Item selection by Latent Class-based methods

The evaluation of nursing homes is usually based on the administration of questionnaires made of a large number of polytomous items. In such a context, the Latent Class (LC) model represents a useful tool for clustering subjects in homogenous groups corresponding to different degrees of impairment of the health conditions. It is known that the performance of model-based clustering and the accuracy of the choice of the number of latent classes may be affected by the presence of irrelevant or noise variables. In this paper, we show the application of an item selection algorithm to real data collected within a project, named ULISSE, on the quality-of-life of elderly patients hosted in italian nursing homes. This algorithm, which is closely related to that proposed by Dean and Raftery in 2010, is aimed at finding the subset of items which provides the best clustering according to the Bayesian Information Criterion. At the same time, it allows us to select the optimal number of latent classes. Given the complexity of the ULISSE study, we perform a validation of the results by means of a sensitivity analysis to different specifications of the initial subset of items and of a resampling procedure

Frictional Collisions Off Sharp Objects

This work develops robust contact algorithms capable of dealing with multibody nonsmooth contact geometries for which neither normals nor gap functions can be defined. Such situations arise in the early stage of fragmentation when a number of angular fragments undergo complex collision sequences before eventually scattering. Such situations precludes the application of most contact algorithms proposed to date

Controllability of a viscoelastic plate using one boundary control in displacement or bending

In this paper we consider a viscoelastic plate (linear viscoelasticity of the Maxwell-Boltzmann type) and we compare its controllability properties with the (known) controllability of a purely elastic plate (the control acts on the boundary displacement or bending). By combining operator and moment methods, we prove that the viscoelastic plate inherits the controllability properties of the purely elastic plate

Evolution of the fine-structure constant in runaway dilaton models

We study the detailed evolution of the fine-structure constant $\alpha$ in the string-inspired runaway dilaton class of models of Damour, Piazza and Veneziano. We provide constraints on this scenario using the most recent $\alpha$ measurements and discuss ways to distinguish it from alternative models for varying $\alpha$. For model parameters which saturate bounds from current observations, the redshift drift signal can differ considerably from that of the canonical $\Lambda$CDM paradigm at high redshifts. Measurements of this signal by the forthcoming European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), together with more sensitive $\alpha$ measurements, will thus dramatically constrain these scenarios.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Can Twitter be a source of information on allergy? Correlation of pollen counts with tweets reporting symptoms of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis and names of antihistamine drugs

Pollen forecasts are in use everywhere to inform therapeutic decisions for patients with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis (ARC). We exploited data derived from Twitter in order to identify tweets reporting a combination of symptoms consistent with a case definition of ARC and those reporting the name of an antihistamine drug. In order to increase the sensitivity of the system, we applied an algorithm aimed at automatically identifying jargon expressions related to medical terms. We compared weekly Twitter trends with National Allergy Bureau weekly pollen counts derived from US stations, and found a high correlation of the sum of the total pollen counts from each stations with tweets reporting ARC symptoms (Pearson's correlation coefficient: 0.95) and with tweets reporting antihistamine drug names (Pearson's correlation coefficient: 0.93). Longitude and latitude of the pollen stations affected the strength of the correlation. Twitter and other social networks may play a role in allergic disease surveillance and in signaling drug consumptions trends

No Evidence for Dark Energy Dynamics from a Global Analysis of Cosmological Data

We use a variant of principal component analysis to investigate the possible temporal evolution of the dark energy equation of state, w(z). We constrain w(z) in multiple redshift bins, utilizing the most recent data from Type Ia supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations, the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, galaxy clustering, and weak lensing data. Unlike other recent analyses, we find no significant evidence for evolving dark energy; the data remains completely consistent with a cosmological constant. We also study the extent to which the time-evolution of the equation of state would be constrained by a combination of current- and future-generation surveys, such as Planck and the Joint Dark Energy Mission.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Preferential expression of the transcription coactivator HTIF1alpha gene in acute myeloid leukemia and MDS-related AML

HTIF1α, a transcription coactivator which is able to mediate RARα activity and functionally interact with PML, is encoded by a gene on chromosome 7q32–34, which is a critical region in acute myeloid leukemias (AML). With the assumption that this gene may be related to AML, we investigated the HTIF1α DNA structure and RNA expression in leukemic cells from 36 M1–M5 AML patients (28 ‘de novo’ and eight ‘secondary’ to myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS)). Abnormal HTIF1α DNA fragments were never found, whereas loss of HTIF1α DNA was observed in the patients with chromosome 7q32 deletion and translocation, and in one case without detectable chromosome 7 abnormality. HTIF1α RNA was found in acute myelocytic leukemic blasts, and was almost undetectable in normal mononuclear cells. The expression varied among the patients: higher in M1 to M3 subtypes, with the highest values in M1; low levels were constantly observed in M4 and M5 AML. In addition, HTIF1α was significantly overexpressed in MDS-related AML (MDR-AML), but not in MDS. We also found that HTIF1α expression was high in myeloid cell lines. In myeloblastic HL60 and promyelocytic NB4 cells, induced to differentiate along the monocytic–macrophage pathway by TPA or vitamin D3, HTIF1α expression decreased, whereas it was maintained at high levels on induction to granulocytic differentiation by RA or DMSO. In K562 cells, HTIF1α RNA levels did not change after hemin-induced erythroid differentiation. These results suggest that HTIF1α could play a role in myeloid differentiation, being distinctly regulated in hematopoietic lineages