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Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are a plethora of malformative conditions leading to mental retardation that affect newborns and children who have been exposed to alcohol during pregnancy or breastfeeding. FASD is a relevant topic for public health in Europe: European area is first in ranking for alcohol use during pregnancy with a prevalence of 25.2%. Italy ranked third among European countries with higher prevalence of FASD (45.0 per 1000 population). Furthermore, FASD could still be underestimated because of numerous undiagnosed and misdiagnosed cases. Aims of the study were to briefly summarize existing evidences about FASD and its psychiatric aspects to assess knowledge, attitudes and practice towards alcohol drinking during pregnancy in an Italian sample of health care professionals in order to provide information about FASD prevention. An anonymous online questionnaire containing the AUDIT-C, T-ACE model and the Drinking Motive Questionnaire was sent to 400 Italian healthcare professionals and students. The survey included socio-demographic information, questions about drinking habits and about knowledge, attitude and practice towards alcohol assumption during pregnancy. Among 320 respondents, 96.3% were women. AUDIT-C revealed that 52.4% were low risk drinkers but 27.6% were hazardous drinkers. The 90.6% of participants denied to ever attended a course about the fetus damage induced by alcohol consumption during pregnancy but 91.3% were willing to participate to professional update initiatives on the topic. Only 19.1% of participants talk regularly about the deleterious effects for the fetus of prenatal alcohol drinking to women and only 51.1% advise the 'zero alcohol' policy. Around 41% of participants tolerates the assumption of low-alcohol beverages. No differences were found between no drinkers and low and hazardous drinkers. In conclusion, data show that only specific and continuing updating for health care professionals about drinking habits may have impactful actions to prevent gestational alcohol intake in order to prevent the main cause of mental retardation in western countries.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are a plethora of malformative conditions leading to mental retardation that affect newborns and children who have been exposed to alcohol during pregnancy or breastfeeding. FASD is a relevant topic for public health in Europe: European area is first in ranking for alcohol use during pregnancy with a prevalence of 25.2%. Italy ranked third among European countries with higher prevalence of FASD (45.0 per 1000 population). Furthermore, FASD could still be underestimated because of numerous undiagnosed and misdiagnosed cases. Aims of the study were to briefly summarize existing evidences about FASD and its psychiatric aspects to assess knowledge, attitudes and practice towards alcohol drinking during pregnancy in an Italian sample of health care professionals in order to provide information about FASD prevention. An anonymous online questionnaire containing the AUDIT-C, T-ACE model and the Drinking Motive Questionnaire was sent to 400 Italian healthcare professionals and students. The survey included socio-demographic information, questions about drinking habits and about knowledge, attitude and practice towards alcohol assumption during pregnancy. Among 320 respondents, 96.3% were women. AUDIT-C revealed that 52.4% were low risk drinkers but 27.6% were hazardous drinkers. The 90.6% of participants denied to ever attended a course about the fetus damage induced by alcohol consumption during pregnancy but 91.3% were willing to participate to professional update initiatives on the topic. Only 19.1% of participants talk regularly about the deleterious effects for the fetus of prenatal alcohol drinking to women and only 51.1% advise the 'zero alcohol' policy. Around 41% of participants tolerates the assumption of low-alcohol beverages. No differences were found between no drinkers and low and hazardous drinkers. In conclusion, data show that only specific and continuing updating for health care professionals about drinking habits may have impactful actions to prevent gestational alcohol intake in order to prevent the main cause of mental retardation in western countries.

The paper presents the main results of 1D/2D site response numerical analysesat 4 sites selected among the 137 municipalities of the Seismic Microzonation study which hasbeen carried out after the 2016 Central Italy seismic sequence. Complex site effects at ridge/slope crest and at the edge of slope covers lead to 2D aggravation factors in the range 2-3 withrespect to ground motion predicted with simple 1D analyses. A systematic comparison carriedout for all 137 municipalities, between computed and Italian code NTC18 amplification fac-tors highlighted that the code is generally conservative at low-to-medium periods and over-conservative at medium-to-high periods. A strategy for the use of microzonation site responseanalyses in support of seismic design for the reconstruction process is finally suggested .

