the first case of lawful 'medically assisted suicide' took place on Italian soil. This event is a result of decade-long debates on informed consent and end-of-life care stimulated by medical jurisprudence. The authors first retrace the crucial moments that allowed this to happen and underline the problems still to be solved. The cases of DJ Fabo, Davide Trentin, Mario and Fabio Ridolfi are discussed, signalling how they influenced the path implemented by Italian jurisprudence.

Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women’s Food Work by Diana Garvin (review)

Reviewed by: Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women’s Food Work by Diana Garvin Megan Kirby Garvin, Diana–Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women’s Food Work. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. 292 p. Diana Garvin’s fascinating new book brings Fascist foodways to the Italian dinner table. Feeding Fascism explores how the state intervened in food and feeding, and in doing so, Italian women across all classes adapted, negotiated, and resisted such culinary dictates. In an attempt to avoid reducing these women to domestic roles, Garvin instead uses “site-based” case studies—rural rice paddies and grain fields, the Perguina factory, and ideal fascist kitchens—to demonstrate how these spaces are neither private nor public but interconnected. In her examination of women’s lived experience feeding their families, she argues that these women did not “unquestioningly receive cultural messages from above” and instead made careful decisions about what to cook, how to prepare, and what to preserve; Fascist food policy was often applied unevenly in such decisions (pp. 5, 14). Daily decisions and everyday life are explored through varying socio-economic classes of women from the Northern and Central regions of Italy. Her approach is the strongest feature of the book; she presents the rural and urban settings—and the women who lived and laboured in both—in tandem with one another. In doing so, she avoids the [End Page 217] tendency to create an isolationist and monolithic experience of Fascism; women in both spaces became national interests. As part of her methodology, Garvin takes care to present these women’s “own conceptions of gender, class, and region” to describe social categories and make sense of daily life, food, and feeding under Fascist rule (p. 4). Using food as a lens, Feeding Fascism investigates how Fascism’s affinity for autarky, rationalism, and pronatalism transformed the kitchen into a political landscape. Feeding Fascism first explores what Garvin refers to as tabletop politics to explain how politics, public policy, and debate made its way into the family household. The first chapter reads like an extension of the introduction, providing context on the topics explored in further depth throughout the rest of the book. In doing so, the reader is presented with the regime’s goal of autarky, a mandate for economic self-sufficiency, and how this political goal was harnessed through women’s work, bodies, and children (p. 17). Autarkic production heavily depended on rural women’s agricultural labour. Not only did their work on rice and grain paddies fulfill Mussolini’s state-approved foods campaign, such as the Battle for Grain, National Day for Rice, and “Amate il Pane,” as substitutes to bread and pasta to liberate the country from foreign foodways (pp. 18, 20). Consumption and production of Italian products meant there was more food to feed the nation, healthier bodies, more infants birthed, and more Fascists for tomorrow. Garvin argues that rural women’s bodies also embodied the Fascist vision of hyper productivity, femininity, and maternalism (p. 48). Popular ricettario’s (pamphlets) insisted Italy was the land of plenty and abundance, particularly when it came to young children. Imagery in these ricettario’s would often depict happy and plump infants with overflowing bags of rice produced from Italian soil. The mondine (female rice workers) “constituted a symbol of gendered hyperproductivity based on and in the female body” through their ability to harvest autarkic foods and their reproductive capabilities (p. 59). Regime intervention occurred in urban factory settings too. The woman-founded, and overwhelmingly woman-employed, chocolate factory, Perugina, is one such case study. Garvin follows the management style of Luisa Spagnoli to demonstrate how the Fascist vision of Taylorism, state surveillance, autarky, and pronatalism found its way inside the factory walls. Much like the mondine, the women workers of Perguina could feed the nation through Italian-made chocolates and through breast milk (p. 98). In true Taylorist fashion, these working women’s bodies were provided breastfeeding rooms and nurseries in the Perugina factory. This allowed working mothers the space and employment to feed their children, but it also allowed Spagnoli the opportunity to promote the company and their products as autarkic (p. 101). The Fascist regime...

