A hierarchical Bayesian model for inference of copy number variants and their association to gene expression

A number of statistical models have been successfully developed for the analysis of high-throughput data from a single source, but few methods are available for integrating data from different sources. Here we focus on integrating gene expression levels with comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) array measurements collected on the same subjects. We specify a measurement error model that relates the gene expression levels to latent copy number states which, in turn, are related to the observed surrogate CGH measurements via a hidden Markov model. We employ selection priors that exploit the dependencies across adjacent copy number states and investigate MCMC stochastic search techniques for posterior inference. Our approach results in a unified modeling framework for simultaneously inferring copy number variants (CNV) and identifying their significant associations with mRNA transcripts abundance. We show performance on simulated data and illustrate an application to data from a genomic study on human cancer cell lines.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AOAS705 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Efficient audit strategies for defined benefit pension plans

The aim of this paper is to describe efficient audit strategies for the the risk management of defined benefit pension plans

The database of Earthquake Mechanisms of the Mediterranean Area (EMMA): a call for contributions

We present to CSEM/EMSC community a database on MS-ACCESS platform of revised fault plane solutions, taken from the literature, including earthquakes which occurred in the Mediterranean and in surrounding regions. A PC installable CD-ROM is freely available, for scientific purposes, to all investigators upon e-mail request to the writers’ addresses: [email protected], [email protected]. We also want to take advantage of this occasion to make a request to the authors of papers not already included, to cooperate to next releases of the database by signaling us missing and/or new data and possibly sending the numerical parameters by e-mail or other computer media. Any correction, recommendation or suggestion is also heartily welcome. A new release of the database is planned for mid summer 2004, the approximate deadline for contributors is at end of May 2004

New species and new record of anthomedusae from southern Brazil

A new species of Hydromedusa belonging to the genus Octocanna Haeckel 1879, here revived, is described from the coastal waters off Santos. The new species belongs to the family Phialuciidae, it is named Octocanna haeckeli sp. n. and differs from the other two species of the genus in being smaller, in having a high dome shaped umbrella, four tentacles, eight bulbs and eight marginal vesicles at sexual maturity. The genus Octocanna is here revived for Phialuciidae with eight radial canals, eight gonads, four or more tentacles and never more than four lips. The genus Octophialucium Kramp 1955 is considered valid for Phialuciidae with eight radial canals, eight gonads and eight lips. In the same series of samples, some specimens of Octophialucium bigelowi Kramp 1955 were taken which are very similar to Octocanna haeckeli but have eight lips, eight tentacles, rudimentary bulbs and a larger number of marginal vesicles at sexual maturity, which is reached at approximately the same umbrella size. The two similar species were taken in the same water mass at approximately the same time of the same year.Descreve-se uma nova espécie de hidromedusa, coletada em águas costeiras próximas a Santos, pertencente ao gênero Octocanna Haeckel 1879. Este gênero foi considerado obsoleto por KRAMP, mas o achado presente mostra que deve ser reestabelecido. A nova espécie chamada Otocanna haeckeli pertence à família Phialuciidae. Difere das outras duas espécies do mesmo gênero por ser menor, ter umbrela alta em forma de domo, 4 tentáculos, 8 bulbos e 8 vesículas marginais quando atinge a maturidade sexual. A validade do gênero Octocanna fica restabelecida para as Phialuciidae com 8 canais radiais, 8 gônadas, 4 ou mais tentáculos e nunca mais do que 4 lábios. O gênero Octophialucium Kramp 1955 é mantido como válido para Phialuciidae com 8 canais radiais, 8 gônadas e 8 lábios. Na mesma série de amostras foram coletados alguns espécimes de Octophialucium bigelowi Kramp 1955 que se assemelham à primeira vista a Octocanna haeckeli, mas têm 8 lábios, 8 tentáculos, bulbos rudimentares e um número maior de vesículas marginais quando sexualmente maduros. Ambas as espécies atingem a maturidade com aproximadamente o mesmo tamanho e foram coletadas na mesma massa d'água, em datas próximas do mesmo ano

Earthquake Mechanisms of the Mediterranean Area (EMMA) version 3: an improved tool for characterizing the tectonic deformation styles in the Mediterranean

Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 11, EGU2009-7974, 2009 EGU General Assembly 2009 © Author(s) 2009 Earthquake Mechanisms of the Mediterranean Area (EMMA) version 3: an improved tool for characterizing the tectonic deformation styles in the Mediterranean. G. Vannucci (1), P. Imprescia (2), and P. Gasperini (3) (1) INGV-Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Via Donato Creti, 12, I-40128, Bologna (Italy), [email protected], (2) Dipartimento Scienze Geologiche, Università di Catania, Corso Italia, 57, I-95129 Catania (Italy), [email protected], (3) Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Bologna, Viale Berti-Pichat 8, I-40127 Bologna (Italy), [email protected] EMMA (Earthquake Mechanisms of the Mediterranean Area) database contains available literature data with the goal of making them more usable and available. EMMA is continuously improving by the addition of further focal mechanisms found in literature. At the present time, EMMA pre-release 3 includes more than 12700 focal solutions, about twice of previous official release 2.2 (Vannucci and Gasperini, 2004). They cover a time window from 1905 to 2006. In the new release, many added solutions are in areas not much covered or completely uncovered in the previous one (e.g. Bulgaria, Germany, Anatolia). As in the previous versions (Vannucci and Gasperini, 2003 and 2004), we have uniformed the different formats and notations of the data available from different sources and we have tried to solve misprints, inaccuracies and inconsistencies that might make the data unusable for other investigations. By an automatic procedure based on several criteria, we have chosen the “most representative” (best) solution when more than one is available for the same earthquake. Thanks to this, we have obtained about 6000 best solutions. The end user can use the best solution obtained with our procedure or he can change criteria. The database allows to make selections and to export data files suitable to be handled by graphic software and user generated scripts. In the new version, still MS-ACCESS based, we have added geographic information to the display of the focal solution, as well as we have integrated the hypocentral and magnitude data found on the original papers with those reported by regional and local catalogs and bulletins. In order to make EMMA more accessible, a web version is currently in progress. Through an internet connection it will be possible data selection and export, without installation and configuration problems found in the past. EMMA was already used in the past and will be (hopefully) useful in the future to better characterize the tectonic deformation styles (e.g. by moment tensors sum within given areas or over regular geographical grids) particularly in areas of the European region where seismicity is moderate and only few CMT solutions are available. At the moment, we try to compute strain map for Mediterranean area, using EMMA data. In order to represent any recurrence in space, we identify small areas and apply to each one some spatial analyses. The work is still in progress, but preliminary results are satisfactory and in accord to previous studies

I, Chatbot! The Impact of Anthropomorphism and Gaze Direction on Willingness to Disclose Personal Information and Behavioral Intentions

The present research focuses on the interplay between two common features of the customer service chatbot experience: gaze direction and anthropomorphism. Although the dominant approach in marketing theory and practice is to make chatbots as human-like as possible, the current study, built on the humanness-value-loyalty (HVL) model, addresses the chain of effects through which chatbots’ nonverbal behaviors affect customers’ willingness to disclose personal information and purchase intentions. By means of two experiments that adopt a real chatbot in a simulated shopping environment (i.e., car rental and travel insurance), the present work allows us to understand how to reduce individuals’ tendency to see conversational agents as less knowledgeable and empathetic compared to humans. The results show that warmth perceptions are affected by gaze direction, whereas competence perceptions are affected by anthropomorphism. Warmth and competence perceptions are found to be key drivers of consumers’ skepticism toward the chatbot, which, in turn, affects consumers’ trust toward the service provider hosting the chatbot, ultimately leading consumers to be more willing to disclose their personal information and to repatronize the e-tailer in the future. Building on the theory of mind, our results show that perceiving competence from a chatbot makes individuals less skeptical as long as they feel they are good at detecting others’ ultimate intentions

MALATO DI RETORICA: I DISCORSI SACRI DI ELIO ARISTIDE

Malato di retorica: i "Discorsi sacri" di Elio Aristide Aelius Aristides' Sacred Tales are one of the strangest works in ancient literature. Despite the usual sophistication and complexity of Aristides' style, they appear like a spontaneous writing with little formal elaboration. The main purpose of the research is to investigate the work's stylistic dimension in search of motives of its otherness. The religious dimension, within which the story told underlies, is analyzed in order to identify personal contibutions of the Author. There are several texts involved in the main text, so it is not easy to identify precisely the boundaries: textual analysis can provide some hypothesis about Aristides' choices. The confusion of the narrative levels could answer to a specific intentionality. This work aims also to delve in the the anthropological and cultural scenario in which the author lived in order to understand some dynamics as the proud exhibition of the body. Performance is a keyword in the sophistic movement and rhetoricians are increasingly threatened in their prestige because of the rivalry. It was analyzed also the "bias" for self-praise, so massive in Aristides'corpus, as witnessed by Or. 28. Finally, the epic dimension of the narrative, in which the author presents himself several times as a new Ulysses: the identification with the homeric hero conveys many suggestions of which the author seems to be conscious

Guerra e natura nel poema di Nonno di Panopoli

This paper focuses on the first part of Nonnus\u2019 Dionysiaca, book XXII, that recounts the preliminary stages of Dionysus\u2019 war against Indians. The scene opens with the description of an idyllic landscape. When the god reaches Hydaspes river, nature is involved by typical Dionysiac phenomena: water becomes wine and milk flows from the springs. Deriades\u2019 army is about to make an assault, but it\u2019s defeated by Dionysus\u2019 plant-weapons. The paper aims to underline the contrast between calm scenery and brutality of war, a topic that will be popular in modsuggests that the encounter has a cosmic and ideological value. erne literatures. I explore the way Nonnus creates tension before the battle and then represents an unconventional fight, at least at first bloodless. The poet, making nature joining the struggle, suggests that the encounter has a cosmic and ideological value

On multidimensional poverty rankings of binary attributes

We address the problem of ranking distributions of attributes in terms of poverty, when the attributes are represented by binary variables. To accomplish this task, we identify a suitable notion of “multidimensional poverty line” and characterize axiomatically the Head-Count and the Attribute-Gap poverty rankings, which are the natural counterparts of the most widely used income poverty indices. Finally, we apply our methodology and compare our empirical results with those obtained with some other well-known poverty measures