A comparison of SNPs and microsatellites as linkage mapping markers: lessons from the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata)

Background: Genetic linkage maps are essential tools when searching for quantitative trait loci (QTL). To maximize genome coverage and provide an evenly spaced marker distribution a combination of different types of genetic marker are sometimes used. In this study we created linkage maps of four zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) chromosomes (1, 1A, 2 and 9) using two types of marker, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and microsatellites. To assess the effectiveness and accuracy of each kind of marker we compared maps built with each marker type separately and with both types of marker combined. Linkage map marker order was validated by making comparisons to the assembled zebra finch genome sequence. Results: We showed that marker order was less reliable and linkage map lengths were inflated for microsatellite maps relative to SNP maps, apparently due to differing error rates between the two types of marker. Guidelines on how to minimise the effects of error are provided. In particular, we show that when combining both types of marker the conventional process of building linkage maps, whereby the most informative markers are added to the map first, has to be modified in order to improve map accuracy. Conclusions: When using multiple types and large numbers of markers to create dense linkage maps, the least error prone loci (SNPs) rather than the most informative should be used to create framework maps before the addition of other potentially more error prone markers (microsatellites). This raises questions about the accuracy of marker order and predicted recombination rates in previous microsatellite linkage maps which were created using the conventional building process, however, provided suitable error detection strategies are followed microsatellite-based maps can continue to be regarded as reasonably reliable

Empirical Study of Effect of Deregulation, Competition, and Contents on Mobile Phone Diffusion: Case of the Japanese 3G Market

The Japanese mobile market has recently shown a remarkable growth in the last decade, with more than 106.2 million 3G (3rd Generation, or W-CDMA) subscribers and 4.4 million 2G (2nd Generation, or PDC) as of December 2009. This paper attempts to analyze factors promoting Japanese mobile phone, focusing on 3G technologies. Factors promoting it can be summarized as follows: (1) deregulations by government, such as MNP (Mobile Number Portability) and collocation; (2) competition among carriers, such as introduction of new charge plans; (3) technological development, such as connection speed; and (4) contents and applications. This paper utilizes the panel data of three main carriers of the mobile phone market, namely, NTTdocomo, au (KDDI), and Softbank. As for a model for estimation, we apply that of Madden and Coble-Neal [2004] which studied the relationship between fixed and mobile phone with the panel data by the dynamic random effects estimation. Dynamic models are based not only on the assumption such that carriers do not instantaneously adjust to satisfy their long-term demand but also on network externalities. Besides, the paper applies a dynamic panel data model in order to take care of the endogeneity problem. This paper deals with this problem rigorously by applying Arellano-Bond estimator (Arellano and Bond [1991] and Arellano and Bover [1995]) which estimates exogeneous or predetermined variables, in addition to instrumental variables, using the two-step generalized method of moments (GMM). Based on this framework, this paper identifies service innovations such as entertainment, flat rate charges are found significant for the 3G mobile phone diffusion. --dynamic panel data analysis,competition policy,network externalities,endogeneity,m-commerce,e-entertainment,MNP

Context-awareness for mobile sensing: a survey and future directions

The evolution of smartphones together with increasing computational power have empowered developers to create innovative context-aware applications for recognizing user related social and cognitive activities in any situation and at any location. The existence and awareness of the context provides the capability of being conscious of physical environments or situations around mobile device users. This allows network services to respond proactively and intelligently based on such awareness. The key idea behind context-aware applications is to encourage users to collect, analyze and share local sensory knowledge in the purpose for a large scale community use by creating a smart network. The desired network is capable of making autonomous logical decisions to actuate environmental objects, and also assist individuals. However, many open challenges remain, which are mostly arisen due to the middleware services provided in mobile devices have limited resources in terms of power, memory and bandwidth. Thus, it becomes critically important to study how the drawbacks can be elaborated and resolved, and at the same time better understand the opportunities for the research community to contribute to the context-awareness. To this end, this paper surveys the literature over the period of 1991-2014 from the emerging concepts to applications of context-awareness in mobile platforms by providing up-to-date research and future research directions. Moreover, it points out the challenges faced in this regard and enlighten them by proposing possible solutions

