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This paper provides insights into the indirect effect of subject matter knowledge on the pre-service teachers’ mitigation action of willingness to include climate change in their future teaching practices. Mediation analysis was conducted to assess the mediating role of emotions and attitudes on direct and indirect mitigation actions with a nationally representative sample of 889 pre-service teachers from Spain. The results show that subject matter knowledge has an indirect effect on pre-service teachers’ willingness to teach and is mediated by emotions and attitudes. Mediation analysis also revealed a relationship between emotional engagement and mitigation actions: students who experience stronger emotions are more likely to take direct and indirect mitigation action, but a more environmentally friendly lifestyle (direct mitigation) is not associated with willingness to engage in climate change education (indirect mitigation). We conclude that educators should consider emotions and attitudes when implementing climate change education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to assess the hydrological and erosive effects of different levels of the fire severity in the drainage basin of the Trionto River (Calabria, southern Italy), which was partially burned by intense fires during the summer 2017. The analysis focused on the identification of wildfire areas using a supervised classification of remote sensing images with the minimum distance algorithm. The level of severity of each fire was then discriminated based on a procedure proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and adapted to the study area. To evaluate how wildfire occurrence affects the hydrological behaviour at the basin scale, the SCS-Curve Number model was used to document pre- and post-fire conditions in relation with the level of fire severity. Finally, the influence on erosion was analysed for analogous conditions at the basin scale using the RUSLE equation. The effects on hydrological balance and soil loss were evaluated by comparing the pre-fire value with three different post-fire scenarios: (a) different levels of severity on the surface covered by the fire (real case); (b) maximum level of severity on the surface covered by the fire; (c) total loss of the canopy and formation of a hydrophobic layer on the surface soil. The results confirmed that the level of severity of the forest fires, combined with climatic factors, morphological conditions, and the pedological characteristics of the basin, significantly influence changes to the hydrology and rates of erosion. Moreover, these impacts proved to be mainly dependent on the consequent, often notable, heterogeneity in the spatial distribution of burned areas with different severity.

The human vasculature is essential in organs and tissues for the transport of nutrients, metabolic waste products, and the maintenance of homeostasis. The integration of vessels in in vitro organs-on-chip may, therefore, improve the similarity to the native organ microenvironment, ensuring proper physiological functions and reducing the gap between experimental research and clinical outcomes. This gap is particularly evident in drug testing and the use of vascularized models may provide more realistic insights into human responses to drugs in the pre-clinical phases of the drug development pipeline. In this context, different vascularized liver models have been developed to recapitulate the architecture of the hepatic sinusoid, exploiting either porous membranes or bioprinting techniques. In this work, we developed a method to generate perfusable vascular channels with a circular cross section within organs-on-chip without any interposing material between the parenchyma and the surrounding environment. Through this technique, vascularized liver sinusoid-on-chip systems with and without the inclusion of the space of Disse were designed and developed. The recapitulation of the Disse layer, therefore, a gap between hepatocytes and endothelial cells physiologically present in the native liver milieu, seems to enhance hepatic functionality (e.g., albumin production) compared to when hepatocytes are in close contact with endothelial cells. These findings pave the way to numerous further uses of microfluidic technologies coupled with vascularized tissue models (e.g., immune system perfusion) as well as the integration within multiorgan-on-chip settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O Grupo de Empoderamento Feminino é uma atividade de cultura e extensão da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de São Paulo (FDUSP) voltado à pesquisa e à prática com temas ligados à violência de gênero, em especial à violência doméstica e à Lei Maria da Penha (LMP). Nesse contexto, a pesquisa, de viés antropológico no âmbito do ensino jurídico, surge como oportunidade de (re)pensar políticas públicas e falhas estruturais nos instrumentos de concretização do direito. A investigação busca narrativas daquelas que operam a LMP na prática, tendo em vista que pensar as dinâmicas das Delegacias de Defesa da Mulher (DDM) perpassa a necessidade de um direito aberto às vozes das suas aplicadoras. Realizamos entrevistas e visitas de observação da rotina das funcionárias e, no material coletado, identificamos três principais eixos de análise: (i) a visão da Universidade dentro do contexto da DDM, (ii) sistemas e dinâmicas internas, (iii) entendimentos sobre ser mulher-vítima e relações de gênero. O trabalho buscou, assim, revisitar as fronteiras disciplinares que marcam a antropologia e o direito nas universidades, utilizando conceitos-chave ligados aos estudos de gênero, violência institucional, direitos humanos e antropologia jurídica

In this study, the land use change in a large basin of Calabria region (southern Italy) subjected to extensive reforestation at the end of the ’€˜50 has been carefully reconstructed and compared with the current situation. The runoff capacity of the basin was estimated using data available for the temporal periods before and after the reforestation interventions. The results show that the surface of the basin interested by former reforestation activities did not affect the runoff, probably due to a trade-off between the effects of reforestation and a concurrent increase in urbanized and degraded areas. Indeed, the hydrological response is linked to structural complexity of reforested areas, currently at an early stage of development that can be further promoted through forest management activities.

Accurately georeferenced data acquired using mobile mapping systems is of great importance for many geospatial applications. The accuracy of direct georeferencing – the standard procedure in the field of outdoor mobile mapping – strongly relies on GNSS reception and therefore varies greatly depending on the environment. By incorporating control point observations, integrated georeferencing enables homogenous accuracy and reliability over the whole mapping perimeter. Unfortunately, exact measurement and documentation of control points is needed, which often must be done manually. To automate this process, approaches from the field of autonomous vehicles use pole-like objects to support localization in complex urban environments, with the disadvantage of requiring a prior mapping campaign. However, various classes of pole-like objects have been recorded with accurate location and entered in public cadastres, so they could serve as 2D control points. In this paper, we present an approach for improving the trajectory accuracy in challenging urban environments by means of integrated georeferencing. It uses range image observations to pole-like objects from publicly available cadastres. Our approach achieves sub-metre accuracy, with a maximal cross-track difference of 98 cm, using real-world data acquired with our low-cost mobile mapping system. We further demonstrate that it significantly improves discontinuities and inaccuracy peaks in direct georeferencing and that the limiting factors are errors in the depth estimation of available range imaging sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Br J Ophthalmol 2003;87:1224-1228 Aim: To evaluate tumour angiogenesis as a predictor of prognosis in retinoblastoma. Methods: This was a retrospective, non-randomised comparative clinicopathological study. The histopathology from 24 cases [...]