A Generalized Approach to Complex Networks

This work describes how the formalization of complex network concepts in terms of discrete mathematics, especially mathematical morphology, allows a series of generalizations and important results ranging from new measurements of the network topology to new network growth models. First, the concepts of node degree and clustering coefficient are extended in order to characterize not only specific nodes, but any generic subnetwork. Second, the consideration of distance transform and rings are used to further extend those concepts in order to obtain a signature, instead of a single scalar measurement, ranging from the single node to whole graph scales. The enhanced discriminative potential of such extended measurements is illustrated with respect to the identification of correspondence between nodes in two complex networks, namely a protein-protein interaction network and a perturbed version of it. The use of other measurements derived from mathematical morphology are also suggested as a means to characterize complex networks connectivity in a more comprehensive fashion.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figur

Minimal anomaly-free chiral fermion sets and gauge coupling unification

We look for minimal chiral sets of fermions beyond the standard model that are anomaly free and, simultaneously, vectorlike particles with respect to colour SU(3) and electromagnetic U(1). We then study whether the addition of such particles to the standard model particle content allows for the unification of gauge couplings at a high energy scale, above $5.0 \times 10^{15}$ GeV so as to be safely consistent with proton decay bounds. The possibility to have unification at the string scale is also considered. Inspired in grand unified theories, we also search for minimal chiral fermion sets that belong to SU(5) multiplets. Restricting to representations up to dimension 50, we show that some of these sets can lead to gauge unification at the GUT and/or string scales.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 8 tables; Comments and references added, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Gait event detection in controlled and real-life situations: repeated measures from healthy subjects

A benchmark and time-effective computational method is needed to assess human gait events in real-life walking situations using few sensors to be easily reproducible. This paper fosters a reliable gait event detection system that can operate at diverse gait speeds and on diverse real-life terrains by detecting several gait events in real time. This detection only relies on the foot angular velocity measured by a wearable gyroscope mounted in the foot to facilitate its integration for daily and repeated use. To operate as a benchmark tool, the proposed detection system endows an adaptive computational method by applying a finite-state machine based on heuristic decision rules dependent on adaptive thresholds. Repeated measurements from 11 healthy subjects (28.27 +/- 4.17 years) were acquired in controlled situations through a treadmill at different speeds (from 1.5 to 4.5 km/h) and slopes (from 0% to 10%). This validation also includes heterogeneous gait patterns from nine healthy subjects (27 +/- 7.35 years) monitored at three self-selected paces (from 1 +/- 0.2 to 2 +/- 0.18 m/s) during forward walking on flat, rough, and inclined surfaces and climbing staircases. The proposed method was significantly more accurate (p > 0.9925) and time effective ( 0.9314) in a benchmarking analysis with a state-of-the-art method during 5657 steps. Heel strike was the gait event most accurately detected under controlled (accuracy of 100%) and real-life situations (accuracy > 96.98%). Misdetection was more pronounced in middle mid swing (accuracy > 90.12%). The lower computational load, together with an improved performance, makes this detection system suitable for quantitative benchmarking in the locomotor rehabilitation field.This work has been supported in part by the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) with the Reference Scholarship under Grant SFRH/BD/108309/2015, by the Reference Project under Grant UID/EEA/04436/2013, and part by the FEDER Funds through the COMPETE 2020-Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI)-with the Reference Project under Grant POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006941, and in part by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Grant RYC-2014-16613

Techno-economic assessment of a Synechocystis based biorefinery through process optimization

UID/EQU/00511/2019 "LEPABE-2-ECOINNOVATION"-NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005.Similar to oil, biological origin feedstock can be converted into a number of products allowing to recover the maximum value from the raw biological material, within what is nowadays called a biorefinery. Among other biological materials, microalgae are a very interesting biomass due to the high economic value of certain cellular components, such as carotenoids and polyunsaturated fatty acids. In this project, a genetically modified cyanobacteria, that produces ethanol as an extracellular product, was used as the basis of this study. In order to assess the optimal configuration of the biorefinery, different scenarios were designed, each one with different sequences of unit operations, equipment and products. With the design stage completed, an economic analysis was performed to choose the 2 scenarios with the best economic performance.publishersversionpublishe

