Targeted Recovery as an Effective Strategy against Epidemic Spreading

We propose a targeted intervention protocol where recovery is restricted to individuals that have the least number of infected neighbours. Our recovery strategy is highly efficient on any kind of network, since epidemic outbreaks are minimal when compared to the baseline scenario of spontaneous recovery. In the case of spatially embedded networks, we find that an epidemic stays strongly spatially confined with a characteristic length scale undergoing a random walk. We demonstrate numerically and analytically that this dynamics leads to an epidemic spot with a flat surface structure and a radius that grows linearly with the spreading rate.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

On multifractals: a non-linear study of actigraphy data

This work aimed, to determine the characteristics of activity series from fractal geometry concepts application, in addition to evaluate the possibility of identifying individuals with fibromyalgia. Activity level data were collected from 27 healthy subjects and 27 fibromyalgia patients, with the use of clock-like devices equipped with accelerometers, for about four weeks, all day long. The activity series were evaluated through fractal and multifractal methods. Hurst exponent analysis exhibited values according to other studies ($H>0.5$) for both groups ($H=0.98\pm0.04$ for healthy subjects and $H=0.97\pm0.03$ for fibromyalgia patients), however, it is not possible to distinguish between the two groups by such analysis. Activity time series also exhibited a multifractal pattern. A paired analysis of the spectra indices for the sleep and awake states revealed differences between healthy subjects and fibromyalgia patients. The individuals feature differences between awake and sleep states, having statistically significant differences for $\alpha_{q-} - \alpha_{0}$ in healthy subjects ($p = 0.014$) and $D_{0}$ for patients with fibromyalgia ($p = 0.013$). The approach has proven to be an option on the characterisation of such kind of signals and was able to differ between both healthy and fibromyalgia groups. This outcome suggests changes in the physiologic mechanisms of movement control.Comment: Preprint accepted for publication at Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Application

Caracterização de óxidos de ferro de Latossolos da bacia hidrográfica do rio Marombas

TCC (graduação)- Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro de Curitibanos. Agronomia.Os óxidos de ferro são considerados indicadores pedoambientais. A quantificação indireta é feita pela extração de diferentes formas de ferro, enquanto que os minerais de estrutura cristalina são identificados diretamente via Difratometria de Raio X (DRX). A Espectroscopia de Reflectância Difusa (ERD) também tem sido utilizada para semiquantificação de minerais óxidos de ferro. O objetivo do trabalho foi de caracterizar os Latossolos da bacia hidrográfica do rio Marombas quanto ao conteúdo de óxidos de ferro utilizando diferentes métodos de quantificação. Dez perfis foram descritos morfologicamente e classificados pelo Sistema Brasileiro de Classificação de Solos. Análises químicas, granulométricas, DRX e espectrais foram feitas nos horizontes pedogenéticos dos perfis. Foram identificados os minerais hematita, goetita e maghemita nos Latossolos da bacia hidrográfica do rio Marombas. Os resultados demonstraram que a ERD foi ineficiente para a estimativa da relação hematita/(hematita+goetita) quando comparada com a DRX.The iron oxides are considered soil indicators. Their indirect quantification is done by extracting different forms of iron, while the X-ray diffraction (XRD) is used to directly quantify crystal structured minerals. The Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS) has been used for directly identification of iron oxides minerals. The aim of this study was to characterize Oxisoils from Marombas river’s watershed regarding its iron oxides content evaluated by different approaches. Ten soil profiles were morphologically described and classified by the Brazilian System of Soil Classification. Chemical, particle size, XRD and spectrum analysis were made in the pedogenetic horizons of the profiles. It was identified hematite, ghoetite and maghemita in the Oxisoils of Marombas river’s watershed. The results evidenced that DRS was inefficient for estimating hematite/(hematite+ghoetite) ratio when compared to XRD

Use of the terms "Wellbeing" and "Quality of Life" in health sciences: A conceptual framework