Missing the Global Turn: Italy, the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the Belated Removal of the Geographical Limitation

Italy abolished the ‘geographical limitation’ permitted by the 1951 Refugee Convention only in 1990. Thereafter, it could award refugee status to people in flight from countries outside Europe. Why did Italy come so very late to this resolution? To answer this question, this article intercuts analysis on various different fronts: the strategies of successive national governments; the actual presence on Italian soil of people needing asylum, and the response of local communities; and Italy's location in the international setting. It demonstrates that until the end of the 1970s the Italian authorities continued to see the refugee issue as principally a problem for its internal policy. Italy remained disconnected from the global turn in policy on refugees, which many historians have placed in the period that spans the late 1950s and early 1960s. In their view, state institutions, voluntary agencies, and the international public experienced profound changes at this time in their perception of refugees, starting to see them as a problem at the global level rather than just affecting Europe. For Italy, however, this was not the case, and we therefore need to question the actual impact of the global turn delineated by the studies.

The PoliTO–UniRoma1 database of cyclic and dynamic laboratory tests: assessment of empirical predictive models

The soil nonlinear hysteretic behaviour is usually described, in the moderate strain range, through the shear modulus reduction and material damping ratio (MRD) curves. In common practice, in absence of specific laboratory tests, the curves are estimated by employing empirical regression models. Such predictive models, typically calibrated on large experimental datasets, correlate the soil response to its physical properties. This research fits within this context, presenting a comprehensive database of cyclic and dynamic laboratory tests conducted on natural Italian soils. The database, publicly available as supplementary data of the paper, contains the results of the tests conducted by the geotechnical laboratories of the Politecnico di Torino (Turin, Italy) and the Sapienza Università di Roma (Rome, Italy) over the past 30 years. The experimental data are employed to assess the performance of some widely used empirical models in predicting the MRD curves of natural uncemented fine-grained soils, emphasizing the importance of using an independent dataset for conducting a reliable statistical analysis. The results show that the use of many soil parameters as proxies for predicting the soil response does not necessarily lead to an improvement in the performance of the model. Therefore, according to Occam’s razor principle, simple models are to be preferred.

Identification of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) distribution patterns in the soils of Campania region (Italy) using compositional and multivariate data analysis

A big monitoring programme was carried out in Italy from 2015 to 2018 with the aim to assess the environmental conditions of the Campania region territory. Among the different environmental media, 7300 samples of topsoil (10–15 cm) were collected and analysed for 52 elements through an analytical methodology combining ICP-MS and ICP-ES. Specifically, this paper focuses on the geochemical distribution of La, Ce, Sc and Y with implications for the whole REEs group. Machine learning techniques, Compositional Data Analysis (CoDA) and multivariate statistics were used in order to understand the behaviour of these elements in different geogenic and anthropogenic conditions and their interaction with other elements. Lasso regression (LR) was performed to select the variables most related with REEs. Subsequently, robust Principal Component Analysis (rPCA) was performed, using 20 elements selected through the LR to identify the main geochemical associations. Finally, using rPCA scores and additive log-ratio (alr) coordinates, distribution maps were generated to assess the patterns of the REEs sources identified. The results show that median concentration values of the investigated elements (Ce = 80.3, La = 41.3, Y = 15.4 and Sc = 3.3 mg/kg) are significantly higher than those of European and Italian soils. The type of lithologic substrate and the degree of soil alteration are the main factors responsible of the REEs concentrations. Cerium and La have the same behaviour and show higher concentrations in volcanic soils, especially the more altered ones, which are associated with high values of low-mobile elements like Th, Fe, Hf, Zr, Mn, or where the pyroclastic cover lies on limestone rocks. Otherwise, Sc is enriched in soils formed on siliciclastic and calcareous rocks while Y shows an intermediate behaviour between Sc and, La and Ce. This study has shown that Th, Fe and Mn are the elements most closely related to REEs in soils of Campania region, therefore they can be used to estimate their natural concentration in soil.

Gender Equality in Soil Science in Italy: Wishful Thinking or Reality?

