Analysis of the communities of an urban mobile phone network

This is the final version. Available from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this record. Data Availability: Data available at: Telecom Italia Big Data Challenge 2014, https://dandelion.eu/datamine/open-big-data/.Being able to characterise the patterns of communications between individuals across different time scales is of great importance in understanding people's social interactions. Here, we present a detailed analysis of the community structure of the network of mobile phone calls in the metropolitan area of Milan revealing temporal patterns of communications between people. We show that circadian and weekly patterns can be found in the evolution of communities, presenting evidence that these cycles arise not only at the individual level but also at that of social groups. Our findings suggest that these trends are present across a range of time scales, from hours to days and weeks, and can be used to detect socially relevant events.EPSRCEuropean Commissio

Finding network communities using modularity density

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published version is available from IOP Publishing via the DOI in this recordMany real-world complex networks exhibit a community structure, in which the modules correspond to actual functional units. Identifying these communities is a key challenge for scientists. A common approach is to search for the network partition that maximizes a quality function. Here, we present a detailed analysis of a recently proposed function, namely modularity density. We show that it does not incur in the drawbacks suffered by traditional modularity, and that it can identify networks without ground-truth community structure, deriving its analytical dependence on link density in generic random graphs. In addition, we show that modularity density allows an easy comparison between networks of different sizes, and we also present some limitations that methods based on modularity density may suffer from. Finally, we introduce an efficient, quadratic community detection algorithm based on modularity density maximization, validating its accuracy against theoretical predictions and on a set of benchmark networks.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

In search of art: rapid estimates of gallery and museum visits using Google Trends

This is the final version. Available from EDP Sciences via the DOI in this record. All data sets are publicly available through the DCMS website [38] and Google Trends [50].Measuring collective human behaviour has traditionally been a time-consuming and expensive process, impairing the speed at which data can be made available to decision makers in policy. Can data generated through widespread use of online services help provide faster insights? Here, we consider an example relating to policymaking for culture and the arts: publicly funded museums and galleries in the UK. We show that data on Google searches for museums and galleries can be used to generate estimates of their visitor numbers. Crucially, we find that these estimates can be generated faster than traditional measurements, thus offering policymakers early insights into changes in cultural participation supported by public funds. Our findings provide further evidence that data on our use of online services can help generate timely indicators of changes in society, so that decision makers can focus on the present rather than the past.ESRCAlan Turing InstituteEPSR

Quantifying crowd size with mobile phone and Twitter data

This is the final published version, also available from The Royal Society via the DOI in this record.Being able to infer the number of people in a specific area is of extreme importance for the avoidance of crowd disasters and to facilitate emergency evacuations. Here, using a football stadium and an airport as case studies, we present evidence of a strong relationship between the number of people in restricted areas and activity recorded by mobile phone providers and the online service Twitter. Our findings suggest that data generated through our interactions with mobile phone networks and the Internet may allow us to gain valuable measurements of the current state of society.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

The surface accessibility of α-bungarotoxin monitored by a novel paramagnetic probe

The surface accessibility of {alpha}-bungarotoxin has been investigated by using Gd2L7, a newly designed paramagnetic NMR probe. Signal attenuations induced by Gd2L7 on {alpha}-bungarotoxin C{alpha}H peaks of 1H-13C HSQC spectra have been analyzed and compared with the ones previously obtained in the presence of GdDTPA-BMA. In spite of the different molecular size and shape, for the two probes a common pathway of approach to the {alpha}-bungarotoxin surface can be observed with an equally enhanced access of both GdDTPA-BMA and Gd2L7 towards the protein surface side where the binding site is located. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest that protein backbone flexibility and surface hydration contribute to the observed preferential approach of both gadolinium complexes specifically to the part of the {alpha}-bungarotoxin surface which is involved in the interaction with its physiological target, the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor

Incompressible viscous flow near the leading edge of a flat plate admitting slip

The shear stress at the leading edge, calculated on basis of the Navier-Stokes equations and the no-slip boundary condition, approaches infinity. However, taking into account the mean free path of the molecules, which implies admitting a certain slip, the shear stress becomes inversely proportional to the square root of the Knudsen number κ if κ→0. κ is defined as the ratio between the mean free path and the viscous length. The new boundary condition modifies the shear stress only within the Knudsen region of which the size is of the order of 3 to 4 times the mean free path.

Chiral azole derivatives. 4. Enantiomers of bifonazole and related antifungal agents: synthesis, configuration assignment, and biological evaluation

The first synthesis, full stereochem. characterization and biol. evaluation of of both enantiomers of bifonazole (I) and the related II, III and IV are described

Accuracy Characterization of a MEMS Accelerometer for Vibration Monitoring in a Rotating Framework

Active and passive vibration control systems are of paramount importance in many engineering applications. If an external load excites a structure’s resonance and the damping is too low, detrimental events, such as crack initiation, growth and, in the worst case, fatigue failure, can be entailed. Damping systems can be commonly found in applications such as industrial machines, vehicles, buildings, turbomachinery blades, and so forth. Active control systems usually achieve higher damping effectiveness than passive ones, but they need a sensor to detect the working conditions that require damping system activation. Recently, the development of such systems in rotating structures has received considerable interest among designers. As a result, the development of vibration monitoring equipment in rotating structures is also a topic of particular interest. In this respect, a reliable, inexpensive and wireless monitoring system is of utmost importance. Typically, optical systems are used to measure vibrations, but they are expensive and require rather complex processing algorithms. In this paper, a wireless system based on a commercial MEMS accelerometer is developed for rotating blade vibration monitoring. The proposed system measurement accuracy was assessed by means of comparison with a reference wired measurement setup based on a mini integrated circuit piezoelectric (ICP) accelerometer adapted for data acquisition in a rotating frame. Both the accelerometers were mounted on the tip of the blade and, in order to test the structure under different conditions, the first four blade resonances were excited by means of piezoelectric actuators, embedded in a novel experimental setup. The frequency and amplitude of acceleration, simultaneously measured by the reference and MEMS sensors, were compared with each other in order to investigate the viability and accuracy of the proposed wireless monitoring system. The rotor angular speed was varied from 0 to 300 rpm, and the data acquisitions were repeated six times for each considered condition. The outcomes reveal that the wireless measurement system may be successfully used for vibration monitoring in rotating blades

Mirror symmetry breaking as a problem in dynamical critical phenomena

The critical properties of the Frank model of spontaneous chiral synthesis are discussed by applying results from the field theoretic renormalization group (RG). The long time and long wavelength features of this microscopic reaction scheme belong to the same universality class as multi-colored directed percolation processes. Thus, the following RG fixed points (FP) govern the critical dynamics of the Frank model for d<4: one unstable FP that corresponds to complete decoupling between the two enantiomers, a saddle-point that corresponds to symmetric interspecies coupling, and two stable FPs that individually correspond to unidirectional couplings between the two chiral molecules. These latter two FPs are associated with the breakdown of mirror or chiral symmetry. In this simplified model of molecular synthesis, homochirality is a natural consequence of the intrinsic reaction noise in the critical regime, which corresponds to extremely dilute chemical systems.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure