Evolutionary Modeling to Evaluate the Shear Behavior of Circular Reinforced Concrete Columns

Despite their frequent occurrence in practice, only limited studies on the shear behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) circular members are available in the literature. Such studies are based on poor assumptions about the physical model, often resulting in being too conservative, as well as technical codes that essentially propose empirical conversion rules. On this topic in this paper, an evolutionary approach named EPR is used to create a structured polynomial model for predicting the shear strength of circular sections. The adopted technique is an evolutionary data mining methodology that generates a transparent and structured representation of the behavior of a system directly from experimental data. In this study experimental data of 61 RC circular columns, as reported in the technical literature, are used to develop the EPR models. As final result, physically consistent shear strength models for circular columns are obtained, to be used in different design situations. The proposed formulations are compared with models available from building codes and literature expressions, showing that EPR technique is capable of capturing and predicting the shear behavior of RC circular elements with very high accuracy. A parametric study is also carried out to evaluate the physical consistency of the proposed models

Abstract Syntax and Variable Binding (Extended Abstract)

We develop a theory of abstract syntax with variable binding. To every binding signature we associate a category of models consisting of variable sets endowed with compatible algebra and substitution structures. The syntax generated by the signature is the initial model. This gives a notion of initial algebra semantics encompassing the traditional one; besides compositionality, it automatically veri- fies the semantic substitution lemma

GRBs as Probes of Massive Stars Near and Far

Long-duration gamma-ray bursts are the manifestations of massive stellar death. Due to the immense energy release they are detectable from most of the observable universe. In this way they allow us to study the deaths of single (or binary) massive stars possibly throughout the full timespan massive stars have existed in the Universe. GRBs provide a means to infer information about the environments and typical galaxies in which massive stars are formed. Two main obstacles remain to be crossed before the full potential of GRBs as probes of massive stars can be harvested: i) we need to build more complete and well understood samples in order not to be fooled by biases, and ii) we need to understand to which extent GRBs may be intrinsically biased in the sense that they are only formed by a limited subset of massive stars defined by most likely a restricted metallicity interval. We describe the status of an ongoing effort to build a more complete sample of long-duration GRBs with measured redshifts. Already now we can conclude that the environments of GRB progenitors are very diverse with metallicities ranging from solar to a hundredth solar and extinction ranging from none to A_V>5 mag. We have also identified a sightline with significant escape of Lyman continuum photons and another with a clear 2175AA extinction bump.Comment: Invited review - in "Massive Stars as Cosmic Engines", IAU Symp. 250 (Kauai), ed. F. Bresolin, P. A. Crowther, and J. Puls (Cambridge University Press), p. 443-456. Typos and refs correcte

A compiler for multi-key homomorphic signatures for Turing machines

At SCN 2018, Fiore and Pagnin proposed a generic compiler (called ``Matrioska\u27\u27) allowing to transform sufficiently expressive single-key homomorphic signatures (SKHSs) into multi-key homomorphic signatures (MKHSs) under falsifiable assumptions in the standard model. Matrioska is designed for homomorphic signatures that support programs represented as circuits. The MKHS schemes obtained through Matrioska support the evaluation and verification of arbitrary circuits over data signed from multiple users, but they require the underlying SKHS scheme to work with circuits whose size is exponential in the number of users, and thus can only support a constant number of users. In this work, we propose a new generic compiler to convert an SKHS scheme into an MKHS scheme. Our compiler is a generalization of Matrioska for homomorphic signatures that support programs in any model of computation. When instantiated with SKHS for circuits, we recover the Matrioska compiler of Fiore and Pagnin. As an additional contribution, we show how to instantiate our generic compiler in the Turing Machines (TM) model and argue that this instantiation allows to overcome some limitations of Matrioska: - First, the MKHS we obtain require the underlying SKHS to support TMs whose size depends only linearly in the number of users. - Second, when instantiated with an SKHS with succinctness $poly(\lambda)$ and fast enough verification time, e.g., $S \cdot \log T + n \cdot poly(\lambda)$ or $T +n \cdot poly(\lambda)$ (where $T$, $S$, and $n$ are the running time, description size, and input length of the program to verify, respectively), our compiler yields an MKHS in which the time complexity of both the prover and the verifier remains $poly(\lambda)$ even if executed on programs with inputs from $poly(\lambda)$ users. While we leave constructing an SKHS with these efficiency properties as an open problem, we make one step towards this goal by proposing an SKHS scheme with verification time $poly(\lambda) \cdot T$ under falsifiable assumptions in the standard model

The role of PIAS3, p-STAT3 and ALR in colorectalcancer: new translational molecular features for an old disease

OBJECTIVE: Human colorectal cancer (CRC) is characterized by a sequence of biological events that determine its induction and progression. Gut microbiota has an impor-tant role in this multistep model of carcinogen-esis, as well as constitutive activation of Signal Transducer and Activator Factors 3 (p-STAT3) and Protein Inhibitor of Activated STAT3 (PIAS3), which negatively controls STAT3. It has been re-ported that a liver growth factor, the Augmenter of Liver Regeneration (ALR), an anti-apoptotic, anti-metastatic factor, exerts protective/cell sur-vival and anti-metastatic activities and has been detected highly expressed in neoplastic cells. PATIENTS AND METHODS: To evaluate, by immunohistochemistry, p-STAT3, PIAS3 and ALR expression in neoplastic human tissues from CRC patients, grouping the data in accord-ance with the histological alterations (G1, G2 and G3) and metastasis presence. Western blot (WB) analysis of ALR was also determined in ne-oplastic and surrounding tissues. Finally, cell proliferation (Ki-67) and apoptosis (Bcl-2) were determined. RESULTS : Colon cancer tissue samples showed: (1) ALR and p-STAT3 strongly over-ex-pression in 100% of G1 tissue samples, reducing in G2 and G3 tissue samples; (2) PIAS3 immuno-logical determination was poorly expressed in G1 tissue samples and highly expressed in the 100% of colorectal tissues from group G2 and G3. Ki-67 progressively increases with the im-portance of the anatomic-pathological altera-tions and Bcl-2 resulted higher in G3 tissue sam-ples compared to G1 neoplastic tissues. WB data evidenced, in neoplastic tissues, compared to the tumour-surrounding tissues, ALR over-ex-pressed in G1 neoplastic tissues and down-ex-pressed in G3 neoplastic tissues.CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrate a dif-ferent dynamism of the investigated factors in relation to the severity of CRC histological find-ings. We hypothesize that the positive expres-sion of ALR and p-STAT3 in the neoplastic tis-sue samples from CRC G1 group, associated to the absence of PIAS3, could be useful marker to identify an early stage of the disease. Based on these data and on our previous studies on gut microbiota in precancerous intestinal lesions, we are confident that, after microbial priming, a cascade of molecular events is started. So, the detectable molecules acting in these initial steps should be considered for the study of CRC progression and therapy

Security Theorems via Model Theory

A model-theoretic approach can establish security theorems for cryptographic protocols. Formulas expressing authentication and non-disclosure properties of protocols have a special form. They are quantified implications for all xs . (phi implies for some ys . psi). Models (interpretations) for these formulas are *skeletons*, partially ordered structures consisting of a number of local protocol behaviors. Realized skeletons contain enough local sessions to explain all the behavior, when combined with some possible adversary behaviors. We show two results. (1) If phi is the antecedent of a security goal, then there is a skeleton A_phi such that, for every skeleton B, phi is satisfied in B iff there is a homomorphism from A_phi to B. (2) A protocol enforces for all xs . (phi implies for some ys . psi) iff every realized homomorphic image of A_phi satisfies psi. Hence, to verify a security goal, one can use the Cryptographic Protocol Shapes Analyzer CPSA (TACAS, 2007) to identify minimal realized skeletons, or "shapes," that are homomorphic images of A_phi. If psi holds in each of these shapes, then the goal holds

Genetic and molecular characterization of the human osteosarcoma 3AB-OS cancer stem cell line: a possible model for studying osteosarcoma origin and stemness.

Finding new treatments targeting cancer stem cells (CSCs) within a tumor seems to be critical to halt cancer and improve patient survival. Osteosarcoma is an aggressive tumor affecting adolescents, for which there is no second-line chemotherapy. Uncovering new molecular mechanisms underlying the development of osteosarcoma and origin of CSCs is crucial to identify new possible therapeutic strategies. Here, we aimed to characterize genetically and molecularly the human osteosarcoma 3AB-OS CSC line, previously selected from MG63 cells and which proved to have both in vitro and in vivo features of CSCs. Classic cytogenetic studies demonstrated that 3AB-OS cells have hypertriploid karyotype with 71–82 chromosomes. By comparing 3AB-OS CSCs to the parental cells, array CGH, Affymetrix microarray, and TaqMan1 Human MicroRNA array analyses identified 49 copy number variations (CNV), 3,512 dysregulated genes and 189 differentially expressed miRNAs. Some of the chromosomal abnormalities and mRNA/miRNA expression profiles appeared to be congruent with those reported in human osteosarcomas. Bioinformatic analyses selected 196 genes and 46 anticorrelated miRNAs involved in carcinogenesis and stemness. For the first time, a predictive network is also described for two miRNA family (let-7/98 and miR-29a,b,c) and their anticorrelated mRNAs (MSTN, CCND2, Lin28B, MEST, HMGA2, and GHR), which may represent new biomarkers for osteosarcoma and may pave the way for the identification of new potential therapeutic targets