306 research outputs found
Significance of REM Sleep in Depression: Effects on Neurogenesis
No abstract availabl
Automated data pre-processing via meta-learning
The final publication is available at link.springer.comA data mining algorithm may perform differently on datasets with different characteristics, e.g., it might perform better on a dataset with continuous attributes rather than with categorical attributes, or the other way around.
As a matter of fact, a dataset usually needs to be pre-processed. Taking into account all the possible pre-processing operators, there exists a staggeringly large number of alternatives and nonexperienced users become overwhelmed.
We show that this problem can be addressed by an automated approach, leveraging ideas from metalearning.
Specifically, we consider a wide range of data pre-processing techniques and a set of data mining algorithms. For each data mining algorithm and selected dataset, we are able to predict the transformations that improve the result
of the algorithm on the respective dataset. Our approach will help non-expert users to more effectively identify the transformations appropriate to their applications, and hence to achieve improved results.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
Anti-CTLA-4 therapy for malignant mesothelioma
Immunotherapy is an emerging therapeutic strategy with a promising clinical outcome in some solid tumors, particularly metastatic melanoma. One approach to immunotherapy is immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as blockage of CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1. This special report aims to describe the state of clinical trials of tremelimumab in patients with unresectable malignant mesothelioma (MM) in particular with regard to the clinical efficacy, safety and tolerability. Criticism and perspective of this treatment are also discussed. Biological and clinical considerations rule out the use of tremelimumab as single agent for MM and, more generally, the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors for MM is still largely questionable and not supported by evidences
Adaptive filtering for removing nonstationary physiological noise from resting state fMRI BOLD signals
fMRI is used to investigate brain functional connectivity after removing nonneural components by General Linear Model (GLM) approach with a reference ventricle-derived signal as covariate. Ventricle signals are related to low-frequency modulations of cardiac and respiratory rhythms, which are nonstationary activities. Herein, we employed an adaptive filtering approach to improve removing physiological noise from BOLD signals. Comparisons between filtering approaches were performed by evaluating the amount of removed signal variance and the connectivity between homologous contralateral regions of interest (ROIs). The global connectivity between ROIs was estimated with a generalized correlation named RV coefficient. The mean ROI decrease of variance was -52% and -11%, for adaptive filtering and GLM, respectively. Adaptive filtering led to higher connectivity between grey matter ROIs than that obtained with GLM. Thus, adaptive filtering is a feasible method for removing the physiological noise in the low frequency band and to highlight resting state functional networks
Uso de misturas de sementes no cultivo de feijão.
Mostra a produtividade de três linhagens de feijão, em monocultura, das cultivares Costa Rica, Preto G1 e Preto EEP 551, para capacidade de competição no plantio das águas de 1980. A boa distribuição das chuvas durante o ciclo da cultura contribuiu para a obtenção de elevadas produtividades.bitstream/item/26057/1/comt-12.pd
Chiral biobased ionic liquids with cations or anions including bile acid building blocks as chiral selectors in voltammetry
Chiral ionic liquids (CILs), or ionic liquids (ILs) with chiral additives, are very attractive chiral media for enantioselective electroanalysis, on account of their high chiral structural order at the electrochemical interphase. A family of molecular salts with CIL properties is now introduced, based on the chiral steroid building block of deoxycholic acid implemented either in the anion or cation. Testing them as chiral additives in a commercial achiral IL, they enable voltammetric discrimination of the enantiomers of a model chiral probe on disposable screen-printed electrodes in terms of peak potential differences, which is the most desirable transduction mode of the enantiorecognition event. The probe enantiomer sequence is the same for all selectors, consistent with their sharing the same chiral building block configuration. This proof-of-concept widens the application fields of bile acid derivatives as chiral selectors, while also enriching the still very few CIL families so far explored for applications in chiral electroanalysis
The Effect of Visual Experience on the Development of Functional Architecture in hMT+
