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A Phased Reconnaissance Approach to Documenting Landslides Following the 2016 Central Italy Earthquakes.
No full textThe 2016 Central Italy earthquake sequence caused numerous landslides over a large area in the Central Apennines. As a result, the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association (GEER) organized post-earthquake reconnaissance missions to collect perishable data. Given the challenging conditions following the earthquakes, the GEER team implemented a phased reconnaissance approach. This paper illustrates this approach and how it was used to document the largest and most impactful seismically induced landslides. This phased approach relied upon satellite-based interferometric damage proxy maps, preliminary published reports of observed landslides, digital imaging from small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), traditional manual observations, and terrestrial laser scanning. Data collected from the reconnoitered sites were used to develop orthophotos and meshed three-dimensional digital surface models. These products can provide valuable information such as accurate measurements of landslide ground movements in complex topographic geometries or boulder runout distances from rock falls. The paper describes three significant landslide case histories developed and documented with the phased approach: Nera Valley, Village of Pescara del Tronto, and near the villages of Crognaleto and Cervaro
GC–MS approaches for the screening of metabolites produced by marine-derived Aspergillus
No full textIn the last decades the increasing awareness by the scientific community of the importance to exploit natural resources for the finding of new bioactive products has stimulated a huge research activity concerning the marine biological resources, and advanced strategies have been developed for investigations on microbial metabolomics. Gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry represents a valuable technology in this respect. The present review considers general GC–MS approaches to be adopted in investigations on fungal metabolomics, and more particularly the outcomes concerning marine-derived strains of Aspergillus, representing the most widespread genus of Ascomycetes fungi reported from the sea
A GPU Implementation of OLPCA Method in Hybrid Environment
No full textSophisticated denoising algorithms are used to improve image quality in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging field. Of course, better results are obtained by implementing computationally expensive schemes. In this paper, we consider the Overcomplete Local Principal Component Analysis (OLPCA) method for image denoising and its main issues. More in detail, we investigated the impact of the Singular Value Decomposition on the OLPCA algorithm and its high computational cost. Moreover, we propose a fine-to-coarse parallelization strategy in order to exploit a parallel hybrid architecture and we implement a multilevel parallel software as a smart combination between codes using NVIDIA cuBLAS library for Graphic Processor Units (GPUs) and the standard Message Passing Interface library for cluster programming. Experimental results show improvements in terms of execution time with a promising speed up with respect to the CPU and our old GPU versions
The National and the Social in Stalin’s Political Famines
No full textThe essay analyzes Stalin’s rational and successful, if murderous, manipulation of both nation-building and un-building in USSR, and his capacity to utilize at the same time social and national (cultural) categories. It calls for a fresh look at our interpretation of ‘nationalism’
and of nation-building (and un-building) processes. In particular, it stresses the necessity not to resort to binary, oppositional schemes as far as the ‘social’ and the ‘national’ are concerned. Though such opposition did exist, in most cases, and not just in borderlands and mixed territories, the two elements often interpenetrated themselves, producing a gamut of hybrids and variations that are essential to the understanding of twentieth-century history
Real-life management and outcome of thyroid carcinoma-related bone metastases: results from a nationwide multicenter experience
No full textPURPOSE AND PATIENTS: The M.O.S.CA.TI. (Metastases of the Skeleton from CArcinoma of the ThyroId) is a multicenter, retrospective study investigating the real-life outcome and management of bone metastases (BM) in 143 patients (63 M, 80 F; median age 64 years, range 11-87) with differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC).
RESULTS: Radio-active iodine (RAI) treatment was performed in 131 patients (91.6%), surgical approach and/or external radiotherapy in 68 patients (47.6%), and anti-resorptive bone-active drugs in 32 patients (22.4%; in 31 zoledronate and in one denosumab). At the start of treatment, 24 patients (75.0%) receiving anti-resorptive bone-active drugs had at least one clinical skeletal-related event (SRE) (p < 0.001). One or more clinical SREs (pathological fractures and/or malignant hypercalcemia and/or spinal cord compression) developed in 53 patients (37.1%). Development of SREs was significantly associated with metachronous BM (hazard ratio (HR) 2.04; p = 0.04), localization of BM to cervical spine (HR 3.89; p = 0.01), and lack of avid RAI uptake (HR 2.66; p = 0.02). Thirty-nine patients (27.3%) died in correlation with development of SREs (HR 6.97; p = 0.006) and localization of BM to the hip (HR 3.86; p = 0.02). Moreover, overall mortality was significantly decreased by RAI therapy (HR 0.10; p = 0.02), whereas no significant effects were induced by bone-active drugs (p = 0.36), external radiotherapy (p = 0.54), and surgery (p = 0.43) of BM.
CONCLUSIONS: SREs are very frequent in BM from DTC and they impact patient survival. In the real life, the use of bone-active drugs is currently limited to zoledronate in patients with pre-existing SREs. In this clinical setting, RAI therapy, but not zoledronate, decreased mortality
Pharmacological management of depression in patients with multiple sclerosis
No full textIntroduction: The pharmacotherapeutic management of depression in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) is a matter of debate that cannot be decided from the evidence available in the current literature. Therefore, its management essentially relies on the clinical experience of the prescribing clinician rather than on evidence-based approaches. Areas covered: This review provides a clinically oriented critical perspective on the connection between MS and major depressive disorder (MDD) or depression associated with bipolar disorder (BD), focusing on its optimal pharmacotherapy. Both clinical and pharmacological considerations are accounted in order to promote rational pharmacotherapy, both in terms of efficacy and tolerability. Expert opinion: Despite its clinical burden and relatively frequent occurrence, the interplay of MS and depression still requires further controlled trials to better clarify the appropriate pharmacotherapy across varying ‘diseases categories’ of MS itself, as well as discriminating between depressive symptoms that do not necessarily reach the threshold of either MDD or BD. Additional insight into new mood-tolerated neurological pharmacotherapy for MS is likewise warranted toward a more effective, immune- and patient-tailored pharmacotherapy, while promoting innovation in drug design, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the overall quality life of the affected individual, his/her caregivers, and to reduce the associated economic and social burden
Angiotensin II promotes KV7.4 channels degradation through reduced interaction with HSP90 (Heat Shock Protein 90)
No full textVoltage-gated Kv7.4 channels have been implicated in vascular smooth muscle cells' activity because they modulate basal arterial contractility, mediate responses to endogenous vasorelaxants, and are downregulated in several arterial beds in different models of hypertension. Angiotensin II (Ang II) is a key player in hypertension that affects the expression of several classes of ion channels. In this study, we evaluated the effects of Ang II on the expression and function of vascular Kv7.4. Western blot and quantitative polymerase chain reaction revealed that in whole rat mesenteric artery, Ang II incubation for 1 to 7 hours decreased Kv7.4 protein expression without reducing transcript levels. Moreover, Ang II decreased XE991 (Kv7)-sensitive currents and attenuated membrane potential hyperpolarization and relaxation induced by the Kv7 activator ML213. Ang II also reduced Kv7.4 staining at the plasma membrane of vascular smooth muscle cells. Proteasome inhibition with MG132 prevented Ang II-induced decrease of Kv7.4 levels and counteracted the functional impairment of ML213-induced relaxation in myography experiments. Proximity ligation assays showed that Ang II impaired the interaction of Kv7.4 with the molecular chaperone HSP90 (heat shock protein 90), enhanced the interaction of Kv7.4 with the E3 ubiquitin ligase CHIP (C terminus of Hsp70-interacting protein), and increased Kv7.4 ubiquitination. Similar alterations were found in mesenteric vascular smooth muscle cells isolated from Ang II-infused mice. The effect of Ang II was emulated by 17-AAG (17-demethoxy-17-(2-propenylamino) geldanamycin) that inhibits HSP90 interactions with client proteins. These results show that Ang II downregulates Kv7.4 by altering protein stability through a decrease of its interaction with HSP90. This leads to the recruitment of CHIP and Kv7.4 ubiquitination and degradation via the proteasome
Palazzo Penne a Napoli tra conoscenza, restauro e valorizzazione
No full textIl rilievo del patrimonio architettonico costituisce uno strumento fondamentale per la conoscenza della storia della città e delle sue trasformazioni e fornisce un supporto insostituibile per ogni intervento sul costruito storico, mettendo in luce connotazioni specifiche attraverso l’indagine metrica e qualitativa e consentendo di ricomporre su un unico piano figurativo il progressivo evolversi della Storia. Palazzo Penne, oggetto della presente ricerca, rappresenta una testimonianza architettonica di fondamentale importanza per la città di Napoli in riferimento al costituirsi del suo tessuto urbano.
La ricerca si è configurata come una feconda occasione di collaborazione condotta attraverso il confronto di metodi conoscitivi e criteri di intervento propri di più discipline