A directed mutation operator for real coded genetic algorithms

Copyright @ Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.Developing directed mutation methods has been an interesting research topic to improve the performance of genetic algorithms (GAs) for function optimization. This paper introduces a directed mutation (DM) operator for GAs to explore promising areas in the search space. In this DM method, the statistics information regarding the fitness and distribution of individuals over intervals of each dimension is calculated according to the current population and is used to guide the mutation of an individual toward the neighboring interval that has the best statistics result in each dimension. Experiments are carried out to compare the proposed DM technique with an existing directed variation on a set of benchmark test problems. The experimental results show that the proposed DM operator achieves a better performance than the directed variation on most test problems

Risk of miscarriage following amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling: systematic review of literature and updated meta-analysis

Objectives: To estimate the procedure-related risks of miscarriage after amniocentesis and trans-abdominal chorionic villus sampling (CVS) based on a systematic review of the literature and an updated meta-analysis. Methods: A search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and The Cochrane Library was carried out to identify studies reporting complications following CVS or amniocentesis. The inclusion criteria for the systematic review were studies reporting results from large controlled studies and those reporting data for pregnancy loss prior to 24 weeks’ gestation. Study authors were contacted when required to identify additional necessary data. Data for cases that had invasive procedure and controls groups were inputted in contingency tables and risk of miscarriage was estimated for each study. Summary statistics based on a fixed and random effects model were calculated after taking into account the weighting for each study included in the systematic review. Procedure-related risk of miscarriage was estimated as a weighted risk difference from the summary statistics for cases and controls. A subgroup analyses according to the similarity risk levels in the invasive testing and control groups was performed. Heterogeneity was assessed using Cochrane’s Q and I2 statistic. Egger Bias was estimated to assess reporting bias in published studies. Summary statistics for procedure-related risk of miscarriage were graphically represented in Forest plots. Results: The electronic search from the databases yielded 2,943 potential citations, from which, we selected 20 controlled studies for inclusion in the systematic review to estimate the procedure-related risk of miscarriage from invasive procedures. There were a total of 580 miscarriages from 63,273 amniocentesis procedures with a weighted risk of pregnancy loss of 0.91% (95%CI: 0.73 to 1.09). In the control group, there were 1,726 miscarriages in 330,469 pregnancies with a loss rate of 0.58% (95CI%: 0.47 to 0.70). The weighted procedure-related risk of miscarriage was 0.30% (95%CI: 0.11 to 0.49, I2=70.1%). There were a total of 163 miscarriages from 13,011 CVS procedures with a risk of pregnancy loss of 1.39% (95%CI: 0.76 to 2.02). In the control group, there were 1,946 miscarriages in 232,680 pregnancies with a loss rate of 1.23% (95CI%: 0.86 to 1.59). The weighted procedure-related risk of miscarriage following CVS was 0.20% (95%CI: -0.12 to 0.52, I2=51.9%). However, when only studies with similar risk profiles between the intervention and control groups were considered, the procedure related risk for amniocentesis became 0.03% (95%CI -0.08 to 0.14, I2=0%) and for CVS -0.38 (95% CI -1.12 to 0.36, I2=0%). Conclusion: The procedure-related risks of miscarriage following amniocentesis and CVS are lower than currently quoted to women. The risk appears to be negligible when these interventions are compared to control groups of the same risk profile

Measurements and Simulation Studies of Piezoceramics for Acoustic Particle Detection

Calibration sources are an indispensable tool for all detectors. In acoustic particle detection the goal of a calibration source is to mimic neutrino signatures as expected from hadronic cascades. A simple and promising method for the emulation of neutrino signals are piezo ceramics. We will present results of measruements and simulations on these piezo ceramics.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Photoassociative creation of ultracold heteronuclear 6Li40K* molecules

We investigate the formation of weakly bound, electronically excited, heteronuclear 6Li40K* molecules by single-photon photoassociation in a magneto-optical trap. We performed trap loss spectroscopy within a range of 325 GHz below the Li(2S_(1/2))+K(4P_(3/2)) and Li(2S_(1/2))+K(4P_(1/2)) asymptotic states and observed more than 60 resonances, which we identify as rovibrational levels of 7 of 8 attractive long-range molecular potentials. The long-range dispersion coefficients and rotational constants are derived. We find large molecule formation rates of up to ~3.5x10^7s^(-1), which are shown to be comparable to those for homonuclear 40K_2*. Using a theoretical model we infer decay rates to the deeply bound electronic ground-state vibrational level X^1\Sigma^+(v'=3) of ~5x10^4s^(-1). Our results pave the way for the production of ultracold bosonic ground-state 6Li40K molecules which exhibit a large intrinsic permanent electric dipole moment.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to EP

Exclusion Statistics in a two-dimensional trapped Bose gas

We briefly explain the notion of exclusion statistics and in particular discuss the concept of an ideal exclusion statistics gas. We then review a recent work where it is demonstrated that a {\em two-dimensional} Bose gas with repulsive delta function interactions obeys ideal exclusion statistics, with a fractional parameter related to the interaction strength.Comment: 10 pages, RevTeX. Proceedings of the Salerno workshop "Theory of Quantum Gases and Quantum Coherence", to appear in a special issue of J.Phys. B, Dec. 200

