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The recently launched and upcoming hyperspectral satellite missions, featuring contiguous visible-to-shortwave infrared spectral information, are opening unprecedented opportunities for the retrieval of a broad set of vegetation traits with enhanced accuracy through novel retrieval schemes. In this framework, we exploited hyperspectral data cubes collected by the new-generation PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa (PRISMA) satellite of the Italian Space Agency to develop and test a hybrid retrieval workflow for crop trait mapping. Crop traits were mapped over an agricultural area in north-east Italy (Jolanda di Savoia, FE) using PRISMA images collected during the 2020 and 2021 vegetative seasons. Leaf chlorophyll content, leaf nitrogen content, leaf water content and the corresponding canopy level traits scaled through leaf area index were estimated using a hybrid retrieval scheme based on PROSAIL-PRO radiative transfer simulations coupled with a Gaussian processes regression algorithm. Active learning algorithms were used to optimise the initial set of simulated data by extracting only the most informative samples. The accuracy of the proposed retrieval scheme was evaluated against a broad ground dataset collected in 2020 in correspondence of three PRISMA overpasses. The results obtained were positive for all the investigated variables. At the leaf level, the highest accuracy was obtained for leaf nitrogen content (LNC: r2=0.87, nRMSE=7.5%), while slightly worse results were achieved for leaf chlorophyll content (LCC: r2=0.67, nRMSE=11.7%) and leaf water content (LWC: r2=0.63, nRMSE=17.1%). At the canopy level, a significantly higher accuracy was observed for nitrogen content (CNC: r2=0.92, nRMSE=5.5%) and chlorophyll content (CCC: r2=0.82, nRMSE=10.2%), whereas comparable results were obtained for water content (CWC: r2=0.61, nRMSE=16%). The developed models were additionally tested against an independent dataset collected in 2021 to evaluate their

Background: Chronic pain (CP) and its management are critical issues in the care pathway of patients with breast cancer. Considering the complexity of CP experience in cancer, the international scientific community has advocated identifying cutting-edge approaches for CP management. Recent advances in the field of health technology enable the adoption of a novel approach to care management by developing integrated ecosystems and mobile health apps. Objective: The primary end point of this pilot study is to evaluate patients’ usability experience at 3 months of a new digital and integrated technological ecosystem, PainRELife, for CP in a sample of patients with breast cancer. The PainRELife ecosystem is composed of 3 main technological assets integrated into a single digital ecosystem: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources–based cloud platform (Nu platform) that enables care pathway definition and data collection; a big data infrastructure connected to the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources server that analyzes data and implements dynamic dashboards for aggregate data visualization; and an ecosystem of personalized applications for patient-reported outcomes collection, digital delivery of interventions and tailored information, and decision support of patients and caregivers (PainRELife app). Methods: This is an observational, prospective pilot study. Twenty patients with early breast cancer and chronic pain will be enrolled at the European Institute of Oncology at the Division of Medical Senology and the Division of Pain Therapy and Palliative Care. Each patient will use the PainRELife mobile app for 3 months, during which data extracted from the questionnaires will be sent to the Nu Platform that health care professionals will manage. This pilot study is nested in a large-scale project named “PainRELife,” which aims to develop a cloud technology platform to interoperate with institutional systems and patients' devices to collect integrated health care

The Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment (CHIME) is in preparation to carry a unique visible to shortwave infrared spectrometer. CHIME will globally provide routine hyperspectral observations to support new and enhanced services for, among others, sustainable agricultural and biodiversity management. The mission shall provide Level 1B, 1C and 2A products, as well a set of downstream products related to the different environmental applications, such as the quantification of vegetation traits. In this context, this work presents the first hybrid retrieval models for the operational delivery of vegetation properties products. Within ESA’s CHIME end-to-end (E2E) simulator study, 13 leaf and canopy trait models were developed as part of the L2B vegetation (L2BV) module. The E2E framework functions as a simulated reality that enabled to test and improve the algorithms. The models were further tuned and validated against campaign data using active learning methods. As a proof of concept, the prototype retrieval models were applied to both hyperspectral airborne (HyPlant) and spaceborne (PRISMA) imagery that were first resampled to CHIME band settings. Among the provided vegetation products, it led to a first space-based canopy nitrogen content map over a heterogeneous landscape. The obtained CHIME-like L2BV traits maps demonstrate the feasibility to routinely deliver a collection of next-generation vegetation products across the globe.

In the next few years, the new Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission (CHIME) is foreseen to be launched by the European Space Agency (ESA). This missions will provide an unprecedented amount of hyperspectral data, enabling new research possibilities within several fields of natural resources, including the “agriculture and food security” domain. In order to efficiently exploit this upcoming hyperspectral data stream, new processing methods and techniques need to be studied and implemented. In this work, the hybrid approach (HYB) and its variant, featuring sampling dimensionality reduction through active learning heuristics (HAL), were applied to CHIME-like data to evaluate the retrieval of crop traits, such as chlorophyll and nitrogen content at both leaf (LCC and LNC) and canopy level (CCC and CNC). The results showed that HYB was able to provide reliable estimations at canopy level (R2 = 0.79, RMSE = 0.38 g m−2 for CCC and R2 = 0.84, RMSE = 1.10 g m−2 for CNC) but failed at leaf level. The HAL approach improved retrieval accuracy at canopy level (best metric: R2 = 0.88 and RMSE = 0.21 g m−2 for CCC; R2 = 0.93 and RMSE = 0.71 g m−2 for CNC), providing good results also at leaf level (best metrics: R2 = 0.72 and RMSE = 3.31 µg cm−2 for LCC; R2 = 0.56 and RMSE = 0.02 mg cm−2 for LNC). The promising results obtained through the hybrid approach support the feasibility of an operational retrieval of chlorophyll and nitrogen content, e.g., in the framework of the future CHIME mission. However, further efforts are required to investigate the approach across different years, sites and crop types in order to improve its transferability to other contexts.

Una vasca da bagno risale lentamente, come sospinta dal soffio di Madre Terra, dalle viscere di una collina metallifera nei pressi di Zenica, nella Bosnia centrale. Un carico di carbone fumante appena estratto è pronto per essere setacciato e caricato su un vecchio camion dell’esercito jugoslavo dalla squadra di minatori che opera in superficie. È così che, dalle profondità della terra dove trovano lavoro centinaia di minatori illegali bosniaci, nasce un florido commercio parallelo di carbone che andrà ad alimentare caldaie e cucine di migliaia di famiglie in tutto il Paese. Ciò avviene in totale assenza di contratti, norme di sicurezza, tutele assicurative o garanzie di alcun tipo per i lavoratori. Nella città considerata una «Jugoslavia in miniatura», modello del socialismo reale, trainata dalla sua acciaieria (Željezara Zenica) e dall’indotto metallurgico-minerario (più di 50.000 operai), fino agli inizi degli anni Novanta a inebriare l’ambiente economico e socio-culturale era il senso di sigurnost (sicurezza) e di fiducia nel futuro, sprigionate da un paradigma lavorativo fondato sulla Samoupravljanje (Autogestione). Questo metteva al centro la figura dell’uomo-operaio, autentico simbolo del progresso e del miglioramento delle condizioni di vita e lavoro avvenuto nel secondo Dopoguerra. La dissoluzione della Jugoslavia e la Guerra che ne è seguita, ha portato al collasso del sistema-vita in cui gli abitanti di Zenica hanno vissuto per 50 anni. I lavoratori dell’acciaieria e delle miniere statali sono stati espulsi in massa dal mercato del lavoro senza alternative valide a livello occupazionale, sfavoriti da un contesto economico che orbitava intorno a una sola cometa: l’industria pesante. Alla luce dei profondi mutamenti occorsi in Bosnia ed Erzegovina nelle ultime decadi, come sono andati riconfigurandosi dal punto di vista lavorativo e sociale, le traiettorie esistenziali degli abitanti di Zenica? Ho cercato di avvicinarmi a questo interrogativo anal, A bathtub rises slowly, as pushed by the Mother Earth’s breath, from the bowels of a metallic hill near Zenica, in central Bosnia. A cargo of freshly extracted steaming coal is ready to be sieved, stowed in 50 kg bags, and loaded into an old Yugoslav army truck by the miners working outside. Here, from the depths of the earth where hundreds of Bosnian illegal miners find work, a thriving parallel coal trade is born, in order to feed stoves, boilers and kitchens for thousands of families across the country. This occurs in the total absence of contracts, any kind of safety regulations, insurance protections or guarantees for the workers. During the Tito period, this city was considered a «miniature Yugoslavia», a true model of real socialism, driven by both its steel mill (Željezara Zenica) and the metallurgical-mining industries (which employed more than 50,000 workers). Until the beginning of the nineties, the economic and socio-cultural environment was enhanced by the pervasive sense of sigurnost (security) and the confidence in the future, released by a work paradigm based on Samoupravljanje (Self-management). This was focused on the man-worker, an authentic symbol of progress and improvement of living and working conditions, which took place in the second post-war period. The dissolution of Yugoslavia and the consequent war led to the collapse of this life-system, known by the inhabitants of Zenica for 50 years. The steel mill and State mines workers were all expelled from the labor market without valid alternatives in terms of employment. They were also penalized by an economic context based on a single, great and bright direction: the “heavy” industry, fundamental and everlasting point of reference for thousands of workers and citizens. Considering the deep changes occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last few decades: how the lives of the Zenica (the "Incandescent City") inhabitants have been set up again from a working and social point of views? I tried

