An Efficient Representation Format for Fuzzy Intervals Based on Symmetric Membership Functions

International audienceThis paper proposes a novel implementation of fuzzy arithmetics that exploits both fuzzy intervals and hardware specificities. First, we propose and evaluate the benefit of an alternative representation format to the traditional lower-upper and midpoint-radius representation formats for intervals. Thanks to the proposed formats, we show that it is possible to halve the number of operations and memory requirements compared to conventional methods. Then, we show that operations on fuzzy intervals are sensitive to hardware specificities of accelerators such as GPU. These include static rounding, memory usage, instruction level parallelism (ILP) and thread-level parallelism (TLP). We develop a library of fuzzy arithmetic operations in CUDA and C++ over several formats. The proposed library is evaluated using compute-bound and memory-bound benchmarks on Nvidia GPUs, and shows a performance gain of 2 to 20 over traditional approaches

Cellular senescence enhances adaptive anticancer immunosurveillance

Cancer therapy often induces senescence in some cancer cells. Senescent cells, due to their profoundly altered biology, may conceivably interact with the adaptive immune system in novel ways that may boost cancer immunosurveillance, triggering the clearance of both senescent and non-senescent neoplastic cells. In this regard, we have recently reported that senescent cancer cells exhibit potent antigenicity and adjuvanticity and can elicit strong CD8(+) T cell-dependent anticancer effects when used as vaccination agents

Analiticity of the Lyapunov exponent of perturbed toral automorphisms

We consider a dynamical system generated by a perturbation $A_\varepsilon$ of an analytic Anosov diffeomorphism $A_0$ of $\mathbb{T}^d$. We show that, if $A_0$ admit a decomposition of $\mathrm T\mathbb T^d$ in $k$ invariant subspaces, such a decomposition can be extended in an analytic way to $A_\varepsilon$. This implies that the Lyapunov exponents, if non degenerate, are analytic functions of the perturbation

Assessment of the Graduates of the Medical Career on the Acquisition of Professional Competencies during their Training

Introduction: Competence-based medical education emerges as an effective pedagogical strategyfor solving problems and making decisions about the future professional. In our country, resolution1314/07 of the Ministry of Education defines basic professional skills to acquire during the career.Students' assessment of what they have learned is a source of information to evaluate the process,which is crossed by multiple individual and contextual factors that affect their training. The objectiveof this work is to analyze the assessment of graduates about their training process and the acquisitionof basic skills, and their relationship with certain individual and contextual characteristics.Methods: The assessment of 342 graduates of the medical career of the Faculty of Medical Sciences ofthe UNLP was analyzed. Information was collected on the following variables: Socio-demographiccharacteristics, academic trajectory, work history and assessment of the training received for each ofthe competencies defined by Ministry of Education.Results: Competencies valued as not fully acquired according to general practitioner profile. Thecomparative analysis showed a significant relationship between the assessment of competencies notfully acquired and students that work during their college career or according to the profession oftheir parents.Conclusion: results obtained will allow, to support the review of medical competencies demandedby the National Ministry of Education and to propose alternatives to improve the training processof those most vulnerable students.Fil: Ferrero, María Laura. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Ferrero, Federico. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Marin, Lupe. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Marin, Gustavo Horacio. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Escudero, Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Etchegoyen, Graciela Susana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentin

Diseño curricular y de las infraestructuras necesarias para la creación de una escuela de náutica de acuerdo al convenio STCW en Uruguay

En este trabajo final de grado intento proponer una solución a un problema al cual me enfrenté personalmente en el año 2017. habiendo sido estudiante de la escuela naval de uruguay, con el propósito de egresar como 2º oficial de cubierta de marina mercante pero no habiendo finalizado la carrera en dicho instituto, me encontré con que en uruguay no había (ni hay hasta el día de hoy) una forma de estudiar las carreras de oficial de marina mercante en un centro de estudios civil, por lo cual, si alguien quiere estudiar estas carreras debe acoplarse al sistema militar uruguayo. continuando con la evaluación de las opciones, descubrí que esto se repite en toda sudamérica, por lo cual se me hizo imposible continuar con mis estudios en la región, debido a requisitos de ciudadanía de cada país y requisitos de edades máximas al momento del ingreso. también cabe destacar, que a pesar de haber cursado en uruguay 1er y 2do curso de la carrera de piloto mercante en los años 2012 y 2013 respectivamente, y haber abandonado los estudios por motivos personales de fuerza mayor, cuando quise retomar los estudios en el mismo instituto y con el mismo plan de estudios vigente, no se me reconocieron las materias cursadas y aprobadas posteriormente, por lo cual tuve que reingresar en el año 2016 desde cero, volviendo a cursar nuevamente todas las asignaturas que en realidad ya había aprobado anteriormente. todo esto me llevó a averiguar en españa, donde me encontré que por mis posibilidades económicas, era imposible obtener un visado de estudiante debido a los altos requisitos, situación que pude resolver gracias a haber accedido a tramitar mi ciudadanía italiana, lo cual me allanó el camino y fue el punto inicial para poder estudiar en europa. por estos motivos, y principalmente impulsado por mejorar el panorama para los jóvenes del futuro, fue que se me ocurrió la implementación de un centro de estudios en la órbita privada, que permita a la gente (sin imposiciones de edad o nacionalidad) poder realizar estos estudios en caso de que así lo deseen. este proyecto se realizó tomando en cuenta principalmente las exigencias del convenio stcw para la formación de oficiales tanto de puente como de máquinas, desde capitanes y jefes de máquinas, hasta 2dos oficiales de ambas especializaciones. el plan también está acompañado de: - un estudio económico, que pretende demostrar la viabilidad económica del proyecto - un estudio de mercado que pretende establecer los posibles interesados en realizar estos estudios en la órbita civil y - la extensión del conocimiento popular sobre este tipo de carrera universitaria

Electromyographic activity of sternocleidomastoid and masticatory muscles in patients with vestibular lesions

This study evaluated the electromyographic characteristics of masticatory and neck muscles in subjects with vestibular lesions. Surface electromyography of the masseter, temporalis and sternocleidomastoid muscles was performed in 19 patients with Ménière's disease, 12 patients with an acute peripheral vestibular lesion, and 19 control subjects matched for sex and age. During maximum voluntary clenching, patients with peripheral vestibular lesions had the highest co-contraction of the sternocleidomastoid muscle (analysis of covariance, p=0.02), the control subjects had the smallest values, and the patients with Ménière's disease had intermediate values. The control subjects had larger standardized muscle activities than the other patient groups (p=0.001). In conclusion, during maximum voluntary tooth clenching, patients with vestibular alterations have both more active neck muscles, and less active masticatory muscles than normal controls. Results underline the importance of a more inclusive craniocervical assessment of patients with vestibular lesions

Use of smartphone and crash risk among cyclists

High percentages of cyclists admit using smartphone devices while cycling. Moreover, such use has been found to be associated with near crashes and crashes, representing a risk factor for cyclists. This study examines the relationship between such type of behaviours, comprising calling and manipulating the screen, and the frequency of near crashes and actual crashes among Italian cyclists. We administered an online survey measuring smartphone-specific violation, errors, near crash and crash to Italian cyclists (N = 298; age range: 19–72). We hypothesised that the relationship between smartphone use and near crashes would be explained by an increase in the number of errors committed, thus increasing the likelihood of being involved in near crashes. Moreover, we hypothesised that near crashes will predict actual crashes. Results of path analysis showed that smartphone-specific violations predicted crashes throughout their consecutive effects on errors and near crashes only in the subsample of men. These findings offer an explanation of how smartphone use contributes to incrementing the likelihood of getting involved in near crashes and actual crashes. To our knowledge, the present study is the first in building a path model explaining how smartphone-specific violations lead to more near crashes among cyclists

Efficacy of fungoid chitosans from Aspergillus niger and Agaricus bisporus in controlling the oxidative browning of model white wines

The efficacy of two water-insoluble chitosans from Aspergillus niger and Agaricus bisporus, in controlling the browning of model white wine solutions was assessed and compared with respect to sulfite addition (70 mg/L). A water-soluble oligomeric preparation from Agaricus bisporus was also included to test the effect of solubility and reduced molecular weight on the antibrowning capability of the polysaccharide. Chitosans were added at 0.5 g/L and 1 g/L. Color development, iron oxidoreductive equilibrium and generation of phenolic intermediates were monitored. Results demonstrated a significant and comparable anti-browning efficacy of both insoluble formu-lations (up to 85% reduction in browning development with respect to control samples), which mainly acted by chelating iron (up to around 4.4 mg/g of chitosan) and shifting its oxidoreductive equilibrium toward the reduced form. Oligomeric chitosan was ineffective for this purpose as it completely lacked chelating activity, which it is proposed, depended on its negligible interaction with tartaric acid. Data on browning and oxidation-related phenolic intermediates also revealed that sulfite promotes browning once it is completely oxidized.Industrial relevance: Following its very recent European authorization as novel food, chitosan from Agaricus bisporus has been evaluated for the first time and compared in wine-like conditions with the already known water-insoluble chitosan from Aspergillus niger. A further novelty are the data on water-soluble chitosan prepa-rations, not yet permitted in wine but potentially interesting due to the potentially higher specific surface once in solution. The results, apart from providing information on a recently introduced source for enological chitosan, can be useful to producers and winemakers in deciding among fungoid preparations aimed to control the browning of products

A population-based approach to background discrimination in particle physics

Background properties in experimental particle physics are typically estimated using control samples corresponding to large numbers of events. This can provide precise knowledge of average background distributions, but typically does not consider the effect of fluctuations in a data set of interest. A novel approach based on mixture model decomposition is presented as a way to estimate the effect of fluctuations on the shapes of probability distributions in a given data set, with a view to improving on the knowledge of background distributions obtained from control samples. Events are treated as heterogeneous populations comprising particles originating from different processes, and individual particles are mapped to a process of interest on a probabilistic basis. The proposed approach makes it possible to extract from the data information about the effect of fluctuations that would otherwise be lost using traditional methods based on high-statistics control samples. A feasibility study on Monte Carlo is presented, together with a comparison with existing techniques. Finally, the prospects for the development of tools for intensive offline analysis of individual events at the Large Hadron Collider are discussed.Comment: Updated according to the version published in J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. Minor changes have been made to the text with respect to the published article with a view to improving readabilit