464 research outputs found
On combining Big Data and machine learning to support eco-driving behaviours
A conscious use of the battery is one of the key elements to consider while driving an electric vehicle. Hence, supporting the drivers, with information about it, can be strategic in letting them drive in a better way, with the purpose of optimizing the energy consumption. In the context of electric vehicles, equipped with regenerative brakes, the driver\u2019s braking style can make a significant difference. In this paper, we propose an approach which is based on the combination of big data and machine learning techniques, with the aim of enhancing the driver\u2019s braking style through visual elements (displayed in the vehicle dashboard, as a Human\u2013Machine Interface), actuating eco-driving behaviours. We have designed and developed a system prototype, by exploiting big data coming from an electric vehicle and a machine learning algorithm. Then, we have conducted a set of tests, with simulated and real data, and here we discuss the results we have obtained that can open interesting discussions about the use of big data, together with machine learning, so as to improve drivers\u2019 awareness of eco-behaviours
Resting state functional thalamic connectivity abnormalities in patients with post-stroke sleep apnoea: a pilot case-control study
OBJECTIVE: Sleep apnoea is common
after stroke, and has adverse effects on the
clinical outcome of affected cases. Its pathophysiological
mechanisms are only partially known. Increases
in brain connectivity after stroke might influence
networks involved in arousal modulation
and breathing control. The aim of this study was to
investigate the resting state functional MRI thalamic
hyper connectivity of stroke patients affected
by sleep apnoea (SA) with respect to cases not
affected, and to healthy controls (HC).
PATIENTS AND METHODS: A series of stabilized
strokes were submitted to 3T resting state
functional MRI imaging and full polysomnography.
The ventral-posterior-lateral thalamic nucleus was
used as seed.
RESULTS: At the between groups comparison
analysis, in SA cases versus HC, the regions significantly
hyper-connected with the seed were
those encoding noxious threats (frontal eye
field, somatosensory association, secondary visual
cortices). Comparisons between SA cases
versus those without SA, revealed in the former
group significantly increased connectivity with
regions modulating the response to stimuli independently
to their potentiality of threat (prefrontal,
primary and somatosensory association, superolateral
and medial-inferior temporal, associative
and secondary occipital ones). Further
significantly functionally hyper connections were
documented with regions involved also in the modulation
of breathing during sleep (pons, midbrain,
cerebellum, posterior cingulate cortices), and in
the modulation of breathing response to chemical
variations (anterior, posterior and para-hippocampal
cingulate cortices).
CONCLUSIONS: Our preliminary data support
the presence of functional hyper connectivity in
thalamic circuits modulating sensorial stimuli, in
patients with post-stroke sleep apnoea, possibly
influencing both their arousal ability and breathing
modulation during sleep
Evaluation of pre-processing on the meta-analysis of DNA methylation data from the Illumina HumanMethylation450 BeadChip platform
Introduction Meta-analysis is a powerful means for leveraging the hundreds of experiments being run worldwide into more statistically powerful analyses. This is also true for the analysis of omic data, including genome-wide DNA methylation. In particular, thousands of DNA methylation profiles generated using the Illumina 450k are stored in the publicly accessible Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) repository. Often, however, the intensity values produced by the BeadChip (raw data) are not deposited, therefore only pre-processed values -obtained after computational manipulation- are available. Pre-processing is possibly different among studies and may then affect meta-analysis by introducing non-biological sources of variability. Material and methods To systematically investigate the effect of pre-processing on meta-analysis, we analysed four different collections of DNA methylation samples (datasets), each composed of two subsets, for which raw data from controls (i.e. healthy subjects) and cases (i.e. patients) are available. We pre-processed the data from each dataset with nine among the most common pipelines found in literature. Moreover, we evaluated the performance of regRCPqn, a modification of the RCP algorithm that aims to improve data consistency. For each combination of pre-processing (9
7 9), we first evaluated the between-sample variability among control subjects and, then, we identified genomic positions that are differentially methylated between cases and controls (differential analysis). Results and conclusion The pre-processing of DNA methylation data affects both the between-sample variability and the loci identified as differentially methylated, and the effects of pre-processing are strongly dataset-dependent. By contrast, application of our renormalization algorithm regRCPqn: (i) reduces variability and (ii) increases agreement between meta-analysed datasets, both critical components of data harmonization
Convolutional LSTM Networks for Subcellular Localization of Proteins
Machine learning is widely used to analyze biological sequence data.
Non-sequential models such as SVMs or feed-forward neural networks are often
used although they have no natural way of handling sequences of varying length.
