Axial Anomaly from the BPHZ regularized BV master equation

A BPHZ renormalized form for the master equation of the field antifiled (or BV) quantization has recently been proposed by De Jonghe, Paris and Troost. This framework was shown to be very powerful in calculating gauge anomalies. We show here that this equation can also be applied in order to calculate a global anomaly (anomalous divergence of a classically conserved Noether current), considering the case of QED. This way, the fundamental result about the anomalous contribution to the Axial Ward identity in standard QED (where there is no gauge anomaly) is reproduced in this BPHZ regularized BV framework.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, minor changes in the reference

A Semi-Supervised Self-Organizing Map with Adaptive Local Thresholds

In the recent years, there is a growing interest in semi-supervised learning, since, in many learning tasks, there is a plentiful supply of unlabeled data, but insufficient labeled ones. Hence, Semi-Supervised learning models can benefit from both types of data to improve the obtained performance. Also, it is important to develop methods that are easy to parameterize in a way that is robust to the different characteristics of the data at hand. This article presents a new method based on Self-Organizing Map (SOM) for clustering and classification, called Adaptive Local Thresholds Semi-Supervised Self-Organizing Map (ALTSS-SOM). It can dynamically switch between two forms of learning at training time, according to the availability of labels, as in previous models, and can automatically adjust itself to the local variance observed in each data cluster. The results show that the ALTSS-SOM surpass the performance of other semi-supervised methods in terms of classification, and other pure clustering methods when there are no labels available, being also less sensitive than previous methods to the parameters values

Mobile solutions in depression: Enhancing communication with patients using an SMS-based intervention

Mobile solutions, namely the ones based on the Short Message Service (SMS), can play an important role in enhancing communication with patients with depression, between consultations, allowing the delivery of supportive messages or reminders. This paper presents an overview on this topic and describes a 4-stage study aiming to better understand the mHealth scenario in depression, specifically regarding the use of messaging services. The four stages comprised: (i) a diagnosis of perspectives and practices; (ii) a 6-weeks SMS intervention plan; (iii) a prototype of a digital application to support patients' follow-up and interaction; (iv) and a survey with physicians on digital experience and predisposition to use the prototype. Results underline the potential of the use of messaging systems and digital solutions to improve communication with patients with depression and point the benefits of blended-interventions (combining personal contact and SMSs, as an adjunct/complement to regular treatment). Further researched is needed, particular regarding the adjustment of these solutions to specific target groups

A Semi-Supervised Self-Organizing Map for Clustering and Classification

There has been an increasing interest in semi-supervised learning in the recent years because of the great number of datasets with a large number of unlabeled data but only a few labeled samples. Semi-supervised learning algorithms can work with both types of data, combining them to obtain better performance for both clustering and classification. Also, these datasets commonly have a high number of dimensions. This article presents a new semi-supervised method based on self-organizing maps (SOMs) for clustering and classification, called Semi-Supervised Self-Organizing Map (SS-SOM). The method can dynamically switch between supervised and unsupervised learning during the training according to the availability of the class labels for each pattern. Our results show that the SS-SOM outperforms other semi-supervised methods in conditions in which there is a low amount of labeled samples, also achieving good results when all samples are labeled

Astmaatikon kokemuksia potilasohjauksesta

Astma on yleisimpiä kansantautejamme. Lääkehoitoa vaativista pitkäaikaisista sairauksista se on kolmanneksi yleisin verenpainetaudin ja sepelvaltimotaudin jälkeen. Lasten pitkäaikaissairauksista astma on yleisin. Valtakunnallisessa astmaohjelmassa esitetyn arvion mukaan vaikea-asteista astmaa sairastaa kaikista potilaista 20 %, keski-vaikeaa 20 % ja lievää astmaa 60 %. Opinnäytetyön nimi on astmaatikon kokemuksia potilasohjauksesta. Opinnäytetyömme toimeksiantaja on Kainuun maakunta-kuntayhtymän keuhkosairauksien poliklinikka. Opinnäytetyömme tarkoituksena oli kar-toittaa, miten kyselyyn osallistuvat astmaatikot ovat sitoutuneita omahoitoon. Tavoitteenamme oli selvittää, miten potilaat saavat keuhkosairauksien poliklinikalla ohjausta astman omahoitoon, olivatko potilaat saaneet ohjausta riittävästi ja mihin asioihin he olisivat halunneet saada enemmän tietoa ja ohjausta. Opinnäytteemme tutkimuksellinen lähestymistapa oli kvalitatiivinen tutkimusote. Opinnäytetyön aineiston ke-ruumenetelmänä käytimme kyselyä. Kysely muodostui avoimista kysymyksistä, joilla haluttiin selvittää astmaati-kon omahoitoon sitoutumista ja potilasohjauksen laatua ja kokemuksia potilasohjauksesta. Kerätty aineisto analysoitiin sisällön analyysin avulla. Tulokset esitettiin eri astman hoitoon sisältyvien teemojen ylä- ja alakategorioina. Kyselyyn vastasi 13 vastaajaa (n = 13). Tuloksista kävi ilmi, että kyselyyn osallistuneet astmaatikot olivat pääosin tyytyväisiä saamansa potilasohjaukseen keuhkosairauksien poliklinikalla. Osalla vastaajista on astman hoito omasta jaksamisesta kiinni. Osa vastaajista tietää ja ymmärtää astman hoidon merkityksen terveydelle. Opinnäytetyömme tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää keuhkosairauksien poliklinikalla hoitotyön käytäntöön. Opinnäytetyömme tulokset antavat tietoa miten astmaa sairastavan potilasohjausta ja sen sisältöä voidaan jatkossa kehittää. Tulokset antavat tietoa potilasohjauksen kehittämistarpeista. Jatkotutkimusaiheena olisi hyvä selvittää sairaanhoitajien kokemuksia astmaa sairastavan potilasohjauksesta keuhkosairauksien poliklinikalla. Opinnäytetyö prosessin kautta olemme vahvistaneet sairaanhoitajan työssä tarvittavaa tiedollista ja taidollista ja asenteista osaamista jota voimme hyödyntää astmaa sairastavan kokonaishoitoon ja ohjaukseen. Prosessin kautta olemme saaneet vahvistuksen sille, miten tärkeä on sairaanhoitajan asenne ja osaaminen potilasohjaukseen.Asthma is one of the most common national diseases. Amongst long term diseases requiring medical treatment it is the third most common after arterial hypertension and coronary artery diseases. Among Childhood long term diseases asthma is the most common. According to an estimate provided by a nationwide asthmas program 20 % of all asthma patients suffer from severe asthma, 20 % from mildly severe and 60 % suffer from slight asthma. The name of this thesis is an Asthma Patient’s Experiences of Supervision. The commissioner of the thesis was the Joint Authority of the Kainuu Region and our working – life supervisor was the Pulmonary Diseases Outpatients’ Department. The purpose of this thesis was to clarify by survey how the asthma patients involved were committed to care for their asthma. The aim was to clarify whether patients had been provided with sufficient instruction and supervision and in what issues did they require further knowledge and instruction. The investigational approach of this thesis was qualitative, using a survey to collect data. The survey con-sisted of open questions intending to clarify how asthma patients are committed to care for asthma and to establish the quality of patient instruction and how patients experienced instruction. The collected ma-terial was analyzed using qualitative contents analysis. The results were presented in super and sub categories in different themes related to the care of asthma. 13 respondents took part in the survey (n=13).The results indicated that patients were mainly satisfied with instruction received in the Pulmonary Diseases Outpatients’ Department. For some of the respondents, the care of their asthma depended on how they were coping generally. Others understood and were aware of the significance of caring for their asthma to their health. The results of the thesis provide information on how patient instruction and its contents can be developed in the future. In the future, it would be appropriate to research how nurses experience the instruction and supervision of asthma patients in the Pulmonary Diseases Outpatients’ Department. The thesis process has strengthened the knowledge and skill-based competence as well as attitudes required in nursing, which we can use in the care and instruction of asthma patients. The process has confirmed how important attitude and competence is in patient instruction

Neutron Scattering to Characterize Cu/Mg(Li) Destabilized Hydrogen Storage Materials

