3D GLACIER MAPPING BY MEANS OF SATELLITE STEREO IMAGES: THE BELVEDERE GLACIER CASE STUDY IN THE ITALIAN ALPS

The authors group is within the Glacier Lab of Politecnico di Torino (part of the CC-LAB, a laboratory for climate change monitoring), which is working on glacier monitoring since 2016, mainly exploiting Geomatics techniques to measure the extent and to model the surface of glaciers over the years. Measurement campaigns were carried out within the ASP (Alta Scuola Politecnica – Poliecnico di Torino e Milano) DREAM projects (Drone tEchnnology for wAter resources and hydrologic hazard Monitoring) The manuscript is focused on a specific case study related to the Belvedere glacier, a valley glacier located in northern Italy.In the framework of the Belvedere glacier monitoring, several Geomatics approaches have already been applied in the last four years by the cc-glacier-lab and DREAM Projects with the goal to monitor both the extent of the glacier and its surface. Such monitoring enables the multi-temporal comparison of the glacier digital surface model (DSM), highlighting areas of ice loss and gain. Considering the limitations of aerial surveys in high altitude environments, the authors started assessing the suitability of a satellite based approach, mainly focusing on positional accuracy assessment. The paper is focused on a monitoring based on a high resolution (0.5 m) satellite optical stereo pair. Several tests were carried out with the goal to test the 3D positional accuracies, assessing the impact of different configurations of Ground Control Point (GCP) in terms of numerosity and distribution and focusing on the DSM validation. The results demonstrated the fit-for-purpose of a satellite-based approach for glacier monitoring

Rule-Based Machine Translation for the Italian–Sardinian Language Pair

AbstractThis paper describes the process of creation of the first machine translation system from Italian to Sardinian, a Romance language spoken on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. The project was carried out by a team of translators and computational linguists. The article focuses on the technology used (Rule-Based Machine Translation) and on some of the rules created, as well as on the orthographic model used for Sardinian

Machine translation from Catalan to Sardinian: a translation tool for a language in the process of standardisation

This article describes the development of a free/open-source rule-based machine translation system for Catalan to Sardinian based on the Apertium platform. Special attention is given to the components of the system related with transfer (structural and lexical) and lexical selection, drawing attention to issues stemming from the current state of the Sardinian written norm. The system has a word-error rate (WER) of 20.5% and a position-independent word-error rate (PER) of 13.9%. We analyse the remaining errors by doing a qualitative analysis of the translation of four articles from the encyclopaedic domain

Experimental Evaluation of Group Communications Protocols for Data Dissemination at the Tactical Edge

Data dissemination is one of the fundamental requirements for any military network. Types of data include Situation Awareness data such as position reports, sensor data, and Commander's Operational Orders and Intelligence Reports. Different data types have different dissemination patterns and requirements. Some data types such as position reports are generated by each node and need to be received by every other node. On the other hand, sensor data is generated by a handful of nodes and may be needed by a subset of other nodes. Finally, orders and reports are generated by higher echelon nodes (e.g., a Headquarters node) and need to be disseminated down the command hierarchy. Group communications protocols typically handle dissemination of such data from multiple senders to multiple recipients. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of a number of different group communications protocols for data dissemination. In particular, we evaluate the performance over an emulated tactical edge network using the Anglova scenario. Such an evaluation helps identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of these protocols when they operate in a challenged communications environment with limited capacity, variable latency, and unstable links

Plasma levels of the molecular markers of coagulation and fibrinolysis in patients with peripheral arterial disease

In 103 patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) of the lower limbs, coagulation and fibrinolytic parameters were evaluated to identify hemostatic abnormalities characteristic of this patient population. PAD was defined as clinically stable Leriche stage 2 (based on clinical history, peripheral pulses, ankle-arm index, and treadmill test) for at least 3 months, walking distance >100 m, and no other major illnesses, rest pain, or trophic lesions. Defibrotide, a polydeoxyribonucleotide derivative with vascular effects, was administered to the patients as part of a multicenter trial. The PAD patients exhibited a prothrombotic state as evidenced by high D-dimer in all but 24% of the patients (average 797 +/- 802 vs. 163 +/- 54 ng/mL normal population; p < 0.001) and high thrombin-antithrombin III complex (TAT) levels (10.2 +/- 8.9 vs. 2.5 +/- 1.5 ng/mL; p < 0.001) with low to normal levels of protein C (86 +/- 25 vs. 102 +/- 18%; p < 0.01) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) antigen (5.9 +/- 4.5 vs. 1.3 + 0.7 ng/mL; p < 0.001) were elevated in 79% of the patients. These results suggest that there is ongoing thrombosis in the majority of PAD patients. Differences from normal controls were observed for t-PA, PAI-1, protein C, and protein S; however, it is not certain that the thrombosis in patients with PAD is due to these factors

A DOUBLE-BLIND, MULTICENTER, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED, DOSE COMPARISON STUDY OF ORALLY-ADMINISTERED DEFIBROTIDE - PRELIMINARY-RESULTS IN PATIENTS WITH PERIPHERAL ARTERIAL-DISEASE

Defibrotide is a polydeoxyribonucleotide drug known to modulate the endothelial cell release of t-PA, PAI, and PGI-2 and to improve blood flow and perfusion. A double-blind, multicenter, placebo-controlled, dose comparison study was carried out to test the long-term efficacy and safety of defibrotide in patients with PAD (Leriche stage 2). Informed patients suffering from PAD were enrolled, and after a 15-day washout period were randomly allocated in a double-blind fashion to one of the three following treatments: defibrotide 400 mg (1 cps) b.i.d. for 6 months, defibrotide 400 mg o.d., or placebo. Absolute walking distance (AWD, treadmill) and ankle-arm pressure ratio (Winsor Index, WI) were evaluated at the beginning and after 30, 90, and 180 days after therapy. Two hundred twenty seven patients were recruited and 193 patients were included in the final analysis (800 mg: 67; 400 mg: 60; placebo: 66). All treatments brought about an increase in AWD placebo = +17%; 400 mg = +47%, 800 mg = +52%); however, patients treated with defibrotide exhibited a significantly better AWD at the end of treatment in comparison with placebo (p less than 0.01). AWD was not significantly different in the 400-mg and 800-mg groups. There was a trend indicating a possible improvement of WI after defibrotide, with higher WI in 800-mg patients in comparison with placebo (p less than 0.05). However, this difference was partly due to a decrease in arterial blood pressure elicited by the drug. The tolerability in all groups was optimal. These results indicate that orally administered defibrotide exerts symtomatic benefit in PAD patients and daily doses of 400 or 800 mg seem to be equivalent