The fifth most prevalent disease is being neglected by public health organisations

The progress towards reduction of global mortality has produced an epidemiological transition towards non-fatal diseases, which challenge the ability of the world’s population to live in full health. Although traumatic dental injuries are not lethal, their treatment is more expensive (US$2 000 000–5 000 000 per million inhabitants) and time-consuming than that of all the other bodily injuries, making dental rehabilitation less likely among disadvantaged individuals. Since untreated traumatic dental injuries have a negative social, functional, and emotional effect in children and adolescents, differences in treatment of these injuries between children from different countries and social classes produce disparities in their quality of life

Adapting Quality Assurance to Adaptive Systems: The Scenario Coevolution Paradigm

From formal and practical analysis, we identify new challenges that self-adaptive systems pose to the process of quality assurance. When tackling these, the effort spent on various tasks in the process of software engineering is naturally re-distributed. We claim that all steps related to testing need to become self-adaptive to match the capabilities of the self-adaptive system-under-test. Otherwise, the adaptive system's behavior might elude traditional variants of quality assurance. We thus propose the paradigm of scenario coevolution, which describes a pool of test cases and other constraints on system behavior that evolves in parallel to the (in part autonomous) development of behavior in the system-under-test. Scenario coevolution offers a simple structure for the organization of adaptive testing that allows for both human-controlled and autonomous intervention, supporting software engineering for adaptive systems on a procedural as well as technical level.Comment: 17 pages, published at ISOLA 201

A measurement of the 4He(g,n) reaction from 23 < Eg < 70 MeV

A comprehensive set of 4He(g,n) absolute cross-section measurements has been performed at MAX-lab in Lund, Sweden. Tagged photons from 23 < Eg < 70 MeV were directed toward a liquid 4He target, and neutrons were identified using pulse-shape discrimination and the Time-of-flight Technique in two liquid-scintillator detector arrays. Seven-point angular distributions have been measured for fourteen photon energies. The results have been subjected to complementary Transition-coefficient and Legendre-coefficient analyses. The results are also compared to experimental data measured at comparable photon energies as well as Recoil-Corrected Continuum Shell Model, Resonating Group Method, and Effective Interaction Hyperspherical-Harmonic Expansion calculations. For photon energies below 29 MeV, the angle-integrated data are significantly larger than the values recommended by Calarco, Berman, and Donnelly in 1983.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, some more revisions, submitted to Physical Review

The Hypergraph p-Laplace for Manifold-valued Data and its Application in Machine-Learning

Grafer og funksjoner på grafer utgjør et omfattende rammeverk for behandling av diskrete data og spiller en stadig viktigere rolle innen mange områder av anvendt matematikk. Grafer gir oss mange verktøy, spesielt graf-Laplace operatoren, som er allestedsnærværende både i generelle studier av grafer og i anvendelser. Grafer er imidlertid begrenset til modellering ved hjelp av parvise forbindelser. Dette har motivert bruken av hypergrafer, en generalisering av grafer som kan representere vilkårlige N-ordens interaksjoner og relasjoner direkte med hyperkanter. For å definere et hypergraf-rammeverk sikter man for å, som med grafer, definere funksjoner og funksjonsrom på noder og kanter. Funksjonsrommene dukker da opp som kodomene til disse funksjonene, og er i de fleste tilfeller euklidske av en eller annen dimensjon. I dette tilfellet har det blitt foreslått mange hypergraf-Laplace operatorer i litteraturen. Selv om de er effektive for mange problemer, finnes det andre der det er mer naturlig å representere funksjonene som punkter i en mer generell mangfoldighet. I dette arbeidet generaliserer vi tidligere hypergraftilnærminger slik at de kan ta hensyn til slike mangfoldighetsvaluerte data for mange vanlige mangfoldigheter, der vi tar hensyn til den riemannske geometriske strukturen. Vi introduserer to rammeverk for mangfoldighetsvaluerte hypergraffunksjoner, hver med sine familier av isotrope og anisotrope p-Laplace operatorer, som generaliserer hypergraf-Laplace operatorer fra eksisterende litteratur.Graphs and feature functions on graphs provide a comprehensive framework for handling discrete data and play an increasingly important role in many areas of applied mathematics. The graph framework provides many tools, in particular the graph Laplacian operator ubiquitous both in the general study of graphs and in application. Graphs are, however, limited to the modeling using pairwise connections. This has motivated the use of hypergraphs, a generalization of graphs that can represent arbitrarily $N$-ary interactions and relationships directly with their hyperedges. To define a hypergraph framework, as with graphs, one aims to define feature functions and function spaces on the nodes and edges. The feature spaces then show up as the codomains of these functions and are in the majority of cases Euclidean of some dimension. In this case, many hypergraph Laplacians have been proposed in the literature. While effective for many problems, there are others where features are more naturally represented as points in a more general manifold. This work generalizes previous hypergraph approaches to accommodate such manifold-valued data for many commonly encountered manifolds, taking their Riemannian geometrical structure into account. In particular, we introduce two frameworks of manifold-valued hypergraph functions, each including its families of isotropic and anisotropic $p$-Laplacians generalizing hypergraph Laplacians of existing literature

