Constrained and Unconstrained Optimal Discounted Control of Piecewise Deterministic Markov Processes

International audienceThe main goal of this paper is to study the infinite-horizon expected discounted continuous-time optimal control problem of piecewise deterministic Markov processes with the control acting continuously on the jump intensity $\lambda$ and on the transition measure $Q$ of the process but not on the deterministic flow $\phi$. The contributions of the paper are for the unconstrained as well as the constrained cases. The set of admissible control strategies is assumed to be formed by policies, possibly randomized and depending on the history of the process, taking values in a set valued action space. For the unconstrained case we provide sufficient conditions based on the three local characteristics of the process $\phi$, $\lambda$, $Q$ and the semicontinuity properties of the set valued action space, to guarantee the existence and uniqueness of the integro-differential optimality equation (the so-called Bellman--Hamilton--Jacobi equation) as well as the existence of an optimal (and $\delta$-optimal, as well) deterministic stationary control strategy for the problem. For the constrained case we show that the values of the constrained control problem and an associated infinite dimensional linear programming (LP) problem are the same, and moreover we provide sufficient conditions for the solvability of the LP problem as well as for the existence of an optimal feasible randomized stationary control strategy for the constrained problem

Chemical trends in the Galactic halo from APOGEE data

Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.The galaxy formation process in the A cold dark matter scenario can be constrained from the analysis of stars in the Milky Way's halo system. We examine the variation of chemical abundances in distant halo stars observed by the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment ( APOGEE), as a function of distance from the Galactic Centre ( r) and iron abundance ([M/H]), in the range 5 less than or similar to r less than or similar to 30 kpc and - 2.5 15 kpc and [M/H] > - 1.1 (larger in the case of O, Mg, and S) with respect to the nearest halo stars. This result confirms previous claims for low-alpha stars found at larger distances. Chemical differences in elements with other nucleosynthetic origins (Ni, K, Na, and Al) are also detected. C and N do not provide reliable information about the interstellar medium from which stars formed because our sample comprises red giant branch and asymptotic giant branch stars and can experience mixing of material to their surfaces.https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/mnras/stw286

Mellin Amplitudes for Dual Conformal Integrals

Motivated by recent work on the utility of Mellin space for representing conformal correlators in $AdS$/CFT, we study its suitability for representing dual conformal integrals of the type which appear in perturbative scattering amplitudes in super-Yang-Mills theory. We discuss Feynman-like rules for writing Mellin amplitudes for a large class of integrals in any dimension, and find explicit representations for several familiar toy integrals. However we show that the power of Mellin space is that it provides simple representations even for fully massive integrals, which except for the single case of the 4-mass box have not yet been computed by any available technology. Mellin space is also useful for exhibiting differential relations between various multi-loop integrals, and we show that certain higher-loop integrals may be written as integral operators acting on the fully massive scalar $n$-gon in $n$ dimensions, whose Mellin amplitude is exactly 1. Our chief example is a very simple formula expressing the 6-mass double box as a single integral of the 6-mass scalar hexagon in 6 dimensions.Comment: 29+7 page

Towards automated test and validation of SIP solutions

IP networks are currently the major communication infrastructure used by an increasing number of applications and heterogeneous services, including voice services. In this context, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol widely used for controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice or video calls over IP networks, thus performing vital functions in an extensive set of public and enter- prise solutions. However, the SIP protocol dissemination also entails some challenges, such as the complexity associated with the testing/validation processes of IMS/SIP networks. As a consequence, manual IMS/SIP testing solutions are inherently costly and time consuming tasks, being crucial to develop automated approaches in this specific area. In this perspective, this article presents an experimental approach for automated testing/validation of SIP scenarios in IMS networks. For that purpose, an automation framework is proposed allowing to replicate the configuration of SIP equipment from the pro- duction network and submit such equipment to a battery of tests in the testing network. The proposed solution allows to drastically reduce the test and validation times when compared with traditional manual approaches, also allowing to enhance testing reliability and coverage. The automation framework comprises of some freely available tools which are conveniently integrated with other specific modules implemented within the context of this work. In order to illustrate the advantages of the proposed automated framework, a real case study taken from a PT Inovação customer is presented comparing the time required to perform a manual SIP testing approach with the one time required when using the proposed auto- mated framework. The presented results clearly corroborate the advantages of using the presented framework.This work has been supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: PEstOE/EEI/UI0319/2014. This research work was developed within the collaboration of PT Inovação (http://www.ptinovacao.pt/ en/)

