Mobile underwater sensor networks for protection and security: field experience at the UAN11 experiment

The EU-funded project UAN (Underwater Acoustic Network) was aimed at conceiving, developing, and testing at sea an innovative and operational concept for integrating underwater and above-water sensors in a unique communication system to protect offshore and coastline critical infrastructures. This work gives details on the underwater part of the project. It introduces a set of original security features and gives details on the integration of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) as mobile nodes of the network and as surveillance assets, acoustically controlled by the command and control center to respond against intrusions. Field results are given of the final UAN project sea trial, UAN11, held in May 2011 in Norway. During the experimental activities, a UAN composed of four fixed nodes, two AUVs, and one mobile node mounted on the supporting research vessel was operated continuously and integrated into a global protection system. In this article, the communication performance of the network is reported in terms of round-trip time, packet loss, and average delivery ratio. The major results of the experiment can be thus summarized: the implemented network structure was successful in continuously operating over five days with nodes seamlessly entering and exiting the network; the performance of the network varied greatly with fluctuations in the acoustic channel; the addition of security features induced a minor degradation in network performance with respect to channel variation; the AUVs were successfully controlled from a remote station through acoustic signals routed by the network

Adaptable underwater networks: The relation between autonomy and communications

This paper discusses requirements for autonomy and communications in maritime environments through two use cases which are sourced from military scenarios: Mine Counter Measures (MCM) and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW). To address these requirements, this work proposes a service-oriented architecture that breaks the typical boundaries between the autonomy and the communications stacks. An initial version of the architecture has been implemented and its deployment during a field trial done in January 2019 is reported. The paper discusses the achieved results in terms of system flexibility and ability to address the MCM and ASW requirements

Il suolo ci regala tanto. Non calpestiamolo

LIFE + SAM4CP “Soil Administration Model 4 Community Profit” (www.sam4cp.com), aims to demonstrate that the planning and regulation of land use require the integration of policies for the protection of soil resources and evaluation the economic implications, in terms of cost/benefit, their impact on the ecosystemic functions of the resource itself. With effects on the production capacity, availability of raw materials, biodiversity, carbon cycle, water cycle, landscape heritage and environmental functions of rural areas and the hydrogeological hazards. The project aims to propose simulation models on the impacts of soil sealing both the consequences, regarding ecosystem and economic, for the community, to be used in the context of urban planning and policies of government land

Ad hoc Acoustic Network Aided Localization for micro-AUVs

The navigation of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) is still an open research problem. This is further exacerbated when vehicles can only carry limited sensors as typically the case with micro-AUVs that need to survey large marine areas that can be characterized by high currents and dynamic environments. To address this problem, this work investigates the usage of ad hoc acoustic networks that can be established by a set of cooperating vehicles. Leveraging the network structure makes it possible to greatly improve the navigation of the vehicles and as a result to enlarge the operational envelope of vehicles with limited capabilities. The paper details the design and implementation of the network, and specific details of localization and navigation services made available to the vehicles by the network stack. Results are provided from a sea-trial undertaken in Croatia in October 2019. Results validate the approach, demonstrating the increased flexibility of the system and the navigational performance obtained: the deployed network was able to support long-range navigation of vehicles with no inertial navigation or Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) during a 9.5 km channel crossing, reducing the navigation error from approximately 7% to 0.27% of the distance traveled

Land Consumption Monitoring with SAR Data and Multispectral Indices

Land consumption is the increase in artificial land cover, which is a major issue for environmental sustainability. In Italy, the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) and National System for Environmental Protection (SNPA) have the institutional duty to monitor land consumption yearly, through the photointerpretation of high-resolution images. This study intends to develop a methodology in order to produce maps of land consumption, by the use of the semi-automatic classification of multitemporal images, to reduce the effort of photointerpretation in detecting real changes. The developed methodology uses vegetation indices calculated over time series of images and decision rules. Three variants of the methodology were applied to detect the changes that occurred in Italy between the years 2018 and 2019, and the results were validated using ISPRA official data. The results show that the produced maps include large commission errors, but thanks to the developed methodology, the area to be photointerpreted was reduced to 7300 km2 (2.4% of Italian surface). The third variant of the methodology provided the highest detection of changes: 70.4% of the changes larger than 100 m2 (the pixel size) and over 84.0% of changes above 500 m2. Omissions are mainly related to single pixel changes, while larger changes are detected by at least one pixel in most of the cases. In conclusion, the developed methodology can improve the detection of land consumption, focusing photointerpretation work over selected areas detected automatically

MitraClip Treatment of Secondary Mitral Regurgitation in Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction: Lessons and Implications from Trials and Registries

Transcatheter mitral valve intervention using the MitraClip system has evolved as a new tool for the treatment of secondary mitral regurgitation (SMR) in patients with heart failure and reduced lef..

Secure Cooperation of Autonomous Mobile Sensors Using an Underwater Acoustic Network

Methodologies and algorithms are presented for the secure cooperation of a team of autonomous mobile underwater sensors, connected through an acoustic communication network, within surveillance and patrolling applications. In particular, the work proposes a cooperative algorithm in which the mobile underwater sensors (installed on Autonomous Underwater Vehicles—AUVs) respond to simple local rules based on the available information to perform the mission and maintain the communication link with the network (behavioral approach). The algorithm is intrinsically robust: with loss of communication among the vehicles the coverage performance (i.e., the mission goal) is degraded but not lost. The ensuing form of graceful degradation provides also a reactive measure against Denial of Service. The cooperative algorithm relies on the fact that the available information from the other sensors, though not necessarily complete, is trustworthy. To ensure trustworthiness, a security suite has been designed, specifically oriented to the underwater scenario, and in particular with the goal of reducing the communication overhead introduced by security in terms of number and size of messages. The paper gives implementation details on the integration between the security suite and the cooperative algorithm and provides statistics on the performance of the system as collected during the UAN project sea trial held in Trondheim, Norway, in May 2011

Land consumption in Italy

This paper illustrates a land consumption map for Italy (year 2017) at a scale 1:1,300,000, and the assessment of its changes (2012–2017). We define land consumption as the replacement of a non-artificial land cover to an artificial land cover, both permanent and no-permanent. The maps are a 10 m spatial resolution raster, produced by photointerpretation of very high resolution images and semiautomatic classification of high resolution remote sensing images. An overall accuracy of 97.7% for the map of 2012 and of 99.66% for the map of 2017 was obtained. The results suggest that the method proposed is appropriate to detect land consumption, both for the urban densification and for the sprawling phenomena, from national to local level. Furthermore, because of the high spatial resolution and the classification scheme adopted, it is suitable for an effective monitoring system, compared to other existing classification systems or monitoring programs

3D Ray Tracing Solver for Communication Blackout Analysis in Atmospheric Entry Missions

During the atmospheric entry phase at hypersonic speed, the radio communication from/to a space vehicle can be disrupted due to the formation of a plasma sheath within the surrounding flow field. In order to characterize such communication blackout phases, this work presents a numerical methodology combining Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations of ionized chemically reacting entry flows by means of Computational Object-Oriented Libraries for Fluid Dynamics (COOLFluiD) and a ray tracing analysis by means of the newly developed BlackOut RAy Tracer (BORAT). The latter is based on the numerical solution of the 3D Eikonal system of equations, offering a fast, efficient and accurate method to analyse the interaction between electromagnetic signals and weakly ionised plasmas. The proposed methodology, and BORAT in particular, is first verified on popular benchmark cases and then used to analyse the European Space Agency (ESA) 2016 ExoMars Schiaparelli entry flight into Martian environment. The corresponding results demonstrate the validity of the proposed ray tracing approach for predicting communication blackout, where signals emitted from the on-board antenna undergo reflection and refraction from the plasma surrounding the entry vehicle, and the advantage of a 3D approach for analysing real flight configuration

Testing the causal relationships of physical activity and sedentary behaviour with mental health and substance use disorders: a Mendelian randomisation study

Observational studies suggest that physical activity can reduce the risk of mental health and substance use disorders. However, it is unclear whether this relationship is causal or explained by confounding bias (e.g., common underlying causes or reverse causality). We investigated the bidirectional causal relationship of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) with ten mental health and substance use disorders, applying two-sample Mendelian Randomisation (MR). Genetic instruments for the exposures and outcomes were derived from the largest available, non-overlapping genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Summary-level data for objectively assessed PA (accelerometer-based average activity, moderate activity, and walking) and SB and self-reported moderate-to-vigorous PA were obtained from the UK Biobank. Data for mental health/substance use disorders were obtained from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and the GWAS and Sequencing Consortium of Alcohol and Nicotine Use. MR estimates were combined using inverse variance weighted meta-analysis (IVW). Sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess the robustness of the results. Accelerometer-based average PA was associated with a lower risk of depression (b = -0.043, 95% CI: -0.071 to -0.016, effect size[OR] = 0.957) and cigarette smoking (b = -0.026; 95% CI: -0.035 to -0.017, effect size[β] = -0.022). Accelerometer-based SB decreased the risk of anorexia (b = -0.341, 95% CI: -0.530 to -0.152, effect size[OR] = 0.711) and schizophrenia (b = -0.230; 95% CI: -0.285 to -0.175, effect size[OR] = 0.795). However, we found evidence of reverse causality in the relationship between SB and schizophrenia. Further, PTSD, bipolar disorder, anorexia, and ADHD were all associated with increased PA. This study provides evidence consistent with a causal protective effect of objectively assessed but not self-reported PA on reduced depression and cigarette smoking. Objectively assessed SB had a protective relationship with anorexia. Enhancing PA may be an effective intervention strategy to reduce depressive symptoms and addictive behaviours, while promoting sedentary or light physical activities may help to reduce the risk of anorexia in at-risk individuals