Annealing-based model-free expectation maximisation for multi-colour flow cytometry data clustering

This paper proposes an optimised model-free expectation maximisation method for automated clustering of high-dimensional datasets. The method is based on a recursive binary division strategy that successively divides an original dataset into distinct clusters. Each binary division is carriedout using a model-free expectation maximisation scheme that exploits the posterior probability computation capability of the quasi-supervised learningalgorithm subjected to a line-search optimisation over the reference set size parameter analogous to a simulated annealing approach. The divisions arecontinued until a division cost exceeds an adaptively determined limit. Experiment results on synthetic as well as real multi-colour flow cytometrydatasets showed that the proposed method can accurately capture the prominent clusters without requiring any prior knowledge on the number of clusters ortheir distribution models

Comorbidities: assessment and treatment

COPD is an umbrella term that is associated with several systemic manifestation, lung involvement, and comorbidities [1, 2]. Currently, the description of comorbidity is complicated and has three different domains: “(1) the coexistence of one or more diseases with no other causation, (2) coexistence of diseases that share common risk factors and pathogenic pathways, (3) coexistence of diseases that are complicated by the interaction with the lung and systemic manifestation of COPD” [3]. In a very recent study, BODE Investigator Group suggested that COPD is interlinked with several comorbidities larger than non-COPD controls indicating common pathobiological process [4]. The importance of comorbidities is their impact on clinical outcomes of a patient life. COPD is a life-threatening and disabling disease and comorbidities cause additional impact revealing impairment in quality of life and increasing mortality [3]

The effect of birth season on diurnal variation of blood pressure in hypertensive patients

Background. Birth season has been found to be related to cardiovascular disorders, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between birth season and diurnal variation in blood pressure (BP) parameters in hypertensive patients. Material and methods. We enrolled 194 patients. The date of birth was recorded with the season of birth determined as winter (December-February), spring (March-May), summer (June-August) or autumn (September-November). All patients underwent 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) for evaluation of dipper or non-dipper status. We searched for the relationship between birth season and non-dipper status and other ABPM parameters. Results. 93 patients were classified into the dipper hypertensive group and 101 patients were in the non-dipper hypertensive group. We did not find any association between non-dipper status and birth season in hypertensive patients (p = 0.517). However, we found a significant relationship between diurnal variation in BP and birth season. This difference was observed between winter and spring season. We found a significant relationship between birth season and 24-hour diastolic BP, awake diastolic BP, sleep diastolic BP and sleep mean BP (p = 0.035, p = 0.037, p = 0.036, p = 0.032, respectively). These ABPM parameters were lower in patients born in winter than in those born in spring. Conclusion. Birth season was found to be related to diurnal variation in blood pressure in hypertensive patients. Hypertensive individuals born in winter had lower blood pressure than those born in spring

Internationalization of competition law and policy

Ankara : The Department of International Relations of Bilkent University, 2010.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2010.Includes bibliographical references leaves 132-143.With the internationalization of anticompetitive business activity, national competition laws and policies proved to be insufficient to protect competition in free markets. To cope with the problems created by international anticompetitive conduct, states and/or national regulators started to take part in various arrangements concerning the issue. Today, there are different forms of internationalization of competition law and policy such as extraterritorial application of domestic laws and policies and certain cooperation and convergence mechanisms. Moreover, various actors take part in the process: states, regulators, international organizations, firms etc. This thesis aims to analyze the important factors of internationalization of competition law and policy so that the reasons behind the current state of the internationalization process can be understood. Furthermore, four main International Political Economy theoretical perspectives are utilized to provide a new insight for and a further understanding of internationalization of competition law and policy.Köktürk, Nur SedaM.S

Cadmium uptake and antioxidative enzymes in durum wheat cultivars in response to increasing Cd application

Effects of increasing cadmium (Cd) application rates on shoot and root growth, uptake and accumulation of Cd, and activity of antioxidative defense enzymes were studied in two durum wheat (Triticum durum) cultivars (cvs. Balcah-2000 and Balcah-85) differing in Cd tolerance. These durum wheat cultivars have been selected from a screening study including 10 bread and 6 durum wheat cultivars. The selected cultivars were grown in nutrient solution under controlled environmental conditions and subjected to increasing Cd concentrations (e.g., 0, 0.5, 2, 10, and 30 uM Cd). Genotypic variation in tolerance to increasing Cd stress was observed based on the development of necrotic patches on the base of the oldest leaves and reduction in dry matter production. Based on these parameters Balcah-85 was ranked as the Cd-tolerant and Balcah-2000 the Cd-sensitive genotype. The results of the root uptake and accumulation of Cd in root and shoot showed that the distinct genotypic difference in tolerance to Cd toxicity between two durum wheat cultivars was very closely related to the differential partitioning of Cd between roots and shoots. Both cultivars responded in a very similar way in total uptake of Cd by roots, but differed greatly in root accumulation and root-to-shoot transport of Cd. Compared to Balcah-2000, Balcah-85 had higher capacity to retain Cd in roots and reduce Cd transport into shoots. Consequently, in Balcah-2000 the shoot concentration and content of Cd were nearly 2-fold higher than that of Balcah-85, indicating a possible detoxification mechanism existing in Balcah 85 to retain of Cd in roots and prevent photosynthetic tissues from Cd toxicity. Genotypic variation was also studied in terms of antioxidative enzymes including ascorbate peroxidase (AP), glutathione reductase (GR), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT). The results obtained did not show any consistent relationship between Cd tolerance and activities of the antioxidative enzymes. At the highest level of Cd applications there was a clear decrease in 02-(superoxide)-generating NADPH oxidase activity in both cultivars, possibly due to inactivation of the enzyme by binding of Cd to NADPH. The results obtained in the study clearly demonstrated that differential tolerance to Cd toxicity between durum wheat cultivars is related very closely to detoxification mechanism of the absorbed Cd in roots (e.g. binding to cell wall and/or compartmentalization in vacuole)

