Compagni !! tutti insieme cresciamo.

I nuovi compiti della Geomatica non sono disgiunti dallo impegno di fronte ai problemi attuali del mondo intero e, sempre più, richiedono di essere capaci di “sporcarsi le mani” e rischiare di persona. Questo lavoro sviluppa i temi del misurare la qualità, andando oltre una etica della convinzione e della responsabilità, e ripercorre il lungo cammino verso la modernità, ponendosi correttamente solo domande penultime. Lo approccio adottato si rifà allo scetticismo ed al relativismo moderati, ben consci del fallimento totale delle soluzioni “in grande”, tutte le filosofie, ideologie e religioni

La fatica della ragione: provare a dare regole alle arti.

Il materialismo storico (nella rilettura critica operata dalla Scuola di Francoforte, più tarda) fa da filo conduttore, con lo scopo di collegare questo tema allo strutturalismo ed al pragmatismo/funzionalismo. Un itinerario scientifico e filosofico (sulla non-neutralità della scienza), come pure letterario ed artistico (che spazia nel mondo della cultura, in primis, debolmente pro e contro il metodo) è ripercorso con la intenzione di metterne in evidenza tappe importanti. In parallelo, qualche curiosità matematica arricchisce il testo, tenendo conto che il lavoro non ha pretese filosofiche, né verte sui fondamenti teorici della scienza, ma vuole invece rileggere il vasto settore della Geomatica, inserendolo in un ambito tecnico, scientifico e culturale più largo. Infatti una disciplina tecnica che non sappia aprirsi, nel campo delle scienze ed al mondo della cultura, è destinata a scomparire (e poco importa se per la propria anossia o per una diaspora, provocata da altri)

Resolving vertical and east-west horizontal motion from differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar : The L'Aquila earthquake

Analysis of surface coseismic displacement has already been obtained for the 6 April 2009 L'Aquila (central Italy) earthquake from differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) data. Working jointly on ascending and descending DInSAR data makes for a step forward with respect to published preliminary estimates: we process data in order to retrieve a continuous displacement pattern, both in the vertical and horizontal directions, the latter being limited to the eastward component because of the low sensibility of the SAR images used to resolve northward motion. Our analysis provides new insights on the horizontal component of displacement, obtaining a clear picture of eastward displacement patterns over the epicentral area. This result is noteworthy, as until now little information has been available on horizontal displacement following normal-fault events in the central Apennines (Umbria-Marche, 1997, and L'Aquila, 2009), given the lack of dense GPS networks, the only available source of horizontal displacement data in this area. Inverted fault characteristics from such data also show noteworthy differences compared to previous studies, localizing the Paganica fault as the causative fault for the earthquake

MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF A LONG-SPAN RAIWAY BRIDGE USING SENTINEL-1 DATA

This paper is focused on displacement monitoring of a bridge, which is one of the key aspects of its structural health monitoring. A simplified Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) approach is used to monitor the displacements of the Nanjing Dashengguan Yangtze River High-speed Railway Bridge (China). This bridge is 1272 m long and hosts a total of 6 railway lines. The analysis was based on a set of twenty-nine Sentinel-1A images, acquired from April 2015 to August 2016. A dense set of measurement points were selected on the bridge. The PSI results show a maximum longitudinal displacement of 150 mm, on each side of the bridge. The displacements are strongly correlated with the temperature, showing that they are due to thermal expansion. Using the PSI results, the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) of the whole bridge was estimated. The result agrees well with the CTE of the bridge materials. Using a regression model, the PSI-measured displacements were compared with in-situ measurements. The paper proposes a procedure to assess the performance of the movable bearings of the bridge, which is based on the PSI measurements

Generalized Wasserstein distance and its application to transport equations with source

In this article, we generalize the Wasserstein distance to measures with different masses. We study the properties of such distance. In particular, we show that it metrizes weak convergence for tight sequences. We use this generalized Wasserstein distance to study a transport equation with source, in which both the vector field and the source depend on the measure itself. We prove existence and uniqueness of the solution to the Cauchy problem when the vector field and the source are Lipschitzian with respect to the generalized Wasserstein distance

Sentinel-1A/B imagery for terrain deformation monitoring: a strategy for Atmospheric Phase Screening (APS) estimation

