A Small Step for Capability, a Significant Leap for “Military Erasmus”. The European Security and Defence Policy Seminar, Lisbon 2009

The first European Security and Defence Policy Seminar was meant to have a strong impact on the education and strengthening of the European identity of young military Officers from European Union Member States, especially the ones who came from Military Academies. The initiative had its origin in the second half of 2008 under the French Presidency of the Union. The goal established was to achieve a “Military Erasmus”. In the first half of 2009, Portugal offered to host the pilot course, which received a laudable response from the majority of EU Member States and was supported by the High Representative for the ESDP

European Security and Defence Policy Seminar, Lisbon 2009 Creating the Future Human Capabilities of the CSDP

O artigo foca o impacto que o Erasmus Militar terá na Política Comum de Segurança e Defesa

Éditorial

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Establishing a Search String to Detect Secondary Studies in Software Engineering

Search for secondary studies is essential to establish whether the review on the intended topic has already been done, avoiding waste time. In addition, secondary studies are the inputs of a tertiary study. However, one critical step in searching for secondary studies is to elaborate a search string. The main goal of this work is to analyze search strings to establish directions to better detect secondary studies in Software Engineering (SE). We analyzed seven tertiary studies under two perspectives: (1) structure - strings' terms to detect secondary studies; and (2) field: where searching - titles alone or abstracts alone or titles and abstracts together, among others. We also performed a validation of the results found. The suitable search string for finding secondary studies in SE contain the terms "systematic review", "literature review", "systematic mapping", "mapping study", "systematic map", "meta-analysis", "survey" and "literature analysis". Furthermore, we recommend (1) researchers use the title, abstract and keywords search fields in their searches to increase studies recall; (2) researchers choose carefully their paper title, abstract and keyword terms to increase the chance of having such studies found on digital libraries

On new physics searches with multidimensional differential shapes

In the context of upcoming new physics searches at the LHC, we investigate the impact of multidimensional differential rates in typical LHC analyses. We discuss the properties of shape information, and argue that multidimensional rates bring limited information in the scope of a discovery, but can have a large impact on model discrimination. We also point out subtleties about systematic uncertainties cancellations and the Cauchy-Schwarz bound on interference terms

Presoaking ACL Grafts in Vancomycin Decreases the Frequency of Postoperative Septic Arthritis : A Cohort Study of 29,659 Patients, Systematic Review, and Meta-analysis From the SANTI Study Group

Presoaking anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) grafts in vancomycin has been reported to reduce the occurrence of septic arthritis (SA). However, strong recommendations for its universal use have been precluded by concerns regarding the fragility of previous meta-analyses. The primary objective was to investigate whether presoaking ACL grafts in vancomycin was associated with a reduction in the rate of SA in a large series of patients. The secondary objective was to perform an updated systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the efficacy of vancomycin in reducing the rate of SA. Cohort study and systematic review; Level of evidence, 3. A retrospective analysis of patients who underwent primary ACL reconstruction (ACLR) at our institution was undertaken. Rates of postoperative SA were determined and analyzed according to whether patients had received grafts presoaked in vancomycin. A systematic review of the literature and meta-analysis was performed. Odds ratios (ORs) for the risk of SA were calculated according to the inverse variance approach. Results were presented using forest plots, funnel plots, and the fragility index. A total of 5300 patients underwent primary ACLR during the study period. The rate of SA was 0.34% (11/3228) in the control group and 0.05% (1/2072) in the presoaked group. There was a 5-fold greater risk of SA in patients who did not receive grafts presoaked in vancomycin (OR, 5.13 [95% CI, 1.16-48.30]; P =.04). Overall, 11 studies were included in the systematic review (29,659 ACLR procedures). The meta-analysis demonstrated a significantly greater risk of SA in those patients who did not receive grafts presoaked in vancomycin (OR, 14.39 [95% CI, 5.90-35.10]; fragility index = 23). This finding held true for the subpopulation receiving hamstring tendon grafts (fragility index = 16), but only a trend was demonstrated for bone-patellar tendon-bone grafts. The meta-analysis demonstrated that presoaking ACL grafts in vancomycin was associated with significant reductions in the rates of SA when all graft types were analyzed together. This finding held true specifically for hamstring tendon autografts. The fragility index of these findings allows for a strong recommendation for the universal use of vancomycin presoaking. However, it should be noted that only a trend toward reduced SA rates was demonstrated with presoaking bone-patellar tendon-bone autografts in vancomycin

Ecological adaptation of wild peach palm, its in situ conservation and deforestation-mediated extinction in Southern Brazilian Amazonia

Background: The Arc of Fire across southern Amazonia seasonally attracts worldwide attention as forests are cut and burned for agricultural expansion. These forests contain numerous wild relatives of native South American crops, such as peach palm. Methodology/Principal Findings: Our prospecting expeditions examined critical areas for wild peach palm in the Arc of Fire in Mato Grosso, Pará, Maranhão and Tocantins, as well as areas not previously examined in Amazonas and Amapá states. Recent digitization of the RADAM Brasil project permitted comparison among RADAM's parataxonomists' observations, previous botanical collections and our prospecting. Mapping on soils and vegetation types enabled us to hypothesize a set of ecological preferences. Wild peach palm is best adapted to Ultisols (Acrisols) in open forests across the Arc of Fire and westward into the more humid western Amazonia. Populations are generally small (fewer than 10 plants) on slopes above watercourses. In northern Mato Grosso and southern Pará soybean fields and pastures now occupy numerous areas where RADAM identified wild peach palm. The controversial BR-163 Highway is already eroding wild peach palm as deforestation expands. Conclusions/Significance: Many of these populations are now isolated by increasing forest fragmentation, which will lead to decreased reproduction via inbreeding depression and eventual extinction even without complete deforestation. Federal conservation areas are less numerous in the Arc of Fire than in other parts of Brazilian Amazonia, although there are indigenous lands; these conservation areas contain viable populations of wild peach palm and require better protection than they are currently receiving. Ex situ conservation of these populations is not viable given the relative lack of importance of domesticated peach palm and the difficulty of maintaining even economically interesting genetic resources. © 2009 Clement et al

Multilayer spintronic neural networks with radio-frequency connections

Spintronic nano-synapses and nano-neurons perform complex cognitive computations with high accuracy thanks to their rich, reproducible and controllable magnetization dynamics. These dynamical nanodevices could transform artificial intelligence hardware, provided that they implement state-of-the art deep neural networks. However, there is today no scalable way to connect them in multilayers. Here we show that the flagship nano-components of spintronics, magnetic tunnel junctions, can be connected into multilayer neural networks where they implement both synapses and neurons thanks to their magnetization dynamics, and communicate by processing, transmitting and receiving radio frequency (RF) signals. We build a hardware spintronic neural network composed of nine magnetic tunnel junctions connected in two layers, and show that it natively classifies nonlinearly-separable RF inputs with an accuracy of 97.7%. Using physical simulations, we demonstrate that a large network of nanoscale junctions can achieve state-of the-art identification of drones from their RF transmissions, without digitization, and consuming only a few milliwatts, which is a gain of more than four orders of magnitude in power consumption compared to currently used techniques. This study lays the foundation for deep, dynamical, spintronic neural networks

Cooperative regulation of Cav1.2 channels by intracellular Mg2+, the proximal C-terminal EF-hand, and the distal C-terminal domain

L-type Ca2+ currents conducted by Cav1.2 channels initiate excitation–contraction coupling in cardiac myocytes. Intracellular Mg2+ (Mgi) inhibits the ionic current of Cav1.2 channels. Because Mgi is altered in ischemia and heart failure, its regulation of Cav1.2 channels is important in understanding cardiac pathophysiology. Here, we studied the effects of Mgi on voltage-dependent inactivation (VDI) of Cav1.2 channels using Na+ as permeant ion to eliminate the effects of permeant divalent cations that engage the Ca2+-dependent inactivation process. We confirmed that increased Mgi reduces peak ionic currents and increases VDI of Cav1.2 channels in ventricular myocytes and in transfected cells when measured with Na+ as permeant ion. The increased rate and extent of VDI caused by increased Mgi were substantially reduced by mutations of a cation-binding residue in the proximal C-terminal EF-hand, consistent with the conclusion that both reduction of peak currents and enhancement of VDI result from the binding of Mgi to the EF-hand (KD ≈ 0.9 mM) near the resting level of Mgi in ventricular myocytes. VDI was more rapid for L-type Ca2+ currents in ventricular myocytes than for Cav1.2 channels in transfected cells. Coexpression of Cavβ2b subunits and formation of an autoinhibitory complex of truncated Cav1.2 channels with noncovalently bound distal C-terminal domain (DCT) both increased VDI in transfected cells, indicating that the subunit structure of the Cav1.2 channel greatly influences its VDI. The effects of noncovalently bound DCT on peak current amplitude and VDI required Mgi binding to the proximal C-terminal EF-hand and were prevented by mutations of a key divalent cation-binding amino acid residue. Our results demonstrate cooperative regulation of peak current amplitude and VDI of Cav1.2 channels by Mgi, the proximal C-terminal EF-hand, and the DCT, and suggest that conformational changes that regulate VDI are propagated from the DCT through the proximal C-terminal EF-hand to the channel-gating mechanism

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of gestational diabetes mellitus highlights genetic links with type 2 diabetes

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is associated with increased risk of pregnancy complications and adverse perinatal outcomes. GDM often reoccurs and is associated with increased risk of subsequent diagnosis of type 2 diabetes (T2D). To improve our understanding of the aetiological factors and molecular processes driving the occurrence of GDM, including the extent to which these overlap with T2D pathophysiology, the GENetics of Diabetes In Pregnancy Consortium assembled genome-wide association studies of diverse ancestry in a total of 5485 women with GDM and 347 856 without GDM. Through multi-ancestry meta-analysis, we identified five loci with genome-wide significant association (P < 5 x 10(-8)) with GDM, mapping to/near MTNR1B (P = 4.3 x 10(-54)), TCF7L2 (P = 4.0 x 10(-16)), CDKAL1 (P = 1.6 x 10(-4)), CDKN2A-CDKN2B (P = 4.1 x 10(-9)) and HKDC1 (P = 2.9 x 10(-8)). Multiple lines of evidence pointed to the shared pathophysiology of GDM and T2D: (i) four of the five GDM loci (not HKDC1) have been previously reported at genome-wide significance for T2D; (ii) significant enrichment for associations with GDM at previously reported T2D loci; (iii) strong genetic correlation between GDM and T2D and (iv) enrichment of GDM associations mapping to genomic annotations in diabetes-relevant tissues and transcription factor binding sites. Mendelian randomization analyses demonstrated significant causal association (5% false discovery rate) of higher body mass index on increased GDM risk. Our results provide support for the hypothesis that GDM and T2D are part of the same underlying pathology but that, as exemplified by the HKDC1 locus, there are genetic determinants of GDM that are specific to glucose regulation in pregnancy.Peer reviewe