Novel mutation in the mitochondrial transfer RNACys gene in a child

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) disorders are an important group of genetic diseases presenting with a multifacet array of clinical manifestations. Highly energy-dependent tissues such as central nervous system and skeletal and cardiac muscles are commonly involved either as multisystem or as isolated organ disease. Characteristic symptoms include epilepsy, myopathy, deafness and ophthalmoplegia, all associated with point mutations in the mtDNA. Pathogenic mtDNA mutations can be heteroplasmic or homoplasmic. Heteroplasmic mutations are typically associated with mutations in mt-tRNA genes. Mutations in mt-tRNAs genes are responsible for the majority of the presentations of a mitochondrial disease being associated with marked clinical heterogeneity. Although tRNA-encoding genes make up only 9% of the entire mitochondrial genome, over 40% of all point mutations reported in the mtDNA are located in tRNA genes. Here, we present a child with vomiting episodes and migraine in whom we found a novel variant in the mitochondrial tRNACys gene

Symmetric Differentiation on Time Scales

We define a symmetric derivative on an arbitrary nonempty closed subset of the real numbers and derive some of its properties. It is shown that real-valued functions defined on time scales that are neither delta nor nabla differentiable can be symmetric differentiable.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper whose final and definite form will be published in Applied Mathematics Letters. Submitted 30-Jul-2012; revised 07-Sept-2012; accepted 10-Sept-201

Necessary Optimality Conditions for Higher-Order Infinite Horizon Variational Problems on Time Scales

We obtain Euler-Lagrange and transversality optimality conditions for higher-order infinite horizon variational problems on a time scale. The new necessary optimality conditions improve the classical results both in the continuous and discrete settings: our results seem new and interesting even in the particular cases when the time scale is the set of real numbers or the set of integers.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper whose final and definite form will appear in Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications (JOTA). Paper submitted 17-Nov-2011; revised 24-March-2012 and 10-April-2012; accepted for publication 15-April-201

Higher-order infinite horizon variational problems in discrete quantum calculus

We obtain necessary optimality conditions for higher-order infinite horizon problems of the calculus of variations via discrete quantum operators.Comment: Submitted 11-May-2011; revised 16-Sept-2011; accepted 02-Dec-2011; for publication in Computers & Mathematics with Application

Transversality Conditions for Infinite Horizon Variational Problems on Time Scales

We consider problems of the calculus of variations on unbounded time scales. We prove the validity of the Euler-Lagrange equation on time scales for infinite horizon problems, and a new transversality condition.Comment: Submitted 6-October-2009; Accepted 19-March-2010 in revised form; for publication in "Optimization Letters"

Noether's symmetry theorem for nabla problems of the calculus of variations

We prove a Noether-type symmetry theorem and a DuBois-Reymond necessary optimality condition for nabla problems of the calculus of variations on time scales.Comment: Submitted 20/Oct/2009; Revised 27/Jan/2010; Accepted 28/July/2010; for publication in Applied Mathematics Letter

An Evolutionary Mono-Objective Approach for Solving the Menu Planning Problem

This work proposes an evolutionary approach to solve the Menu Planning Problem. Our work uses the Brazilian school context and our principal goal is to create menus that minimize the total cost of these menus. However, those menus must also satisfy requirements of the Brazilian government, such as: (i) student age group, (ii) school category, (iii) school duration time, (iv) school location, (v) variety of preparations, (vi) harmony of preparations, (vii) maximum amount to be paid for each meal and, (viii) lower and upper limits of macronutrients. The results demonstrate that the evolutionary approach is not only able to generate a set of inexpensive and healthy menus but also respect the required set of constraints. A constrained deterministic approach is performed to generate 5-day menu through a greedy-based function taking into account the normalized sum of all macronutrients and the monetary cost of the menu. A comparison between the 5-day menu obtained by the proposed approach and the constrained greedy-based approach menu is carried out. Despite the fact the obtained menu outperforms the greed-based menu taking into account the total cost, this difference is not so expressive. However, all macronutrients were outside the pre-defined range at least in one day of the week. The 5-day menu obtained by the proposed approach is evaluated by a nutritionist. The overall quality of the menu is outstanding and the time spent to generate it is 60 seconds

CardNutri:A Software of Weekly Menus Nutritional Elaboration for Scholar Feeding Applying Evolutionary Computation

This paper aims to present and evaluate a software that uses an evolutionary strategy to design weekly nutritional menus for School Feeding. The software ensures the nutritional needs of students and also minimizes the total cost of the menu. We based our nutritional needs on the Brazilian National School Feeding Programme (PNAE). This program takes into account: (i) the age of the student; (ii) some preparations issues as color, consistency and, variety; and also (iii) the maximum amount to be paid per meal. Our software generates, in less than five minutes, a set of menus, and the nutritionist can choose the menu that suits his/her best. We evaluate our algorithm using the Weighted-Sum approach, and our results show that the obtained 5-days menus using the proposed methodology not only comply with the restrictions imposed by the authorities but also produce inexpensive and healthy menus. We also appraise the software itself using an opinion pool among nine nutritionists. The professionals considered our software above expectations

A General Backwards Calculus of Variations via Duality

We prove Euler-Lagrange and natural boundary necessary optimality conditions for problems of the calculus of variations which are given by a composition of nabla integrals on an arbitrary time scale. As an application, we get optimality conditions for the product and the quotient of nabla variational functionals.Comment: Submitted to Optimization Letters 03-June-2010; revised 01-July-2010; accepted for publication 08-July-201

Optimality conditions for the calculus of variations with higher-order delta derivatives

We prove the Euler-Lagrange delta-differential equations for problems of the calculus of variations on arbitrary time scales with delta-integral functionals depending on higher-order delta derivatives.Comment: Submitted 26/Jul/2009; Revised 04/Aug/2010; Accepted 09/Aug/2010; for publication in "Applied Mathematics Letters