Restriction enzyme analysis of human leukemic mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA from both normal human tissue and leukemic human leukocytes (AML and CML) were analyzed by restriction-enzyme digestion, polyacrylamide gradient gel electrophoresis and ethidium bromide staining. Both normal and leukemic human mitochondrial DNA show molecular heterogeneity from individual to individual. This intraspecies variability is significantly higher in leukemias, where most of the cases show unique patterns. We suggest that this variability might be a molecular symptom of mutagenesis

Hybridization of mouse leukemia virus c-DNA to mouse repeated DNA sequences

Experiments of hybridization between mouse leukemia virus synthetic 3H-DNA probe and mouse main band and satellite DNAs indicate that there is not a higher concentration of viral sequences in the satellite DNA. On the contrary, viral sequences appear to be enriched in the fast renaturing intermediate main band DN

Il telerilevamento satellitare come strumento per la gestione del disastro: caso di studio sul terremoto de L'Aquila del 6 aprile 2009

I terremoti a carattere disastroso rappresentano una sfida per i sistemi per l'osservazione della terra (Earth Observation = EO), che devono dimostrare la loro utilità nel supportare le azioni di soccorso in più fasi dell'evento. L'uso dei dati EO nella gestione dei disastri è stata a lungo studiata da un punto di vista teorico, ma è solo di recente che i metodi si sono significativamente avvicinati all'uso operativo; in questo articolo si tratterà un caso di studio utile ad illustrare la situazione. Il terremoto de l'Aquila di cui alla presente edizione speciale di Progettazione Sismica ha attivato una fitta serie di acquisizioni sulla zona con diversi sistemi di telerilevamento, satellitari ed aviotrasportati. Alcuni di tali dati sono stati poi rapidamente distribuiti ai Centri di Competenza della Protezione Civile per l’elaborazione e la produzione d’informazioni utili all’intervento di emergenza nell’immediato e, su una prospettiva di più lungo periodo, anche per l’acquisizione di conoscenze utili per il futuro. Il presente articolo descrive l’esperienza della Sezione Telerilevamento di EUCENTRE, considerando vari aspetti del lavoro dalla preparazione del dato alla sua elaborazione e diffusione dei risultati, trattando anche i problemi relativi alla distribuzione e gestione dei dati. In particolare, saranno illustrate le applicazioni di mappatura rapida e di stima del danno, con un largo uso dei dati radar satellitari di nuova generazione forniti dal sistema italiano COSMO/SkyMed. L'esperienza del nostro gruppo di ricerca prova che, pur a fronte di alcuni problemi ancora da risolvere, i risultati sono incoraggianti e vale la pena di investire sullo sviluppo di tali metodi

Spaceborne VHR SAR data for detection of sparse man-made features in wide-scale safety inspection after an earthquake

In the immediate aftermath of a major earthquake, inspection of structures to determine their damage level is needed to determine possible risks connected to aftershock collapses. In rural areas the presence and location of sparse man-made structures may not be readily available information, and in this context, the use of VHR SAR data may be used to detect and locate features connected with the presence of structures which require inspection. Locating urban areas and urban patches in spaceborne images is a largely explored research problem, but the focus of the proposed solution was mainly on accurately tracking urban boundaries rather than finding smallest, sparse clusters of buildings. In this paper, the authors build on their experience with the 6th April 2009, Italy earthquake to develop a detection technique focussing on this particular application. A first version of the algorithm, based on adaptive local thresholding of the reflectance data [1] has now been integrated with a more refined feature detector based on the widely experimented W-filter [2]. The enhanced method and the results of preliminary testing on pre- and post-event COSMO/SkyMed images will be presented and discussed. [1] F. Dell’Acqua, Polli, D., Ferrari, S. (2010) “Spaceborne support to post-earthquake operations: detection of sparse man-made features in wide-scale safety inspection”. Accepted for oral presentation at EUSAR 2010, Aachen, Germany, 8-10 June 2010 [2] M. Negri, P. Gamba, G. Lisini, and F. Tupin, “Junction-aware extraction and regularization of urban road networks in high-resolution SAR images,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., vol.44, no.10, pp.2962-2971, Oct. 200

Earthquake Damages Rapid Mapping by Satellite Remote Sensing Data: L'Aquila April 6th, 2009 Event

Destructive earthquakes challenge Earth Observation (EO) systems to demonstrate their usefulness in supporting intervention and relief actions. The use of EO data in a disaster context has been widely investigated from a theoretical point of view, but only recently the developed methods seem to have reached near to the operational use. In this paper a case study on the April 6th, 2009 earthquake (Mw = 6.3) event, which stroke L'Aquila, Italy, is presented and commented. Although damage to the city was not extremely extensive, the case is interesting because it was handled by the authors in a real-time, emergency context. A new data fusion approach, between SAR and optical data, has been proposed. It shows that optical data are more suitable to distinguish between damage and non-damage classes, while SAR textures features allow to better distinguishing different classes of damages at block scale such as low and heavy damage