1,610 research outputs found
Leave-one-out prediction error of systolic arterial pressure time series under paced breathing
In this paper we show that different physiological states and pathological
conditions may be characterized in terms of predictability of time series
signals from the underlying biological system. In particular we consider
systolic arterial pressure time series from healthy subjects and Chronic Heart
Failure patients, undergoing paced respiration. We model time series by the
regularized least squares approach and quantify predictability by the
leave-one-out error. We find that the entrainment mechanism connected to paced
breath, that renders the arterial blood pressure signal more regular, thus more
predictable, is less effective in patients, and this effect correlates with the
seriousness of the heart failure. The leave-one-out error separates controls
from patients and, when all orders of nonlinearity are taken into account,
alive patients from patients for which cardiac death occurred
A comparative study of Gaussian Graphical Model approaches for genomic data
The inference of networks of dependencies by Gaussian Graphical models on
high-throughput data is an open issue in modern molecular biology. In this
paper we provide a comparative study of three methods to obtain small sample
and high dimension estimates of partial correlation coefficients: the
Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse (PINV), residual correlation (RCM) and
covariance-regularized method . We first compare them on simulated
datasets and we find that PINV is less stable in terms of AUC performance when
the number of variables changes. The two regularized methods have comparable
performances but is much faster than RCM. Finally, we present the
results of an application of for the inference of a gene network
for isoprenoid biosynthesis pathways in Arabidopsis thaliana.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, RevTex4, version to appear in the proceedings of
1st International Workshop on Pattern Recognition, Proteomics, Structural
Biology and Bioinformatics: PR PS BB 2011, Ravenna, Italy, 13 September 201
Dynamic rotor mode in antiferromagnetic nanoparticles
We present experimental, numerical, and theoretical evidence for a new mode
of antiferromagnetic dynamics in nanoparticles. Elastic neutron scattering
experiments on 8 nm particles of hematite display a loss of diffraction
intensity with temperature, the intensity vanishing around 150 K. However, the
signal from inelastic neutron scattering remains above that temperature,
indicating a magnetic system in constant motion. In addition, the precession
frequency of the inelastic magnetic signal shows an increase above 100 K.
Numerical Langevin simulations of spin dynamics reproduce all measured neutron
data and reveal that thermally activated spin canting gives rise to a new type
of coherent magnetic precession mode. This "rotor" mode can be seen as a
high-temperature version of superparamagnetism and is driven by exchange
interactions between the two magnetic sublattices. The frequency of the rotor
mode behaves in fair agreement with a simple analytical model, based on a high
temperature approximation of the generally accepted Hamiltonian of the system.
The extracted model parameters, as the magnetic interaction and the axial
anisotropy, are in excellent agreement with results from Mossbauer
spectroscopy
A locally quadratic Glimm functional and sharp convergence rate of the Glimm scheme for nonlinear hyperbolic systems
Consider the Cauchy problem for a strictly hyperbolic,
quasilinear system in one space dimension u_t+A(u) u_x=0,\qquad u(0,x)=\bar
u(x), \eqno (1) where is a smooth matrix-valued map, and
the initial data is assumed to have small total variation. We
investigate the rate of convergence of approximate solutions of (1) constructed
by the Glimm scheme, under the assumption that, letting ,
denote the -th eigenvalue and a corresponding eigenvector of
, respectively, for each -th characteristic family the linearly
degenerate manifold is either the whole space, or it is empty, or it consists of
a finite number of smooth, -dimensional, connected, manifolds that are
transversal to the characteristic vector field . We introduce a Glimm type
functional which is the sum of the cubic interaction potential defined in
\cite{sie}, and of a quadratic term that takes into account interactions of
waves of the same family with strength smaller than some fixed threshold
parameter. Relying on an adapted wave tracing method, and on the decrease
amount of such a functional, we obtain the same type of error estimates valid
for Glimm approximate solutions of hyperbolic systems satisfying the classical
Lax assumptions of genuine nonlinearity or linear degeneracy of the
characteristic families.Comment: To appear on Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysi
Nonlinear hyperbolic systems: Non-degenerate flux, inner speed variation, and graph solutions
We study the Cauchy problem for general, nonlinear, strictly hyperbolic
systems of partial differential equations in one space variable. First, we
re-visit the construction of the solution to the Riemann problem and introduce
the notion of a nondegenerate (ND) system. This is the optimal condition
guaranteeing, as we show it, that the Riemann problem can be solved with
finitely many waves, only; we establish that the ND condition is generic in the
sense of Baire (for the Whitney topology), so that any system can be approached
by a ND system. Second, we introduce the concept of inner speed variation and
we derive new interaction estimates on wave speeds. Third, we design a wave
front tracking scheme and establish its strong convergence to the entropy
solution of the Cauchy problem; this provides a new existence proof as well as
an approximation algorithm. As an application, we investigate the
time-regularity of the graph solutions introduced by the second author,
and propose a geometric version of our scheme; in turn, the spatial component
of a graph solution can be chosen to be continuous in both time and space,
while its component is continuous in space and has bounded variation in
time.Comment: 74 page
Micropropagation supports reintroduction of an apulian artichoke landrace in sustainable cropping systems
