As a result of climate change, the Mediterranean Sea has been exposed to an increase in the frequency and intensity of marine heat waves in the last decades, some of which caused mass mortality events of benthic invertebrates, including sponges. Sponges are an important component of benthic ecosystems and can be the dominant group in some rocky shallow-water areas in the Mediterranean Sea. In this study, we exposed the common shallow-water Mediterranean sponge Chondrilla nucula (Demospongiae: Chondrillidae) to six different temperatures for 24 h, ranging from temperatures experienced in the field during the year (15, 19, 22, 26, and 28 °C) to above normal temperatures (32 °C) and metabolic traits (respiration and clearance rate) were measured. Both respiration and clearance rates were affected by temperature. Respiration rates increased at higher temperatures but were similar between the 26 and 32 °C treatments. Clearance rates decreased at temperatures >26 °C, indicating a drop in food intake that was not reflected by respiration rates. This decline in feeding, while maintaining high respiration rates, may indicate a negative energy balance that could affect this species under chronic or repeated thermal stress exposure. C. nucula will probably be a vulnerable species under climate change conditions, affecting its metabolic performance, ecological functioning and the ecosystem services it provides.
The Gallivaggio landslide falls within the San Giacomo Filippo municipality (Sondrio) and affects a portion of slope situated in the lower Spluga Valley. The rock cliff overlooks the "Madonna di Gallivaggio" Sanctuary (17th century), a restaurant, a few houses and a section of the National Road no. 36 "del Lago di Como e dello Spluga" which leads to the tourist resort of Madesimo and to the Spluga Pass on the Swiss border. Hence the need for careful planning of control and design tools aimed at both risk management and risk mitigation. The first monitoring activities of the rock cliff date back to 2006, while in 2011 a survey activity with GBInSAR technology was started by the Geological Monitoring Centre of ARPA Lombardia (CMG). On 29th May 2018, a rock mass of about 5500-6000 m(3) detached from the top of the rock cliff, completely filling up the existing catchment ditch behind the protection wall, demolishing part of the defence works and affecting the Sanctuary, the National Road and part of the other accommodation facilities situated at the foot of the rock face. This rockfall, as well as other minor recent falls, allowed to recognize the urgent need for a more adequate protection works. As a first step of a complex of works for the mitigation of the rockfall hazard, a new earth reinforced embankment was conceived. Both phases, designing and building, are described in the paper.
The main aim of the study was to map the psychological functioning of individuals with adverse childhood experiences, with the objective to characterize developmental trajectories. Specifically, we investigated the relations among three of the seven domains of impairment in children and adolescents who had been exposed to complex trauma. To this end, we tested a mediation model with emotional dysregulation as the independent variable, intelligence as the dependent variable, and dissociation as the mediator. The research sample was composed of 64 participants (10–19 years old); 31 adolescents formed the clinical group and 33 the non-clinical group; for the clinical group, we recruited adolescents who were residents of therapeutic communities and had a history of complex trauma. Both groups completed the Difficulties in emotion regulation scale (DERS), Adolescent dissociative experience scale (A-DES), Trauma symptom checklist for children (TSCC), and Wechsler scales. The data analysis yielded significant results for the control group only. We suggest that healthy adolescents adopt a non-pathological dissociative cognitive style in response to increased emotional dysregulation, thus explaining their enhanced cognitive performance.
This study aimed at evaluating the effects of different surface conditionings on the microshear bond strength (µSBS) of a self-adhesive resin cement to VITA Suprinity (ZLS) and IPS e.max CAD (LD). Three surface conditioning protocols were performed on ZLS and LD before luting with a self-adhesive resin cement (RelyX Unicem 2, RXU): hydrofluoric acid (HF), HF + silane (HF + S), or Monobond Etch & Prime (EP). In each group, 15 cylindrical buildups of RXU were prepared on five milled bars and submitted to a µSBS test. Data were statistically analyzed with two-way ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc test (p < 0.05). Failure modes were recorded and classified as adhesive, mixed, cohesive in resin, or ceramic, and statistically analyzed with Fisher's exact test (p = 0.05). One additional bar per group was used for the morphological characterization of the conditioned surface by means of SEM. The material per se did not significantly influence adhesion (p = 0.744). Conditioning protocol was a significant factor: EP yielded significantly higher μSBS than HF (p = 0.005), while no significant differences emerged between EP and HF + S (p = 0.107), or HF + S and HF (p = 0.387). The material-conditioning protocol interaction was not statistically significant (p = 0.109). Significant intergroup differences were found in distribution of failure modes: mixed failures were predominant in the ZLS/EP group, while the other groups showed a prevalence of adhesive failures. The self-etching primer showed promising results in terms of immediate bond strength of a self-adhesive resin cement to lithium-silica-based glass ceramics, suggesting its alternative use to hydrofluoric acid and silane conditioning protocols.