Combining data-driven and domain knowledge components in an intelligent assistant to build personalized menus

In this paper, some new components that have been integrated in the Diet4You system for the generation of nutritional plans are introduced. Negative user preferences have been modelled and introduced in the system. Furthermore, the cultural eating styles originated from the location where the user lives have been taken into account dividing the original menu plan in sub-plans. Each sub-plan is in charge to optimize one of the meals of one day in the personal menu of the user. The main latent reasoning mechanism used is case-based reasoning, which reuses previous menu configurations according to the nutritional plan and the corresponding hard constraints and the user preferences to meet a personalized recommendation menu for a given user. It uses the cognitive analogical reasoning technique in addition to ontologies, nutritional databases and expert knowledge. The preliminary results with some examples of application to test the new contextual components have been very satisfactory according to the evaluation of the experts.This work has been partially supported by the project Diet4You (TIN2014-60557-R), the Spanish Thematic Network MAPAS [TIN2017-90567-REDT (MINECO/FEDER EU)], and the Consolidated Research Group Grant from AGAUR (Generalitat de Catalunya) IDEAI-UPC (AGAUR SGR2017-574).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Effect of Lockdown on Food Security during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines : Two Months after Implementation

The alarming presence of COVID-19 challenged the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 2 and made the World Health Organization (WHO) declare a public health emergency of international concern. Imposed lockdowns disrupted the supply and demand chain of the food systems, hence affecting food security. This research would like to know and assess the early effect (two months after the lockdown) of the enhanced community quarantine on food security in the Philippines. An online survey was employed participated by 331 household representatives using a survey instrument containing food security assessment, household socio- demographic characteristics, behavioral responses covering food purchase and consumption behavior, and emergency measure adoption. Statistical tests were applied: Mann-Whitney U test to know the behavioral response of the food secure vs. food insecure households, as well as the phi coefficient and Cramer’s V test to determine and assess the parameters that plays important role in food security during this period. Results showed that 73% of the respondents were food insecure. The early effect of the lockdown was seen in the behavioral responses, significant differences between food secure and insecure households were found in age, income, and food purchase behavior. Parameters associated with food security are age, income, food allocation, expectations on the livelihood impact and change in expenditure, and the adoption motivations in practicing backyard gardening. The stress evaluation revealed that while Filipinos tried to cope, an increased level of anxiety was experienced. The need for clear measures in terms of preparedness in any pandemic situation was heightened. These findings are significant in providing benchmark information on food security during a pandemic

Measurement of ISR-FSR interference in the processes e+ e- --> mu+ mu- gamma and e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma

Charge asymmetry in processes e+ e- --> mu+ mu- gamma and e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma is measured using 232 fb-1 of data collected with the BABAR detector at center-of-mass energies near 10.58 GeV. An observable is introduced and shown to be very robust against detector asymmetries while keeping a large sensitivity to the physical charge asymmetry that results from the interference between initial and final state radiation. The asymmetry is determined as afunction of the invariant mass of the final-state tracks from production threshold to a few GeV/c2. It is compared to the expectation from QED for e+ e- --> mu+ mu- gamma and from theoretical models for e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma. A clear interference pattern is observed in e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma, particularly in the vicinity of the f_2(1270) resonance. The inferred rate of lowest order FSR production is consistent with the QED expectation for e+ e- --> mu+ mu- gamma, and is negligibly small for e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma.Comment: 32 pages,29 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev.

Branching fraction and form-factor shape measurements of exclusive charmless semileptonic B decays, and determination of |V_{ub}|

