Data Transformation and Semantic Log Purging for Process Mining

Existing process mining approaches are able to tolerate a certain degree of noise in the process log. However, processes that contain infrequent paths, multiple (nested) parallel branches, or have been changed in an ad-hoc manner, still pose major challenges. For such cases, process mining typically returns "spaghetti-models", that are hardly usable even as a starting point for process (re-)design. In this paper, we address these challenges by introducing data transformation and pre-processing steps that improve and ensure the quality of mined models for existing process mining approaches. We propose the concept of semantic log purging, the cleaning of logs based on domain specific constraints utilizing semantic knowledge which typically complements processes. Furthermore we demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the approach based on a case study in the higher education domain. We think that semantic log purging will enable process mining to yield better results, thus giving process (re-)designers a valuable tool

Differential neutrophil activation in viral infections: Enhanced TLR-7/8-mediated CXCL8 release in asthma

© 2015 The Authors. Respirology published by Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd on behalf of Asian Pacific Society of Respirology. Background and objective Respiratory viral infections are a major cause of asthma exacerbations. Neutrophils accumulate in the airways and the mechanisms that link neutrophilic inflammation, viral infections and exacerbations are unclear. This study aims to investigate anti-viral responses in neutrophils from patients with and without asthma and to investigate if neutrophils can be directly activated by respiratory viruses. Methods Neutrophils from peripheral blood from asthmatic and non-asthmatic individuals were isolated and stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (1 μg/mL), f-met-leu-phe (fMLP) (100 nM), imiquimod (3 μg/mL), R848 (1.5 μg/mL), poly I:C (10 μg/mL), RV16 (multiplicity of infection (MOI)1), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) (MOI1) or influenza virus (MOI1). Cell-free supernatants were collected after 1 h of neutrophil elastase (NE) and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 release, or after 24 h for CXCL8 release. Results LPS, fMLP, imiquimod and R848 stimulated the release of CXCL8, NE and MMP-9 whereas poly I:C selectively induced CXCL8 release only. R848-induced CXCL8 release was enhanced in neutrophils from asthmatics compared with non-asthmatic cells (P < 0.01). RSV triggered the release of CXCL8 and NE from neutrophils, whereas RV16 or influenza had no effect. Conclusion Neutrophils release CXCL8, NE and MMP-9 in response to viral surrogates with R848-induced CXCL8 release being specifically enhanced in asthmatic neutrophils. Toll-like receptor (TLR7/8) dysregulation may play a role in neutrophilic inflammation in viral-induced exacerbations. We aimed to investigate and compare neutrophil responses to bacterial compounds and viral mimetics as well as compare responses between people with and without asthma. We also investigated neutrophil responses to live respiratory viruses. Here we provide a novel comprehensive comparison showing differential and specific activation in innate immune cells. See Editorial, page 1

Inhibition of phosphodiesterase 4 modulates cytokine induction from toll like receptor activated, but not rhinovirus infected, primary human airway smooth muscle

Background: Virus-induced exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) are a significant health burden and occur even in those receiving the best current therapies. Rhinovirus (RV) infections are responsible for half of all COPD exacerbations. The mechanism by which exacerbations occur remains undefined, however it is likely to be due to virus-induced inflammation. Given that phophodiesterase 4 (PDE4) inhibitors have an anti-inflammatory effect in patients with COPD they present a potential therapy prior to, and during, these exacerbations.Methods: In the present study we investigated whether the PDE4 inhibitor piclamilast (10-6 M) could alter RV or viral mimetic (5 μg/mL of imiquimod or poly I:C) induced inflammation and RV replication in primary human airway smooth muscle cells (ASMC) and bronchial epithelial cells (HBEC). The mediators IL-6, IL-8, prostaglandin E2 and cAMP production were assayed by ELISA and RV replication was assayed by viral titration.Results: We found that in ASMCs the TLR3 agonist poly I:C induced IL-8 release was reduced while induced IL-6 release by the TLR7/8 agonist imiquimod was further increased by the presence of piclamilast. However, in RV infected ASMCs, virus replication and induced mediator release were unaltered by piclamilast, as was also found in HBECs. The novel findings of this study reveal that although PDE inhibitors may not influence RV-induced cytokine production in ASMCs and replication in either ASMCs or HBECs, they have the capacity to be anti-inflammatory during TLR activation by modulating the induction of these chemotactic cytokines.Conclusion: By extrapolating our in vitro findings to exacerbations of COPD in vivo this suggests that PDE4 inhibitors may have beneficial anti-inflammatory properties when patients are infected with bacteria or viruses other than RV. © 2013 Van Ly et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Changes in Poultry Handling Behavior and Poultry Mortality Reporting among Rural Cambodians in Areas Affected by HPAI/H5N1

BACKGROUND: Since 2004, 21 highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 outbreaks in domestic poultry and eight human cases have been confirmed in Cambodia. As a result, a large number of avian influenza education campaigns have been ongoing in provinces in which H5N1outbreaks have occurred in humans and/or domestic poultry. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Data were collected from 1,252 adults >15 years old living in two southern provinces in Cambodia where H5N1 has been confirmed in domestic poultry and human populations using two cross-sectional surveys conducted in January 2006 and in November/December 2007. Poultry handling behaviors, poultry mortality occurrence and self-reported notification of suspect H5N1 poultry cases to animal health officials in these two surveys were evaluated. Our results demonstrate that although some at risk practices have declined since the first study, risky contact with poultry is still frequent. Improved rates of reporting poultry mortality were observed overall, but reporting to trained village animal health workers decreased by approximately 50%. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Although some improvements in human behavior have occurred, there are still areas--particularly with respect to the handling of poultry among children and the proper treatment of poultry and the surrounding household environment--that need to be addressed in public health campaigns. Though there were some differences in the sampling methods of the 2006 and 2007 surveys, our results illustrate the potential to induce considerable, potentially very relevant, behavioral changes over a short period of time

Activity and Process Stability of Purified Green Pepper (Capsicum annuum) Pectin Methylesterase

Pectin methylesterase (PME) from green bell peppers (Capsicum annuum) was extracted and purified by affinity chromatography on a CNBr-Sepharose-PMEI column. A single protein peak with pectin methylesterase activity was observed. For the pepper PME, a biochemical characterization in terms of molar mass (MM), isoelectric points (pI), and kinetic parameters for activity and thermostability was performed. The optimum pH for PME activity at 22 °C was 7.5, and its optimum temperature at neutral pH was between 52.5 and 55.0 °C. The purified pepper PME required the presence of 0.13 M NaCl for optimum activity. Isothermal inactivation of purified pepper PME in 20 mM Tris buffer (pH 7.5) could be described by a fractional conversion model for lower temperatures (55?57 °C) and a biphasic model for higher temperatures (58?70 °C). The enzyme showed a stable behavior toward high-pressure/temperature treatments. Keywords: Capsicum annuum; pepper; pectin methylesterase; purification; characterization; thermal and high-pressure stabilit

Detecting the Effects of Changes on the Compliance of Cross-organizational Business Processes

An emerging challenge for collaborating business partners is to properly define and evolve their cross-organizational processes with respect to imposed global compliance rules. Since compliance verification is known to be very costly, reducing the number of compliance rules to be rechecked in the context of process changes will be crucial. Opposed to intra-organizational processes, however, change effects cannot be easily assessed in such distributed scenarios, where partners only provide restricted public views and assertions on their private processes. Even if local process changes are invisible to partners, they might affect the compliance of the cross-organizational process with the mentioned rules. This paper provides an approach for ensuring compliance when evolving a cross-organizational process. For this purpose, we construct qualified dependency graphs expressing relationships between process activities, process assertions, and compliance rules. Based on such graphs, we are able to determine the subset of compliance rules that might be affected by a particular change. Altogether, our approach increases the efficiency of compliance checking in cross-organizational settings

BET proteins are associated with the induction of small airway fibrosis in COPD.

RationaleIn COPD, small airway fibrosis occurs due to increased extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition in and around the airway smooth muscle (ASM) layer. Studies of immune cells and peripheral lung tissue have shown that epigenetic changes occur in COPD but it is unknown whether airway mesenchymal cells are reprogrammed.ObjectivesDetermine if COPD ASM cells have a unique epigenetic response to profibrotic cytokine transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1).MethodsPrimary human ASM cells from COPD and non-COPD smoking patients were stimulated with TGF-β1. Gene array analysis performed to identify differences in ECM expression. Airway accumulation of collagen 15α1 and tenascin-C proteins was assessed. Aforementioned ASM cells were stimulated with TGF-β1 ± epigenetic inhibitors with qPCR quantification of COL15A1 and TNC. Global histone acetyltransferase (HAT) and histone deacetylase (HDAC) activity were assessed. chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-qPCR for histone H3 and H4 acetylation at COL15A1 and TNC promoters was carried out. Effects of bromoterminal and extraterminal domain (BET) inhibitor JQ1(+) on expression and acetylation of ECM target genes were assessed.Measurements and main resultsCOPD ASM show significantly higher COL15A1 and TNC expression in vitro and the same trend for higher levels of collagen 15α1 and tenascin-c deposited in COPD airways in vivo. Epigenetic screening indicated differential response to HDAC inhibition. ChIP-qPCR revealed histone H4 acetylation at COL15A1 and TNC promoters in COPD ASM only. ChIP-qPCR found JQ1(+) pretreatment significantly abrogated TGF-β1 induced histone H4 acetylation at COL15A1 and TNC.ConclusionsBET protein binding to acetylated histones is important in TGF-β1 induced expression of COL15A1 and TNC and maintenance of TGF-β1 induced histone H4 acetylation in cell progeny

Interaction Between Humans and Poultry, Rural Cambodia

Because avian influenza H5N1 infection risks are associated with exposure to infected poultry, we conducted a knowledge, attitudes, and practices survey of poultry-handling behavior among villagers in rural Cambodia. Despite widespread knowledge of avian influenza and personal protection measures, most rural Cambodians still have a high level of at-risk poultry handling

Retrieval of material properties of monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides from magnetoexciton energy spectra

Reduced exciton mass, polarizability, and dielectric constant of the surrounding medium are essential properties for semiconduction materials, and they can be extracted recently from the magnetoexciton energies. However, the acceptable accuracy of the previously suggested method requires very high magnetic intensity. Therefore, in the present paper, we propose an alternative method of extracting these material properties from recently available experimental magnetoexciton s-state energies in monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). The method is based on the high sensitivity of exciton energies to the material parameters in the Rytova-Keldysh model. It allows us to vary the considered material parameters to get the best fit of the theoretical calculation to the experimental exciton energies for the $1s$, $2s$, and $3s$ states. This procedure gives values of the exciton reduced mass and 2D polarizability. Then, the experimental magnetoexciton spectra compared to the theoretical calculation gives also the average dielectric constant. Concrete applications are presented only for monolayers WSe$_2$ and WS$_2$ from the recently available experimental data. However, the presented approach is universal and can be applied to other monolayer TMDCs. The mentioned fitting procedure requires a fast and effective method of solving the Schr\"{o}dinger of an exciton in monolayer TMDCs with a magnetic field. Therefore, we also develop such a method in this study for highly accurate magnetoexciton energies.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 4 table

Limits and dynamics of stochastic neuronal networks with random heterogeneous delays

Realistic networks display heterogeneous transmission delays. We analyze here the limits of large stochastic multi-populations networks with stochastic coupling and random interconnection delays. We show that depending on the nature of the delays distributions, a quenched or averaged propagation of chaos takes place in these networks, and that the network equations converge towards a delayed McKean-Vlasov equation with distributed delays. Our approach is mostly fitted to neuroscience applications. We instantiate in particular a classical neuronal model, the Wilson and Cowan system, and show that the obtained limit equations have Gaussian solutions whose mean and standard deviation satisfy a closed set of coupled delay differential equations in which the distribution of delays and the noise levels appear as parameters. This allows to uncover precisely the effects of noise, delays and coupling on the dynamics of such heterogeneous networks, in particular their role in the emergence of synchronized oscillations. We show in several examples that not only the averaged delay, but also the dispersion, govern the dynamics of such networks.Comment: Corrected misprint (useless stopping time) in proof of Lemma 1 and clarified a regularity hypothesis (remark 1