QuaRRi: a new methodology for rock-fall risk analysis and management in quarry exploitation

Rockfall is one of the most critical geological events that can affect quarrying activities. Nevertheless, few tools are currently available to help designers and managers correctly define the risk conditions and quantify the advantages, in terms of workers' safety and quarry management, that can be obtained using suitable prevention devices. For this reason it is necessary to evaluate the various parameters that are involved, and to define the most important and which have the greatest influence on rock-fall phenomena, taking into account the Prevention through Design approach. A risk evaluation systemwhich is able to support decision makers in the critical rockfall risk assessment phase, and offer decision makers the updated information that is necessary for a continuous and dynamic operation design during exploitation activities is here presented and discusse

Merging Galaxies in the SDSS EDR

We present a new catalog of merging galaxies obtained through an automated systematic search routine. The 1479 new pairs of merging galaxies were found in approximately 462 sq deg of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release (SDSS EDR; Stoughton et al. 2002) photometric data, and the pair catalog is complete for galaxies in the magnitude range 16.0 <= g* <= 20. The selection algorithm, implementing a variation on the original Karachentsev (1972) criteria, proved to be very efficient and fast. Merging galaxies were selected such that the inter-galaxy separations were less than the sum of the component galaxies' radii. We discuss the characteristics of the sample in terms of completeness, pair separation, and the Holmberg effect. We also present an online atlas of images for the SDSS EDR pairs obtained using the corrected frames from the SDSS EDR database. The atlas images also include the relevant data for each pair member. This catalog will be useful for conducting studies of the general characteristics of merging galaxies, their environments, and their component galaxies. The redshifts for a subset of the interacting and merging galaxies and the distribution of angular sizes for these systems indicate the SDSS provides a much deeper sample than almost any other wide-area catalog to date.Comment: 58 pages, which includes 15 figures and 6 tables. Figures 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, and 14 are provided as JPEG files. For online atlas, see http://home.fnal.gov/~sallam/MergePair/ . Accepted for publication in A

A possible cause of misdiagnosis in tumors of the axilla: schwannoma of the brachial plexus

The Authors report a rare case of a 57 years old man affected by a left radial nerve schwannoma that occurred as an asymptomatic lesion of the axilla. At clinical examination the lump was undistinguishable from the most common axillary lymphadenopathy. A lymphoadenopathy was erroneously diagnosed with ultrasonography (US). This mistake was due to the low specificity of the instrumental methodology and to the rarity of an asymptomatic schwannoma of the infraclavicular brachial plexus. The neoplasia was excised without using the microscope. In the early post-operative follow up, a “falling” attitude of the wirst, the hand and the fingers appeared, peculiar for a lesion of the radial nerve. Furthermore a hypoaesthesia of the skin of first finger and of the first interosseus space was associated. The sensitive and motor electromyography showed a radial nerve suffering. The “stupor” of the nerve trunk was treated with steroid therapy for 7 days and the patient underwent to some series of neuro-rehabilitative physical therapy for 12 weeks. The postoperative total body CT, showed that the lesion was unique: therefore it was possible to exclude the diagnosis of neurofibromatosis. After 28 months electromyography and axillary US were performed showing the complete resolution of the motor and sensitive deficit and the absence of local recurrence

Integrated forest management to prevent wildfi res under mediterranean environments

This review presents a multidisciplinary framework for integrating the ecological, regulatory, procedural and technical aspects of forest management for fi res prevention under Mediterranean environments. The aims are to: i) provide a foreground of wildfi re scenario; ii) illustrate the theoretical background of forest fuel management; iii) describe the available fuel management techniques and mechanical operations for fi re prevention in forest and wildland-urban interfaces, with exemplifi cation of case-studies; iv) allocate fi re prevention activities under the hierarchy of forest planning. The review is conceived as an outline commentary discussion targeted to professionals, technicians and government personnel involved in forestry and environmental managemen