A-DInSAR Monitoring of Landslide and Subsidence Activity: A Case of Urban Damage in Arcos de la Frontera, Spain

Terrain surface displacements at a site can be induced by more than one geological process. In this work, we use advanced differential interferometry SAR (A-DInSAR) to measure ground deformation in Arcos de la Frontera (SW Spain), where severe damages related to landslide activity and subsidence have occurred in recent years. The damages are concentrated in two residential neighborhoods constructed between 2001 and 2006. One of the neighborhoods, called La Verbena, is located at the head of an active retrogressive landslide that has an extension of around 0.17 × 106 m2 and developed in weathered clayey soils. Landslide motion has caused building deterioration since they were constructed. After a heavy rainfall period in winter 2009–2010, the movement was accelerated, worsening the situation. The other neighborhood, Pueblos Blancos, was built over a poorly compacted artificial filling undergoing a spatially variable consolidation process which has also led to severe damage to buildings. For both cases, a short set of C-band data from the “ENVISAT 2010+” project has been used to monitor surface displacement for the period spanning April 2011–January 2012. In this work we characterize the mechanism of both ground deformation processes using in situ and remote sensing techniques along with a detailed geological interpretation and urban damage distribution

Silicic Acid and Beer Consumption Reverses the Metal Imbalance and the Prooxidant Status Induced by Aluminum Nitrate in Mouse Brain

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Abstract: Background: Emerging evidence suggests that by affecting mineral balance, aluminum (Al) may enhance some events associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Aim: To examine the effect of Al(NO3)3 exposure on brain Al, cooper (Cu), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), silicon (Si), and zinc (Zn) levels, and the metal-change implication in brain oxidant and inflammatory status. Methods: Four groups of six-week-old male NMRI mice were treated for three months: i) controls, administrated with deionized water; ii) Al, which received Al(NO3)3; iii) Al+silicic acid, which were given Al(NO3)3 plus silicic acid; and iv) Al+beer, which received Al(NO3)3 plus beer. Results: Brain Al and TBARS levels and TNFα and GPx expressions increased, while Cu, Mn, and Zn levels, and catalase and CuZn-SOD expression decreased (at least, p < 0.05) in Al versus control animals. Al, Si, and TBARS levels and TNFα expression decreased (p < 0.05) in Al+silicic acid and Al+beer specimens while Cu, Mn, and Zn levels and antioxidant expression increased versus the Al group. Brain Al levels correlated negatively with those of Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn, and catalase, CuZn-SOD, and GPx enzyme expressions but positively with Si and TBARS levels and TNFα expression. Two components of the principal component analysis (PCA) explained 71.2% of total data variance (p < 0.001). PCA connected the pro-oxidant markers with brain Al content, while brain Zn and Cu levels were closer to antioxidant enzyme expression. Conclusion: Administration of Al(NO3)3 induced metal imbalance, inflammation, and antioxidant status impairment in the brain. Those effects were blocked to a significant extent by silicic acid and beer administration

The origin of power-law distributions in deterministic walks: the influence of landscape geometry

We investigate the properties of a deterministic walk, whose locomotion rule is always to travel to the nearest site. Initially the sites are randomly distributed in a closed rectangular ($A/L \times L)$ landscape and, once reached, they become unavailable for future visits. As expected, the walker step lengths present characteristic scales in one ($L \to 0$) and two ($A/L \sim L$) dimensions. However, we find scale invariance for an intermediate geometry, when the landscape is a thin strip-like region. This result is induced geometrically by a dynamical trapping mechanism, leading to a power law distribution for the step lengths. The relevance of our findings in broader contexts -- of both deterministic and random walks -- is also briefly discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Improving the k-Nearest Neighbour Rule by an Evolutionary Voting Approach

This work presents an evolutionary approach to modify the voting system of the k-Nearest Neighbours (kNN). The main novelty of this article lies on the optimization process of voting regardless of the distance of every neighbour. The calculated real-valued vector through the evolutionary process can be seen as the relative contribution of every neighbour to select the label of an unclassified example. We have tested our approach on 30 datasets of the UCI repository and results have been compared with those obtained from other 6 variants of the kNN predictor, resulting in a realistic improvement statistically supported

Two-Dimensional Supersymmetry: From SUSY Quantum Mechanics to Integrable Classical Models

Two known 2-dim SUSY quantum mechanical constructions - the direct generalization of SUSY with first-order supercharges and Higher order SUSY with second order supercharges - are combined for a class of 2-dim quantum models, which {\it are not amenable} to separation of variables. The appropriate classical limit of quantum systems allows us to construct SUSY-extensions of original classical scalar Hamiltonians. Special emphasis is placed on the symmetry properties of the models thus obtained - the explicit expressions of quantum symmetry operators and of classical integrals of motion are given for all (scalar and matrix) components of SUSY-extensions. Using Grassmanian variables, the symmetry operators and classical integrals of motion are written in a unique form for the whole Superhamiltonian. The links of the approach to the classical Hamilton-Jacobi method for related "flipped" potentials are established.Comment: 19 page

Association of VAV2 and VAV3 polymorphisms with cardiovascular risk factors

Hypertension, diabetes and obesity are cardiovascular risk factors closely associated to the development of renal and cardiovascular target organ damage. VAV2 and VAV3, members of the VAV family proto-oncogenes, are guanosine nucleotide exchange factors for the Rho and Rac GTPase family, which is related with cardiovascular homeostasis. We have analyzed the relationship between the presence of VAV2 rs602990 and VAV3 rs7528153 polymorphisms with cardiovascular risk factors and target organ damage (heart, vessels and kidney) in 411 subjects. Our results show that being carrier of the T allele in VAV2 rs602990 polymorphism is associated with an increased risk of obesity, reduced levels of ankle-brachial index and diastolic blood pressure and reduced retinal artery caliber. In addition, being carrier of T allele is associated with increased risk of target organ damage in males. On the other hand, being carrier of the T allele in VAV3 rs7528153 polymorphism is associated with a decreased susceptibility of developing a pathologic state composed by the presence of hypertension, diabetes, obesity or cardiovascular damage, and with an increased risk of developing altered basal glycaemia. This is the first report showing an association between VAV2 and VAV3 polymorphisms with cardiovascular risk factors and target organ damage

First passage and arrival time densities for L\'evy flights and the failure of the method of images

We discuss the first passage time problem in the semi-infinite interval, for homogeneous stochastic Markov processes with L{\'e}vy stable jump length distributions $\lambda(x)\sim\ell^{\alpha}/|x|^{1+\alpha}$ ($|x|\gg\ell$), namely, L{\'e}vy flights (LFs). In particular, we demonstrate that the method of images leads to a result, which violates a theorem due to Sparre Andersen, according to which an arbitrary continuous and symmetric jump length distribution produces a first passage time density (FPTD) governed by the universal long-time decay $\sim t^{-3/2}$. Conversely, we show that for LFs the direct definition known from Gaussian processes in fact defines the probability density of first arrival, which for LFs differs from the FPTD. Our findings are corroborated by numerical results.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, iopart.cls style, accepted to J. Phys. A (Lett