Presenting a Semi-Automatic, Statistically-Based Approach to Assess the Sharpness Level of Optical Images from Natural Targets via the Edge Method. Case Study: The Landsat 8 OLI–L1T Data

Developing reliable methodologies of data quality assessment is of paramount importance for maximizing the exploitation of Earth observation (EO) products. Among the different factors influencing EO optical image quality, sharpness has a relevant role. When implementing on-orbit approaches of sharpness assessment, such as the edge method, a crucial step that strongly affects the final results is the selection of suitable edges to use for the analysis. Within this context, this paper aims at proposing a semi-automatic, statistically-based edge method (SaSbEM) that exploits edges extracted from natural targets easily and largely available on Earth: agricultural fields. For each image that is analyzed, SaSbEM detects numerous suitable edges (e.g., dozens-hundreds) characterized by specific geometrical and statistical criteria. This guarantees the repeatability and reliability of the analysis. Then, it implements a standard edge method to assess the sharpness level of each edge. Finally, it performs a statistical analysis of the results to have a robust characterization of the image sharpness level and its uncertainty. The method was validated by using Landsat 8 L1T products. Results proved that: SaSbEM is capable of performing a reliable and repeatable sharpness assessment; Landsat 8 L1T data are characterized by very good sharpness performance

Environmental toxins and breast cancer on Long Island. II. Organochlorine compound levels in blood

Whether environmental contaminants increase breast cancer risk among women on Long Island, NY, is unknown. The study objective is to determine whether breast cancer risk is increased in relation to organochlorines, compounds with known estrogenic characteristics that were extensively used on Long Island and other areas of the United States. Recent reports do not support a strong association, although there are concerns with high risks observed in subgroups of women. Blood samples from 646 case and 429 control women from a population-based case-control study conducted on Long Island were analyzed. No substantial elevation in breast cancer risk was observed in relation to the highest quintile of lipid-adjusted serum levels of p,p'-bis(4-chlorophenyl)-1,1-dichloroethene (DDE) [odds ratio (OR), 1.20 versus lowest quintile; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.76 –1.90], chlordane (OR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.62–1.55), dieldrin (OR, 1.37; 95% CI, 0.69 –2.72), the sum of the four most frequently occurring PCB congeners (nos. 118, 153, 138, and 180; OR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.54 –1.29), and other PCB congener groupings. No dose-response relations were apparent. Nor was risk increased in relation to organochlorines among women who had not breastfed or were overweight, postmenopausal, or long-term residents of Long Island; or with whether the case was diagnosed with invasive rather than in situ disease, or with a hormone receptor-positive tumor. These findings, based on the largest number of samples analyzed to date among primarily white women, do not support the hypothesis that organochlorines increase breast cancer risk among Long Island women

Environmental toxins and breast cancer on Long Island. I. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon DNA adducts

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are potent mammary carcinogens in rodents, but their effect on breast cancer development in women is not clear. To examine whether currently measurable PAH damage to DNA increases breast cancer risk, a population-based case-control study was undertaken on Long Island, NY. Cases were women newly diagnosed with in situ and invasive breast cancer; controls were randomly selected women frequency matched to the age distribution of cases. Blood samples were donated by 1102 (73.0%) and 1141 (73.3%) of case and control respondents, respectively. Samples from 576 cases and 427 controls were assayed for PAH-DNA adducts using an ELISA. The geometric mean (and geometric SD) of the log-transformed levels of PAH-DNA adducts on a natural scale was slightly, but nonsignificantly, higher among cases [7.36 (7.29)] than among controls [6.21 (4.17); p = 0.51]. The age-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for breast cancer in relation to the highest quintile of adduct levels compared with the lowest was 1.51 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.04 –2.20], with little or no evidence of substantial confounding (corresponding multivariate-adjusted OR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.00 –2.21). There was no consistent elevation in risk with increasing adduct levels, nor was there a consistent association between adduct levels and two of the main sources of PAH, active or passive cigarette smoking or consumption of grilled and smoked foods. These data indicate that PAH-DNA adduct formation may influence breast cancer development, although the association does not appear to be dose dependent and may have a threshold effect

The Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project: description of a multi-institutional collaboration to identify environmental risk factors for breast cancer

The Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project is a federally mandated, population-based case-control study to determine whether breast cancer risk among women in the counties of Nassau and Suffolk, NY, is associated with selected environmental exposures, assessed by blood samples, self-reports, and environmental home samples. This report describes the collaborative project’s background, rationale, methods, participation rates, and distributions of known risk factors for breast cancer by case-control status, by blood donation, and by availability of environmental home samples. Interview response rates among eligible cases and controls were 82.1% (n=1,508) and 62.8% (n=1,556), respectively. Among case and control respondents who completed the interviewer-administered questionnaire, 98.2 and 97.6% self-completed the food frequency questionnaire; 73.0 and 73.3% donated a blood sample; and 93.0 and 83.3% donated a urine sample. Among a random sample of case and control respondents who are long-term residents, samples of dust (83.6 and 83.0%); soil (93.5 and 89.7%); and water (94.3 and 93.9%) were collected. Established risk factors for breast cancer that were found to increase risk among Long Island women include lower parity, late age at first birth, little or no breast feeding, and family history of breast cancer. Factors that were found to be associated with a decreased likelihood that a respondent would donate blood include increasing age and past smoking; factors associated with an increased probability include white or other race, alcohol use, ever breastfed, ever use of hormone replacement therapy, ever use of oral contraceptives, and ever had a mammogram. Long-term residents (defined as 15+ years in the interview home) with environmental home samples did not differ from other long-term residents, although there were a number of differences in risk factor distributions between long-term residents and other participants, as anticipated

On-orbit Image Sharpness Assessment using the Edge Method: Methodological Improvements for Automatic Edge Identification and Selection from Natural Targets

The metrics traditionally used for assessing the sharpness level of optical imagery acquired by spaceborne sensors (e.g., relative edge response, point spread function, full width at half maximum of the line spread function, modulation transfer function) are usually measured before launch using a set of standard simulated inputs. However, vibrations occurring during launch and satellite deployment, as well as sensor degradation through time, may alter the nominal characteristics significantly. Therefore, post-launch assessment analyses are necessary for monitoring data quality. To this end, on-orbit measurement techniques for sharpness assessment-e.g., the edge method (EM)-were developed. Selection of suitable targets to be used for such techniques is a crucial step for carrying out the assessment successfully. The objective of this paper is to describe an automatic method for identification of suitable edges to be used for on-orbit sharpness assessment via the EM by taking into account the widespread presence of natural targets-like agricultural fields-on Earth. The presented approach is expected to ease the continuous monitoring of the sharpness level of optical data acquired by spaceborne sensors

A Fully Automatic Method for on-Orbit Sharpness Assessment: a Case Study Using Prisma Hyperspectral Satellite Images

The main objectives of the Sentinel-3 mission are to support ocean forecasting systems, environmental and climate monitoring. However, the coverage of the visible, near-infrared and short-wave infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with a 300 meter resolution and a revisit period of less than 2 days make it very appealing also for vegetation monitoring. In this paper we explore the possibility of using the Sentinel-3 Synergy surface directional reflectances and the PROSAIL model to reliably estimate biophysical variables in general and live fuel moisture content in particular. The latter is a fundamental variable in fire behaviour models and in fire danger assessment, and consequently of high interest in fire management activities. We performed a Global Sensitivity Analysis to identify the most significant PROSAIL parameters in each Synergy channel, and tested the results by implementing a simple Look-Up Table based retrieval algorithm. The outcome shows the potential of biophysical parameter estimation based on this Sentinel-3 product

Evaluating the potentialities of Copernicus Very High Resolution (VHR) optical datasets for assessing the shoreline erosion hazard in microtidal environments

In the past years, several studies have shown that Earth Observation (EO) data can be successfully used for analysing shoreline evolution trends and assessing coastal erosion hazard/risk. Within this framework, the exploitation of long-term archives of sensors data characterised by moderate spatial resolution (e.g., Landsat) has shown its potential; particularly in higher energy coastal environments (e.g., Oceanic areas) where the magnitude of long-term erosion/accretion processes (e.g., decadal) can be resolved by the abovementioned sensors. However, the spatial resolution of these data may prevent an accurate analysis in microtidal coastal environments (e.g., Mediterranean Sea), especially for analyses focused on a short-term period (e.g., few years). This is mainly due to the high level of uncertainty associated with the occurrence of erosion/accretion processes of lower magnitude detected by EO sensors retaining a moderate spatial resolution. Within this context, this work was conceived to evaluate the potentialities of the Copernicus Very High Resolution (VHR) optical datasets (spatial resolution: 2-4 m) for assessing the shoreline evolution trends in an exemplifying urbanised coastal area of the Mediterranean Sea (i.e., Lido di Ostia, Rome, Italy), over a short-term period (i.e., 4 years). To achieve this objective, an automatic technique of shoreline detection and extraction at subpixel level was tested. Results allowed to: i) detect a shoreline evolution trend coherent with the geomorphological characteristics of the study area; ii) smoothly identify/quantify fine-scale variations of accretion/erosion patterns along the coast. This is extremely important to map the areas most exposed to shoreline erosion hazard/risk