Gender equality in Italian soil science is still far from being a reality although an in-depth investigation has never been carried out. In this work we analyse data on women soil scientists working in public research institutions and universities as well as on those affiliated with soil science societies, considering the changes in gender balance with time. We also recall three female pioneers in Italian soil science who played a key role in both research and scientific societies. An analysis of the impact of papers authored by Italian women is finally provided to gauge the contribution of Italian women to soil science in the last 20 years. The results show that the National Research Institutions reached a more equal balance between genders compared to universities. With regard to scientific societies, we observed a strong lack of female inclusion in the first years of the Italian Soil Science Society, founded in 1952, and the Italian Society of Pedology, even if it was founded much later in 1998. The Italian Society of Agricultural Chemistry was less discriminant, likely due to the presence of different sub-disciplines traditionally more open to women, although always far from real equality. With time, in all societies and research institutions we registered a positive trend with a better balance and a pro-active participation of women. However, we observed a persistent loss of highly qualified women resources from the training phase to the beginning of the career as well as under-representation of women in top roles and in the research centre leaderships. However, when we evaluated the scientific production, no statistical differences appear between women and men at all career levels, confirming the key contribution of women to soil science, despite facing major professional difficulties and disparities. These results show that, notwithstanding the marked progress in the number of women entering and working in Italian soil science, beyond the hard numbers, gender equality still remains a challenge and requires greater investments in resources and research toward structural and systemic interventions that may successfully lead to a more gender-balanced society.

Improving soil and water conservation and ecosystem services by sustainable soil management practices: From a global to an Italian soil partnership

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identify the need to restore degraded soils in order to improve productivity and the provision of ecosystem services. The aim is to support food production, store and supply clean water, conserve biodiversity, sequester carbon, and improve soil resilience in a context of climate change. Within this framework, in order to achieve the SDGs and to correct land management in the long-term, soil management is considered mandatory. The reduction of land degradation should be based on various sustainable soil management practices that improve and maintain soil organic matter levels, increase water infiltration, and improve soil water management. This technical review - a policy paper - summarizes the sustainable and territorial impact of soil degradation, including soil water erosion, from the global level to the European and National levels. Furthermore, with the aim of sharing ongoing soil and water management actions, instruments, and initiatives, we provide information on soil and water conservation activities and prospects in Italy. Highlights - Sustainable soil management practices should be implemented to address soil degradation. - Impact of erosion on crop production reduces global crop yields by 0.4% per year. - Improving the physical and chemical characteristics of soils can contribute to store and supply water to plants. - Soil protection is a very important topic in the European Commission’s proposal for the CAP 2021-2027.

Land set-up systems in Italy: A long tradition of soil and water conservation sewed up to a variety of pedo-climatic environments

Land set-up systems in Italy were and, in a few cases, still are integral parts of agricultural landscapes. The soils of Italy mirror a wide variety of climates and morphologies and derive from a great diversity of parent materials influenced by different soil temperature and moisture regimes. Furthermore, their development was influenced by several anthropogenic activities over time including land settings. Land set-up systems have been widely used throughout the Italian soilscape to regulate surface and underground water and to improve the physical soil features in a way that ensures mixed herbaceous and tree-crops cultivation. In recent times, new technologies have been introduced in agroforestry exploitation of the land, while the ancient but tested hydraulic soil systems have been abandoned. As a result, a great part of Italian soilscapes is prone to water erosion and floods, an unforeseen impact, which can be counterbalanced by good soil management practices. Moreover, new pedotechniques have been recently adopted, transforming soils and landscapes, but generating sometimes soil degradation issues. After presenting the main features characterizing Italian soils and landscapes, we describe all the historical land set-up systems adopted over time, highlighting their positive functions in terms of both soil conservation and agricultural production. We also emphasise the importance of maintaining such land settings both as distinctive parts of cultural landscapes and strategies of soil conservation, and the need of developing new systems based on the principles of environmental sustainability.
 
 Highlights - Italy shows different morphological regions that are characterized by different soilscapes. - Historical land set-up systems are distinctive constituents of the Italian cultural landscapes. - Land settings have been adopted over time to protect soil and increase agricultural production. - New pedotechniques have been recently adopted in large scale farming with no consideration of soil conservation. - Maintenance of historical land set-up systems and development of new systems is needed.

