the johnson noise in biological matter

Can a very low intensity signal overcome a disturbance, the power density of which is much higher than the signal one, and yield some observable effects? The Johnson noise seems to be a disturbance so high as to cause a negative answer to that question, when one studies the effects on the cell level due to the external ELF fields generated by electric power lines (Adair, 1990, 1991). About this subject, we show that the masking effect due to the Johnson noise, known as "Adair's constraint" and still present in the scientific debate, can be significantly weakened. The values provided by the Johnson noise formula, that is an approximate expression, can be affected by a significant deviation with respect to the correct ones, depending on the frequency and the kind of the cells, human or not human, that one is dealing with. We will give some examples. Eventually, we remark that the so-called Zhadin effect, although born and studied in a different context, could be viewed as an experimental test that gives an affirmative answer to the initial question, when the signal is an extremely weak electromagnetic field and the disturbance is a Johnson noise

Cyber-Physical Systems Improving Building Energy Management: Digital Twin and Artificial Intelligence

The research explores the potential of digital-twin-based methods and approaches aimed at achieving an intelligent optimization and automation system for energy management of a residential district through the use of three-dimensional data model integrated with Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The case study is focused on Rinascimento III in Rome, an area consisting of 16 eight-floor buildings with 216 apartment units powered by 70% of self-renewable energy. The combined use of integrated dynamic analysis algorithms has allowed the evaluation of different scenarios of energy efficiency intervention aimed at achieving a virtuous energy management of the complex, keeping the actual internal comfort and climate conditions. Meanwhile, the objective is also to plan and deploy a cost-effective IT (information technology) infrastructure able to provide reliable data using edge-computing paradigm. Therefore, the developed methodology led to the evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of integrative systems for renewable energy production from solar energy necessary to raise the threshold of self-produced energy, meeting the nZEB (near zero energy buildings) requirements

J-SPACE: a Julia package for the simulation of spatial models of cancer evolution and of sequencing experiments

Background: The combined effects of biological variability and measurement-related errors on cancer sequencing data remain largely unexplored. However, the spatio-temporal simulation of multi-cellular systems provides a powerful instrument to address this issue. In particular, efficient algorithmic frameworks are needed to overcome the harsh trade-off between scalability and expressivity, so to allow one to simulate both realistic cancer evolution scenarios and the related sequencing experiments, which can then be used to benchmark downstream bioinformatics methods.Result: We introduce a Julia package for SPAtial Cancer Evolution (J-SPACE), which allows one to model and simulate a broad set of experimental scenarios, phenomenological rules and sequencing settings.Specifically, J-SPACE simulates the spatial dynamics of cells as a continuous-time multi-type birth-death stochastic process on a arbitrary graph, employing different rules of interaction and an optimised Gillespie algorithm. The evolutionary dynamics of genomic alterations (single-nucleotide variants and indels) is simulated either under the Infinite Sites Assumption or several different substitution models, including one based on mutational signatures. After mimicking the spatial sampling of tumour cells, J-SPACE returns the related phylogenetic model, and allows one to generate synthetic reads from several Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms, via the ART read simulator. The results are finally returned in standard FASTA, FASTQ, SAM, ALN and Newick file formats.Conclusion: J-SPACE is designed to efficiently simulate the heterogeneous behaviour of a large number of cancer cells and produces a rich set of outputs. Our framework is useful to investigate the emergent spatial dynamics of cancer subpopulations, as well as to assess the impact of incomplete sampling and of experiment-specific errors. Importantly, the output of J-SPACE is designed to allow the performance assessment of downstream bioinformatics pipelines processing NGS data. J-SPACE is freely available at: https://github.com/BIMIB-DISCo/J-Space.jl

Reasoning About a Service-oriented Programming Paradigm

This paper is about a new way for programming distributed applications: the service-oriented one. It is a concept paper based upon our experience in developing a theory and a language for programming services. Both the theoretical formalization and the language interpreter showed us the evidence that a new programming paradigm exists. In this paper we illustrate the basic features it is characterized by