Recurrent neural networks such as the long short term memory (LSTM) model on
the other hand are designed to handle sequences. In this study we demonstrate
that LSTM networks predict the subcellular location of proteins given only the
protein sequence with high accuracy (0.902) outperforming current state of the
art algorithms. We further improve the performance by introducing convolutional
filters and experiment with an attention mechanism which lets the LSTM focus on
specific parts of the protein. Lastly we introduce new visualizations of both
the convolutional filters and the attention mechanisms and show how they can be
used to extract biological relevant knowledge from the LSTM networks
Free-amino acid metabolic profiling of visceral adipose tissue from obese subjects
Interest in adipose tissue pathophysiology and biochemistry have expanded considerably in the past two decades due to the ever increasing and alarming rates of global obesity and its critical outcome defined as metabolic syndrome (MS). This obesity-linked systemic dysfunction generates high risk factors of developing perilous diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer. Amino acids could play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of the MS onset. Focus of this study was to fully characterize amino acids metabolome modulations in visceral adipose tissues (VAT) from three adult cohorts: (i) obese patients (BMI 43-48) with metabolic syndrome (PO), (ii) obese subjects metabolically well (O), and (iii) non obese individuals (H). 128 metabolites identified as 20 protein amino acids, 85 related compounds and 13 dipeptides were measured by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy (UPLC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography-/mass spectrometry GC/MS, in visceral fat samples from a total of 53 patients. Our analysis indicates a probable enhanced BCAA (leucine, isoleucine, valine) degradation in both VAT from O and PO subjects, while levels of their oxidation products are increased. Also PO and O VAT samples were characterized by: elevated levels of kynurenine, a catabolic product of tryptophan and precursor of diabetogenic substances, a significant increase of cysteine sulfinic acid levels, a decrease of 1-methylhistidine, and an up regulating trend of 3-methylhistidine levels. We hope this profiling can aid in novel clinical strategies development against the progression from obesity to metabolic syndrome
Free-amino acid metabolic profiling of visceral adipose tissue from obese subjects
Interest in adipose tissue pathophysiology and biochemistry have expanded considerably in the past two decades due to the ever increasing and alarming rates of global obesity and its critical outcome defined as metabolic syndrome (MS). This obesity-linked systemic dysfunction generates high risk factors of developing perilous diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer. Amino acids could play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of the MS onset. Focus of this study was to fully characterize amino acids metabolome modulations in visceral adipose tissues (VAT) from three adult cohorts: (i) obese patients (BMI 43-48) with metabolic syndrome (PO), (ii) obese subjects metabolically well (O), and (iii) non obese individuals (H). 128 metabolites identified as 20 protein amino acids, 85 related compounds and 13 dipeptides were measured by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy (UPLC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography-/mass spectrometry GC/MS, in visceral fat samples from a total of 53 patients. Our analysis indicates a probable enhanced BCAA (leucine, isoleucine, valine) degradation in both VAT from O and PO subjects, while levels of their oxidation products are increased. Also PO and O VAT samples were characterized by: elevated levels of kynurenine, a catabolic product of tryptophan and precursor of diabetogenic substances, a significant increase of cysteine sulfinic acid levels, a decrease of 1-methylhistidine, and an up regulating trend of 3-methylhistidine levels. We hope this profiling can aid in novel clinical strategies development against the progression from obesity to metabolic syndrome
Fogli 609-596, Termini Imerese-Capo Plaia
Il Servizio Geologico Nazionale ha unificato i Fogli 609 "Termini Imerese" e 596 "Capo Plaia" in un unico Foglio denominato 609/596 "Termini Imerese-Capo Plaia" allo scopo di uniformare i rilievi e raccoglierne la descrizione in un unico volume delle Note Illustrative. Il Foglio 609/596 "Termini Imerese-Capo Plaia" della Carta Geologica d’Italia in scala 1:50.000 è stato realizzato nell’ambito del Progetto CARG con i fondi della Legge 67/88 - Legge 226/99 con una convenzione tra Servizio Geologico Nazionale ora ISPRA) e Regione Siciliana. Le aree ricadono interamente nella Provincia di Palermo, comprendono la fascia marina del Golfo di Termini Imerese fino al promontorio di Capo Plaia, la regione dei Monti di Termini Imerese e Trabia ad ovest e il settore occidentale del gruppo montuoso delle Madonie ad est. Tra questi rilievi si sviluppa un’ampio settore collinare inciso dai fiumi Torto e Imera settentrionale (o Fiume Grande)
Algorithm engineering for optimal alignment of protein structure distance matrices
Protein structural alignment is an important problem in computational
biology. In this paper, we present first successes on provably optimal pairwise
alignment of protein inter-residue distance matrices, using the popular Dali
scoring function. We introduce the structural alignment problem formally, which
enables us to express a variety of scoring functions used in previous work as
special cases in a unified framework. Further, we propose the first
mathematical model for computing optimal structural alignments based on dense
inter-residue distance matrices. We therefore reformulate the problem as a
special graph problem and give a tight integer linear programming model. We
then present algorithm engineering techniques to handle the huge integer linear
programs of real-life distance matrix alignment problems. Applying these
techniques, we can compute provably optimal Dali alignments for the very first
time
Search for dark Higgsstrahlung in e+ e- -> mu+ mu- and missing energy events with the KLOE experiment
We searched for evidence of a Higgsstrahlung process in a secluded sector,
leading to a final state with a dark photon U and a dark Higgs boson h', with
the KLOE detector at DAFNE. We investigated the case of h' lighter than U, with
U decaying into a muon pair and h' producing a missing energy signature. We
found no evidence of the process and set upper limits to its parameters in the
range 2m_mu<m_U<1000 MeV, m_h'<m_U.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Physics Letters
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