Ricerc@Sapienza

Cysteine protease B (CPB) can be targeted by reversible covalent inhibitors that could serve as antileishmanial compounds. Here, sixteen dipeptidyl nitrile derivatives were synthesized, tested against CPB, and analyzed using matched molecular pairs to determine the effects of stereochemistry and p-phenyl substitution on enzyme inhibition. The compound (S)-2-(((S)-1-(4-bromophenyl)-2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)amino)-N-(1-cyanocyclopropyl)-3-phenylpropanamide (5) was the most potent CPB inhibitor (pKi = 6.82), which was also selective for human cathepsin B (pKi < 5).

This paper presents an automatic algorithm for mapping floods. Its main characteristic is that it can detect not only inundated bare soils, but also floodwater in urban areas. The synthetic aperture radar (SAR) observations of the flood that hit the city of Houston (Texas) following the landfall of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 are used to apply and validate the algorithm. The latter consists of a two-step approach that first uses the SAR data to identify buildings and then takes advantage of the Interferometric SAR coherence feature to detect the presence of floodwater in urbanized areas.

This work aims at defining applications, products and user requirements, as well as the hardware and ground processing design of a companion satellite mission which shall carry aboard a 'passive' radar working in tandem with the Argentinian L-band radar developed by CONAE and denoted as SAOCOM. The primary objective (i.e., science driver) of the SAOCOM companion satellite mission (SAOCOM-CS) is forest tomography, which will be carried out by exploiting small baselines between active and passive systems (order of km) changing with time.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate how the positions of the feeding sources of the transmit radiofrequency (RF) coil, field orientation direction with respect to the patient, and patient dimensions affect the global and local electromagnetic exposure in human body models. Methods: Three RF coil models were implemented, namely a specific two-source (S2) feed and two multisource feed configurations: generic 32-source (G32) and hybrid 16-source (H16). Thirty-two feeding conditions were studied for the S2, whereas two were studied for the G32 and H16.

Objective: This study investigated the influence of absorption metrics and averaging schemes on correlation between RF/microwave energy and induced temperature elevation for plane wave exposures. Methods: A voxel-based, anatomically realistic model of the human body was considered. Correlation of electromagnetic fields and temperature increases were evaluated at several frequencies. Both specific absorption rate (SAR) and volume absorption rate (VAR) were considered.