This work focus on terrain deformation monitoring by means of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Sentinel-1A/B imagery exploiting the Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) technique. The deformation monitoring strategy described in this article is related to a specific monitoring scenario where a relatively small urban area is potentially affected by deformation and its surroundings are stable. In the case study considered in this work, the scenario corresponds to an area of potential subsidence induced by underground water pumping covering an area of interest with a radius of approximately 1 km. The proposed monitoring strategy takes advantage of the specific scenario at hand and, in particular, of the availability of stable areas in the vicinity of the area potentially affected by ground deformation, to estimate the Atmospheric Phase Screen (APS), i.e. signal propagation delay caused by the Earth's atmosphere, in an attempt to minimize the underestimation of the deformation rate

ANALYSIS OF X-BAND VERY HIGH RESOLUTION PERSISTENT SCATTERER INTERFEROMETRY DATA OVER URBAN AREAS

Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is a satellite-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) remote sensing technique used to measure and monitor land deformation from a stack of interferometric SAR images. This work concerns X-band PSI and, in particular, PSI based on very high resolution (VHR) StripMap CosmoSkyMed and TerraSAR-X SAR imagery. In fact, it mainly focuses on the technical aspects of deformation measurement and monitoring over urban areas. A key technical aspect analysed in this paper is the thermal expansion component of PSI observations, which is a result of temperature differences in the imaged area between SAR acquisitions. This component of PSI observations is particularly important in the urban environment. This is an interesting feature of PSI, which can be surely used to illustrate the high sensitivity of X-band PSI to very subtle displacements. Thermal expansion can have a strong impact on the PSI products, especially on the deformation velocity maps and deformation time series, if not properly handled during the PSI data processing and analysis, and a comprehensive discussion of this aspect will be provided in this paper. The importance of thermal expansion is related to the fact that the PSI analyses are often performed using limited stacks of images, which may cover a limited time period, e.g. several months only. These two factors (limited number of images and short period) make the impact of a non-modelled thermal expansion particularly critical. This issue will be illustrated considering different case studies based on TerraSAR-X and CosmoSkyMed PSI data. Besides, an extended PSI model which alleviates this problem will be described and case studies from the Barcelona metropolitan area will demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy

Evidence for a continuum limit in causal set dynamics

We find evidence for a continuum limit of a particular causal set dynamics which depends on only a single ``coupling constant'' $p$ and is easy to simulate on a computer. The model in question is a stochastic process that can also be interpreted as 1-dimensional directed percolation, or in terms of random graphs.Comment: 24 pages, 19 figures, LaTeX, adjusted terminolog

BAG3 Pro209 mutants associated with myopathy and neuropathy relocate chaperones of the CASA-complex to aggresomes

Three missense mutations targeting the same proline 209 (Pro209) codon in the co-chaperone Bcl2-associated athanogene 3 (BAG3) have been reported to cause distal myopathy, dilated cardiomyopathy or Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2 neuropathy. Yet, it is unclear whether distinct molecular mechanisms underlie the variable clinical spectrum of the rare patients carrying these three heterozygous Pro209 mutations in BAG3. Here, we studied all three variants and compared them to the BAG3_Glu455Lys mutant, which causes dilated cardiomyopathy. We found that all BAG3_Pro209 mutants have acquired a toxic gain-of-function, which causes these variants to accumulate in the form of insoluble HDAC6- and vimentin-positive aggresomes. The aggresomes formed by mutant BAG3 led to a relocation of other chaperones such as HSPB8 and Hsp70, which, together with BAG3, promote the so-called chaperone-assisted selective autophagy (CASA). As a consequence of their increased aggregation-proneness, mutant BAG3 trapped ubiquitinylated client proteins at the aggresome, preventing their efficient clearance. Combined, these data show that all BAG3_Pro209 mutants, irrespective of their different clinical phenotypes, are characterized by a gain-of-function that contributes to the gradual loss of protein homeostasis

A persistent scatterer interferometry procedure to monitor urban subsidence

This paper describes a Persistent Scatterer Interferometry procedure for deformation monitoring. Its more original part concerns an approach to estimate the atmospheric phase component. The procedure can be used to monitor deformation areas that are relatively small and are surrounded by stable areas. The proposed procedure is described step by step. The procedure can be applied using SAR data coming from different sensors. However, in this work we discuss results obtained using Sentinel-1 data. A case study is described, where the deformation is caused by water pumping associated with construction works. In this case study, a stack of 78 Sentinel-1 images were analysed. The main part of the paper concerns the analysis of the atmospheric component. A comprehensive characterization of this component is first described, considering the original non-filtered phases. This is followed by the characterization of the residual filtered phases. This analysis highlights the goodness of the proposed procedure. This is further confirmed by the analysis of two deformation time series. The procedure can work with any type of deformation phenomena, provided that its spatial extension is sufficiently small