Traffic estimation for large urban road network with high missing data ratio

Intelligent transportation systems require the knowledge of current and forecasted traffic states for effective control of road networks. The actual traffic state has to be estimated as the existing sensors does not capture the needed state. Sensor measurements often contain missing or incomplete data as a result of communication issues, faulty sensors or cost leading to incomplete monitoring of the entire road network. This missing data poses challenges to traffic estimation approaches. In this work, a robust spatio-temporal traffic imputation approach capable of withstanding high missing data rate is presented. A particle based approach with Kriging interpolation is proposed. The performance of the particle based Kriging interpolation for different missing data ratios was investigated for a large road network comprising 1000 segments. Results indicate that the effect of missing data in a large road network can be mitigated by the Kriging interpolation within the particle filter framework

The aminopeptidase inhibitor CHR-2863 is an orally bioavailable inhibitor of murine malaria

Malaria remains a significant risk in many areas of the world, with resistance to the current antimalarial pharmacopeia an everincreasing problem. The M1 alanine aminopeptidase (PfM1AAP) and M17 leucine aminopeptidase (PfM17LAP) are believed to play a role in the terminal stages of digestion of host hemoglobin and thereby generate a pool of free amino acids that are essential for parasite growth and development. Here, we show that an orally bioavailable aminopeptidase inhibitor, CHR-2863, is efficacious against murine malaria

Nuclear energy in the public sphere: Anti-nuclear movements vs. industrial lobbies in Spain (1962-1979)

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11024-014-9263-0This article examines the role of the Spanish Atomic Forum as the representative of the nuclear sector in the public arena during the golden years of the nuclear power industry from the 1960s to 1970s. It focuses on the public image concerns of the Spanish nuclear lobby and the subsequent information campaigns launched during the late 1970s to counteract demonstrations by the growing and heterogeneous anti-nuclear movement. The role of advocacy of nuclear energy by the Atomic Forum was similar to that in other countries, but the situation in Spain had some distinguishing features. Anti-nuclear protest in Spain peaked in 1978 paralleling the debates of a new National Energy Plan in Congress, whose first draft had envisaged a massive nuclearization of the country. We show how the approval of the Plan in July 1979, with a significant reduction in the nuclear energy component, was influenced by the anti-nuclear protest movements in Spain. Despite the efforts of the Spanish Atomic Forum to counter its message, the anti-nuclear movement was strengthened by reactions to the Three Mile Island accident in March 1979

An immune dysfunction score for stratification of patients with acute infection based on whole-blood gene expression

Dysregulated host responses to infection can lead to organ dysfunction and sepsis, causing millions of global deaths each year. To alleviate this burden, improved prognostication and biomarkers of response are urgently needed. We investigated the use of whole-blood transcriptomics for stratification of patients with severe infection by integrating data from 3149 samples from patients with sepsis due to community-acquired pneumonia or fecal peritonitis admitted to intensive care and healthy individuals into a gene expression reference map. We used this map to derive a quantitative sepsis response signature (SRSq) score reflective of immune dysfunction and predictive of clinical outcomes, which can be estimated using a 7- or 12-gene signature. Last, we built a machine learning framework, SepstratifieR, to deploy SRSq in adult and pediatric bacterial and viral sepsis, H1N1 influenza, and COVID-19, demonstrating clinically relevant stratification across diseases and revealing some of the physiological alterations linking immune dysregulation to mortality. Our method enables early identification of individuals with dysfunctional immune profiles, bringing us closer to precision medicine in infection.peer-reviewe

Carrying American Ideas to the Unconverted: la tentative manquée du MIT d’exporter la recherche opérationnelle au sein de l’OTAN

Les études récentes sur l’« américanisation » des pratiques économiques et culturelles ont souligné que les Européens n’ont pas été des victimes passives d’un projet « colonisateur » mais qu’ils s’en sont approprié certains aspects de manière sélective, tout en en rejetant d’autres. Cette contribution élargit cette analyse au domaine scientifique. Elle retrace l’échec de la tentative d’exporter au niveau de l’OTAN un modèle de recherche opérationnelle fondé sur l’informatique et lié aux relations sociales où des scientifiques civils étaient profondément intégrés dans le processus décisionnel militaire. Cette conception de la recherche opérationnelle et les pratiques sociales quelle entraînait ont été bloquées par les Britanniques, qui ont rejeté un modèle de recherche opérationnelle requérant une formation poussée en mathématique et en informatique, et qui ont insisté pour que l’OTAN conserve une distinction stricte entre les domaines civil et militaire. L’« américanisation » a été un projet négocié et contesté, qui, même s’il a favorisé une prise de conscience de la nécessité du changement en Europe, n’en a pas pour autant déterminé la trajectoire.Recent scholarship on the ’Americanization’ of economic and cultural practices emphasize that the Europeans were not passive victims of this ’colonizing’ project but selectively appropriated or even completely rejected aspects of it. This paper extends these insights to a scientific field. It describes the failed attempt to export to NATO a theory-based, computer-dependent model of operations research which embedded civilian scientists deeply in the military decision-making process. This conception of operations research and its related social practices was blocked by the British, who rejected a model of operations research which called for a training in advanced mathematics and computing, and who insisted that NATO maintain a strict civil/military divide. ’Americanization’ was a negotiated and contested project which, while stimulating an awareness for change in Europe, did not necessarily determine its trajectory

The contribution of bubble chambers to European scientific collaboration

First published online: 10 April 2003"It's no good in this field to be excellent and always late". These words to the CERN Council in June 1962 summed up the disappointment felt by DG Victor Weisskopf and by the entire European physics community. It had just been announced that the existence of two kinds of neutrinos had been confirmed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. CERN too had launched a major programme to this end, choosing to use two heavy liquid bubble chambers rather than the spark chamber preferred by BNL. In summer 1961, however, Guy von Dardel had discovered that the whole exercise was fruitless. The experiment was not feasible because the beam intensity was too low. A Nobel Prize had eluded CERN's grasp - the first of many for the next two decades