Expression profiling on soybean leaves reveals integration of ER- and osmotic-stress pathways

Despite the potential of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response to accommodate adaptive pathways, its integration with other environmental-induced responses is poorly understood in plants. We have previously demonstrated that the ER-stress sensor binding protein (BiP) from soybean exhibits an unusual response to drought. The members of the soybean BiP gene family are differentially regulated by osmotic stress and soybean BiP confers tolerance to drought. While these results may reflect crosstalk between the osmotic and ER-stress signaling pathways, the lack of mutants, transcriptional response profiles to stresses and genome sequence information of this relevant crop has limited our attempts to identify integrated networks between osmotic and ER stress-induced adaptive responses. As a fundamental step towards this goal, we performed global expression profiling on soybean leaves exposed to polyethylene glycol treatment (osmotic stress) or to ER stress inducers. The up-regulated stress-specific changes unmasked the major branches of the ER-stress response, which include enhancing protein folding and degradation in the ER, as well as specific osmotically regulated changes linked to cellular responses induced by dehydration. However, a small proportion (5.5%) of total up-regulated genes represented a shared response that seemed to integrate the two signaling pathways. These co-regulated genes were considered downstream targets based on similar induction kinetics and a synergistic response to the combination of osmotic- and ER-stress-inducing treatments. Genes in this integrated pathway with the strongest synergistic induction encoded proteins with diverse roles, such as plant-specific development and cell death (DCD) domain-containing proteins, an ubiquitin-associated (UBA) protein homolog and NAC domain-containing proteins. This integrated pathway diverged further from characterized specific branches of ER-stress as downstream targets were inversely regulated by osmotic stress. The present ER-stress- and osmotic-stress-induced transcriptional studies demonstrate a clear predominance of stimulus-specific positive changes over shared responses on soybean leaves. This scenario indicates that polyethylene glycol (PEG)-induced cellular dehydration and ER stress elicited very different up-regulated responses within a 10-h stress treatment regime. In addition to identifying ER-stress and osmotic-stress-specific responses in soybean (Glycine max), our global expression-profiling analyses provided a list of candidate regulatory components, which may integrate the osmotic-stress and ER-stress signaling pathways in plants

Aberrant p15, p16, p53, and DAPK Gene Methylation in Myelomagenesis: Clinical and Prognostic Implications

BACKGROUND: Aberrant DNA methylation is considered a crucial mechanism in the pathogenesis of monoclonal gammopathies. We aimed to investigate the contribution of hypermethylation of 4 tumor suppressor genes to the multistep process of myelomagenesis. METHODS: The methylation status of p15, p16, p53, and DAPK genes was evaluated in bone marrow samples from 94 patients at diagnosis: monoclonal gammopathy of uncertain significance (MGUS) (n = 48), smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM) (n = 8) and symptomatic multiple myeloma (MM) (n = 38), and from 8 healthy controls by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction analysis. RESULTS: Overall, 63% of patients with MM and 39% of patients with MGUS presented at least 1 hypermethylated gene (P < .05). No aberrant methylation was detected in normal bone marrow. The frequency of methylation for individual genes in patients with MGUS, SMM, and MM was p15, 15%, 50%, 21%; p16, 15%, 13%, 32%; p53, 2%, 12,5%, 5%, and DAPK, 19%, 25%, 39%, respectively (P < .05). No correlation was found between aberrant methylation and immunophenotypic markers, cytogenetic features, progression-free survival, and overall survival in patients with MM. CONCLUSIONS: The current study supports a relevant role for p15, p16, and DAPK hypermethylation in the genesis of the plasma cell neoplasm. DAPK hypermethylation also might be an important step in the progression from MGUS to MM.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Impact of a Simple Representation of Non-Structural Carbohydrates on the Simulated Response of Tropical Forests to Drought

