Brief Communication: A low-cost Arduino®-based wire extensometer for earth flow monitoring

Abstract. Continuous monitoring of earth flow displacement is essential for the understanding of the dynamic of the process, its ongoing evolution and designing mitigation measures. Despite its importance, it is not always applied due to its expense and the need for integration with additional sensors to monitor factors controlling movement. To overcome these problems, we developed and tested a low-cost Arduino-based wire-rail extensometer integrating a data logger, a power system and multiple digital and analog inputs. The system is equipped with a high-precision position transducer that in the test configuration offers a measuring range of 1023 mm and an associated accuracy of ±1 mm, and integrates an operating temperature sensor that should allow potential thermal drift that typically affects this kind of systems to be identified and corrected. A field test, conducted at the Pietrafitta earth flow where additional monitoring systems had been installed, indicates a high reliability of the measurement and a high monitoring stability without visible thermal drift

SiSeRHMap v1.0: A simulator for mapped seismic response using a hybrid model

SiSeRHMap is a computerized methodology capable of drawing up prediction maps of seismic response. It was realized on the basis of a hybrid model which combines different approaches and models in a new and non-conventional way. These approaches 5 and models are organized in a code-architecture composed of five interdependent modules. A GIS (Geographic Information System) Cubic Model (GCM), which is a layered computational structure based on the concept of lithodynamic units and zones, aims at reproducing a parameterized layered subsoil model. A metamodeling process confers a hybrid nature to the methodology. In this process, the one-dimensional linear 10 equivalent analysis produces acceleration response spectra of shear wave velocitythickness profiles, defined as trainers, which are randomly selected in each zone. Subsequently, a numerical adaptive simulation model (Spectra) is optimized on the above trainer acceleration response spectra by means of a dedicated Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) and the Levenberg–Marquardt Algorithm (LMA) as the final optimizer. In the fi15 nal step, the GCM Maps Executor module produces a serial map-set of a stratigraphic seismic response at different periods, grid-solving the calibrated Spectra model. In addition, the spectra topographic amplification is also computed by means of a numerical prediction model. This latter is built to match the results of the numerical simulations related to isolate reliefs using GIS topographic attributes. In this way, different sets 20 of seismic response maps are developed, on which, also maps of seismic design response spectra are defined by means of an enveloping technique

SeaClouds: An Open Reference Architecture for Multi-Cloud Governance

A. Brogi, J. Carrasco, J. Cubo, F. D'Andria, E. Di Nitto, M. Guerriero, D. Pérez, E. Pimentel, J. Soldani. "SeaClouds: An Open Reference Architecture for Multi-Cloud Governance". In B. Tekinerdogan et al. (Eds.): ECSA 2016, LNCS 9839, pp. 334–338, 2016.We present the open reference architecture of the SeaClouds solution. It aims at enabling a seamless adaptive multi-cloud management of complex applications by supporting the distribution, monitoring and reconfiguration of app modules over heterogeneous cloud providers.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Near-Field/Far-Field Transformation with Helicoidal Scanning from Irregularly Spaced Data

A fast and accurate technique for the compensation of the probe positioning errors in the near-field/far-field transformation with helicoidal scanning is proposed in this paper. It relies on a nonredundant sampling representation using a spherical modelling of the antenna under test and employs an iterative scheme to evaluate the near-field data at the points fixed by the helicoidal nonredundant representation from the acquired irregularly distributed ones. Once these helicoidal data have been recovered, those required by a classical cylindrical near-field/far-field transformation are efficiently determined by using an optimal sampling interpolation algorithm. Some numerical tests assessing the effectiveness of the proposed approach and its stability with respect to random errors affecting the near-field data are shown

An Innovative Direct NF-FF Transformation Technique with Helicoidal Scanning

A direct near-field-far-field transformation with helicoidal scanning is developed. It is based on the nonredundant sampling representation of electromagnetic fields and uses a spherical antenna modelling to determine the number of helix turns. Moreover, the number of voltage samples on each of them is fixed by the maximum transverse dimension of the antenna, both to simplify the mechanical scanning and to reduce the computational effort. This technique allows the evaluation of the antenna far field directly from a minimum set of near-field data without interpolating them. Although the number of near-field data employed by the developed technique is slightly increased with respect to that required by rigorously applying the nonredundant sampling representation on the helix, it is still remarkably smaller than that needed by the standard near-field-far-field transformation with cylindrical scanning. The effectiveness of the technique is assessed by numerical and experimental results

Two efficient procedures to correct the positioning errors in the plane-polar scanning

Two techniques to effectively compensate known positioning errors in a plane-polar near-field–far-field (NF–FF) transformation, using a minimum number of NF data and adopting an oblate ellipsoid to shape the considered antenna, are proposed and validated through experimental proofs. The former makes use of the singular value decomposition method to recover the voltage samples which would be acquired by the probe at the points fixed by the non-redundant sampling representation from the collected positioning error affected ones, whereas the latter employs an iterative scheme. The NF data required by the classical NF–FF transformation with plane-rectangular scanning are then efficiently evaluated via a two-dimensional optimal sampling interpolation formula. The effectiveness of the proposed techniques is assessed by experimental tests performed at the Antenna Characterisation Lab of the University of Salerno

Inventory of Vietri-Maiori landslides induced by the storm of October 1954 (southern Italy)

On 25 October 1954, a storm hit the area surrounding the villages of Vietri sul Mare and Maiori of the Amalfi Coast (southern Italy) causing more than 300 deaths and severe damage to infrastructures and agriculture. This event has been among the most catastrophic historically documented in Campania Region. On this basis, and considering the lack of an existing complete characterization of the event in terms of triggered slope processes, we used multiple sets of stereoscopic aerial photos and a LiDAR-derived high-resolution topography to produce an event landslide inventory map. Our map provides an overview of the landslide distribution and extent in the area that mainly suffered the effect of the storm and is the basis for a morphometric characterization of landslide source areas that we present in this paper as simplified statistical analysis. In addition, we compared the rainfall distribution with the spatial density of source areas

Elimination of Xylophages from Wood through Microwave Treatment: Microstructural Experiments

Samples of chestnut wood taken from modern age structures in the Campania Region were subjected to chemical and physical analysis in order to examine the microstructural variations in the material as a result of exposure to microwaves with the aim of devitalising colonies of xylophages. Results showed that the use of microwaves does not lead to alterations in the structure of the wood, but does bring about variations in its hygroscopicity and permeability

Sudden onset acute liver failure in a patient with clinically occult small cell lung carcinoma: autopsy report and review of the medical literature

Liver metastases are commonly found in advanced cancer patients; however, acute liver failure secondary to diffuse liver infiltration is rare. Small cell lung carcinoma accounts for 15% of lung carcinomas. We describe the ninth case of small cell lung carcinoma massively metastatic to the liver, reported in the scientific literature, with sudden clinical onset and death after a few days. An autopsy was performed to understand the cause of death