Background and Objectives: The assessment of wellbeing is a top priority in health sciences. The aim of this paper is to review the history of the concept of wellbeing and “Quality of Life” (QoL), and to understand the theories and assumptions that guided this field in order to provide a conceptual framework that may eventually facilitate the development of a formal synset (grouping of synonyms and semantically similar terms) of health-related wellbeing Methods: The history of the concept of wellbeing and QoL was reviewed in order to provide a conceptual framework. Results: Huge differences exist on the definition of “Wellbeing” and its relationship with QoL, “Happiness” and “Functioning” in the health context. From a dimensional perspective, health related wellbeing could be regarded as an overarching construct characterised by asymmetrical polarity, where “wellbeing” embeds the concept of “ill-being” as “health” incorporates de concept of “disease”. Conclusions: A common conceptual framework of these terms may eventually facilitate the development of a formal synset of health-related wellbeing. This terminological clarification should be part of a new taxonomy of health-related wellbeing based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework that may facilitate knowledge transfer across different sectors and semantic interoperability for care management and planningThe research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement numbers 223071 (COURAGE in Europe) and 282586 (ROAMER), from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III-FIS research grant number PS09/00295, and from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation ACI-Promociona (ACI2009-1010 and ACI- 2011-1080). The study was supported by the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Instituto de Salud Carlos II

Horizontal Visibility graphs generated by type-I intermittency

The type-I intermittency route to (or out of) chaos is investigated within the Horizontal Visibility graph theory. For that purpose, we address the trajectories generated by unimodal maps close to an inverse tangent bifurcation and construct, according to the Horizontal Visibility algorithm, their associated graphs. We show how the alternation of laminar episodes and chaotic bursts has a fingerprint in the resulting graph structure. Accordingly, we derive a phenomenological theory that predicts quantitative values of several network parameters. In particular, we predict that the characteristic power law scaling of the mean length of laminar trend sizes is fully inherited in the variance of the graph degree distribution, in good agreement with the numerics. We also report numerical evidence on how the characteristic power-law scaling of the Lyapunov exponent as a function of the distance to the tangent bifurcation is inherited in the graph by an analogous scaling of the block entropy over the degree distribution. Furthermore, we are able to recast the full set of HV graphs generated by intermittent dynamics into a renormalization group framework, where the fixed points of its graph-theoretical RG flow account for the different types of dynamics. We also establish that the nontrivial fixed point of this flow coincides with the tangency condition and that the corresponding invariant graph exhibit extremal entropic properties.Comment: 8 figure

Bio-inspired call-stack reconstruction for performance analysis

The correlation of performance bottlenecks and their associated source code has become a cornerstone of performance analysis. It allows understanding why the efficiency of an application falls behind the computer's peak performance and enabling optimizations on the code ultimately. To this end, performance analysis tools collect the processor call-stack and then combine this information with measurements to allow the analyst comprehend the application behavior. Some tools modify the call-stack during run-time to diminish the collection expense but at the cost of resulting in non-portable solutions. In this paper, we present a novel portable approach to associate performance issues with their source code counterpart. To address it, we capture a reduced segment of the call-stack (up to three levels) and then process the segments using an algorithm inspired by multi-sequence alignment techniques. The results of our approach are easily mapped to detailed performance views, enabling the analyst to unveil the application behavior and its corresponding region of code. To demonstrate the usefulness of our approach, we have applied the algorithm to several first-time seen in-production applications to describe them finely, and optimize them by using tiny modifications based on the analyses.We thankfully acknowledge Mathis Bode for giving us access to the Arts CF binaries, and Miguel Castrillo and Kim Serradell for their valuable insight regarding Nemo. We would like to thank Forschungszentrum Jülich for the computation time on their Blue Gene/Q system. This research has been partially funded by the CICYT under contracts No. TIN2012-34557 and TIN2015-65316-P.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft