Studies on the unfolding of the atmospheric neutrino spectrum with IceCube 59 using the TRUEE algorithm

The measurement of the atmospheric neutrino energy spectrum provides information about the diffuse neutrino flux from extragalactic sources. A relative increase of the spectrum toward higher energies could be evidence for neutrino producing hadronic processes in the cosmic high energy accelerators, such as active galactic nuclei or gamma ray bursts. IceCube is currently the largest neutrino detector on Earth and is placed in the antarctic ice at the geographic South Pole. IceCube permits the detection of neutrinos with energies beyond 10^6 GeV. Since the acceptance and the resolution of neutrino telescopes suffer from the finite resolution and limited acceptance, a regularized unfolding method is used to extract the energy distribution of neutrinos from the measured observables. For AMANDA, the unfolding was done with the RUN algorithm. Based on the basic concept of this program and for data analyses in the ROOT frame, a new deconvolution algorithm (TRUEE) has been written and tested. With this new algorithm, studies on the analysis of the atmospheric neutrino spectrum measured with the IceCube 59 string configuration are presented

Missouri River history, floodplain construction, and soil formation in southwestern Iowa

The Platte River has influenced the Missouri River below the mouth of the Platte by contributing sizable suspended and coarser-textured bed loads. Consequently, the Missouri River has been and is a braided stream in a reach about 43 miles long below the mouth of the Platte. In this reach the channel is wider, is less sinuous, has greater low-water slope profile, and contains numerous bars and islands. The Otoe Bend area, in this reach of the Missouri River near the southwestern corner of Iowa, has inherited these channel characteristics. By use of historic maps and aerial photographs, the lateral shifting of the river channel at Otoe Bend may be reconstructed. Adjustments of scale and geographic locations must be made to compare features of all maps and aerial photographs to the present landforms in the area. The older maps usually are not as accurate as present-day cartography with photogrammetric field control. Within the different levels of cartographic accuracy, however, correlation of landforms can be made by similarity of features or similarity of sequences of features

Iowan Drift Problem, Northeastern Iowa

https://ir.uiowa.edu/igs_ri/1006/thumbnail.jp

Longitudinal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis trait and state effects in recurrent depression

SummaryBackgroundHypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA)-axis hyperactivity has been observed in (recurrent) major depressive disorder (MDD), although inconsistently and mainly cross-sectional. Longitudinal studies clarifying state-trait issues are lacking. We aimed to determine whether HPA-axis (hyper)activity in recurrent MDD is: (I) reflecting a persistent trait; (II) influenced by depressive state; (III) associated with stress or previous episodes; (IV) associated with recurrence; and (V) influenced by cognitive therapy.MethodsWe included 187 remitted highly recurrent MDD-patients (mean number of previous episodes: 6.3), participating in a randomized-controlled-trial investigating the preventive effect of additional cognitive therapy on recurrence. In an add-on two-staged patient-control and prospective-cohort design, we first cross-sectionally compared patients’ salivary morning and evening cortisol concentrations with 72 age- and sex-matched controls, and subsequently longitudinally followed-up the patients with repeated measures after three months and two years.ResultsPatients had higher cortisol concentrations than controls (p<.001), which did not change by MDD-episodes during follow-up. HPA-axis activity had no relation with daily hassles or childhood life events. Cortisol concentrations were lower in patients with more previous episodes (p=.047), but not associated with recurrence(s) during follow-up. Finally, randomly assigned cognitive therapy at study-entry enhanced cortisol declines over the day throughout the two-year follow-up (p=.052).ConclusionsOur results indicate that remitted recurrent MDD-patients have a persistent trait of increased cortisol concentrations, irrespective of stress. In combination with our finding that patients’ cortisol concentrations do not change during new MDD-episodes (and thus not represent epiphenomenal or state-effects), our results support that hypercortisolemia fulfills the state-independence criterion for an endophenotype for recurrent depression

Search based software engineering: Trends, techniques and applications

© ACM, 2012. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version is available from the link below.In the past five years there has been a dramatic increase in work on Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE), an approach to Software Engineering (SE) in which Search-Based Optimization (SBO) algorithms are used to address problems in SE. SBSE has been applied to problems throughout the SE lifecycle, from requirements and project planning to maintenance and reengineering. The approach is attractive because it offers a suite of adaptive automated and semiautomated solutions in situations typified by large complex problem spaces with multiple competing and conflicting objectives. This article provides a review and classification of literature on SBSE. The work identifies research trends and relationships between the techniques applied and the applications to which they have been applied and highlights gaps in the literature and avenues for further research.EPSRC and E

Altered postural sway in patients suffering from non-specific neck pain and whiplash associated disorder - A systematic review of the literature

To assess differences in center of pressure (COP) measures in patients suffering from non-specific neck pain (NSNP) or whiplash-associated disorder (WAD) compared to healthy controls and any relationship between changes in postural sway and the presence of pain, its intensity, previous pain duration and the perceived level of disability. Summary of Background data: Over the past 20 years, the center of pressure (COP) has been commonly used as an index of postural stability in standing. While several studies investigated COP excursions in neck pain and WAD patients and compared these to healthy individuals, no comprehensive analysis of the reported differences in postural sway pattern exists. Search methods: Six online databases were systematically searched followed by a manual search of the retrieved papers. Selection Criteria: Papers comparing COP measures derived from bipedal static task conditions on a force plate of non-specific neck pain and WAD sufferers to those of healthy controls. Data collection and analysis: Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts for relevance. Screening for final inclusion, data extraction and quality assessment were carried out with a third reviewer to reconcile differences

Naming the pain in requirements engineering : Contemporary problems, causes, and effects in practice

Requirements Engineering (RE) has received much attention in research and practice due to its importance to software project success. Its interdisciplinary nature, the dependency to the customer, and its inherent uncertainty still render the discipline difficult to investigate. This results in a lack of empirical data. These are necessary, however, to demonstrate which practically relevant RE problems exist and to what extent they matter. Motivated by this situation, we initiated the Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering (NaPiRE) initiative which constitutes a globally distributed, bi-yearly replicated family of surveys on the status quo and problems in practical RE. In this article, we report on the qualitative analysis of data obtained from 228 companies working in 10 countries in various domains and we reveal which contemporary problems practitioners encounter. To this end, we analyse 21 problems derived from the literature with respect to their relevance and criticality in dependency to their context, and we complement this picture with a cause-effect analysis showing the causes and effects surrounding the most critical problems. Our results give us a better understanding of which problems exist and how they manifest themselves in practical environments. Thus, we provide a first step to ground contributions to RE on empirical observations which, until now, were dominated by conventional wisdom only.Peer reviewe

Meta-analysis and meta-regression of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation for major depressive disorder

Contains fulltext : 167940.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) supplementation has been proposed as (adjuvant) treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD). In the present meta-analysis, we pooled randomized placebo-controlled trials assessing the effects of omega-3 PUFA supplementation on depressive symptoms in MDD. Moreover, we performed meta-regression to test whether supplementation effects depended on eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) or docosahexaenoic acid dose, their ratio, study duration, participants' age, percentage antidepressant users, baseline MDD symptom severity, publication year and study quality. To limit heterogeneity, we only included studies in adult patients with MDD assessed using standardized clinical interviews, and excluded studies that specifically studied perinatal/perimenopausal or comorbid MDD. Our PubMED/EMBASE search resulted in 1955 articles, from which we included 13 studies providing 1233 participants. After taking potential publication bias into account, meta-analysis showed an overall beneficial effect of omega-3 PUFAs on depressive symptoms in MDD (standardized mean difference=0.398 (0.114-0.682), P=0.006, random-effects model). As an explanation for significant heterogeneity (I(2)=73.36, P<0.001), meta-regression showed that higher EPA dose (beta=0.00037 (0.00009-0.00065), P=0.009), higher percentage antidepressant users (beta=0.0058 (0.00017-0.01144), P=0.044) and earlier publication year (beta=-0.0735 (-0.143 to 0.004), P=0.04) were significantly associated with better outcome for PUFA supplementation. Additional sensitivity analyses were performed. In conclusion, present meta-analysis suggested a beneficial overall effect of omega-3 PUFA supplementation in MDD patients, especially for higher doses of EPA and in participants taking antidepressants. Future precision medicine trials should establish whether possible interactions between EPA and antidepressants could provide targets to improve antidepressant response and its prediction. Furthermore, potential long-term biochemical side effects of high-dosed add-on EPA supplementation should be carefully monitored

Search for transient optical counterparts to high-energy IceCube neutrinos with Pan-STARRS1

In order to identify the sources of the observed diffuse high-energy neutrino flux, it is crucial to discover their electromagnetic counterparts. IceCube began releasing alerts for single high-energy ($E > 60$ TeV) neutrino detections with sky localisation regions of order 1 deg radius in 2016. We used Pan-STARRS1 to follow-up five of these alerts during 2016-2017 to search for any optical transients that may be related to the neutrinos. Typically 10-20 faint ($m < 22.5$ mag) extragalactic transients are found within the Pan-STARRS1 footprints and are generally consistent with being unrelated field supernovae (SNe) and AGN. We looked for unusual properties of the detected transients, such as temporal coincidence of explosion epoch with the IceCube timestamp. We found only one transient that had properties worthy of a specific follow-up. In the Pan-STARRS1 imaging for IceCube-160427A (probability to be of astrophysical origin of $\sim$50 %), we found a SN PS16cgx, located at 10.0' from the nominal IceCube direction. Spectroscopic observations of PS16cgx showed that it was an H-poor SN at z = 0.2895. The spectra and light curve resemble some high-energy Type Ic SNe, raising the possibility of a jet driven SN with an explosion epoch temporally coincident with the neutrino detection. However, distinguishing Type Ia and Type Ic SNe at this redshift is notoriously difficult. Based on all available data we conclude that the transient is more likely to be a Type Ia with relatively weak SiII absorption and a fairly normal rest-frame r-band light curve. If, as predicted, there is no high-energy neutrino emission from Type Ia SNe, then PS16cgx must be a random coincidence, and unrelated to the IceCube-160427A. We find no other plausible optical transient for any of the five IceCube events observed down to a 5$\sigma$ limiting magnitude of $m \sim 22$ mag, between 1 day and 25 days after detection.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, accepted to A&