The seismic sequence that in May 2012 struck a large area of the river Po Valley (Emilia-Romagna region, Northern Italy) triggered significant fractures and deformations in a number of riverbanks located close to the earthquake epicenter. Among them, one of the most severely damaged structures turned out to be the banks of an irrigation canal known as Canale Diversivo di Burana, flowing through the small village of Scortichino (Municipality of Bondeno), near the historic town of Ferrara. Large, longitudinally-oriented ground cracks were observed along a 3 km bank stretch, causing in turn severe structural damages to a large part of the approximately one hundred houses and productive activities built on the bank crown. In order to interpret the response of such soil structure during the 2012 earthquake by identifying possible damage causes as well as to suggest relevant remedial measures and seismic risk mitigation actions towards possible future earthquakes, the Emilia-Romagna regional authority launched an in-depth study carried out by a number of research groups from various Italian universities in cooperation with technical experts of the Geological, Seismic and Soil Survey Regional Department. To this purpose, a number of geotechnical investigations were performed (in situ and laboratory tests) and an accurate geotechnical model for the seismic stability analyses was thus defined. Potential liquefaction phenomena of the shallow sandy soils, in the foundation subsoil, were taken into account in the analyses. The paper describes the main features of the extensive study carried out by the working group and summarizes the most significant achievements of the analyses.

During the Mw 6.0 Amatrice earthquake, which struck Central Italy on the 24th August 2016, the accelerometric station IT.AMT, located at about 10km from the epicentre recorded the highest values of the ground motion (Peak Ground Acceleration of the east component reached 0.87 g). Was IT.AMT station affected also by local soil conditions? To understand the role played by the site effects in the ground motion observed at AMT, we performed a detailed geological - geotechnical characterization of the site. Then, numerical analyses of seismic site response were carried out using 2D approaches. In parallel, several analysis were also performed on seismic records, to infer empirical amplification functions, used to compare the results of the numerical simulations. This study was partially supported by the Italian Department of Civil Protection (DPC) of the Presidency of Council of Ministers. The INGV-CNR IGAG collaboration made possible the realization of this multidisciplinary study, which includes detailed seismological, geological and geophysical analyses.

This work deals with the assessment of local seismic response in the explosive volcanic settings by reconstructing the subsoil model of the Stracciacappa maar (Sabatini Volcanic District, central Italy), whose pyroclastic succession records eruptive phases ended about 0.09 Ma ago. Heterogeneous characteristics of the Stracciacappa maar (stratification, structural setting, lithotypes, and thickness variation of depositional units) make it an ideal case history for understanding mechanisms and processes leading to modifications of amplitude-frequency-duration of seismic waves generated at earthquake sources and propagating through volcanic settings.

La sequenza sismica che ha colpito la pianura padana emiliana nel 2012, con scosse principali il 20 e 29 maggio, ha prodotto diffusi ed estesi dissesti in alcuni rilevati arginali che, in qualche caso, hanno determinato l’inagibilità di edifici e la chiusura di strade. Uno degli argini maggiormente colpiti è quello del canale diversivo in località Scortichino, frazione del Comune di Bondeno, sede di oltre 400 tra unità abitative e produttive, molte delle quali classificate inagibili proprio a causa dei dissesti verificatisi nell’argine. La Regione Emilia-Romagna, su richiesta dell’Amministrazione Comunale, ha costituito un Gruppo di Lavoro in cui l’Associazione Geotecnica Italiana, con diversi gruppi di ricerca già coinvolti nella rete di laboratori ReLuis, ha affiancato i tecnici della Regione con l’obiettivo di analizzare la risposta sismica dell’argine durante la sequenza sismica del 2012, comprendere le cause dei dissesti osservati e suggerire le necessarie azioni di mitigazione ed eventuali interventi di messa in sicurezza nei confronti di terremoti futuri. A questo scopo è stata condotta un’ampia campagna sperimentale di indagini in sito, sia geofisiche che geotecniche, e di prove di laboratorio, finalizzate alla ricostruzione di un accurato modello geotecnico per la valutazione delle condizioni di stabilità dell’argine in condizioni sismiche, portando in conto anche l’eventuale insorgenza di fenomeni di liquefazione nei terreni sabbiosi superficiali costituenti la fondazione del corpo arginale. La presente memoria intende dare conto delle attività del Gruppo di Lavoro e sintetizzare i principali risultati conseguiti.