Artichoke (Cynara cardunculus L. var. scolymus (L.) Fiori) is a perennial plant of the Aster-aceae’s family native to the Mediterranean basin. Italy has rich artichoke biodiversity, but many landraces are subjected to genetic erosion caused by increasing use of commercial varieties that are more homogenous in production. An Apulian landrace ‘Troianella’ was established in vitro to valorize and provide high-quality material for propagation in nurseries and, subsequently, for cultivation in production fields. The shoot proliferation was tested on four different growth media, adding cytokinin (-6-benzylamminopurine (BAP-0.05 mg L−1 ). Among these, the best results were achieved on MS519-A and BM media in which MS macronutrients were supplemented with additional doses of CaCl2 and MgSO4 (plus 120 mg L−1 and 190 mg L−1, respectively). In vitro root induction was obtained with 10 mg L−1 of Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and 30 g L−1 of sucrose. Plants derived from tissue culture were acclimatized in greenhouse using mycorrhizal symbiosis to increase survival during the acclimatization phase and to improve their performance after transplanting in field. Three arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi (Septoglomus viscosum, Funelliformis mosseae, and Symbivit, a commercial mix) were added to a sterile substrate and compared to a sterile control without any AM fungal inocula. After 3 months, the best growth and plant appearance were on substrates with S. viscosum fungus or the commercial mycorrhizal fungi mix. The results supported a development of an efficient micropropagation protocol and a production of high quality plant material for sustainable farming of the endangered ’Troianella’ landrace
Role of surgical setting and patients-related factors in predicting the occurrence of postoperative pulmonary complications after abdominal surgery
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the role of surgical setting (urgent vs. elective) and approach (open vs. laparoscopic) in affecting postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) prevalence in patients undergoing abdominal surgery.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: After local Ethical Committee approval, 409 patients who had undergone abdominal surgery between January and December 2014 were included in the final analysis. PPCs were defined as the development of one of the following new findings: respiratory failure, pulmonary infection, aspiration pneumonia, pleural effusion, pneumothorax, atelectasis on chest X-ray, bronchospasm or un-planned urgent re-intubation.
RESULTS: PPCs prevalence was greater in urgent (33%) vs. elective setting (7%) (chi(2) with Yates correction: 44; p=0.0001) and in open (6%) vs. laparoscopic approach (1.9%) (chi(2) with Yates correction: 12; p=0.0006). PPCs occurrence was positively correlated with in-hospital mortality (Biserial Correlation r=0.37; p=0.0001). Logistic regression showed that urgent setting (p=0.000), Ariscat (Assess Respiratory Risk in Surgical Patients in Catalonia) score (p=0.004), and age (p=0.01) were predictors of PPCs. A cutoff of 23 for Ariscat score was also identified as determining factor for PPCs occurrence with 94% sensitivity and 29% specificity.
CONCLUSIONS: Patients undergoing abdominal surgery in an urgent setting were exposed to a higher risk of PPCs compared to patients scheduled for elective procedures. Ariscat score fitted with PPCs prevalence and older patients were exposed to a higher risk of PPCs. Prospective studies are needed to confirm these result
Quadratic interaction functional for general systems of conservation laws
For the Glimm scheme approximation u_\e to the solution of the system of conservation laws in one space dimension
\begin{equation*}
u_t + f(u)_x = 0, \qquad u(0,x) = u_0(x) \in \R^n,
\end{equation*}
with initial data with small total variation, we prove a quadratic (w.r.t. \TV(u_0)) interaction estimate, which has been used in the literature for stability and convergence results. No assumptions on the structure of the flux are made (apart smoothness), and this estimate is the natural extension of the Glimm type interaction estimate for genuinely nonlinear systems.
More precisely we obtain the following results:
\begin{itemize}
\item a new analysis of the interaction estimates of simple waves;
\item a Lagrangian representation of the derivative of the solution, i.e. a map which follows the trajectory of each wave from its creation to its cancellation;
\item the introduction of the characteristic interval and partition for couples of waves, representing the common history of the two waves;
\item a new functional controlling the variation in speed of the waves w.r.t. time.
\end{itemize}
This last functional is the natural extension of the Glimm functional for genuinely nonlinear systems.
The main result is that the distribution is a measure with total mass \leq \const \TV(u_0)^2
High speed laser drilling of metals using a high repetition rate, high average power ultrafast fiber CPA system
We present an experimental study on the drilling of metal targets with ultrashort laser pulses at high repetition rates (from 50 kHz up to 975 kHz) and high average powers (up to 68 Watts), using an ytterbium-doped fiber CPA system. The number of pulses to drill through steel and copper sheets with thicknesses up to 1 mm have been measured as a function of the repetition rate and the pulse energy. Two distinctive effects, influencing the drilling efficiency at high repetition rates, have been experimentally found and studied: particle shielding and heat accumulation. While the shielding of subsequent pulses due to the ejected particles leads to a reduced ablation efficiency, this effect is counteracted by heat accumulation. The experimental data are in good qualitative agreement with simulations of the heat accumulation effect and previous studies on the particle emission. However, for materials with a high thermal conductivity as copper, both effects are negligible for the investigated processing parameters. Therefore, the full power of the fiber CPA system can be exploited, which allows to trepan high-quality holes in 0.5mm-thick copper samples with breakthrough times as low as 75 ms. © 2008 Optical Society of America
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