Modeling Taxi Drivers' Behaviour for the Next Destination Prediction

In this paper, we study how to model taxi drivers' behaviour and geographical information for an interesting and challenging task: the next destination prediction in a taxi journey. Predicting the next location is a well studied problem in human mobility, which finds several applications in real-world scenarios, from optimizing the efficiency of electronic dispatching systems to predicting and reducing the traffic jam. This task is normally modeled as a multiclass classification problem, where the goal is to select, among a set of already known locations, the next taxi destination. We present a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) approach that models the taxi drivers' behaviour and encodes the semantics of visited locations by using geographical information from Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs). In particular, RNNs are trained to predict the exact coordinates of the next destination, overcoming the problem of producing, in output, a limited set of locations, seen during the training phase. The proposed approach was tested on the ECML/PKDD Discovery Challenge 2015 dataset - based on the city of Porto -, obtaining better results with respect to the competition winner, whilst using less information, and on Manhattan and San Francisco datasets.Comment: preprint version of a paper submitted to IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation System

Some resonances between Eastern thought and Integral Biomathics in the framework of the WLIMES formalism for modelling living systems

Forty-two years ago, Capra published “The Tao of Physics” (Capra, 1975). In this book (page 17) he writes: “The exploration of the atomic and subatomic world in the twentieth century has …. necessitated a radical revision of many of our basic concepts” and that, unlike ‘classical’ physics, the sub-atomic and quantum “modern physics” shows resonances with Eastern thoughts and “leads us to a view of the world which is very similar to the views held by mystics of all ages and traditions.“ This article stresses an analogous situation in biology with respect to a new theoretical approach for studying living systems, Integral Biomathics (IB), which also exhibits some resonances with Eastern thought. Stepping on earlier research in cybernetics1 and theoretical biology,2 IB has been developed since 2011 by over 100 scientists from a number of disciplines who have been exploring a substantial set of theoretical frameworks. From that effort, the need for a robust core model utilizing advanced mathematics and computation adequate for understanding the behavior of organisms as dynamic wholes was identified. At this end, the authors of this article have proposed WLIMES (Ehresmann and Simeonov, 2012), a formal theory for modeling living systems integrating both the Memory Evolutive Systems (Ehresmann and Vanbremeersch, 2007) and the Wandering Logic Intelligence (Simeonov, 2002b). Its principles will be recalled here with respect to their resonances to Eastern thought

The Long Haul: Risks Associated with Livestock Transport

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations describes live animal transport as “ideally suited for spreading disease,” given that animals may originate from different herds or flocks and are “confined together for long periods in a poorly ventilated stressful environment.” Given the associated “serious animal and public health problems,” the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe has called for the replacement of the long-distance transportation of live animals for slaughter as much as possible to a “carcass-only trade.” In the United States, more than 50 million live cattle, sheep, and pigs and an unknown number of the more than 9 billion chickens, turkeys, and other birds raised for food are annually traded across state lines. Before they are slaughtered, U.S. livestock may travel an average of 1,000 miles. These factors and activities may have undesirable animal and public health implications

Primary and metastatic peritoneal surface malignancies

Peritoneal surface malignancies comprise a heterogeneous group of primary tumours, including peritoneal mesothelioma, and peritoneal metastases of other tumours, including ovarian, gastric, colorectal, appendicular or pancreatic cancers. The pathophysiology of peritoneal malignancy is complex and not fully understood. The two main hypotheses are the transformation of mesothelial cells (peritoneal primary tumour) and shedding of cells from a primary tumour with implantation of cells in the peritoneal cavity (peritoneal metastasis). Diagnosis is challenging and often requires modern imaging and interventional techniques, including surgical exploration. In the past decade, new treatments and multimodal strategies helped to improve patient survival and quality of life and the premise that peritoneal malignancies are fatal diseases has been dismissed as management strategies, including complete cytoreductive surgery embedded in perioperative systemic chemotherapy, can provide cure in selected patients. Furthermore, intraperitoneal chemotherapy has become an important part of combination treatments. Improving locoregional treatment delivery to enhance penetration to tumour nodules and reduce systemic uptake is one of the most active research areas. The current main challenges involve not only offering the best treatment option and developing intraperitoneal therapies that are equivalent to current systemic therapies but also defining the optimal treatment sequence according to primary tumour, disease extent and patient preferences. New imaging modalities, less invasive surgery, nanomedicines and targeted therapies are the basis for a new era of intraperitoneal therapy and are beginning to show encouraging outcomes

Integrating phenotypes and endotypes in chronic rhinosinusitis: a combined clinical and experimental approach.

Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) represents a hot and debated topic in rhinology because of its high prevalence, heterogeneity of clinical manifestations and unpredictability of disease course. The quite recent dichotomic classification of CRS with and without nasal polyps has proved to be too simplistic to fully explain CRS manifestations and the underlying pathogenetic mechanisms. Being either the same phenotype expression of substantially different pathogenic mechanisms or different phenotypes the expression of the same mechanism, a one-size-fit-all therapeutic approach turned out to be insufficient in a non-negligible proportion of patients. Moreover, considering the attempt of giving a classification cut at a biomolecular level, a diagnostic and prognostic approach exclusively limited to subjective and objective clinical parameters is inevitably failing in many ways. However, to date no other more effective markers are available to monitor the trend of the disease. The fact of dealing with an apparently very frequent pathology responsible for a strong discomfort on the QoL and a substantial economic impact requires a diagnostic and therapeutic appropriateness for an adequate allocation of resources within the standards of precision medicine. The development of systems for a uniform archiving and sharing of the experiences of each rhinological center would enhance the efforts of the scientific community in defining integrated and targeted care pathways. The present thesis reports the results and the practical implications of three different experimental studies about the implementation of data storage and sharing systems, methods of analysis of therapeutic outcomes and inflammatory biomarkers in CRS

Epithelial barrier hypothesis: Effect of the external exposome on the microbiome and epithelial barriers in allergic disease

Environmental exposure plays a major role in the development of allergic diseases. The exposome can be classified into internal (e.g., aging, hormones, and metabolic processes), specific external (e.g., chemical pollutants or lifestyle factors), and general external (e.g., broader socioeconomic and psychological contexts) domains, all of which are interrelated. All the factors we are exposed to, from the moment of conception to death, are part of the external exposome. Several hundreds of thousands of new chemicals have been introduced in modern life without our having a full understanding of their toxic health effects and ways to mitigate these effects. Climate change, air pollution, microplastics, tobacco smoke, changes and loss of biodiversity, alterations in dietary habits, and the microbiome due to modernization, urbanization, and globalization constitute our surrounding environment and external exposome. Some of these factors disrupt the epithelial barriers of the skin and mucosal surfaces, and these disruptions have been linked in the last few decades to the increasing prevalence and severity of allergic and inflammatory diseases such as atopic dermatitis, food allergy, allergic rhinitis, chronic rhinosinusitis, eosinophilic esophagitis, and asthma. The epithelial barrier hypothesis provides a mechanistic explanation of how these factors can explain the rapid increase in allergic and autoimmune diseases. In this review, we discuss factors affecting the planet’s health in the context of the ‘epithelial barrier hypothesis,’ including climate change, pollution, changes and loss of biodiversity, and emphasize the changes in the external exposome in the last few decades and their effects on allergic diseases. In addition, the roles of increased dietary fatty acid consumption and environmental substances (detergents, airborne pollen, ozone, microplastics, nanoparticles, and tobacco) affecting epithelial barriers are discussed. Considering the emerging data from recent studies, we suggest stringent governmental regulations, global policy adjustments, patient education, and the establishment of individualized control measures to mitigate environmental threats and decrease allergic disease

Nanomedicine-based technologies and novel biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease from current to future challenges

Increasing life expectancy has led to an aging population, which has consequently increased the prevalence of dementia. Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of dementia worldwide, is estimated to make up 50--80% of all cases. AD cases are expected to reach 131 million by 2050, and this increasing prevalence will critically burden economies and health systems in the next decades. There is currently no treatment that can stop or reverse disease progression. In addition, the late diagnosis of AD constitutes a major obstacle to effective disease management. Therefore, improved diagnostic tools and new treatments for AD are urgently needed. In this review, we investigate and describe both well-established and recently discovered AD biomarkers that could potentially be used to detect AD at early stages and allow the monitoring of disease progression. Proteins such as NfL, MMPs, p-tau217, YKL-40, SNAP-25, VCAM-1, and Ng BACE are some of the most promising biomarkers because of their successful use as diagnostic tools. In addition, we explore the most recent molecular strategies for an AD therapeutic approach and nanomedicine-based technologies, used to both target drugs to the brain and serve as devices for tracking disease progression diagnostic biomarkers. State-of-the-art nanoparticles, such as polymeric, lipid, and metal-based, are being widely investigated for their potential to improve the effectiveness of both conventional drugs and novel compounds for treating AD. The most recent studies on these nanodevices are deeply explained and discussed in this review.Authors acknowledge the support of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) Accion Estrategica en Salud, integrated in the Spanish National R+D+I Plan and financed by ISCIII Subdireccion General de Evaluacion and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER "Una manera de hacer Europa") grant PI17/01474 awarded to Merce Boada and grant PI19/00335 awarded to Marta Marquie; Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (SAF201784283-R); Biomedical Research Networking Centre in Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIBERNED, CB06/05/0024); Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) for the strategic fund (UIDB/04469/2020) and European Regional Development Funds.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Bright and early : inhibiting human cytomegalovirus by targeting major immediate-early gene expression or protein function

Funding: UK Medical Research Council, grant number MR/P022146/1 (M.M.N.).The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), one of eight human herpesviruses, establishes lifelong latent infections in most people worldwide. Primary or reactivated HCMV infections cause severe disease in immunosuppressed patients and congenital defects in children. There is no vaccine for HCMV, and the currently approved antivirals come with major limitations. Most approved HCMV antivirals target late molecular processes in the viral replication cycle including DNA replication and packaging. “Bright and early” events in HCMV infection have not been exploited for systemic prevention or treatment of disease. Initiation of HCMV replication depends on transcription from the viral major immediate-early (IE) gene. Alternative transcripts produced from this gene give rise to the IE1 and IE2 families of viral proteins, which localize to the host cell nucleus.The IE1 and IE2 proteins are believed to control all subsequent early and late events in HCMV replication, including reactivation from latency, in part by antagonizing intrinsic and innate immune responses. Here we provide an update on the regulation of major IE gene expression and the functions of IE1 and IE2 proteins. We will relate this insight to experimental approaches that target IE gene expression or protein function via molecular gene silencing and editing or small chemical inhibitors.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe