This article shares experience on aspects related to the methodology and modeling of a framework of City E-Governance Readiness. We discuss Europe’s progress in this domain using an “e-readiness” assessment methodology: the Integrated City E-Governance Policy Model of the IntelCities Research Project (2004-2007). Practices and trends in 12 European cities are analyzed, drawing on the results of...

An algorithm to map burnt areas has been developed for SPOT VEGETATION (VGT) data in Australian woodland savannas. A time series of daily VGT images (15 May to 15 July 1999) was composited into 10-day periods by applying a minimum value criterion to the near-infrared band (0.78–0.89 mm). The algorithm was developed using a classification tree methodology that was confirmed as a powerful means o...

AIM To use forensic entomological approach to estimate the post mortem interval (PMI) in burnt remains. METHODS Two experiments were performed in a field in the outskirts of Milan, in winter and summer 2007. Four 60-kg pigs were used: two for each experiment. One pig carcass was burnt until it reached the level 2-3 of the Glassman-Crow scale and the not-burnt carcass was used as a control. In...

Fragrances, such as plant odors, have been shown to evoke autonomic response patterns associated with Ekman's (Ekman et al., 1983) basic emotions happiness, surprise, anger, fear, sadness, and disgust. Inducing positive emotions by odors in highly frequented public spaces could serve to improve the quality of life in urban environments. Thus, the present study evaluated the potency of ambient o...

Shahr-e Sukhteh (meaning burnt city in Persian) in Iran is an archeological site dated back to around 3,200-1,800 BC. It is located in Sistan and Baluchistan Province of Iran and known as the junction of Bronze Age trade routes crossing the Iranian plateau. It was appointed as current study area for paleoparasitological investigations. Excavations at this site have revealed various archeologica...

The archeology team of the Burnt City, supervised by Dr. Seyed Mansour Seyed Sejjadi, made a significant discovery in 2007. In this excavation, they discovered world's oldest artificial eye that belonged to a woman of 28-32 years (1) (Fig. 1-A). The artificial eye, discovered in an ancient grave, was in the left eye socket of the woman. The archeology team estimated the age of the eye between 2...

Wildfires significantly affect the boreal ecosystem of Siberia. However, records on burnt areas and fire impact are still not satisfactory in Russia. The dense smoke from active burning and the persistent cloud covers impeded the application of optical sensors to the detection of burnt area in Siberia forest during the summer fire season. The high resolution SAR data are of limited use for burn...

effect of fire on phyto-sociology of understorey vegetation in chir pine forests of three different silvological characteristics was compared with pure grassland. 15 grasses, 1 sedge, 5 legumes and 21 non-legumes were recorded in the four study sites. floristic composition gradually increased from june to august and then declined slowly by october in all the plots. maximum number of species was...

Rocha e Silva and Rosenthal (1) have reported that the exudates from burnt rat skin contain histamine, bradykinin, adenosine derivatives and possibly serotonin and other as yet unidentified pharmacologically active and toxic substances. Hodson (2) has reported the peripheral antiserotonin activity of B.W. 501 C 67 (α-anilino-N-2-m-chlorophenoxypropyl acetamidine hydrochloride monohydrate)...

We describe a recent case in which an animal was killed, burnt and body parts were sent to the Institute for identifying species and the method used for extracting DNA from burnt tissues. Two mitochondrial gene cytochrome b and 16s rRNA were used for species identification. Sequence analysis revealed that the burnt sample was of a Hyaena (Hyaena hyaena), a Schedule III animal according to the W...