46,413 research outputs found
Antigen-specific antibody Fc glycosylation enhances humoral immunity via the recruitment of complement
ConSIT: A conditioned program slicer
Conditioned slicing is a powerful generalisation of static and dynamic slicing which has applications to many problems in software maintenance and evolution, including reuse, reengineering and program comprehension. However there has been relatively little work on the implementation of conditioned slicing. Algorithms for implementing conditioned slicing necessarily involve reasoning about the values of program predicates in certain sets of states derived from the conditioned slicing criterion, making implementation particularly demanding. The paper introduces ConSIT, a conditioned slicing system which is based upon conventional static slicing, symbolic execution and theorem proving. ConSIT is the first fully automated implementation of conditioned slicing. An implementation of ConSIT is available for experimentation at &http://www.mcs.gold.ac.uk/tilde/~mas01sd/consit.htm
Physical activity in England: Who is meeting the recommended level of participation through sports and exercise?
This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright © 2012 Anokye et al.Background: Little is known about the correlates of meeting recommended levels of participation in physical activity (PA) and how this understanding informs public health policies on behaviour change. Objective: To analyse who meets the recommended level of participation in PA in males and females separately by applying âprocessâ modelling frameworks (single vs. sequential 2-step process). Methods: Using the Health Survey for England 2006, (n = 14 142; â„16 years), gender-specific regression models were estimated using bivariate probit with selectivity correction and single probit models. A âsequential, 2-step processâ modelled participation and meeting the recommended level separately, whereas the âsingle processâ considered both participation and level together. Results: In females, meeting the recommended level was associated with degree holders [Marginal effect (ME) = 0.013] and age (ME = â0.001), whereas in males, age was a significant correlate (ME = â0.003 to â0.004). The order of importance of correlates was similar across genders, with ethnicity being the most important correlate in both males (ME = â0.060) and females (ME = â0.133). In females, the âsequential, 2-step processâ performed better (Ï = â0.364, P < 0.001) than that in males (Ï = 0.154). Conclusion: The degree to which people undertake the recommended level of PA through vigorous activity varies between males and females, and the process that best predicts such decisions, i.e. whether it is a sequential, 2-step process or a single-step choice, is also different for males and females. Understanding this should help to identify subgroups that are less likely to meet the recommended level of PA (and hence more likely to benefit from any PA promotion intervention).This study was funded by the Department of Healthâs Policy Research Programme
Program simplification as a means of approximating undecidable propositions
We describe an approach which mixes testing, slicing, transformation and formal verification to investigate speculative hypotheses concerning a program, formulated during program comprehension activity. Our philosophy is that such hypotheses (which are typically undecidable) can, in some sense, be `answered' by a partly automated system which returns neither `true' nor `false' but a program (the `test program') which computes the answer. The motivation for this philosophy is the way in which, as we demonstrate, static analysis and manipulation technology can be applied to ensure that the resulting test program is significantly simpler than the original program, thereby simplifying the process of investigating the original hypothesi
Multi-filter transit observations of WASP-39b and WASP-43b with three San Pedro M\'artir telescopes
Three optical telescopes located at the San Pedro M\'artir National
Observatory were used for the first time to obtain multi-filter defocused
photometry of the transiting extrasolar planets WASP-39b and WASP-43b. We
observed WASP-39b with the 2.12m telescope in the U filter for the first time,
and additional observations were carried out in the R and I filters using the
0.84m telescope. WASP-43b was observed in VRI with the same instrument, and in
the i filter with the robotic 1.50m telescope. We reduced the data using
different pipelines and performed aperture photometry with the help of custom
routines, in order to obtain the light curves. The fit of the light curves
(1.5--2.5mmag rms), and of the period analysis, allowed a revision of the
orbital and physical parameters, revealing for WASP-39b a period ( days) which is seconds larger than
previously reported. Moreover, we find for WASP-43b a planet/star radius
() which is larger in the i filter
with respect to previous works, and that should be confirmed with additional
observations. Finally, we confirm no evidence of constant period variations in
WASP-43b.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, accepted in PASP, scheduled for the February 1,
2015 issu
Therapeutic administration of a recombinant human monoclonal antibody reduces the severity of chikungunya virus disease in rhesus macaques
Diffeomorphic demons using normalized mutual information, evaluation on multimodal brain MR images
The demons algorithm is a fast non-parametric non-rigid registration method. In recent years great efforts have been made to improve the approach; the state of the art version yields symmetric inverse-consistent largedeformation diffeomorphisms. However, only limited work has explored inter-modal similarity metrics, with no practical evaluation on multi-modality data. We present a diffeomorphic demons implementation using the analytical gradient of Normalised Mutual Information (NMI) in a conjugate gradient optimiser. We report the first qualitative and quantitative assessment of the demons for inter-modal registration. Experiments to spatially normalise real MR images, and to recover simulated deformation fields, demonstrate (i) similar accuracy from NMI-demons and classical demons when the latter may be used, and (ii) similar accuracy for NMI-demons on T1w-T1w and T1w-T2w registration, demonstrating its potential in multi-modal scenarios
Diffeomorphic Demons using Normalised Mutual Information, Evaluation on Multi-Modal Brain MR Images
The demons algorithm is a fast non-parametric non-rigid registration method. In recent years great efforts have been made to improve the approach; the state of the art version yields symmetric inverse-consistent large-deformation diffeomorphisms. However, only limited work has explored inter-modal similarity metrics, with no practical evaluation on multi-modality data. We present a diffeomorphic demons implementation using the analytical gradient of Normalised Mutual Information (NMI) in a conjugate gradient optimiser. We report the first qualitative and quantitative assessment of the demons for inter-modal registration. Experiments to spatially normalise real MR images, and to recover simulated deformation fields, demonstrate (i) similar accuracy from NMI-demons and classical demons when the latter may be used, and (ii) similar accuracy for NMI-demons on T1w-T1w and T1w-T2w registration, demonstrating its potential in multi-modal scenarios
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