We investigated whether the visual hMT+ cortex plays a role in supramodal representation of sensory flow, not mediated by visual mental imagery. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neural activity in sighted and congenitally blind individuals during passive perception of optic and tactile flows. Visual motion-responsive cortex, including hMT+, was identified in the lateral occipital and inferior temporal cortices of the sighted subjects by response to optic flow. Tactile flow perception in sighted subjects activated the more anterior part of these cortical regions but deactivated the more posterior part. By contrast, perception of tactile flow in blind subjects activated the full extent, including the more posterior part. These results demonstrate that activation of hMT+ and surrounding cortex by tactile flow is not mediated by visual mental imagery and that the functional organization of hMT+ can develop to subserve tactile flow perception in the absence of any visual experience. Moreover, visual experience leads to a segregation of the motion-responsive occipitotemporal cortex into an anterior subregion involved in the representation of both optic and tactile flows and a posterior subregion that processes optic flow only
Active and driven hydrodynamic crystals
Motivated by the experimental ability to produce monodisperse particles in
microfluidic devices, we study theoretically the hydrodynamic stability of
driven and active crystals. We first recall the theoretical tools allowing to
quantify the dynamics of elongated particles in a confined fluid. In this
regime hydrodynamic interactions between particles arise from a superposition
of potential dipolar singularities. We exploit this feature to derive the
equations of motion for the particle positions and orientations. After showing
that all five planar Bravais lattices are stationary solutions of the equations
of motion, we consider separately the case where the particles are passively
driven by an external force, and the situation where they are self-propelling.
We first demonstrate that phonon modes propagate in driven crystals, which are
always marginally stable. The spatial structure of the eigenmodes depend solely
on the symmetries of the lattices, and on the orientation of the driving force.
For active crystals, the stability of the particle positions and orientations
depends not only on the symmetry of the crystals but also on the perturbation
wavelengths and on the crystal density. Unlike unconfined fluids, the stability
of active crystals is independent of the nature of the propulsion mechanism at
the single particle level. The square and rectangular lattices are found to be
linearly unstable at short wavelengths provided the volume fraction of the
crystals is high enough. Differently, hexagonal, oblique, and face-centered
crystals are always unstable. Our work provides a theoretical basis for future
experimental work on flowing microfluidic crystals.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Italian guidelines for primary headache: 2012 revised version
The first edition of the Italian diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines for primary headaches in adults was published in J Headache Pain 2(Suppl. 1):105-190 (2001). Ten years later, the guideline committee of the Italian Society for the Study of Headaches (SISC) decided it was time to update therapeutic guidelines. A literature search was carried out on Medline database, and all articles on primary headache treatments in English, German, French and Italian published from February 2001 to December 2011 were taken into account. Only randomized controlled trials (RCT) and meta-analyses were analysed for each drug. If RCT were lacking, open studies and case series were also examined. According to the previous edition, four levels of recommendation were defined on the basis of levels of evidence, scientific strength of evidence and clinical effectiveness. Recommendations for symptomatic and prophylactic treatment of migraine and cluster headache were therefore revised with respect to previous 2001 guidelines and a section was dedic
One-neutron transfer reaction in the O + Ti collision at 275 MeV
The present article reports new data on the
Ti(O,O)Ti reaction at 275 MeV incident energy as
part of the systematic research pursued within the NUMEN project. Supplementary
measurements of the same reaction on O and Al targets were also
performed in order to estimate the background arising from the use of a
composite target (TiO + Al). These data were analyzed under the
same theoretical framework as those obtained with the titanium target in order
to reinforce the conclusions of our analysis. Differential cross-section
angular distribution measurements for the O ejectiles were
performed in a wide angular range by using the MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic
spectrometer. The experimental results were analyzed within the distorted-wave
and coupled-channels Born Approximation frameworks. The optical potentials at
the entrance and exit channels were calculated in a double folding approach
adopting the S\~ao Paulo potential, and the spectroscopic amplitudes for the
projectile and target overlaps were obtained from large-scale shell model
calculations. The differential cross-sections are well-described by the
theoretical calculations, where a weak coupling to collective excitations of
projectile and target is inferred. The sensitivity of transfer cross-sections
on different model spaces adopted in nuclear structure calculations, is also
discussed
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