C6orf10 low-frequency and rare variants in italian multiple sclerosis patients

In light of the complex nature of multiple sclerosis (MS) and the recently estimated contribution of low-frequency variants into disease, decoding its genetic risk components requires novel variant prioritization strategies. We selected, by reviewing MS Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS), 107 candidate loci marked by intragenic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with a remarkable association (p-value <= 5 x 10(-6)). A whole exome sequencing (WES)-based pilot study of SNPs with minor allele frequency (MAF) <= 0.04, conducted in three Italian families, revealed 15 exonic low-frequency SNPs with affected parent-child transmission. These variants were detected in 65/120 Italian unrelated MS patients, also in combination (22 patients). Compared with databases (controls gnomAD, dbSNP150, ExAC, Tuscany-1000 Genome), the allelic frequencies of C6orf10 rs 16870005 and IL2RA rs12722600 were significantly higher (i.e., controls gnomAD, p = 9.89 x 10(-7) and p < 1 x 10(-20)). TET2 rs61744960 and TRAF3 rs138943371 frequencies were also significantly higher, except in Tuscany-1000 Genome. Interestingly, the association of C6orf10 rs16870005 (Ala431Thr) with MS did not depend on its linkage disequilibrium with the HLA-DRB1 locus. Sequencing in the MS cohort of the C6orf10 3' region revealed 14 rare mutations (10 not previously reported). Four variants were null, and significantly more frequent than in the databases. Further, the C6orf10 rare variants were observed in combinations, both intra-locus and with other low-frequency SNPs. The C6orf10 Ser389Xfr was found homozygous in a patient with early onset of the MS. Taking into account the potentially functional impact of the identified exonic variants, their expression in combination at the protein level could provide functional insights in the heterogeneous pathogenetic mechanisms contributing to MS.In light of the complex nature of multiple sclerosis (MS) and the recently estimated contribution of low-frequency variants into disease, decoding its genetic risk components requires novel variant prioritization strategies. We selected, by reviewing MS Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS), 107 candidate loci marked by intragenic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with a remarkable association (p-value ≤ 5 × 10−6). A whole exome sequencing (WES)-based pilot study of SNPs with minor allele frequency (MAF) ≤ 0.04, conducted in three Italian families, revealed 15 exonic low-frequency SNPs with affected parent-child transmission. These variants were detected in 65/120 Italian unrelated MS patients, also in combination (22 patients). Compared with databases (controls gnomAD, dbSNP150, ExAC, Tuscany-1000 Genome), the allelic frequencies of C6orf10 rs16870005 and IL2RA rs12722600 were significantly higher (i.e., controls gnomAD, p = 9.89 × 10−7 and p < 1 × 10−20). TET2 rs61744960 and TRAF3 rs138943371 frequencies were also significantly higher, except in Tuscany-1000 Genome. Interestingly, the association of C6orf10 rs16870005 (Ala431Thr) with MS did not depend on its linkage disequilibrium with the HLA-DRB1 locus. Sequencing in the MS cohort of the C6orf10 3′ region revealed 14 rare mutations (10 not previously reported). Four variants were null, and significantly more frequent than in the databases. Further, the C6orf10 rare variants were observed in combinations, both intra-locus and with other low-frequency SNPs. The C6orf10 Ser389Xfr was found homozygous in a patient with early onset of the MS. Taking into account the potentially functional impact of the identified exonic variants, their expression in combination at the protein level could provide functional insights in the heterogeneous pathogenetic mechanisms contributing to MS

Self-Reconfiguring Microservices

International audienceMicroservices is an emerging paradigm for the development of distributed systems that, originating from Service-Oriented Architecture , focuses on the small dimension, the loose coupling, and the dynamic topology of services. Microservices are particularly appropriate for the development of distributed systems in the Cloud. However, their dynamic nature calls for suitable techniques for their automatic deployment. In this paper we address this problem and we propose JRO (Jolie Redeploy-ment Optimiser), a tool for the automatic and optimised deployment of microservices written in the Jolie language. The tool uses Zephyrus, a state of the art tool that automatically generates a fully detailed Service-Oriented Architecture configuration starting from a partial and abstract description of the target application

Italian Case Study: socio-economic impact analysis of a cyber attack to a power plant in an Italian scenario. Cost and benefit estimation of CIPS standard adoptions. A reduced version

RT 55; The Italian Case study is a comprehensive report in which a possible attack scenario to a thermoelectric power plant is described in the Italian electric grid context and an assessment of social-economic impact is evaluated. A cost-benefit analysis of the adoption of comprehensive CIP standards is estimated. This is a reduced version of a full report in order to have a public deliverable purged from sensitive and confidential informatio

Benefit analysis. Assessing the cost of blackouts in case of attack. Evaluation based on Italian and Polish case studies

RT 52; This report provides an economic quantification of the benefits of implementing security standards, expressed in terms of avoided costs of blackouts. The evaluation considers specifically the blackouts described in the Italian and Polish trials, employing a mixed methodology relying on the “production function” approach for the non-household sector, while an econometric method based on survey data (stated preferences) is used for household consumers. With reference to non-households, a separate evaluation is carried on for the electricity industry. The results show that the costs of blackout are substantial, either for household and non-household consumers, and largely exceed the damage suffered by the utilities ue to lost sales. Finally, since for non-households only losses in production are considered, we provide, in a separate section, three case studies demonstrating that some industries can suffer relevant additional blackout cost