The relationship between suspended sediment concentration and remotely sensed spectral radiance - a review

Information on the concentration of suspended sediments in coastal waters is necessary for the understanding and management of the coastal environment. Traditionally, suspended sediment concentration (SSC) has been measured by time-consuming and costly boat surveys which allow the accurate measurement of SSC for single points in space and time. Remote sensing from airborne and spaceborne sensors has proved to be a useful adjunct to such surveys as it provides an instantaneous and synoptic view of sediments that would otherwise be unavailable. The key to the success of remote sensing in such a role is the strong positive relationship that exists between SSC and remotely sensed spectral radiance (L(x)). This review provides an introduction to this SSC/L(x) relationship; exploring its physical basis, its robustness under a range of environmental conditions and its utility as a tool for estimation. It is concluded that future research on this relationship should concentrate upon the suppression of environmental influences and the optimum sampling of SSC

Topographic studies through texture image analysis of LANDSAT data

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Use of LANDSAT data to monitor pasture project in Amazonia

The author has identified the following significant results. No differences were found between acreage evaluation by visual and automatic interpretation of LANDSAT images. It was necessary to interpret both channels 5 and 7 to exactly outline the deforested areas. Channel 7 was necessary for the identification of deforested areas in the presence of recently grown natural vegetation, and channel 5 was necessary to identify the deforested areas in the cerrado regions. Automatic interpretation permitted the discrimination between areas with predominant grass coverage and recently grown natural vegetation

Prognostic role of aldosterone in patients with acute coronary syndrome: short and medium term follow-up.

AIMS: Different studies have shown a correlation between aldosterone, atherosclerosis and ischemia in the past decade. Evidence exists for the relationship between high levels of aldosterone and augmented risk of cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertension, cardiac failure, coronary artery disease and stroke. The objective of this study was to determine the prognostic role of aldosterone in patients with myocardial infarction. METHODS:The study population included 96 consecutive patients admitted to our department for ST-elevated and non-ST-elevated myocardial infarction from June 2009 to March 2012. Plasma aldosterone levels were measured at admission to hospital in all patients. A 2-year prospective follow-up was performed, and fatal events and non-fatal events, such as reinfarction, congestive heart failure and arrhythmias, were recorded. RESULTS:Aldosterone levels at admission were associated with incidence of congestive heart failure (P\u200a=\u200a0.02), ventricular arrhythmias (P\u200a=\u200a0.01) and all complications (P\u200a=\u200a0.003) after 1-month follow-up. Moreover, high aldosterone levels gave important information in the medium term (24\u200a\ub1\u200a6 months). Specifically, aldosterone was a predictive variable of reinfarction (P\u200a<\u200a0.0001), congestive heart failure (P\u200a<\u200a0.0001) and adverse events (P\u200a=\u200a0.0002). The logistic regression analysis confirmed these results and showed that aldosterone may be predictive of adverse events at medium-term follow-up (odds ratio 1.1, 95% confidence interval 1.03-1.15, P\u200a=\u200a0.02). CONCLUSION:These data show a strong and significant correlation between plasma aldosterone levels at admission for myocardial infarction and fatal and nonfatal adverse events. Aldosterone appears to be a main marker of adverse clinical outcome, in accordance with the literature. These data suggest the need to identify whether antialdosteronic drug treatment, applied acutely in patients with aldosterone elevation, can influence favorably the prognosis of patients with myocardial infarction

Monitoring of heavy flooding by orbital remote sensing: The example of the Doce river valley

The application of temporal LANDSAT data to study floods was verified, and the natural features responsible for this phenomenon were surveyed using the Doce river valley as a test site, because of the catastrophic (1978-1979) flood. Data from LANDSAT images and CCT's were used. Geomorphical mapping evaluated morphostructural features. Seven and nine classes of water surfaces for dry and rainy seasons were analyzed. The magnitude of the changes from preflood to postflood stage are estimated. The single Pixel program was applied to correlate the drainage basin characteristics to the grey level of LANDSAT data

The role of redox mechanisms in hepatic chronic wound healing and fibrogenesis

Under physiological conditions, intracellular and tissue levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are carefully controlled and employed as fine modulators of signal transduction, gene expression and cell functional responses (redox signaling). A significant derangement in redox homeostasis, resulting in sustained levels of oxidative stress and related mediators, plays a role in the pathogenesis of human diseases characterized by chronic inflammation, chronic activation of wound healing and tissue fibrogenesis, including chronic liver diseases. In this chapter major concepts and mechanisms in redox signaling will be briefly recalled to introduce a number of selected examples of redox-related mechanisms that can actively contribute to critical events in the natural history of a chronic liver diseases, including induction of cell death, perpetuation of chronic inflammatory responses and fibrogenesis. A major focus will be on redox-dependent mechanisms involved in the modulation of phenotypic responses of activated, myofibroblast-like, hepatic stellate cells (HSC/MFs), still considered as the most relevant pro-fibrogenic cells operating in chronic liver diseases

Estimating the quality of pasturage in the municipality of Paragominas (PA) by means of automatic analysis of LANDSAT data

The use of LANDSAT data to evaluate pasture quality in the Amazon region is demonstrated. Pasture degradation in deforested areas of a traditional tropical forest cattle-raising region was estimated. Automatic analysis using interactive multispectral analysis (IMAGE-100) shows that 24% of the deforested areas were occupied by natural vegetation regrowth, 24% by exposed soil, 15% by degraded pastures, and 46% was suitable grazing land

Measles and Brugada pattern: A case report

No abstract availabl

Hypoxia up-regulates SERPINB3 through HIF-2\u3b1 in human liver cancer cells.

SERPINB3 is a cysteine-proteases inhibitor up-regulated in a significant number of cirrhotic patients carrying hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and recently proposed as a prognostic marker for HCC early recurrence. SERPINB3 has been reported to stimulate proliferation, inhibit apoptosis and, similar to what reported for hypoxia, to trigger epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and increased invasiveness in liver cancer cells. This study has investigated whether SERPINB3 expression is regulated by hypoxia-related mechanisms in liver cancer cells. Exposure of HepG2 and Huh7 cells to hypoxia up-regulated SERPINB3 transcription, protein synthesis and release in the extracellular medium. Hypoxia-dependent SERPINB3 up-regulation was selective (no change detected for SERPINB4) and operated through hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)-2\u3b1 (not HIF-1\u3b1) binding to SERPINB3 promoter, as confirmed by chromatin immuno-precipitation assay and silencing experiments employing specific siRNAs. HIF-2\u3b1-mediated SERPINB3 up-regulation under hypoxic conditions required intracellular generation of ROS. Immuno-histochemistry (IHC) and transcript analysis, performed in human HCC specimens, revealed co-localization of the two proteins in liver cancer cells and the existence of a positive correlation between HIF-2\u3b1 and SERPINB3 transcript levels, respectively. Hypoxia, through HIF-2\u3b1-dependent and redox-sensitive mechanisms, up-regulates the transcription, synthesis and release of SERPINB3, a molecule with a high oncogenic potential