O NASTANKU ITALIJANSKOG JEZIKA I SPECIFIČNOSTIMA ODNOSA STANDARDNI JEZIK - DIJALEKTI / ON THE ORIGIN OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE AND SPECIFICITIES OF THE RELATION BETWEEN THE STANDARD LANGUAGE AND DIALECTS

The subject of this paper is the relation of the standard Italian language to the dialects present on the territory of Italy. In the first part of the paper, we will focus on the basic concepts such as the difference between the standard language and dialects, on the prestige it has in comparison to dialects, as well as on linguistic varieties. Since the issue of language is often related to socio-historical aspects, in the second part of the paper we will look at the development of the Italian language and its role in raising awareness of national identity. We will then explain the concept of dialect and see that, specifically on Italian soil, dialectal differences can as considerable as to prevent communication within the same language. We will briefly look at some Italian dialects, such as Venetian, Sardinian and Neapolitan, and the status they enjoy. We will also mention contemporary attitudes about the use of dialects in Italy and some of the tendencies of the modernItalian language.

Environmental screening for the assessment of potentially toxic elements content in PGI soils from the Mediterranean region (Italy and Turkey)

To provide a contribution to the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection, here we present the results of a study focused on the potentially toxic elements (PTE) content in agricultural soils’ representative for the Mediterranean region. To reach this aim, samples of 22 Italian (NE Peloritani Mountains, Sicily) and 18 Turkish (Amik Plain, Hatay) soils were collected and analyzed to evaluate their PTE content. The Italian and Turkish sites have been selected because they represent very important cultivation zones. In Amik Plain (Turkey), the dominant crops consist of cotton, wheat, corn and olives, whereas in NE Peloritani Mountains, Sicily (Italy), an appreciate citrus variety, known as the “Interdonato lemon”, guaranteed by Protected Geographical Indication label, is produced. The collected results include: (1) the assessment of PTE levels in soils; (2) the identification of the PTE sources; (3) the relationships between PTE contents and soil properties (pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter, CaCO3, and clay). Several multivariate statistical methods such as correlation matrix, cluster analysis and main component analysis were applied to individuate the anthropogenic vs natural origin of the PTE sources. The detected PTE levels are in decreasing order Mn > Zn > V > Cr > Cu > Ni > As > Pb > Co > Sb > Se > Cd for the Italian soils, and Mn > Ni > V > Zn > Cr > Cu > Pb > Co > As > Se > Sb > Cd for the Turkish soils. The overall obtained results allowed to define: (a) a main lithogenic source for PTE detected in the Italian soils, except for Zn which origin is also associated to anthropogenic input; (b) a lithogenic origin for all of the PTE detected for the Turkish soils, with an associate anthropogenic contribution for Cr, Ni, V, Cu and V. The results obtained in this work enhance the knowledge in the individuation of PTE pollution sources in agricultural soils of the European Mediterranean region.

Targeting the soil quality and soil health concepts when aiming for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the EU Green Deal

Abstract. The concepts of soil quality and soil health are widely used as soils receive more attention in the worldwide policy arena. So far, however, the distinction between the two concepts is unclear, and operational procedures for measurement are still being developed. A proposal is made to focus soil health on actual soil conditions, as determined by a limited set of indicators that reflect favourable rooting conditions. In addition, soil quality can express inherent soil conditions in a given soil type (genoform), reflecting the effects of past and present soil management (expressed by various phenoforms). Soils contribute to ecosystem services that, in turn, contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, more recently, to the EU Green Deal. Relevant soil ecosystem services are biomass production (SDG 2 – zero hunger), providing clean water (SDG 6), climate mitigation by carbon capture and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (SDG 13 – climate action), and biodiversity preservation (SDG 15 – life on land). The use of simulation models for the soil–water–atmosphere–plant system is proposed as a quantitative and reproducible procedure to derive single values for soil health and soil quality for current and future climate conditions. Crop production parameters from the international yield gap programme are used in combination with soil-specific parameters expressing the effects of phenoforms. These procedures focus on the ecosystem service, namely biomass production. Other ecosystem services are determined by soil-specific management and are to be based on experiences obtained in similar soils elsewhere or by new research. A case study, covering three Italian soil series, illustrates the application of the proposed concepts, showing that soil types (soil series) acted significantly differently to the effects of management and also in terms of their reaction to climate change.

Palimpsestic pedagogies: Mapping fascist violence against children from Mussolini’s dictatorship to present day Italy

This essay focuses on the disavowed histories of Italy’s fascist past with a specific focus on how select historical disavowals reverberate in the present through the law of restricted citizenship, policies governing the lives of migrants, and recent pro-natal campaigns. I take as the occasion for my discussion, the 2017 exhibit at the Museo della Shoah in Rome, entitled “The Enemy Race: Nazi and Italian Fascist Propaganda.” Through representations of the child during Mussolini’s reign, the exhibit represents Mussolini’s investment in the Italian child, conceived of as Catholic, Aryan, and born on Italian soil. His regime aimed to cultivate a future generation that would purify the nation through physical vitality, a belief in racial elitism, and loyalty to the nation state, while casting Jewish and “non-Italian” children as enemy subjects. I argue that the pedagogical impulse of the Museo della Shoah aims, not only to represent life histories that have been imperfectly erased from post-war memory, but also to recognize such a project as an interminable process of reflection that unfolds in a country that continues to suffer under the weight of its disavowed colonial and anti-Semitic history.

Effects of Horse Manure Compost Application Level on the Productivity of Italian Ryegrass and Soil Nitrate Leaching

Effects of Horse Manure Compost Application Level on the Productivity of Italian Ryegrass and Soil Nitrate Leaching

Amendments with humified compost effectively sequester organic carbon in agricultural soils

AbstractPreventing degradation of soil quality and productivity entails development of sustainable practices to enhance soil organic matter. We followed soil organic carbon (OC) accumulation during 3 years long‐field experiments in two different Italian soils under conventional tillage (TRA), reduced tillage (MIN), green manure (GM) and two rates (low, CMPL, and, high, CMPH) of mature compost amendments. Despite soil textures differences, CMP additions enhanced in both field sites OC accumulation in either bulk soils or water‐stable aggregates (WSA), especially for CMPH, that was more pronounced than for MIN and GM. While the sum of OC in WSA showed an average retention of 80–90% of cumulative carbon added with compost, incorporated OC in WSA of MIN and GM reached only 26 and 55% of total carbon amended with fresh biomass for the light and heavy textured soils, respectively. Hence, MIN and GM accumulated SOC only up to the physical saturation limit dictated by soil texture, whereas CMP retained a larger additional SOC than TRA due to hydrophobic affinity among apolar domains progressively added to soil with humified compost. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of humus extracted after the first and third treatment year confirmed this behaviour. While no changes were observed in spectra for MIN and GM, humic extracts from CMP showed significantly larger content of apolar alkyl and aromatic moieties after the third experimental year. Our results suggest that soil amendment with well humified compost is an effective practice to sequester carbon into agricultural soils, besides improving their organic fertility.

Exploring the effect of varying soil organic matter contents on current and future moisture supply capacities of six Italian soils

The Available Soil Water Capacity (AWC) is standard data in most soil databases and expresses soil water contents in the rootzone between field capacity (FC; –33 kPa) and permanent wilting point (WP; −1500 kPa). Literature suggests that increasing the content of soil organic matter (SOM) of a given soil does not significantly increase AWC and this has important implications when estimating soil moisture supply to crops and evaluating the potential for climate mitigation. For most crops, the real FC values vary between −10 and −50 kPa in different soils and WP values between −800 and −1500 kPa. Thus standard values for AWC of FC and WP do not represent field conditions in many soils. When exploring AWC for six Italian soil series, ranging from clay to sandy, AWC values at increasing %SOM were lower in clay soils and higher in sand as compared with actual conditions, which could be explained by considering the shape of the corresponding moisture retention curves. Rather than focus on static AWC values to define moisture supply to plants, real or actual soil moisture supply capacities (MSC) can be obtained by dynamic modeling of the soil-water-atmosphere-plant system, including a “sink-term” indicating a continuous relation between water uptake and negative pressure head of soil water and evaporative demand. Also, only models allow exploration of the effects of future severe IPCC climate scenario RCP 8.5. Thus, studying MSC for the six Italian soil series showed that MSC values were: (i) on average 30% higher than the corresponding AWC; (ii) distinctly different for the six soils; (iii) affected by declines of 1–9% as a result of the effects of future climate scenarios.; (iv) not significantly affected by increases of %SOM when considering climate change, except for the sand. Generalizations as to the effect of future climate scenarios and %SOM on MSC can only be realistic when modeling is performed for soil series in different climate zones.