Periodontal condition and recurrence of periodontitis associated with alcohol consumption in periodontal maintenance therapy

This study followed individuals in periodontal maintenance therapy (PMT) over 6 years and longitudinally evaluated the effects of the frequency of alcohol consumption on the recurrence of periodontitis (RP). From a 6-year follow-up cohort study with 268 individuals under PMT, 142 patients who attended at least one PMT visit within 12 months were determined to be eligible. Based on their alcohol consumption, participants were categorized into 3 groups: none or occasional alcohol use (NA; n=88), moderate alcohol use (MA; n=26) and intense alcohol use (IA; n=24). Complete periodontal examination and alcohol consumption were evaluated at 2 times, T1 (after active periodontal therapy) and T2 (6 years). The frequencies of RP in the NA, MA and IA groups were 46.5%, 57.6%, and 79.1%, respectively. The following variables were significantly associated with RP in final multivariate logistic regression model: age >50 years old (OR = 1.79; 95%CI 1.42-2.91; p=0.002), current smoking (OR = 2.42; 95%CI 1.33-4.31; p=0.001), and intensive alcohol use (OR = 1.96; 95%CI: 1.37-2.64; p=0.024). Interaction between intensive alcohol use and smoking showed a high OR estimate of 3.15 (95%CI 1.29-6.32) for RP. IA individuals undergoing PMT presented worse periodontal condition, higher rates of RP and tooth loss when compared to NA individuals. Additionally, the interaction between intensive alcohol use and smoking significantly increased the risk for RP

Monitoring programmes: the fundamental component of estuaries management: how to design one?

This article focuses on the design of a conceptual framework to design and assess environmental estuarine monitoring programmes, including the networks, to detect quality status changes in coastal areas within environmental management programmes. Monitoring is a fundamental component in any management system, and in particular in sensitive areas under strong human pressures, like estuaries. These pressures will be reflected in impacts in the ecosystem and also in responses from it. A monitoring program including the network and the indicators measured, should be designed to be able to identify the i) pressures, ii) the state and effects, and iii) the responses of human action in the estuary according to casualty chains, also the monitoring performance should be measured to assess the effectiveness of the monitoring program itself. Answers to these needs are studied in this article, namely in what concerns the selection and location of the monitoring stations. To evaluate the “best” monitoring design one should first clearly identify the objectives of the network and which indicators (in the sense of important variables that reflect environmental attributes) are most appropriate for the particular situation. In this work two methods for monitoring network design will be evaluated, namely i) variance-reduction based, and ii) space-filling. These two are examples of a statistically-based method, and of a random-allocation-based method. The most appropriate objective functions are used to reflect the objectives of the monitoring. In all cases the objective function models are solved with the simulated annealing meta-heuristic algorithm, implemented by the team to solve monitoring optimisation problems. Due to the amount and quality of the information available, the Sado estuary is used as a case-study to demonstrate the results of the methods and helping in the comparative analysis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dissecting the function of Atg1 complex in Dictyostelium autophagy reveals a connection with the pentose phosphate pathway enzyme transketolase

