The volcano of Capelinhos (Azores), the solar activity and the earth-tide

Bulletin of Volcanology - Correlations on the eruptive behaviour of the volcano of Capelinhos (Fayal island) in 1957–58, with (a) solar activity, and (b) earth-tide amplitudes, by way of a...     

The submarine volcano of Capelinhos and the tectonics of the Azores

Bulletin of Volcanology - In another paper of the author, a picture of the tectonics of the Azores was presented. The morphological analysis showed evidence of a folded and faulted structure and...     

On the propagation of Love waves in a non-homogeneous isotropic layer of finite depth lying on an infinite non-isotropic layer

Summary This paper deals with the propagation of Love waves in a non-homogeneous isotropic layer of finite depth standing on an infinite non-isotropic layer when there a parabolic irregular zone exists at the interface of the two media.     

Wave propagation through ionospheric plasma in presence of time-varying random irregularities

Summary The dielectric tensor of a time-varying anisotropic electron-plasma has been studied with the consideration of the effect of collision. The tripple splitting of the electromagnetic waves is obtained from the dispersion relation which gives the two usual magnetoionic modes in the limiting case. The randomness of electron number density has been evaluated by the help of field variables and also by the nature of fluctuation of dielectric tensor.     

Finite strain theory of love waves

Summary The propagation of Love waves is discussed on the basis of finite strain theory. The primary Love wave is found to be associated with a secondary Rayleigh wave and a tertiary Love wave. Numerical calculations are presented for two values of the wave-velocity; the results show that the theory of Love waves based on infinitesimal strain, is not applicable to short period waves.     

A method of estimating the excess electron density in random irregularities embedded in the ionosphere

Summary Wave propagation through the ionospheric plasma containing irregularities has been studied. The excess electron number density due to the presence of irregularities has been calculated in a way which may be suitably used for practical purposes.     

On stresses and displacements due to a moving line load over the plane boundary of a heterogeneous elastic half-space

Summary The problem of concentrated line load moving with supersonic speed along the boundary of an isotropic heterogeneous medium has been solved as a plane strain problem. The stresses and displacements in the heterogeneous case considered are found to decay exponentially with distance.     

Multi-scale remote sensing to support insurance policies in agriculture: from mid-term to instantaneous deductions

ABSTRACT

Climate change is today one of the biggest issues for farmers. The increasing number of natural disasters and change of seasonal trends is making insurance companies more interested in new technologies that can somehow support them in quantifying and mapping risks. Remotely sensed data, with special focus on free ones, can certainly provide the most of information they need, making possible to better calibrate insurance fees in space and time. In this work, a prototype of service based on free remotely sensed data is proposed with the aim of supporting insurance companies’ strategies. The service is thought to calibrate annual insurance rates, longing for their reduction at such level that new customers could be attracted. The study moves from the entire Piemonte region (NW Italy), to specifically focus onto the Cuneo province (Southern Piemonte), which is mainly devoted to agriculture. MODIS MOD13Q1-v6 and Sentinel-2 L2A image time series were jointly used. NDVI maps from MODIS data were useful to describe the midterm phenological trends of main crops at regional level in the period 2000–2018; differently, Sentinel-2 data permitted to map local crop differences at field level in 2016 and 2017 years. With reference to MODIS data, the average phenological behavior of main crop classes in the area, obtained from the CORINE Land Cover map Level 3, was considered using a time series decomposition approach. Trend analyses showed that the most of the crop classes alternated three phases (about 7 years) suggesting that, presently, this is probably the time horizon to be considered to tune mid-term algorithms for risk estimates in the agricultural context. Crop classes trends were consequently split into three phases and each of them modeled by a first-order polynomial function used to update correspondent insurance risk rate. Sentinel-2 data were used to map phenological anomalies at field level for the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons; shifts from class average behavior were considered to locally and temporarily tune insurance premium around its average trend as described at the previous step. Synthesizing, one can say that this approach, integrating MODIS and Sentnel-2 data, makes possible to locally and temporarily calibrate premiums of indexed insurance policies by describing the average trends of crop performance (NDVI) at regional level by MODIS data and refining it at field and specific crop level by Sentinel-2 data.