QCDGPU: open-source package for Monte Carlo lattice simulations on OpenCL-compatible multi-GPU systems

The multi-GPU open-source package QCDGPU for lattice Monte Carlo simulations of pure SU(N) gluodynamics in external magnetic field at finite temperature and O(N) model is developed. The code is implemented in OpenCL, tested on AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, AMD and Intel CPUs and may run on other OpenCL-compatible devices. The package contains minimal external library dependencies and is OS platform-independent. It is optimized for heterogeneous computing due to the possibility of dividing the lattice into non-equivalent parts to hide the difference in performances of the devices used. QCDGPU has client-server part for distributed simulations. The package is designed to produce lattice gauge configurations as well as to analyze previously generated ones. QCDGPU may be executed in fault-tolerant mode. Monte Carlo procedure core is based on PRNGCL library for pseudo-random numbers generation on OpenCL-compatible devices, which contains several most popular pseudo-random number generators.Comment: Presented at the Third International Conference "High Performance Computing" (HPC-UA 2013), Kyiv, Ukraine; 9 pages, 2 figure

A (49,16,3,6) strongly regular graph does not exist

Graphs;mathematics

An Evaluation Framework for Comparative Analysis of Generalized Stochastic Petri Net Simulation Techniques

Availability of a common, shared benchmark to provide repeatable, quantifiable, and comparable results is an added value for any scientific community. International consortia provide benchmarks in a wide range of domains, being normally used by industry, vendors, and researchers for evaluating their software products. In this regard, a benchmark of untimed Petri net models was developed to be used in a yearly software competition driven by the Petri net community. However, to the best of our knowledge there is not a similar benchmark to evaluate solution techniques for Petri nets with timing extensions. In this paper, we propose an evaluation framework for the comparative analysis of generalized stochastic Petri nets (GSPNs) simulation techniques. Although we focus on simulation techniques, our framework provides a baseline for a comparative analysis of different GSPN solvers (e.g., simulators, numerical solvers, or other techniques). The evaluation framework encompasses a set of 50 GSPN models including test cases and case studies from the literature, and a set of evaluation guidelines for the comparative analysis. In order to show the applicability of the proposed framework, we carry out a comparative analysis of steady-state simulators implemented in three academic software tools, namely, GreatSPN, PeabraiN, and TimeNET. The results allow us to validate the trustfulness of these academic software tools, as well as to point out potential problems and algorithmic optimization opportunities

Ernst Denert Award for Software Engineering 2019

This open access book provides an overview of the dissertations of the five nominees for the Ernst Denert Award for Software Engineering in 2019. The prize, kindly sponsored by the Gerlind & Ernst Denert Stiftung, is awarded for excellent work within the discipline of Software Engineering, which includes methods, tools and procedures for better and efficient development of high quality software. An essential requirement for the nominated work is its applicability and usability in industrial practice. The book contains five papers describing the works by Sebastian Baltes (U Trier) on Software Developers’Work Habits and Expertise, Timo Greifenberg’s thesis on Artefaktbasierte Analyse modellgetriebener Softwareentwicklungsprojekte, Marco Konersmann’s (U Duisburg-Essen) work on Explicitly Integrated Architecture, Marija Selakovic’s (TU Darmstadt) research about Actionable Program Analyses for Improving Software Performance, and Johannes Späth’s (Paderborn U) thesis on Synchronized Pushdown Systems for Pointer and Data-Flow Analysis – which actually won the award. The chapters describe key findings of the respective works, show their relevance and applicability to practice and industrial software engineering projects, and provide additional information and findings that have only been discovered afterwards, e.g. when applying the results in industry. This way, the book is not only interesting to other researchers, but also to industrial software professionals who would like to learn about the application of state-of-the-art methods in their daily work