Cu-Li-Mg-(H,D) was studied as an example of destabilizer of the Ti-(H,D) system. A Cu-Li-Mg alloy was prepared resulting in the formation of a system with 60.5 at% of CuLi0.08Mg1.92, 23.9 at% of CuMg 2 and 15.6 at% of Cu2Mg. Titanium was added to a fraction of this mixture so that 68.2 at% (47.3 wt%) of the final mixture was Ti. The mixture was ground and kept at 200 °C/473 K for 7h under H2 or 9h under D2 at P = 34 bar. Under those conditions, neutron powder diffraction shows the formation of TiD2, as well as of the deuteride of CuLi0.08Mg1.92. Similarly inelastic neutron scattering shows that at 10 K TiH2 is present in the sample, together with the hydride of CuLi0.08Mg1.92. Interestingly, at 10 K TiH 2 is very clearly detected and at 300 K TiH2 is still clearly present as indicated by the neutron vibrational spectrum, but CuLi 0.08Mg1.92-H is not detected anymore. These results indicate that Ti(H,D)2 is possibly formed by diffusion of hydrogen from the Cu-Li-Mg-(H,D) alloys. This is an intriguing result since TiH 2 is normally synthesized from the metal at T > 400°C/673 K (and most commonly at T ∼ 700 °C/973 K). In the presence of CuLi 0.08Mg1.92, TiH2 forms at a temperature that is 300 - 400 K lower than that needed to synthesize it just from the elements

New type II Cepheids from VVV data towards the Galactic center

The Galactic center (GC) is the densest region of the Milky Way. Variability surveys towards the GC potentially provide the largest number of variable stars per square degree within the Galaxy. However, high stellar density is also a drawback due to blending. Moreover, the GC is affected by extreme reddening, therefore near infrared observations are needed. We plan to detect new variable stars towards the GC, focusing on type II Cepheids (T2Cs) which have the advantage of being brighter than RR Lyrae stars. We perform parallel Lomb-Scargle and Generalized Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis of the $K_s$-band time series of the VISTA variables in the Via Lactea survey, to detect periodicities. We employ statistical parameters to clean our sample. We take account of periods, light amplitudes, distances, and proper motions to provide a classification of the candidate variables. We detected 1,019 periodic variable stars, of which 164 are T2Cs, 210 are Miras and 3 are classical Cepheids. We also found the first anomalous Cepheid in this region. We compare their photometric properties with overlapping catalogs and discuss their properties on the color-magnitude and Bailey diagrams. We present the most extensive catalog of T2Cs in the GC region to date. Offsets in E($J-K_s$) and in the reddening law cause very large ($\sim$1-2 kpc) uncertainties on distances in this region. We provide a catalog which will be the starting point for future spectroscopic surveys in the innermost regions of the Galaxy.Comment: A&A, accepte

Early Identification of Violent Criminal Gang Members

Gang violence is a major problem in the United States accounting for a large fraction of homicides and other violent crime. In this paper, we study the problem of early identification of violent gang members. Our approach relies on modified centrality measures that take into account additional data of the individuals in the social network of co-arrestees which together with other arrest metadata provide a rich set of features for a classification algorithm. We show our approach obtains high precision and recall (0.89 and 0.78 respectively) in the case where the entire network is known and out-performs current approaches used by law-enforcement to the problem in the case where the network is discovered overtime by virtue of new arrests - mimicking real-world law-enforcement operations. Operational issues are also discussed as we are preparing to leverage this method in an operational environment.Comment: SIGKDD 201

Dengue disease, basic reproduction number and control

Dengue is one of the major international public health concerns. Although progress is underway, developing a vaccine against the disease is challenging. Thus, the main approach to fight the disease is vector control. A model for the transmission of Dengue disease is presented. It consists of eight mutually exclusive compartments representing the human and vector dynamics. It also includes a control parameter (insecticide) in order to fight the mosquito. The model presents three possible equilibria: two disease-free equilibria (DFE) and another endemic equilibrium. It has been proved that a DFE is locally asymptotically stable, whenever a certain epidemiological threshold, known as the basic reproduction number, is less than one. We show that if we apply a minimum level of insecticide, it is possible to maintain the basic reproduction number below unity. A case study, using data of the outbreak that occurred in 2009 in Cape Verde, is presented.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper whose final and definitive form has appeared in International Journal of Computer Mathematics (2011), DOI: 10.1080/00207160.2011.55454