Sensitivity Analysis of Different Parameters on the Performance of a CHP Internal Combustion Engine System Fed by a Biomass Waste Gasifier

The present paper presents a study of biomass waste to energy conversion using gasification and internal combustion engine for power generation. The biomass waste analyzed is the most produced on Italian soil, chosen for suitable properties in the gasification process. Good quality syngas with up to 16.1% CO–4.3% CH4–23.1% H2 can be produced. The syngas lower heating value may vary from 1.86 MJ/ Nm3 to 4.5 MJ/Nm3 in the gasification with air and from 5.2 MJ/ Nm3 to 7.5 MJ/Nm3 in the gasification with steam. The cold gas efficiency may vary from 16% to 41% in the gasification with air and from 37% to 60% in the gasification with steam, depending on the different biomass waste utilized in the process and the different operating conditions. Based on the sensitivity studies carried out in the paper and paying attention to the cold gas efficiency and to the LHV, we have selected the best configuration process for the best syngas composition to feed the internal combustion engine. The influence of syngas fuel properties on the engine is studied through the electrical efficiency and the cogeneration efficiency.

Carmentis and the Poet: Deification and Exile in Ovid’s Fasti

In Fasti 1, the festival dedicated to Carmentis, a prophetess (vates) named after carmen, “song” itself, has strong programmatic implications for Ovid’s own song and his vatic persona. Harking back to Aeneid 8, where Carmentis is mentioned in passing, Ovid presents her in a new light: as a vates of exile and deification. Carmentis both prophesies and prefigures what will become an entire chain of deifications of members of the house of Augustus, and she is deified herself. She strikingly contrasts with the poet Ovid, who will not receive similar honors. Instead, his own fate is mirrored in Carmentis’ first speech, on the topic of exile. We can recognize a ring structure with strong closural force: the prophecies of the very first vates, Carmentis, foreshadow the birth of “gods” that were so powerful that they could send Ovid into exile and silence Rome’s most recent vates. Ovid’s exile thus becomes more than a personal mishap. It marks the completion of a circle of events that began once the first vates set her foot on Italian soil.

Source patterns and contamination level of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in urban and rural areas of Southern Italian soils

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of persistent organic pollutants. They have been identified as a type of carcinogenic substance and are relatively widespread in environment media such as air, water and soils, constituting a significant hazard for human health. In many parts of the world, PAHs are still found in high concentrations despite improved legislation and monitoring, and it is therefore vital defining their profiles, and assessing their potential sources. This study focused on a large region of the south of Italy, where concentration levels, profiles, possible sources and toxicity equivalent quantity (TEQ) level of sixteen PAHs were investigated. The survey included soils from five large regions of the south of Italy: 80 soil samples (0-20cm top layer) from urban and rural locations were collected and analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Total PAHs and individual molecular compounds from the US Environmental Protection Agency priority pollutants list were identified and measured. Results showed that 16 PAHs varied significantly in urban and rural areas, and different regions presented discordant characteristics. Urban areas presented concentrations ranging from 7.62 to 755ngg-1 (mean = 84.85ngg-1), whilst rural areas presented ranges from 1.87 to 11,353ngg-1 (mean = 333ngg-1). Large urban areas, such as Rome, Naples and Palermo, exhibited high PAHs total concentration, but high values were also found in rural areas of Campania region. Different PAHs molecular ratios were used as diagnostic fingerprinting for source identification: LWMPAHs/HWMPAHs, Fluo/(Fluo + Pyr), BaA/(BaA + Chr), Ant/(Ant + Phe) and IcdP/(IcdP + BghiP). These ratios indicated that PAHs sources in the study area were mainly of pyrogenic origin, i.e. mostly related to biomass combustion and vehicular emission. On the other hand, values in Sicilian soils seemed to indicate a petrogenic origin, possibly linked to emissions from crude oil combustion and refineries present in the region. Finally, results allowed to calculate the toxicity equivalent quantity (TEQBAP) levels for the various locations sampled, highlighting that the highest values were found in the Campania region, with 661 and 54.20ngg-1, in rural and urban areas, respectively. These findings, which could be linked to the presence of a large solid waste incinerator plant, but also to well-documented illegal waste disposal and burning, suggest that exposure to PAH may be posing an increased risk to human health in some of the studied areas.