The application of UAV-derived SfM-MVS photogrammetry for the investigation of storm wave boulder deposits on a small rocky island in the semi-enclosed Northern Adriatic Sea

The inventory and categorization of an extensive coastal boulder assemblage originating from storm wave transport on the coastline of Fenoliga Island (Northern Adriatic Sea, southern Istria, Croatia) are presented and discussed herein. The study adopted the use of a commercial Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Structure from Motion-MultiView Stereo (SfM-MVS) photogrammetry for the construction of a 3D model of the island. A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and an orthomosaic were produced and employed for the mapping of the boulder assemblage in a GIS. In total, 592 boulders were identified and mapped. Using SfM-MVS-derived products allowed for the identified boulders to be categorized based on size classification. Amassed data relating to the boulder characteristics was inserted and stored in a GIS, including the results of a comparative assessment with historical Google Earth imagery which enabled the ‘quantification of boulder transport over a 9-year timeframe’. Field evidence indicates that boulders were created in-situ via the quarrying of bedrock strata by breaking waves causing increased water pressure within preexisting surfaces of weakness such as bedding planes and sub-vertical fractures. Once detached, the boulders were transported and deposited during storm wave events. Repeated storm events can further displace previously detached clasts

Review submerged speleothems and sea level reconstructions: A global overview and new results from the mediterranean sea

This study presents a global overview of the submerged speleothems used to reconstruct paleo sea levels and reports new results from two stalactites collected in the Mediterranean Sea. Coastal cave deposits significantly contributed to the understanding of global and regional sea-level variations during the Middle and Late Quaternary. The studied speleothems cover the last 1.4 Myr and focused mainly on Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 1, 2, 3, 5.1, 5.3, 5.5, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 7.5. The results indicate that submerged speleothems represent extraordinary archives that can provide detailed information on former sea-level changes. The two stalactites collected in the central Mediterranean Sea, at Favignana and Ustica islands (Sicily, Italy), are both characterized by continental, phreatic or marine layers. The U-Th and14C ages of the new speleothems provide results of great interest for relative sea-level changes over the last 1000 years

Towards Critical Occidentalism Studies: Re-inventing the 'West' and 'Japan' in Mangaesque Popular Cultures

This paper investigates the reproduction of the imagined geography of the ‘West’ in contemporary Japan by employing a relational, intersectional and positional approach in order to examine Occidentalism and its hegemonic identification and othering process. Particular attention will be paid to emerging Japanese subcultures enacting a parodic and sexualised re-invention of Westernness and Japaneseness within a globalising mangaesque media mix

Assessing Trustworthy AI in times of COVID-19. Deep Learning for predicting a multi-regional score conveying the degree of lung compromise in COVID-19 patients

Abstract—The paper's main contributions are twofold: to demonstrate how to apply the general European Union’s High-Level Expert Group’s (EU HLEG) guidelines for trustworthy AI in practice for the domain of healthcare; and to investigate the research question of what does “trustworthy AI” mean at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, we present the results of a post-hoc self-assessment to evaluate the trustworthiness of an AI system for predicting a multi-regional score conveying the degree of lung compromise in COVID-19 patients, developed and verified by an interdisciplinary team with members from academia, public hospitals, and industry in time of pandemic. The AI system aims to help radiologists to estimate and communicate the severity of damage in a patient’s lung from Chest X-rays. It has been experimentally deployed in the radiology department of the ASST Spedali Civili clinic in Brescia (Italy) since December 2020 during pandemic time. The methodology we have applied for our post-hoc assessment, called Z-Inspection®, uses socio-technical scenarios to identify ethical, technical and domain-specific issues in the use of the AI system in the context of the pandemic.</p

A cost-effective method to reproduce the morphology of the nearshore and intertidal zone in microtidal environments

The photogrammetric method is widely used in coastal areas and in submerged environments. Time-lapse images collected with unmanned aerial vehicles are used to reproduce the emerged areas, while images taken by divers are used to reproduce submerged ones. Conversely, 3D models of natural or human-made objects lying at the water level are severely affected by the difference in refractive index between air and seawater. For this reason, the matching of 3D models of emergent and submerged coasts has been very rarely tested and never used in Earth Sciences. The availability of a large number of time-lapse images, collected at the intertidal zone during previous snorkel surveys, encouraged us to test the merging of 3D models of emerged and submerged environments. Considering the rapid and effective nature of the aforementioned program of swim surveys, photogrammetric targets were not used during image acquisition. This forced us to test the matching of the independent models by recognizing prominent landforms along the waterline. Here we present the approach used to test the method, the instrumentation used for the field tests, and the setting of cameras fixed to a specially built aluminum support console and discuss both its advantages and its limits compared to UAVs. 3D models of sea cliffs were generated by applying structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry. Horizontal time-lapse images, collected with action cameras while swimming parallel to the coastline at nearly constant velocity, were used for the tests. Subsequently, prominent coastal landforms were used to couple the independent models obtained from the emergent and submerged cliffs. The method was pilot tested in two coastal sites in the north-eastern Adriatic (part of the Mediterranean basin). The first site was a 25 m sea wall of sandstone set within a small harbor, while the second site was a 150 m route below plunging limestone cliffs. The data show that inexpensive action cameras provide a sufficient resolution to support and integrate geomorphological field surveys along rocky coastlines

Alteration of G1/S Transition Regulators Influences Recurrences in Head and Neck Squamous Carcinomas

Head-Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HN-SCC) is a clinically challenging disease associated with a high mortality rate. The chemoradiotherapy treatments that aim to preserve the organ represent the current gold standard therapy for advanced laryngeal disease, reserving surgery only for non-responsive or relapsed cases. Despite these aggressive approaches, local persistent or recurrent disease remains the primary cause of treatment failure but we still do not have known factors and/or markers able to predict the outcome of the disease and in particular the risk of local relapse. Here we address this point on a series of 54 cases of HN-SCC for whom the presence of local relapse was known. Using immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis to evaluate protein expression and localization in the recurrence free and recurrence positive samples, we studied the expression of key cell cycle regulators including p53, p16, p27, pRB, Cyclin D1, Cyclin D3, and Stathmin. Overall by analyzing seven different cell cycle regulators we can hypothesize that the alteration of G1/S regulation represents a fundamental event in the onset/progression of HN-SCC cancers and that the associate use of Cyclin D1/p16 expression should be considered as a possible biomarker toward the identification of those patients that will probably develop a recurrent disease and thus should benefit of a more aggressive treatment. J. Cell. Physiol. 227: 233-238, 2012. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc