Street luminosity influence on reported thefts from vehicles during night-time

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesCriminality across many urban settings has created the need to develop tools that help better understand the social and physical determinants of crime. One specific aspect is how certain urban characteristics may influence criminal activities. One facet of the built environment, street lighting, influences the perception of safety for a potential victim, and it also influences a perpetrator´s risk analysis, affecting how it envisions both costs and rewards for committing a crime. The study looked into the relationship between street illuminance levels, through street light pole density as a proxy, and other crime determinants and the prevalence of reported Night-Time Theft from Vehicle crimes in Vancouver, BC, Canada, through exploratory spatial data analysis and by fitting Geographically Weighted Poisson Regressions. To test if street lighting pole density is a usable proxy for street illuminance it also modeled the relationship between street lighting pole and tree densities and measured night time street illuminance by fitting an Ordinary Least Squares regression. Night time street illuminance was measured using a specially built georeferenced mobile illuminance collection station based on the senseBox. Findings suggest that while a citywide effect is evident for some of the explanatory variables, there is an evident nonstationary relation between the explanatory variables and Night-Time Theft from Vehicle crimes in Vancouver. Regarding street lighting, regressions suggest it may not be an important covariate with Night-Time Theft from Vehicle crime. Coefficients are quite heterogenous throughout with most of the study area showing a mix of weak to mild positive association, specially on the East side, and weak to mild negative associations. The OLS regression showed a moderately weak relation between light poles and tree densities to collected street illuminance. The question of street lighting pole density being a usable proxy for street illuminance could not be answered with confidence

Caracterización de la materia orgánica en el efluente de un reactor nitrificante utilizando espectroscopia de fluorescencia

La espectroscopia de fluorescencia es una herramienta analítica utilizada para examinar muestras de agua de diferente origen por que es sensible, selectiva y puede dar un amplio espectro de información sobre la composición, características, origen y distribución de la materia orgánica disuelta (MOD). El objetivo de esta investigación fue caracterizar la MOD en el efluente de un reactor aerobio autotrófico nitrificante por espectrometría de fluorescencia de la matriz de excitación-emisión en 3D (EEM- 3D, por sus siglas en inglés) y así determinar si las EEM-3D podrían identificar productos microbianos solubles de bacterias nitrificantes. El reactor nitrificante fue operado a 36 días de tiempo de retención celular (TRC), 40 horas de tiempo de retención hidráulico (TRH) y alimentado con agua residual con exceso de amonio. Se identificaron solamente dos picos de fluorescencia en el efluente del reactor nitrificante: Los picos fueron localizados a una longitud de onda de emisión similar (416.9 10.3 y 415.5 2.2 nm, respectivamente), pero a diferentes longitudes de onda de excitación (245.2 1.0 y 330.7 1.7 nm, respectivamente). Las EEM-3D fueron significativamente diferentes a los que comúnmente se encuentran en el efluente de reactores aerobios heterotróficos de lodos activados o en el efluente de reactores anaerobios heterotróficos metanogénicos

Source and dynamics of a volcanic caldera unrest : Campi Flegrei, 1983–84

Acknowledgements We thank Tiziana Vanorio, Antonella Amoruso, Luca Crescentini, Nicholas Rawlinson, Yasuko Takei, and David Cornwell for the valuable suggestions regarding the methodology and interpretation. Reviews from Tim Greenfield and two anonymous reviewers helped improving both clarity of the manuscript and interpretation. The Royal Society of Edinburgh - Accademia dei Lincei Bilateral Agreement, the Santander Mobility Award of the College of Physical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, and the TIDES EU COST action granted L.D.S. travel grants for the realisation of this study. E.D.P. has been supported by the EPHESTO and KNOWAVES projects, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Discovery of large genomic inversions using long range information.

BackgroundAlthough many algorithms are now available that aim to characterize different classes of structural variation, discovery of balanced rearrangements such as inversions remains an open problem. This is mainly due to the fact that breakpoints of such events typically lie within segmental duplications or common repeats, which reduces the mappability of short reads. The algorithms developed within the 1000 Genomes Project to identify inversions are limited to relatively short inversions, and there are currently no available algorithms to discover large inversions using high throughput sequencing technologies.ResultsHere we propose a novel algorithm, VALOR, to discover large inversions using new sequencing methods that provide long range information such as 10X Genomics linked-read sequencing, pooled clone sequencing, or other similar technologies that we commonly refer to as long range sequencing. We demonstrate the utility of VALOR using both pooled clone sequencing and 10X Genomics linked-read sequencing generated from the genome of an individual from the HapMap project (NA12878). We also provide a comprehensive comparison of VALOR against several state-of-the-art structural variation discovery algorithms that use whole genome shotgun sequencing data.ConclusionsIn this paper, we show that VALOR is able to accurately discover all previously identified and experimentally validated large inversions in the same genome with a low false discovery rate. Using VALOR, we also predicted a novel inversion, which we validated using fluorescent in situ hybridization. VALOR is available at https://github.com/BilkentCompGen/VALOR

Diseño de un plan de capacitación empresarial para mejorar la competitividad de las medianas empresas dedicadas a la comercialización de productos de primera necesidad en la ciudad de San Miguel

El objetivo de esta investigación es Diseñar un plan de capacitación empresarial que contribuya a mejorar la competitividad de las medianas empresas dedicadas a la comercialización de productos de primera necesidad en la ciudad de San Miguel. Para la realización del estudio se determinó que el tipo de investigación que mejor se ajusta es el estudio correlacional, ya que con este se puede medir el grado de relación, existente o no entre dos o más variables. Para el presente estudio, determinar la relación existente entre el plan de capacitación en gestión empresarial con la competitividad de las medianas empresas dedicadas a la comercialización de productos de primera necesidad vital; de tal modo que se logre determinar el nivel de incidencia del plan de capacitación en la competitividad de dichas empresas. Las deficiencias en el proceso administrativo, detectadas en las medianas empresas, revelan la ausencia de conocimientos básicos dentro de la administración, como lo es la misión, visión, presupuestos y objetivos claramente definidos, siendo esta la función principal que permite el adecuado desarrollo de la empresa, ademas estas enfrentan serios obstáculos para su efectivo desenvolvimiento dentro del mercado debido a la falta de planes bien establecidos. También que las empresas están consientes de que necesitan mejorar a atención al cliente y esto debido a que sus empleados no cuentan con habilidades necesarias para un mejor desempeño de sus actividades, generando poca o nula participación dentro de los procesos para la toma de decisiones donde se dejan en claro que los empleados no tienen en la mayoría de empresas algún tipo de participació

Tissue regeneration without stem cell transplantation: Self- Healing potential from ancestral chemistry and physical energies

open6noThe authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: funded by Eldor Lab, Milan, Italy, and AMeC (Associazione Medicina e Complessità), Via Valdirivo 19, 34100 Trieste, Italy.The human body constantly regenerates after damage due to the self-renewing and differentiating properties of its resident stem cells. To recover the damaged tissues and regenerate functional organs, scientific research in the field of regenerative medicine is firmly trying to understand the molecular mechanisms through which the regenerative potential of stem cells may be unfolded into a clinical application. The finding that some organisms are capable of regenerative processes and the study of conserved evolutionary patterns in tissue regeneration may lead to the identification of natural molecules of ancestral species capable to extend their regenerative potential to human tissues. Such a possibility has also been strongly suggested as a result of the use of physical energies, such as electromagnetic fields and mechanical vibrations in human adult stem cells. Results from scientific studies on stem cell modulation confirm the possibility to afford a chemical manipulation of stem cell fate in vitro and pave the way to the use of natural molecules, as well as electromagnetic fields and mechanical vibrations to target human stem cells in their niche inside the body, enhancing human natural ability for self-healing.openFacchin, Federica; Bianconi, Eva; Canaider, Silvia; Basoli, Valentina; Biava, Pier Mario; Ventura, CarloFacchin, Federica; Bianconi, Eva; Canaider, Silvia; Basoli, Valentina; Biava, Pier Mario; Ventura, Carl

Organization and Evolution of Primate Centromeric DNA from Whole-Genome Shotgun Sequence Data

The major DNA constituent of primate centromeres is alpha satellite DNA. As much as 2%–5% of sequence generated as part of primate genome sequencing projects consists of this material, which is fragmented or not assembled as part of published genome sequences due to its highly repetitive nature. Here, we develop computational methods to rapidly recover and categorize alpha-satellite sequences from previously uncharacterized whole-genome shotgun sequence data. We present an algorithm to computationally predict potential higher-order array structure based on paired-end sequence data and then experimentally validate its organization and distribution by experimental analyses. Using whole-genome shotgun data from the human, chimpanzee, and macaque genomes, we examine the phylogenetic relationship of these sequences and provide further support for a model for their evolution and mutation over the last 25 million years. Our results confirm fundamental differences in the dispersal and evolution of centromeric satellites in the Old World monkey and ape lineages of evolution