Recognition of landslides in lunar impact craters

Landslides have been observed on several planets and minor bodies of the solar System, including the Moon. Notwithstanding different types of slope failures have been studied on the Moon, a detailed lunar landslide inventory is still pending. Undoubtedly, such will be in a benefit for future geological and morphological studies, as well in hazard, risk and suscept- ibility assessments. A preliminary survey of lunar landslides in impact craters has been done using visual inspection on images and digital elevation model (DEM) (Brunetti et al. 2015) but this method suffers from subjective interpretation. A new methodology based on polynomial interpolation of crater cross-sections extracted from global lunar DEMs is presented in this paper. Because of their properties, Chebyshev polynomials were already exploited for para- metric classification of different crater morphologies (Mahanti et al., 2014). Here, their use has been extended to the discrimination of slumps in simple impact craters. Two criteria for recognition have provided the best results: one based on fixing an empirical absolute thresholding and a second based on statistical adaptive thresholding. The application of both criteria to a data set made up of 204 lunar craters’ cross-sections has demonstrated that the former criterion provides the best recognition

Localizzazione e caratterizzazione di frane all’interno dei crateri di impatto lunari

Geological slope failure processes have been observed on the Moon surface for decades. However a detailed and exhaustive lunar landslide inventory has not been produced yet. As a part of the “Moon Mapping” cooperative project between Italy and China, an algorithm for lunar landslide detection in impact craters has been proposed. The simple type of impact craters sizing between 5-12 km has been analysed. The Chebyshev polynomials have been used for estimating crater’s cross-sectional profiles on the basis of a 100 m x 100 m resolution digital elevation model (WACGDL100 DEM) derived from LROC NASA mission. The presence of landslides in lunar craters is then investigated by analysing the contribution of odd coefficients of the estimated polynomials, since they are representing the asymmetric component of a transversal profile. After the analysis of four orthogonal profiles per crater, we correctly classified 87.7% of cross-sectional profiles really affected by slope failures. On the other side, we obtained a correct classification of 83.3% of cross- sectional profiles without slope failures. Even though a complete successful rate could not be achieved, these results are quite encouraging since the proposed automated procedure would allow to a first scrutiny of the presence of landslides in craters, to be refined afterwards with visual recognition and the analysis of other types of data

High Energy Neutrinos from Cosmic Ray Interactions in Clusters of Galaxies

The spatial clustering of galaxies in galaxy clusters implies that the background of infrared (IR) light in the intracluster medium (ICM) may exceed the universal background. Cosmic rays injected within the ICM propagate diffusively and at low enough energies are trapped there for cosmological times. The photopion production interactions of cosmic rays with the IR photons are responsible for the generation of neutrinos whose detection may shed some light on the origin and propagation of high energy cosmic rays in the universe. Here we discuss our calculations of the flux of neutrinos from single clusters as well as the contribution of photopion production in clusters of galaxies to the diffuse neutrino background.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PR

Frequency encoding for simultaneous display of multimodality images.

An original method for simultaneous display of functional and anatomic images, based on frequency encoding (FE), merges color PET with T1-weighted MR brain images, and grayscale PET with multispectral color MR images. A comparison with two other methods reported in the literature for image fusion (averaging and intensity modulation techniques) was performed. Methods: For FE, the Fourier transform of the merged image was obtained summing the low frequencies of the PET image and the high frequencies of the MR image. For image averaging, the merged image was obtained as a weighted average of the intensities of the two images to be merged. For intensity modulation, the red, green and blue components of the color image were multiplied on a pixel- by-pixel basis by the grayscale image. A comparison of the performances of the three techniques was made by three independent observers assessing the conspicuity of specific MRI and PET information in the merged images. For evaluation purposes, images from seven patients and a computer-simulated MRI/PET phantom were used. Data were compared with a chi-square test applied to ranks. Results: For the depiction of MRI and PET information when merging color PET and T1-weighted MR images, FE was rated superior to intensity modulation and averaging techniques in a significant number of comparisons. For merging grayscale PET with multispectral color MR images, FE and intensity modulation were rated superior to image averaging in terms of both MRI and PET information. Conclusion: The data suggest that improved simultaneous evaluation of MRI and PET information can be achieved with a method based on FE

Groundwater flow and geochemical modeling of the Acque Albule thermal basin (Central Italy): a conceptual model for evaluating influences of human exploitation on flowpath and thermal resource availability

Although the Acque Albule Basin has been studied since the middle of the 19th century, a comprehensive geologic conceptual model of the area has not yet been developed. The natural setting has been heavily modified by anthropic activities. Rapid evolution during the last 25 years has caused many interferences, which have led to a drastic increase of the hazards and linked risks, mainly related to water resource overexploitation and subsidence. The implementation of an exhaustive framework has become mandatory for environmental and management purposes. Starting from a critical review of previous studies, hydrogeologic and hydrogeochemical surveys and related numerical modeling have been carried out in order to achieve a quantitative understanding of the active phenomena and processes. Several hydrogeologic issues have been addressed concerning aquifer recharge areas and the different flowpaths of groundwater in respect to their division into a shallow and a deep circuit. Account has been taken of the groundwater chemistry as a function of water—rock interactions and mixing processes with uprising fluids. Different scenarios of groundwater flow in the Acque Albule aquifer have been built, using previously available piezometric measurements and the hydrodynamic parameters determined by in situ tests. These results led to the formulation of an updated hydrogeologic conceptual model to be further implemented, in which past, present and future anthropic instances and the potential of natural resources of the area have been included and taken into account. A sound conceptual model must rely on the design and development of a logical geo-database in which information is stored, updated and processed. This operational framework can result in a useful tool for land management, surveys planning and design, hazard and risk evaluation, identification of best practices and economic development of the area

The metabolic signature of C9ORF72-related ALS: FDG PET comparison with nonmutated patients

Purpose Recently, a GGGGCC hexanucleotide repeat expansion in the C9ORF72 gene, located on chromosome 9p21 has been demonstrated to be the commonest cause of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and to account for 5 to 10 % of apparently sporadic ALS. Relatively little is known about the brain metabolism profile of patients carrying the expansion. Our aim was to identify the [18F]FDG PET profile in ALS patients with the C9ORF72 expansion (C9ORF72-ALS). Methods Fifteen C9ORF72-ALS patients were compared with 12 patients with ALS and comorbid frontotemporal dementia (FTD) without the C9ORF72 expansion (ALSFTD) and 30 cognitively normal patients with ALS without mutations of ALS-related genes (sALS). The three groups were then cross-matched to 40 neurologically normal controls. All patients underwent FDG PET within 4 months of diagnosis. Results The C9ORF72-ALS patients compared with the sALS patients showed significant hypometabolism in the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, insula, caudate and thalamus, the left frontal and superior temporal cortex, and hypermetabolism in the midbrain, bilateral occipital cortex, globus pallidus and left inferior temporal cortex. The ALS FTD patients compared with the sALS patients showed more limited hypometabolic areas, including the orbitofrontal, prefrontal, anterior cingulate and insular cortex, and hypermetabolic areas, including the bilateral occipital cortex, the left precentral and postcentral cortex and superior temporal gyrus. The C9ORF72-ALS patients compared with the ALS-FTD patients showed hypometabolism in the left temporal cortex. Conclusion ALS patients with the C9ORF72 hexanucleotide repeat expansion had a more widespread central nervous system involvement than ALS patients without genetic mutations, with or without comorbid FTD, consistent with their more severe clinical picture

The True-Twin microcalorimeter: a proof-of-concept experiment

We present a proof-of-concept experiment to realize microwave primary power standard with a true-twin microcalorimeter. Double feeding line microcalorimeters are widely used by National Metrology Institutes. A drawback concerns the system calibration: traditional processes changes measurement conditions between system characterization and the measurement stage. Nevertheless, if the feeding lines are made twin, a measurement scheme that avoids separate characterization can be applied, equations simplify and time consumption is halved. Here we demonstrates the feasibility of the idea. The result of an effective efficiency spectroscopy of a thermoelectric power sensor is compared with figures obtained with well established methods.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Abelian duality on globally hyperbolic spacetimes

We study generalized electric/magnetic duality in Abelian gauge theory by combining techniques from locally covariant quantum field theory and Cheeger-Simons differential cohomology on the category of globally hyperbolic Lorentzian manifolds. Our approach generalizes previous treatments using the Hamiltonian formalism in a manifestly covariant way and without the assumption of compact Cauchy surfaces. We construct semi-classical configuration spaces and corresponding presymplectic Abelian groups of observables, which are quantized by the CCR-functor to the category of C*-algebras. We demonstrate explicitly how duality is implemented as a natural isomorphism between quantum field theories. We apply this formalism to develop a fully covariant quantum theory of self-dual fields

Laparoscopic vs. open surgery for the treatment of iatrogenic colonoscopic perforations: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Quality assessment of the included non-randomized studies based on the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). (DOCX 57 kb