Differences in health status by socioeconomic position (SEP) tend to be more evident at older ages, suggesting the involvement of a biological mechanism responsive to the accumulation of deleterious exposures across the lifespan. DNA methylation (DNAm) has been proposed as a biomarker of biological aging that conserves memory of endogenous and exogenous stress during life.We examined the association of education level, as an indicator of SEP, and lifestyle-related variables with four biomarkers of age-dependent DNAm dysregulation: the total number of stochastic epigenetic mutations (SEMs) and three epigenetic clocks (Horvath, Hannum and Levine), in 18 cohorts spanning 12 countries.The four biological aging biomarkers were associated with education and different sets of risk factors independently, and the magnitude of the effects differed depending on the biomarker and the predictor. On average, the effect of low education on epigenetic aging was comparable with those of other lifestyle-related risk factors (obesity, alcohol intake), with the exception of smoking, which had a significantly stronger effect.Our study shows that low education is an independent predictor of accelerated biological (epigenetic) aging and that epigenetic clocks appear to be good candidates for disentangling the biological pathways underlying social inequalities in healthy aging and longevity.

In this research, the author would explore how the young citizens of Prijedor feel about their own identity in the light of the processes of globalization, migration flows, economic and political changes that occurred in this two decades. Will ethnic anchored identity developed in ’90 incompatible with a global, cosmopolitan identity or this sort of miscellaneous between local and global contribute to create a new, creative form of membership? The project tends to bring out the citizens’ subjectivity and, through the ethnographical method, trying to understand if there are a young critical mass that doesn’t refuse a tradition but at the same time believes in a peaceful and proactive co-existence. According with the theorist of globalization and the academic of nationalism the author’s thesis wants to investigate not only the outline of civil society but also the ruling class, to highlight the differences of values that accompanied each other. The main question of this work is simple and critical at the same time: are the young fixed to old ethno-nationalist based archetype? Or they can really change their own society?

In this research, the author would explore how the young citizens of Prijedor feel about their own identity in the light of the processes of globalization, migration flows, economic and political changes that occurred in this two decades. Will ethnic anchored identity developed in ’90 incompatible with a global, cosmopolitan identity or this sort of miscellaneous between local and global contribute to create a new, creative form of membership? The project tends to bring out the citizens’ subjectivity and, through the ethnographical method, trying to understand if there are a young critical mass that doesn’t refuse a tradition but at the same time believes in a peaceful and proactive co-existence. According with the theorist of globalization and the academic of nationalism the author’s thesis wants to investigate not only the outline of civil society but also the ruling class, to highlight the differences of values that accompanied each other. The main question of this work is simple and critical at the same time: are the young fixed to old ethno-nationalist based archetype? Or they can really change their own society?

The aims of this study were: (i) the mapping of asbestos cement roofs in an urban area; and (ii) the development of a spectral index related to the roof weathering status. Aerial images were collected through the Multispectral Infrared and Visible Imaging Spectrometer (MIVIS) sensor, which acquires data in 102 channels from the visible to the thermal infrared spectral range. An image based supervised classification was performed using the Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) algorithm. The SAM was trained through a set of pixels selected on roofs of different materials. The map showed an average producer's accuracy (PA) of 86% and a user's accuracy (UA) of 89% for the asbestos cement class. A novel spectral index, the "Index of Surface Deterioration" (ISD), was defined based on measurements collected with a portable spectroradiometer on asbestos cement roofs that were characterized by different weathering statuses. The ISD was then calculated on the MIVIS images, allowing the distinction of two weathering classes (i.e., high and low). The asbestos cement map was handled in a Geographic Information System (GIS) in order to supply the municipalities with the cadastral references of each property having an asbestos cement roof. This tool can be purposed for municipalities as an aid to prioritize asbestos removal, based on roof weathering status.

Proliferative lesions, known as Von Brunn nests, cystitis cystica and glandularis, and squamous epithelium of vaginal type are not uncommon in the lamina propria of the vesical trigone. The former have been considered reactive to chronic irritants and may represent glandular metaplasia of the transitional epithelium; the latter looks like much more sensitive to hormones. These lesions have been thought to play a role in the pathogenesis of abacteric cystitis: but this has not been confirmed at all by our series of 27 cases. Nevertheless the extension of these lesions should be evaluated with both cystoscopy and biopsies in a large series of sintomatic and asintomatic women.