Shallow landslides represent potentially damaging processes in mountain areas worldwide. These geomorphic processes are usually caused by an interplay of predisposing, preparatory, and triggering environmental factors. At regional scales, data-driven methods have been used to model shallow landslides by addressing the spatial and temporal components separately.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate change can alter the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall across the globe, leading to changes in hazards posed by rainfall-induced landslides. In recent decades, China suffered great human and economic losses due to rainfall-induced landslides. However, how the landslide hazard situation will evolve in the future is still unclear, also because of sparse comprehensive evaluations of potential changes in landslide susceptibility and landslide occurrence frequency under climate change.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFData-driven landslide susceptibility models formally integrate spatial landslide information with explanatory environmental variables that describe predisposing factors of slope instability. Well-performing models are commonly utilized to identify landslide-prone terrain or to understand the causes of slope instability. In most cases, however, the available landslide data is affected by spatial biases (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Multi-Parameter Wireless Sensing (MPwise) system is an innovative instrumental design that allows different sensor types to be combined with relatively high-performance computing and communications components. These units, which incorporate off-the-shelf components, can undertake complex information integration and processing tasks at the individual unit or node level (when used in a network), allowing the establishment of networks that are linked by advanced, robust and rapid communications routing and network topologies. The system (and its predecessors) was originally designed for earthquake risk mitigation, including earthquake early warning (EEW), rapid response actions, structural health monitoring, and site-effect characterization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBacterial biofilm development is a serious problem in many fields, and the existing biofilm monitoring sensors often turn out to be inadequate. In this perspective, a new sensor (ALVIM) has been developed, exploiting the natural marine and freshwater biofilms electrochemical activity, proportional to surface covering. The results presented in this work, obtained testing the ALVIM system both in laboratory and in an industrial environment, show that the sensor gives a fast and accurate response to biofilm growth, and that this response can be used to optimize cleaning treatments inside pipelines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we investigated the possibility to improve a new behavioural bioassay (Swimming Speed Alteration test-SSA test) using larvae of marine cyst-forming organisms: e.g. the brine shrimp Artemia sp.
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