This is the final version. Available on open access from European Geosciences Union via the DOI in this recordCode availability. A model example of SUGAR for a single site and set-up to run at Caxiuanã using output from JULES is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3547613 (Jones, 2019). For further information or code please contact [email protected] representing the response of ecosystems to environmental change in land surface models (LSMs) is crucial to making accurate predictions of future climate. Many LSMs do not correctly capture plant respiration and growth fluxes, particularly in response to extreme climatic events. This is in part due to the unrealistic assumption that total plant carbon expenditure (PCE) is always equal to gross carbon accumulation by photosynthesis. We present and evaluate a simple model of labile carbon storage and utilisation (SUGAR) designed to be integrated into an LSM, which allows simulated plant respiration and growth to vary independent of photosynthesis. SUGAR buffers simulated PCE against seasonal variation in photosynthesis, producing more constant (less variable) predictions of plant growth and respiration relative to an LSM that does not represent labile carbon storage. This allows the model to more accurately capture observed carbon fluxes at a large-scale drought experiment in a tropical moist forest in the Amazon, relative to the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator LSM (JULES). SUGAR is designed to improve the representation of carbon storage in LSMs and provides a simple framework that allows new processes to be integrated as the empirical understanding of carbon storage in plants improves. The study highlights the need for future research into carbon storage and allocation in plants, particularly in response to extreme climate events such as drought.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)Newton FundAustralian Research Council (ARC)Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO)Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)JPL-Caltech President's and Director's Research & Development FundMet Office Hadley Centre Climate ProgrammeEuropean Union Horizon 202

The Ecm11-Gmc2 complex promotes synaptonemal complex formation through assembly of transverse filaments in budding yeast

During meiosis, homologous chromosomes pair at close proximity to form the synaptonemal complex (SC). This association is mediated by transverse filament proteins that hold the axes of homologous chromosomes together along their entire length. Transverse filament proteins are highly aggregative and can form an aberrant aggregate called the polycomplex that is unassociated with chromosomes. Here, we show that the Ecm11-Gmc2 complex is a novel SC component, functioning to facilitate assembly of the yeast transverse filament protein, Zip1. Ecm11 and Gmc2 initially localize to the synapsis initiation sites, then throughout the synapsed regions of paired homologous chromosomes. The absence of either Ecm11 or Gmc2 substantially compromises the chromosomal assembly of Zip1 as well as polycomplex formation, indicating that the complex is required for extensive Zip1 polymerization. We also show that Ecm11 is SUMOylated in a Gmc2-dependent manner. Remarkably, in the unSUMOylatable ecm11 mutant, assembly of chromosomal Zip1 remained compromised while polycomplex formation became frequent. We propose that the Ecm11-Gmc2 complex facilitates the assembly of Zip1 and that SUMOylation of Ecm11 is critical for ensuring chromosomal assembly of Zip1, thus suppressing polycomplex formation

Conformal algebra: R-matrix and star-triangle relation

The main purpose of this paper is the construction of the R-operator which acts in the tensor product of two infinite-dimensional representations of the conformal algebra and solves Yang-Baxter equation. We build the R-operator as a product of more elementary operators S_1, S_2 and S_3. Operators S_1 and S_3 are identified with intertwining operators of two irreducible representations of the conformal algebra and the operator S_2 is obtained from the intertwining operators S_1 and S_3 by a certain duality transformation. There are star-triangle relations for the basic building blocks S_1, S_2 and S_3 which produce all other relations for the general R-operators. In the case of the conformal algebra of n-dimensional Euclidean space we construct the R-operator for the scalar (spin part is equal to zero) representations and prove that the star-triangle relation is a well known star-triangle relation for propagators of scalar fields. In the special case of the conformal algebra of the 4-dimensional Euclidean space, the R-operator is obtained for more general class of infinite-dimensional (differential) representations with nontrivial spin parts. As a result, for the case of the 4-dimensional Euclidean space, we generalize the scalar star-triangle relation to the most general star-triangle relation for the propagators of particles with arbitrary spins.Comment: Added references and corrected typo

Flagellin outer domain dimerization modulates motility in pathogenic and soil bacteria from viscous environments.

Flagellar filaments function as the propellers of the bacterial flagellum and their supercoiling is key to motility. The outer domains on the surface of the filament are non-critical for motility in many bacteria and their structures and functions are not conserved. Here, we show the atomic cryo-electron microscopy structures for flagellar filaments from enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7, enteropathogenic E. coli O127:H6, Achromobacter, and Sinorhizobium meliloti, where the outer domains dimerize or tetramerize to form either a sheath or a screw-like surface. These dimers are formed by 180° rotations of half of the outer domains. The outer domain sheath (ODS) plays a role in bacterial motility by stabilizing an intermediate waveform and prolonging the tumbling of E. coli cells. Bacteria with these ODS and screw-like flagellar filaments are commonly found in soil and human intestinal environments of relatively high viscosity suggesting a role for the dimerization in these environments