Tests of relativity using a microwave resonator

The frequencies of a cryogenic sapphire oscillator and a hydrogen maser are compared to set new constraints on a possible violation of Lorentz invariance. We determine the variation of the oscillator frequency as a function of its orientation (Michelson-Morley test) and of its velocity (Kennedy-Thorndike test) with respect to a preferred frame candidate. We constrain the corresponding parameters of the Mansouri and Sexl test theory to $\delta - \beta + 1/2 = (1.5\pm 4.2) \times 10^{-9}$ and $\beta - \alpha - 1 = (-3.1\pm 6.9) \times 10^{-7}$ which is equivalent to the best previous result for the former and represents a 30 fold improvement for the latter.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters (October 3, 2002

Static and dynamic responses to hyperoxia of normal placenta across gestation with T2*-weighted sequences

OBJECTIVES: T2*-weighted sequences have been identified as non-invasive tools to study the placental oxygenation in-vivo. This study aims to investigate both static and dynamic responses to hyperoxia of the normal placenta across gestation.METHODS: We conducted a single-center prospective study including 52 uncomplicated pregnancies. Two T2*-weighted sequences were performed: T2*-relaxometry was performed before and after maternal hyperoxia. The histogram distribution of T2* values was assessed by fitting a gamma distribution as T2*~Γ(αβ). A dynamic acquisition (BOLD protocol) was also performed before and during oxygen supply, until placental oxygen saturation. The signal change over time was modeled using a sigmoid function, used to determine the intensity of enhancement (∆BOLD,%), a temporal variation coefficient (λ,min -1 , controlling the slope of the curve), and the maximal steepness (Vmax, ∆BOLD.min -1 ) of placental enhancement. RESULTS: The histogram analysis of the T2* values in normoxia showed a whole-placenta variation, with a decreasing linear trend in the mean T2* value (R= -0.83, 95% CI [-0.9, -0.71], p&lt;0.001) along with a more peaked and narrower distribution of T2* values across gestation. After maternal hyperoxia, the mean T2* ratios (mean T2* hyperoxia / mean T2* baseline ) were positively correlated with gestational age, while the other histogram parameters remained stable, suggesting a translation of the histogram towards higher values with a similar aspect. The ∆BOLD showed a non-linear increase across gestation. Conversely, the λ(min -1 ) parameter, showed an inverted trend across gestation, with a significantly weaker correlation (R = -0.33, 95% CI [-0.58, -0.02], p=0.04, R 2 = 0.1). As a combination of ∆BOLD and λ, the changes in Vmax throughout gestation were mainly influenced by the changes in ∆BOLD and resulted in a positive non-linear correlation with gestational age. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that the decrease in the T2* placental signal over gestation does not reflect a dysfunction. The BOLD effect, representative of a free-diffusion model of oxygenation, highlights the growing differences in oxygen saturation between mother and fetus across gestation (∆BOLD), and placental permeability to oxygen (λ). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.</p

Metastability in spin polarised Fermi gases and quasiparticle decays

We investigate the metastability associated with the first order transition from normal to superfluid phases in the phase diagram of two-component polarised Fermi gases.We begin by detailing the dominant decay processes of single quasiparticles.Having determined the momentum thresholds of each process and calculated their rates, we apply this understanding to a Fermi sea of polarons by linking its metastability to the stability of individual polarons, and predicting a region of metastability for the normal partially polarised phase. In the limit of a single impurity, this region extends from the interaction strength at which a polarised phase of molecules becomes the groundstate, to the one at which the single quasiparticle groundstate changes character from polaronic to molecular. Our argument in terms of a Fermi sea of polarons naturally suggests their use as an experimental probe. We propose experiments to observe the threshold of the predicted region of metastability, the interaction strength at which the quasiparticle groundstate changes character, and the decay rate of polarons

The estimation and projection package age-sex model and the r-hybrid model: new tools for estimating HIV incidence trends in sub-Saharan Africa.

OBJECTIVES: Improve models for estimating HIV epidemic trends in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). DESIGN: Mathematical epidemic model fit to national HIV survey and ANC sentinel surveillance (ANC-SS) data. METHODS: We modified EPP to incorporate age and sex stratification (EPP-ASM) to more accurately capture the shifting demographics of maturing HIV epidemics. Secondly, we developed a new functional form for the HIV transmission rate, termed 'r-hybrid', which combines a four-parameter logistic function for the initial epidemic growth, peak, and decline followed by a first-order random walk for recent trends after epidemic stabilization. We fitted the r-hybrid model along with previously developed r-spline and r-trend models to HIV prevalence data from household surveys and ANC-SS in 177 regions in 34 SSA countries. We used leave-one-out cross validation with household survey HIV prevalence to compare model predictions. RESULTS: The r-hybrid and r-spline models typically provided similar HIV prevalence trends, but sometimes qualitatively different assessments of recent incidence trends because of different structural assumptions about the HIV transmission rate. The r-hybrid model had the lowest average continuous ranked probability score, indicating the best model predictions. Coverage of 95% posterior predictive intervals was 91.5% for the r-hybrid model, versus 87.2 and 85.5% for r-spline and r-trend, respectively. CONCLUSION: The EPP-ASM and r-hybrid models improve consistency of EPP and Spectrum, improve the epidemiological assumptions underpinning recent HIV incidence estimates, and improve estimates and short-term projections of HIV prevalence trends. Countries that use general population survey and ANC-SS data to estimate HIV epidemic trends should consider using these tools