Correlation among borehole, outcrop, electrical resistivity tomography and ground penetrating radar data from a campaign of drilling and geophysical survey has allowed to reconstruct with detail the subsoil structure of the Palatine hill and Foro Romano (Rome, Italy), concerning both the natural geological substratum and the overlying anthropogenic cover (Mancini et al. 2014; Moscatelli et al. 2014). In the investigated area, several incised valleys and interfluves made of fluvial sediments and pyroclastites, overlaying the geological bedrock of Rome (i.e., Monte Vaticano Fm.), are detected below the anthropogenic deposits (masonry and infilled ground). A 3D model of the subsoil of the study area is presented here, obtained through the following three steps. 1) Production of 11 cross sections and a geological map (scale 1:2.000) with GIS software. 2) Selection of six relevant key horizons (i.e., basal unconformities of fluvial origin, bases of pyroclastic flow units, base of anthropogenic unit), that bound groups of stratigraphic units having similar lithotechnical features and parameters for numerical simulation oriented to seismic responses analyses. 3 The resulting 3D model shows geometries and spatial distribution of the geological bodies highlighting buried valleys where 2D amplification effects were calculated (Pagliaroli et al. 2014). The aim of 3D reconstruction is to provide a base for an advanced 3D numerical modelling of amplifications to be compared with the 2D simulation results.

RCW 86 is a young supernova remnant (SNR) showing a shell-type structure at several wavelengths and is thought to be an efficient cosmic-ray (CR) accelerator. Earlier \textit{Fermi} Large Area Telescope results reported the detection of $\gamma$-ray emission coincident with the position of RCW 86 but its origin (leptonic or hadronic) remained unclear due to the poor statistics. Thanks to 6.5 years of data acquired by the \textit{Fermi}-LAT and the new event reconstruction Pass 8, we report the significant detection of spatially extended emission coming from RCW 86. The spectrum is described by a power-law function with a very hard photon index ($\Gamma = 1.42 \pm 0.1_{\rm stat} \pm 0.06_{\rm syst}$) in the 0.1--500 GeV range and an energy flux above 100 MeV of ($2.91$ $\pm$ $0.8_{\rm stat}$ $\pm$ $0.12_{\rm syst}$) $\times$ $10^{-11}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. Gathering all the available multiwavelength (MWL) data, we perform a broadband modeling of the nonthermal emission of RCW 86 to constrain parameters of the nearby medium and bring new hints about the origin of the $\gamma$-ray emission. For the whole SNR, the modeling favors a leptonic scenario in the framework of a two-zone model with an average magnetic field of 10.2 $\pm$ 0.7 $\mu$G and a limit on the maximum energy injected into protons of 2 $\times$ 10$^{49}$ erg for a density of 1 cm$^{-3}$. In addition, parameter values are derived for the North-East (NE) and South-West (SW) regions of RCW 86, providing the first indication of a higher magnetic field in the SW region., Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ; Corresponding authors : Benjamin Condon, Marianne Lemoine-Goumard, Micaela Caragiulo

L’articolo descrive uno studio riguardante i fenomeni deformativi osservati dopo il sisma dell’Emilia del maggio 2012 lungo un tratto di argine del Canale Diversivo di Burana che ricade nell’abitato di Scortichino, frazione del comune di Bondeno (FE). In questa porzione del rilevato arginale sono state edificate oltre un centinaio di abitazioni ed alcune strutture di medio-piccole dimensioni adibite ad attività produttive o a deposito, molte delle quali sono risultate pesantemente danneggiate e dichiarate inagibili proprio a causa delle deformazioni e del sistema di fratture longitudinali presenti nel terreno in seguito al terremoto. Il contributo qui presentato si prefigge di analizzare la risposta sismica dell’argine durante la sequenza sismica del 2012, comprendere le cause dei dissesti nonché individuare le necessarie azioni di mitigazione e gli eventuali interventi di messa in sicurezza nei confronti di terremoti futuri. A questo scopo è stata condotta un’ampia campagna sperimentale di indagini in sito e in laboratorio, finalizzata alla ricostruzione di un accurato modello geotecnico per la valutazione delle condizioni di stabilità dell’argine in condizioni sismiche, portando in conto anche l’eventuale insorgenza di fenomeni di liquefazione nei terreni sabbiosi superficiali costituenti la fondazione del corpo arginale. L’analisi illustrata è il risultato dell’attività di indagine svolta per più di un anno dal Gruppo di Lavoro Argini (GdLA), costituitosi nel luglio 2012 in seguito ad un accordo fra la Regione Emilia-Romagna e l’Associazione Geotecnica Italiana per la verifica delle condizioni di stabilità dei rilevati arginali nelle aree colpite dal terremoto.