Dielectric branes in non-trivial backgrounds

We present a procedure to evaluate the action for dielectric branes in non-trivial backgrounds. These backgrounds must be capable to be taken into a Kaluza-Klein form, with some non-zero wrapping factor. We derive the way this wrapping factor is gauged away. Examples of this are AdS_5xS^5 and AdS_3xS^3xT^4, where we perform the construction of different stable systems, which stability relies in its dielectric character.Comment: 14 pages, published versio

Systematic and Realistic Testing in Simulation of Control Code for Robots in Collaborative Human-Robot Interactions

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. Industries such as flexible manufacturing and home care will be transformed by the presence of robotic assistants. Assurance of safety and functional soundness for these robotic systems will require rigorous verification and validation. We propose testing in simulation using Coverage-Driven Verification (CDV) to guide the testing process in an automatic and systematic way. We use a two-tiered test generation approach, where abstract test sequences are computed first and then concretized (e.g., data and variables are instantiated), to reduce the complexity of the test generation problem. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we developed a testbench for robotic code, running in ROS-Gazebo, that implements an object handover as part of a humanrobot interaction (HRI) task. Tests are generated to stimulate the robot’s code in a realistic manner, through stimulating the human, environment, sensors, and actuators in simulation. We compare the merits of unconstrained, constrained and model-based test generation in achieving thorough exploration of the code under test, and interesting combinations of human-robot interactions. Our results show that CDV combined with systematic test generation achieves a very high degree of automation in simulation-based verification of control code for robots in HRI

The effect of burnout in seniority in the workplace: mediation analysis of anxiety

Cada vez en mayor medida se hace patente que el síndrome de burnout es una realidad social. Esta disfunción psicológica está relacionada directamente con el ámbito laboral, que afecta especialmente a la profesión sanitaria, caracterizada por una continua relación de ayuda indispensable hacia otras personas, que a su vez dependen del citado personal. La muestra de estudio es de 70 trabajadores de un mismo centro del sector sanitario de atención de mayores de la ciudad de Granada. Los resultados muestran que la ansiedad se relacionará positivamente tanto con el burnout como con la antigüedad en el puesto, mientras que predecimos que a menor realización personal en presencia de mayor antigüedad los valores en ansiedad también serán más altos. También se comprueba que la ansiedad estado tiene efectos mediadores sobre la realización personal, puesto que puede causar mayor alteración de este estado que la propia antigüedad.As time goes by it becomes more and more evident that burnout syndrome is a social reality. This psychological dysfunction is directly related to the spheres of labour, especially affecting the sanitary profession, characterized by a continuous relationship of indispensable help towards others, who are dependent on them. The study sample comprised 70 workers of the same healthcare center focusing on elderly care in Granada. The results show that anxiety will correlate positively with burnout as well as with seniority at the job, while we predict anxiety levels will also be higher if there is low personal fulfilment in the presence of more job seniority. It is also proved that a state of anxiety has a mediating effect on personal fulfilment since it can cause a greater alteration in this state than job seniority.Departamento de Psicología Socia

Case-Based Statistical Learning: A Non-Parametric Implementation with a Conditional-Error Rate SVM

© 2013 IEEE. Machine learning has been successfully applied to many areas of science and engineering. Some examples include time series prediction, optical character recognition, signal and image classification in biomedical applications for diagnosis and prognosis and so on. In the theory of semi-supervised learning, we have a training set and an unlabeled data, that are employed to fit a prediction model or learner, with the help of an iterative algorithm, such as the expectation-maximization algorithm. In this paper, a novel non-parametric approach of the so-called case-based statistical learning is proposed in a low-dimensional classification problem. This supervised feature selection scheme analyzes the discrete set of outcomes in the classification problem by hypothesis-testing and makes assumptions on these outcome values to obtain the most likely prediction model at the training stage. A novel prediction model is described in terms of the output scores of a confidence-based support vector machine classifier under class-hypothesis testing. To have a more accurate prediction by considering the unlabeled points, the distribution of unlabeled examples must be relevant for the classification problem. The estimation of the error rates from a well-trained support vector machines allows us to propose a non-parametric approach avoiding the use of Gaussian density function-based models in the likelihood ratio test

TGFBR1 Intralocus Epistatic Interaction as a Risk Factor for Colorectal Cancer

In colorectal cancer (CRC), an inherited susceptibility risk affects about 35% of patients, whereas high-penetrance germline mutations account for <6% of cases. A considerable proportion of sporadic tumors could be explained by the coinheritance of multiple low-penetrance variants, some of which are common. We assessed the susceptibility to CRC conferred by genetic variants at the TGFBR1 locus. We analyzed 14 polymorphisms and the allele-specific expression (ASE) of TGFBR1 in 1025 individuals from the Spanish population. A case-control study was undertaken with 504 controls and 521 patients with sporadic CRC. Fourteen polymorphisms located at the TGFBR1 locus were genotyped with the iPLEX Gold (MassARRAY-Sequenom) technology. Descriptive analyses of the polymorphisms and haplotypes and association studies were performed with the SNPator workpackage. No relevant associations were detected between individual polymorphisms or haplotypes and the risk of CRC. The TGFBR1*9A/6A polymorphism was used for the ASE analysis. Heterozygous individuals were analyzed for ASE by fragment analysis using cDNA from normal tissue. The relative level of allelic expression was extrapolated from a standard curve. The cutoff value was calculated with Youden's index. ASE was found in 25.4% of patients and 16.4% of controls. Considering both bimodal and continuous types of distribution, no significant differences between the ASE values of patients and controls were identified. Interestingly, a combined analysis of the polymorphisms and ASE for the association with CRC occurrence revealed that ASE-positive individuals carrying one of the most common haplotypes (H2: 20.7%) showed remarkable susceptibility to CRC (RR: 5.25; 95% CI: 2.547–5.250; p<0.001) with a synergy factor of 3.7. In our study, 54.1% of sporadic CRC cases were attributable to the coinheritance of the H2 haplotype and TGFBR1 ASE. These results support the hypothesis that the allelic architecture of cancer genes, rather than individual polymorphisms, more accurately defines the CRC risk

Role of flow cytometry immunophenotyping in the diagnosis of leptomeningeal carcinomatosis

PURPOSE: To explore the contribution of flow cytometry immunophenotyping (FCI) in detecting leptomeningeal disease in patients with solid tumors. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from 78 patients who received a diagnosis of epithelial-cell solid tumors and had clinical data suggestive of leptomeningeal carcinomatosis (LC) were studied. A novel FCI protocol was used to identify cells expressing the epithelial cell antigen EpCAM and their DNA content. Accompanying inflammatory cells were also described. FCI results (positive or negative for malignancy) were compared with those from CSF cytology and with the diagnosis established by the clinicians: patients with LC (n = 49), without LC (n = 26), and undetermined (n = 3). RESULTS: FCI described a wide range of EpCAM-positive cells with a hyperdiploid DNA content in the CSF of patients with LC. Compared with cytology, FCI showed higher sensitivity (75.5 vs 65.3) and negative predictive value (67.6 vs 60.5), and similar specificity (96.1 vs 100) and positive predictive value (97.4 vs 100). Concordance between cytology and FCI was high (Kp = 0.83), although misdiagnosis of LC did not show differences between evaluating the CSF with 1 or 2 techniques (P = .06). Receiver-operator characteristic curve analyses showed that lymphocytes and monocytes had a different distribution between patients with and without LC. CONCLUSION: FCI seems to be a promising new tool for improving the diagnostic examination of patients with suspicion of LC. Detection of epithelial cells with a higher DNA content is highly specific of LC, but evaluation of the nonepithelial cell compartment of the CSF might also be useful for supporting this diagnosis

Non-relativistic Matrix Inflation

We reconsider a string theoretic inflationary model, where inflation is driven by $n$ multiple coincident $D3$-branes in the finite $n$ limit. We show that the finite $n$ action can be continued to the limit of large $n$, where it converges to the action for a wrapped $D5$-brane with $n$ units of U(1) flux. This provides an important consistency check of the scenario and allows for more control over certain back-reaction effects. We determine the most general form of the action for a specific sub-class of models and examine the non-relativistic limits of the theory where the branes move at speeds much less than the speed of light. The non-Abelian nature of the world-volume theory implies that the inflaton field is matrix valued and this results in modifications to the slow-roll parameters and Hubble-flow equations. A specific small field model of inflation is investigated where the branes move out of an AdS throat, and observational constraints are employed to place bounds on the background fluxes.Comment: 25 page