Oncolytic Viruses in Combination Therapeutic Approaches with Epigenetic Modulators: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives

According to the World Cancer Report, cancer rates have been increased by 50% with 15 million new cases in the year 2020. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the only one of the most common tumors to cause a huge increase in mortality with a survival rate between 40% and 70% at 5 years, due to the high relapse and limitations associated with current therapies. Despite great progress in medicine, oncological research is always looking for new therapies: different technologies have been evaluated in clinical trials and others have been already used in clinics. Among them, oncolytic virotherapy represents a therapeutic option with a widespread possibility of approaches and applications. Oncolytic viruses are naturally occurring, or are engineered, viruses characterized by the unique features of preferentially infecting, replicating, and lysing malignant tumor cells, as well as activating the immune response. The combination of oncolytic virotherapy and chemical drugs are arousing great interest in the tumor treatment. In this scenario, novel and promising anticancer therapies comprise combinations of oncolytic viruses and epigenetic modulators or inhibitors of the signalling pathways. Combination treatments are required to improve the immune response and allow viral entry, replication, and diffusion between proximal cells. In this review, we summarize all combination therapies associated with virotherapy, including co-administered inhibitors of chromatin modifiers (combination strategies) and inserted target sites for miRNAs (recombination or arming strategies)

Distribution of antibiotic resistance among Enterococcus spp. isolated from 2017 to 2018 at the University Hospital "Luigi Vanvitelli" of Naples, Italy.

In the last decade Enterococcus spp. has become one of the most important nosocomial pathogens. The prevalence of multi-resistant strains of Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis responsible for hospital-acquired infections is associated with their ability to acquire and share antimicrobial resistance genes contained in Mobile Genetic Elements (MGE). This study investigated the distribution of antibiotic resistance in Enterococcus spp. isolated from clinical patients in the University Hospital "Luigi Vanvitelli" of Naples, Italy. The aim of the present study was to monitor the antimicrobial drug resistance and spread of nosocomial infection, to allow the optimal choice of antibiotic therapy. From January 2017 to December 2018, 351 Enterococcus spp. isolates were collected from different clinical samples, at the University Hospital “Luigi Vanvitelli”. Bacteria identification was made using MALDI-TOF technology (Bruker Daltonics, Bremen, Germany). Susceptibility to 9 antibiotics was tested using BD Phoenix (Becton, Dickinson and Company). Data were analyzed using the statistical software SPSS v.22.0 (IBM SPSS Inc., New York, USA). Among the 351 collected samples, 88 (25.1%) were identified as Enterococcus faecium and 263 (74.9%) were as Enterococcus faecalis. Enterococcus faecalis showed the highest resistance rate to Tetracycline (73,5%) and Erythromycin (88,6%) than the Enterococcus faecium. The Enterococcus faecium has showed increase in resistance rates against Ciprofloxacin and Imipenem. Persistent surveillance of antimicrobial patterns was essential to adopt the empirical treatment guideline to treat infection caused by Enterococcus spp

Hexagonal Voronoi pattern detected in the microstructural design of echinoid skeleton

Repeated polygonal patterns are pervasive in natural forms and structures. These result in optimized strength-per-weight and minimum-energy constructions with inherent structural stability. In echinoids (sea urchins), a visible regularity can be found in the endoskeleton, consisting of a lightweight and resistant micro-trabecular meshwork (stereom). This foam-like structure follows an intrinsic geometrical pattern that was analysed and described in this study considering the tubercle’s boss - spine attachment site subjected to extensive mechanical stresses - in the common sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus. The boss microstructure was identified as a Voronoi construction characterized by 82% concordance to the computed Voronoi models, a prevalence of hexagonal polygons, and a regularly organized seed distribution. This pattern can represent an efficient evolutionary solution for the echinoid skeleton to realize a lightweight microstructural design that optimize the trabecular arrangement maximizing the structural strength while minimizing metabolic costs associated to biomineralization of calcitic stereom