Widespread impact of horizontal gene transfer on plant colonization of land

In complex multicellular eukaryotes such as animals and plants, horizontal gene transfer is commonly considered rare with very limited evolutionary significance. Here we show that horizontal gene transfer is a dynamic process occurring frequently in the early evolution of land plants. Our genome analyses of the moss Physcomitrella patens identified 57 families of nuclear genes that were acquired from prokaryotes, fungi or viruses. Many of these gene families were transferred to the ancestors of green or land plants. Available experimental evidence shows that these anciently acquired genes are involved in some essential or plant-specific activities such as xylem formation, plant defence, nitrogen recycling as well as the biosynthesis of starch, polyamines, hormones and glutathione. These findings suggest that horizontal gene transfer had a critical role in the transition of plants from aquatic to terrestrial environments. On the basis of these findings, we propose a model of horizontal gene transfer mechanism in nonvascular and seedless vascular plants

How the other half lives: CRISPR-Cas's influence on bacteriophages

CRISPR-Cas is a genetic adaptive immune system unique to prokaryotic cells used to combat phage and plasmid threats. The host cell adapts by incorporating DNA sequences from invading phages or plasmids into its CRISPR locus as spacers. These spacers are expressed as mobile surveillance RNAs that direct CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins to protect against subsequent attack by the same phages or plasmids. The threat from mobile genetic elements inevitably shapes the CRISPR loci of archaea and bacteria, and simultaneously the CRISPR-Cas immune system drives evolution of these invaders. Here we highlight our recent work, as well as that of others, that seeks to understand phage mechanisms of CRISPR-Cas evasion and conditions for population coexistence of phages with CRISPR-protected prokaryotes.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure

Testing the robustness of controllers for self-adaptive systems

Self-Adaptive systems are software-intensive systems endowed with the ability to respond to a variety of changes that may occur in their environment, goals, or the system itself, by adapting their structure and behavior at run-time in an autonomous way. Controllers are complex components incorporated in self-adaptive systems, which are crucial to their function since they are in charge of adapting the target system by executing actions through effectors, based on information monitored by probes. However, although controllers are becoming critical in many application domains, so far very little has been done to assess their robustness. In this paper, we propose an approach for evaluating the robustness of controllers for self-adaptive software systems, aiming to identify faults in their design. Our proposal considers the stateful nature of the controller, and identifies a set of robustness tests, which includes the provision of mutated inputs to the interfaces between the controller and the target system (i.e., probes). The feasibility of the approach is evaluated on Rainbow, a framework for architecture-based self-adaptation, and in the context of the Znn.com case study

Genome of the red alga Porphyridium purpureum

The limited knowledge we have about red algal genomes comes from the highly specialized extremophiles, Cyanidiophyceae. Here, we describe the first genome sequence from a mesophilic, unicellular red alga, Porphyridium purpureum. The 8,355 predicted genes in P. purpureum, hundreds of which are likely to be implicated in a history of horizontal gene transfer, reside in a genome of 19.7 Mbp with 235 spliceosomal introns. Analysis of light-harvesting complex proteins reveals a nuclear-encoded phycobiliprotein in the alga. We uncover a complex set of carbohydrate-active enzymes, identify the genes required for the methylerythritol phosphate pathway of isoprenoid biosynthesis, and find evidence of sexual reproduction. Analysis of the compact, function-rich genome of P. purpureum suggests that ancestral lineages of red algae acted as mediators of horizontal gene transfer between prokaryotes and photosynthetic eukaryotes, thereby significantly enriching genomes across the tree of photosynthetic life

Određivanje alergena Asp f 1 (Aspergillus fumigatus) u peradarniku enzimimunokemijskom metodom

Poultry farms contain high levels of allergenic fungi, and Aspergillus spp. is the most common genus of moulds. Aspergillus fumigatus antigens are responsible for the development of several respiratory diseases including asthma. The aim of this study was to measure the mass fraction of Asp f 1, a major allergen of Asperillus fumigatus in 37 indoor dust samples collected from four poultry farms in a rural area of the Zagreb County (Croatia) using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. More than 62 % of dust samples had detectable Asp f 1 levels (limit of detection 3.6 ng g-1). The overall mean Asp f 1 level was 17.9 ng g-1 [range (3.8 to 72.4) ng g-1]. Satisfactory results were obtained for analytical within-run imprecision (6.7 %), between-run imprecision (10.5 %), and accuracy (91 % to 115 %). Microclimate parameters (air temperature, relative humidity, and velocity) were within the recommended ranges in all poultry farms. This study has shown that Asp f 1 settles on dust at poultry farms and that occupational exposure to this allergen deserves monitoring in livestock buildings.Peradarnici sadržavaju veliku koncentraciju alergenih plijesni, a rod Aspergillus najčešće je zastupljen. Antigeni soja Aspergillus fumigatus odgovorni su za nastanak nekoliko respiratornih bolesti uključujući astmu. Cilj ovoga rada bio je odrediti masenu frakciju Asp f 1, glavnog alergena soja Asperillus fumigatus u 37 uzoraka prašine uzorkovanih u četiri peradarnika sa šireg područja Zagrebačke županije rabeći enzimimunokemijsku metodu. Više od 62 % uzoraka prašine u tri peradarnika imalo je mjerljivu koncentraciju Asp f 1 (granica detekcije = 3.6 ng g-1). Ukupni srednji maseni udio Asp f 1 iznosio je 17.9 ng g-1 (raspon od 3.8 ng g-1 do 72.4 ng g-1). Dobiveni su zadovoljavajući rezultati za analitičku nepreciznost u seriji (6.7 %), nepreciznost iz dana u dan (10.5 %) i točnost (91 % do 115 %). Mikroklimatski parametri (temperatura zraka, relativna vlaga i protok zraka) u svim peradarnicima bili su u okviru preporučenih vrijednosti. Rezultati ovoga rada pokazuju da Asp f 1 sedimentira na prašinu u peradarnicima te da profesionalnu izloženost tom alergenu treba pratiti u jedinicama za uzgoj stoke