One of the most formidable challenges in modern biology is to get a unified view of the various mechanisms governing the behavior and of the causal relationships among different parts of a living system. It is coming clearer nowadays that to get such comprehensive picture computational models embracing different observation levels in space and time have to be formulated to explain the enormous amount of data deriving from -omic high throughput measurements methods.

The first part of this work reviews the algebraic matricial approach to transport data inversion. It works for the convection-diffusion transport equation used for periodic signals and provides a formally exact solution, as well as a quantitative assessment of error bars. The standard methods of reconstruction infer the diffusivity D and pinch V by matching experimental data against those simulated by transport codes. These methods do not warrant the validity of either the underlying models of transport, or of the reconstructed D(r) and V(r), even when the results look reasonable.

A proposal for particles' initialization in PSO is presented and discussed, with focus on costly global unconstrained optimization problems. The standard PSO iteration is reformulated such that the trajectories of the particles are studied in an extended space, combining particles' position and speed. To the aim of exploring effectively and efficiently the optimization search space since the early iterations, the particles are initialized using sets of orthogonal vectors in the extended space (orthogonal initialization, ORTHOinit).

tProtected areas are experiencing increased levels of human pressure. To enable appropriate conserva-tion action, it is critical to map and monitor changes in the type and extent of land cover/use and habitatclasses, which can be related to human pressures over time. Satellite Earth observation (EO) data andtechniques offer the opportunity to detect such changes.

The first carved ambers appear in the Adriatic area at the end of the eighth century BC with the beginning of the Orientalizing period. Among the most active centers, the Etruscan Verucchio is one of the main poles for the sorting of amber. At the beginning of the sixth century, a fundamental role is exercised from Piceno and the Etruscan Felsina, whose intercept part of the tra!cs previously directed on the Adriatic road.