ANALYSIS OF GALL-BLADDER IMAGES BY USING STATIONARY WAVELET TRANSFORM AND DISCRETE WAVELET TRANSFORM

Ayrıt sezimi algoritmaları biyomedikal görüntü analizinde önemli algoritmalardır. Bu çalışmada ayrıt sezimi için, histogram eşleme, ayrık dalgacık dönüşümü (ADD) ve durağan dalgacık dönüşümü (DDD) yöntemleri, safra kesesi ses üstü imgelerinin kalitesini iyileştirmede kullanılmıştır. Ayrıca, ortanca süzgeçleme algoritması, bu tekniklerden sonra görüntü üzerine uygulanmıştır. Sonuçta bu algoritmaların başarımı, görüntü entropi, parçalı t-testi ve CPU zamanı gibi çeşitli başarım ölçütleri kulllanılarak karşılaştırılmıştır. The edge detection algorithms are important in biomedical image analysis. In this work histogram equalization, the discrete wavelet transform and the stationary wavelet transform techniques were used to improve the quality of the gall bladder ultrasonic images for edge detection. Also the median filtering algorithm was used after applying the both techniques. Then the performances of these algorithms were compared by several performance measures such as image entropy, paired t-test, and CPU time

Optimization of broaching tool design /

Broaching is a commonly used machining operation in manufacturing of variety of internal or external complex features. High quality surfaces can be generated with high productivity if proper conditions are used. The main disadvantage of broaching is that it is not possible to change any of the cutting parameters but the cutting speed during production. That is because all machining parameters, except cutting speed, are built into broaching tools which makes tool design the most important aspect of broaching. In this thesis, a procedure for the optimization of broaching tools is presented. First, the mechanics of the broaching process and general properties of the broach tools are explained. Important design parameters and the effects of them on the broaching process are demonstrated. Most broaching tools have several tool segments with different profiles. One of the critical factors in the design of these tools is the assignment of segment profiles which determine the relative amounts of material removal rate in each section. Several alternatives are tried for optimization of section geometries and their effects are demonstrated by simulations. The objective function of the optimization problem and the constraints due to machine, tool and part limitations are presented. A heuristic optimization algorithm is developed, and demonstrated by examples. It is also shown that by using the algorithm developed the production time can be reduced due to shortened tool length. The simulation program developed is also explained and demonstrated

Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Ischemic Stroke patients

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in patients with ischemic stroke and to evaluate the effectiveness of nasal continuous positive airway pressure treatment. METHODS: Overnight polysomnography was performed by a computerized system in 19 subjects with ischemic stroke. Patients with an apnea-hypopnea index > 5 were considered to have obstructive sleep apnea. The appropriate level of continuous positive airway pressure for each patient was determined during an all-night continuous positive airway pressure determination study. Attended continuous positive airway pressure titration was performed with a continuous positive airway pressure auto-titrating device. RESULTS: Obstructive sleep apnea prevalence among patients with ischemic stroke was 73.7%. The minimum SaO2 was significantly lower, and the percent of total sleep time in the wake stage and stage 1 sleep was significantly longer in patients with obstructive sleep apnea. In two patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea, we observed a decrease in the apnea-hypopnea index, an increase in mean wake time, mean SaO2, and minimum SaO2, and alterations in sleep structures with continuous positive airway pressure treatment. CONCLUSION: As the diagnosis and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea is of particular importance in secondary stroke prevention, we suggest that the clinical assessment of obstructive sleep apnea be part of the evaluation of stroke patients in rehabilitation units, and early treatment should be started

Fisher’s Linear Discriminant Analysis Based Prediction using Transient Features of Seismic Events in Coal Mines

2016 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, FedCSIS 2016; Gdansk; Poland; 11 September 2016 through 14 September 2016Identification of seismic activity levels in coal mines is important to avoid accidents such as rockburst. Creating an early warning system that can save lives requires an automated way of predicting. This study proposes a prediction algorithm for the AAIA'16 Data Mining Challenge: Predicting Dangerous Seismic Events in Active Coal Mines that is based on transient activity features along with average indicators evaluated by a Fisher's linear discriminant analysis. Performance evaluation experiments on the training datasets revealed an accuracy level of around 0.9438 while the performance on the test dataset was at a level of 0.9297. These results suggest that the proposed approach achieves high accuracy in predicting danger seismic events while maintaining low complexity

DIRECTION OF ARRIVAL ESTIMATOIN USING MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD METHOD IN UNIFORM LINEAR ANTENNA ARRAYS

Akıllı antenler, gelecekteki uygulamalarda gezgin iletişim sistemlerinin belkemiğini oluşturacak uygulamalardır. Bu antenlerin özelliği, kullanıcı işaret(ler)inin geliş yönünü belirlemesi ve buna göre kendini ayarlamasıdır. İşaretin geliş yönünü algılayan algoritmalar sistem çalışmasında önemli bir yere sahiptir. Bu çalışmada, temel tahmin algoritmalarından biri olan en büyük olabilirlik yöntemi uygulanarak anten dizisine ulaşan geliş açısı belirlenmeye çalışılmıştır. Kullanılan yöntem daha sonra MATLAB programı ile tekli ve çoklu işaretler için uygulanmıştır. Smart antenna systems will play an important role in next generation communication systems. These antennas estimate the angle of arrival of the user and adapt the antenna radiation pattern to enhance quality of service. Direction of arrival algorithms is one of the most important topics in such cases. In this work, one of the basic estimation methods, maximum likelihood estimation, is used for estimating angle of arrival of the signal. Then, this method is simulated using MATLAB and simulation results are included