The network of protein–protein interactions of the Dictyostelium discoideum autophagy pathway was investigated by yeast two-hybrid screening of the conserved autophagic proteins Atg1 and Atg8. These analyses confirmed expected interactions described in other organisms and also identified novel interactors that highlight the complexity of autophagy regulation. The Atg1 kinase complex, an essential regulator of autophagy, was investigated in detail here. The composition of the Atg1 complex in D. discoideum is more similar to mammalian cells than to Saccharomyces cerevisiae as, besides Atg13, it contains Atg101, a protein not conserved in this yeast. We found that Atg101 interacts with Atg13 and genetic disruption of these proteins in Dictyostelium leads to an early block in autophagy, although the severity of the developmental phenotype and the degree of autophagic block is higher in Atg13-deficient cells. We have also identified a protein containing zinc-finger B-box and FNIP motifs that interacts with Atg101. Disruption of this protein increases autophagic flux, suggesting that it functions as a negative regulator of Atg101.We also describe the interaction of Atg1 kinase with the pentose phosphate pathway enzyme transketolase (TKT). We found changes in the activity of endogenous TKT activity in strains lacking or overexpressing Atg1, suggesting the presence of an unsuspected regulatory pathway between autophagy and the pentose phosphate pathway in Dictyostelium that seems to be conserved in mammalian cellsThis work was supported by grant nos. BFU2009-09050 and BFU2012-32536 from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y competitividad. The cost of this publication has been paid in part by FEDER funds. A.M. was recipient of a predoctoral fellowship (FPI associated to the grant no. BFU2012-32536). L.C.T. is recipient of a FPU fellowship from Ministerio de Educación, cultura y deport

Photon-number-resolving segmented avalanche-photodiode detectors

We investigate the feasibility and performance of photon-number-resolved photodetection employing avalanche photodiodes (APDs) with low dark counts. The main idea is to split n photons over m modes such that every mode has no more than one photon, which is detected alongside propagation by an APD. We characterize performance by evaluating the purities of positive-operator-valued measurements (POVMs), in terms of APD number and photon loss.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, submitted for publicatio

The use of Maytenus ilicifolia to prevent cisplatin-induced ototoxicity

Maytenus ilicifolia é uma planta sul americana apresenta várias propriedades medicinais, entre elas, a ação antioxidante. OBJETIVO: Por meio de um modelo original de ototoxicidade induzida pela cisplatina, verificar uma possível ação otoprotetora do extrato aquoso desta planta. MATERIAL E MÉTODO: Estudo clínico e experimental com cobaias fêmeas, albinas divididas em 5 grupos: 9 animais recebendo somente 3 doses de 7,5mg/kg/d do protocolo de cisplatina, 4 animais somente com o extrato, 10 animais com cisplatina e 1g/kg/d de extrato por 8 dias, 5 animais com cisplatina e 3g/kg/d do extrato por 8 dias e 5 animais recebendo extrato por 3 semanas e cisplatina na última semana. Os exames foram emissões otoacústica por produtos de distorção, potencial de tronco encefálico pré e após administração de cisplatina e, microscopia eletrônica de varredura. RESULTADOS: Os animais que receberam a cisplatina com o extrato, independente da dose, obtiveram alterações em todos os testes, com lesões na região basal na microscopia eletrônica. CONCLUSÃO: Apesar do efeito antioxidante da Maytenus ilicifolia, ela não foi suficiente para bloquear o efeito ototóxico da cisplatina.Maytenus ilicifolia is a native plant from South America, with several medicinal properties including antioxidant effects. AIM: using an original cisplatin induced ototoxicity model, we evaluated a possible otoprotection caused by Maytenus ilicifolia extract. MATERIALS AND METHODS: clinical and experimental study design with female albino guinea pigs divided in groups as follows: 9 animals receiving cisplatin only (three doses of 7.5mg/kg/day), 4 animals receiving the plant extract only, 10 animals receiving the cisplatin protocol and 1g/kg/day of extract for 8 days, 5 animals with cisplatin and 3g/kg/day of extract for 8 days, and 5 animals receiving extract for 3 weeks and cisplatin in the last week. The tests were distortion product otoacoustic emissions, brainstem auditory response, before and after medication and scanning electron microscopy. RESULTS: the animals receiving cisplatin plus plant extract, had alterations in all the tests, showing lesions on the basal cochlear region under electron microscopy. CONCLUSIONS: Despite of the plant extract's antioxidant effect, it was not sufficient to protect the cochlea against cisplatin ototoxicity