We report the results of a study of the exclusive charmless semileptonic decays, B^0 --> pi^- l^+ nu, B^+ --> pi^0 l^+ nu, B^+ --> omega l^+ nu, B^+ --> eta l^+ nu and B^+ --> eta^' l^+ nu, (l = e or mu) undertaken with approximately 462x10^6 B\bar{B} pairs collected at the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector. The analysis uses events in which the signal B decays are reconstructed with a loose neutrino reconstruction technique. We obtain partial branching fractions in several bins of q^2, the square of the momentum transferred to the lepton-neutrino pair, for B^0 --> pi^- l^+ nu, B^+ --> pi^0 l^+ nu, B^+ --> omega l^+ nu and B^+ --> eta l^+ nu. From these distributions, we extract the form-factor shapes f_+(q^2) and the total branching fractions BF(B^0 --> pi^- l^+ nu) = (1.45 +/- 0.04_{stat} +/- 0.06_{syst})x10^-4 (combined pi^- and pi^0 decay channels assuming isospin symmetry), BF(B^+ --> omega l^+ nu) = (1.19 +/- 0.16_{stat} +/- 0.09_{syst})x10^-4 and BF(B^+ --> eta l^+ nu) = (0.38 +/- 0.05_{stat} +/- 0.05_{syst})x10^-4. We also measure BF(B^+ --> eta^' l^+ nu) = (0.24 +/- 0.08_{stat} +/- 0.03_{syst})x10^-4. We obtain values for the magnitude of the CKM matrix element V_{ub} by direct comparison with three different QCD calculations in restricted q^2 ranges of B --> pi l^+ nu decays. From a simultaneous fit to the experimental data over the full q^2 range and the FNAL/MILC lattice QCD predictions, we obtain |V_{ub}| = (3.25 +/- 0.31)x10^-3, where the error is the combined experimental and theoretical uncertainty.Comment: 35 pages, 14 figures, submitted to PR

Observation of time-reversal violation in the B0 meson system

The individually named authors work collectively as The BABAR Collaboration. Copyright @ 2012 American Physical Society.Although CP violation in the B meson system has been well established by the B factories, there has been no direct observation of time-reversal violation. The decays of entangled neutral B mesons into definite flavor states (B0 or B¯¯¯0), and J/ψK0L or cc¯K0S final states (referred to as B+ or B−), allow comparisons between the probabilities of four pairs of T-conjugated transitions, for example, B¯¯¯0→B− and B−→B¯¯¯0, as a function of the time difference between the two B decays. Using 468×106 BB¯¯¯ pairs produced in Υ(4S) decays collected by the BABAR detector at SLAC, we measure T-violating parameters in the time evolution of neutral B mesons, yielding ΔS+T=−1.37±0.14(stat)±0.06(syst) and ΔS−T=1.17±0.18(stat)±0.11(syst). These nonzero results represent the first direct observation of T violation through the exchange of initial and final states in transitions that can only be connected by a T-symmetry transformation.DOE and NSF (USA), NSERC (Canada), CEA and CNRS-IN2P3 (France), BMBF and DFG(Germany), INFN (Italy), FOM (The Netherlands), NFR (Norway), MES (Russia), MINECO (Spain), STFC (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the Marie Curie EIF (European Union), the A. P. Sloan Foundation (USA) and the Binational Science Foundation (USA-Israel)

Time-integrated luminosity recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e+e- collider

This article is the Preprint version of the final published artcile which can be accessed at the link below.We describe a measurement of the time-integrated luminosity of the data collected by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- collider at the ϒ(4S), ϒ(3S), and ϒ(2S) resonances and in a continuum region below each resonance. We measure the time-integrated luminosity by counting e+e-→e+e- and (for the ϒ(4S) only) e+e-→μ+μ- candidate events, allowing additional photons in the final state. We use data-corrected simulation to determine the cross-sections and reconstruction efficiencies for these processes, as well as the major backgrounds. Due to the large cross-sections of e+e-→e+e- and e+e-→μ+μ-, the statistical uncertainties of the measurement are substantially smaller than the systematic uncertainties. The dominant systematic uncertainties are due to observed differences between data and simulation, as well as uncertainties on the cross-sections. For data collected on the ϒ(3S) and ϒ(2S) resonances, an additional uncertainty arises due to ϒ→e+e-X background. For data collected off the ϒ resonances, we estimate an additional uncertainty due to time dependent efficiency variations, which can affect the short off-resonance runs. The relative uncertainties on the luminosities of the on-resonance (off-resonance) samples are 0.43% (0.43%) for the ϒ(4S), 0.58% (0.72%) for the ϒ(3S), and 0.68% (0.88%) for the ϒ(2S).This work is supported by the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physiquedes Particules (France), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (The Netherlands), the Research Council of Norway, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie IEF program (European Union) and the A.P. Sloan Foundation (USA)

The Vallecas Project: a cohort to identify early markers and mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a major threat for the well-being of an increasingly aged world population. The physiopathological mechanisms of late-onset AD are multiple, possibly heterogeneous, and not well understood. Different combinations of variables from several domains (i.e., clinical, neuropsychological, structural, and biochemical markers) may predict dementia conversion, according to distinct physiopathological pathways, in different groups of subjects

Search for a light Higgs resonance in radiative decays of the ϒ(1S) with a charm tag

A search is presented for the decay ϒ(1S)→γA[superscript 0], A[superscript 0] → c[bar over c], where A[superscript 0] is a candidate for the CP-odd Higgs boson of the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model. The search is based on data collected with the BABAR detector at the ϒ(2S) resonance. A sample of ϒ(1S) mesons is selected via the decay ϒ(2S) → π[superscript +]π[superscript -]ϒ(1S). The A[superscript 0] → c[bar over c] decay is identified through the reconstruction of hadronic D[superscript 0], D[superscript +], and D[superscript *](2010)[superscript +] meson decays. No significant signal is observed. The measured 90% confidence-level upper limits on the product branching fraction B(ϒ(1S) → γA[superscript 0]) × B(A[superscript 0] → c[bar over c]) range from 7.4 × 10[superscript -5] to 2.4 × 10[superscript -3] for A[superscript 0] masses from 4.00 to 8.95  GeV/c[superscript 2] and 9.10 to 9.25  GeV/c[superscript 2], where the region between 8.95 and 9.10  GeV/c[superscript 2] is excluded because of background from ϒ(2S) → γχ[subscript bJ](1P), χ[subscript bJ](1P) → γϒ(1S) decays.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)United States-Israel Binational Science FoundationAlfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Bottomonium spectroscopy and radiative transitions involving the chi(bJ)(1P, 2P) states at BABAR

We use (121 +/- 1) million Upsilon(3S) and (98 +/- 1) million Upsilon(2S) mesons recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e(+)e(-) collider at SLAC to perform a study of radiative transitions involving the chi(bJ)(1P, 2P) states in exclusive decays with mu(+)mu(-)gamma gamma final states. We reconstruct twelve channels in four cascades using two complementary methods. In the first we identify both signal photon candidates in the electromagnetic calorimeter (EMC), employ a calorimeter timing-based technique to reduce backgrounds, and determine branching-ratio products and fine mass splittings. These results include the best observational significance yet for the chi(b0)(2P) -> gamma Upsilon(2S) and chi(b0)(1P) -> gamma Upsilon(1S) transitions. In the second method, we identify one photon candidate in the EMC and one which has converted into an e(+)e(-) pair due to interaction with detector material, and we measure absolute product branching fractions. This method is particularly useful for measuring Upsilon(3S) -> gamma chi(b1,2)(1P) decays. Additionally, we provide the most up-to-date derived branching fractions, matrix elements and mass splittings for chi(b) transitions in the bottomonium system. Using a new technique, we also measure the two lowest-order spin-dependent coefficients in the nonrelativistic QCD Hamiltonian

Measurement of Collins asymmetries in inclusive production of charged pion pairs in e(+)e(-) annihilation at BABAR

We present measurements of Collins asymmetries in the inclusive process e(+)e(-) -> pi pi X, where p stands for charged pions, at a center-of-mass energy of 10.6 GeV. We use a data sample of 468 fb(-1) collected by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II B factory at SLAC, and consider pairs of charged pions produced in opposite hemispheres of hadronic events. We observe clear asymmetries in the distributions of the azimuthal angles in two distinct reference frames. We study the dependence of the asymmetry on several kinematic variables, finding that it increases with increasing pion momentum and momentum transverse to the analysis axis, and with increasing angle between the thrust and beam axis